A wind was running, so that occasionally the poplars whitened as if a flame
flew up them. The sky was broken and blue among moving clouds. Patches of
sunshine lay on the level fields, and shadows on the rye and the vineyards. In
the distance, very blue, the cathedral bristled against the sky, and the houses
of the city of Metz clustered vaguely below, like a hill.
Among the fields by the lime trees stood the barracks, upon bare, dry ground, a
collection of round-roofed huts of corrugated iron, where the soldiers’
nasturtiums climbed brilliantly. There was a tract of vegetable garden at the
side, with the soldiers’ yellowish lettuces in rows, and at the back the
big, hard drilling-yard surrounded by a wire fence.
At this time in the afternoon, the huts were deserted, all the beds pushed up,
the soldiers were lounging about under the lime trees waiting for the call to
drill. Bachmann sat on a bench in the shade that smelled sickly with blossom.
Pale green, wrecked lime flowers were scattered on the ground. He was writing
his weekly post card to his mother. He was a fair, long, limber youth, good
looking. He sat very still indeed, trying to write his post card. His blue
uniform, sagging on him as he sat bent over the card, disfigured his youthful
shape. His sunburnt hand waited motionless for the words to come. “Dear
mother”—was all he had written. Then he scribbled mechanically:
“Many thanks for your letter with what you sent. Everything is all right
with me. We are just off to drill on the fortifications——”
Here he broke off and sat suspended, oblivious of everything, held in some
definite suspense. He looked again at the card. But he could write no more. Out
of the knot of his consciousness no word would come. He signed himself, and
looked up, as a man looks to see if anyone has noticed him in his privacy.
There was a self-conscious strain in his blue eyes, and a pallor about his
mouth, where the young, fair moustache glistened. He was almost girlish in his
good looks and his grace. But he had something of military consciousness, as if
he believed in the discipline for himself, and found satisfaction in delivering
himself to his duty. There was also a trace of youthful swagger and
dare-devilry about his mouth and his limber body, but this was in suppression
now.
He put the post card in the pocket of his tunic, and went to join a group of
his comrades who were lounging in the shade, laughing and talking grossly.
Today he was out of it. He only stood near to them for the warmth of the
association. In his own consciousness something held him down.
Presently they were summoned to ranks. The sergeant came out to take command.
He was a strongly built, rather heavy man of forty. His head was thrust
forward, sunk a little between his powerful shoulders, and the strong jaw was
pushed out aggressively. But the eyes were smouldering, the face hung slack and
sodden with drink.
He gave his orders in brutal, barking shouts, and the little company moved
forward, out of the wire-fenced yard to the open road, marching rhythmically,
raising the dust. Bachmann, one of the inner file of four deep, marched in the
airless ranks, half suffocated with heat and dust and enclosure. Through the
moving of his comrades’ bodies, he could see the small vines dusty by the
roadside, the poppies among the tares fluttering and blown to pieces, the
distant spaces of sky and fields all free with air and sunshine. But he was
bound in a very dark enclosure of anxiety within himself.
He marched with his usual ease, being healthy and well adjusted. But his body
went on by itself. His spirit was clenched apart. And ever the few soldiers
drew nearer and nearer to the town, ever the consciousness of the youth became
more gripped and separate, his body worked by a kind of mechanical
intelligence, a mere presence of mind.
They diverged from the high road and passed in single file down a path among
trees. All was silent and green and mysterious, with shadow of foliage and
long, green, undisturbed grass. Then they came out in the sunshine on a moat of
water, which wound silently between the long, flowery grass, at the foot of the
earthworks, that rose in front in terraces walled smooth on the face, but all
soft with long grass at the top. Marguerite daisies and lady’s-slipper
glimmered white and gold in the lush grass, preserved here in the intense peace
of the fortifications. Thickets of trees stood round about. Occasionally a puff
of mysterious wind made the flowers and the long grass that crested the
earthworks above bow and shake as with signals of oncoming alarm.
The group of soldiers stood at the end of the moat, in their light blue and
scarlet uniforms, very bright. The sergeant was giving them instructions, and
his shout came sharp and alarming in the intense, untouched stillness of the
place. They listened, finding it difficult to make the effort of understanding.
Then it was over, and the men were moving to make preparations. On the other
side of the moat the ramparts rose smooth and clear in the sun, sloping
slightly back. Along the summit grass grew and tall daisies stood ledged high,
like magic, against the dark green of the tree-tops behind. The noise of the
town, the running of tram-cars, was heard distinctly, but it seemed not to
penetrate this still place.
The water of the moat was motionless. In silence the practice began. One of the
soldiers took a scaling ladder, and passing along the narrow ledge at the foot
of the earthworks, with the water of the moat just behind him, tried to get a
fixture on the slightly sloping wall-face. There he stood, small and isolated,
at the foot of the wall, trying to get his ladder settled. At last it held, and
the clumsy, groping figure in the baggy blue uniform began to clamber up. The
rest of the soldiers stood and watched. Occasionally the sergeant barked a
command. Slowly the clumsy blue figure clambered higher up the wall-face.
Bachmann stood with his bowels turned to water. The figure of the climbing
soldier scrambled out on to the terrace up above, and moved, blue and distinct,
among the bright green grass. The officer shouted from below. The soldier
tramped along, fixed the ladder in another spot, and carefully lowered himself
on to the rungs. Bachmann watched the blind foot groping in space for the
ladder, and he felt the world fall away beneath him. The figure of the soldier
clung cringing against the face of the wall, cleaving, groping downwards like
some unsure insect working its way lower and lower, fearing every movement. At
last, sweating and with a strained face, the figure had landed safely and
turned to the group of soldiers. But still it had a stiffness and a blank,
mechanical look, was something less than human.
Bachmann stood there heavy and condemned, waiting for his own turn and
betrayal. Some of the men went up easily enough, and without fear. That only
showed it could be done lightly, and made Bachmann’s case more bitter. If
only he could do it lightly, like that.
His turn came. He knew intuitively that nobody knew his condition. The officer
just saw him as a mechanical thing. He tried to keep it up, to carry it through
on the face of things. His inside gripped tight, as yet under control, he took
the ladder and went along under the wall. He placed his ladder with quick
success, and wild, quivering hope possessed him. Then blindly he began to
climb. But the ladder was not very firm, and at every hitch a great, sick,
melting feeling took hold of him. He clung on fast. If only he could keep that
grip on himself, he would get through. He knew this, in agony. What he could
not understand was the blind gush of white-hot fear, that came with great force
whenever the ladder swerved, and which almost melted his belly and all his
joints, and left him powerless. If once it melted all his joints and his belly,
he was done. He clung desperately to himself. He knew the fear, he knew what it
did when it came, he knew he had only to keep a firm hold. He knew all this.
Yet, when the ladder swerved, and his foot missed, there was the great blast of
fear blowing on his heart and bowels, and he was melting weaker and weaker, in
a horror of fear and lack of control, melting to fall.
Yet he groped slowly higher and higher, always staring upwards with desperate
face, and always conscious of the space below. But all of him, body and soul,
was growing hot to fusion point. He would have to let go for very
relief’s sake. Suddenly his heart began to lurch. It gave a great, sickly
swoop, rose, and again plunged in a swoop of horror. He lay against the wall
inert as if dead, inert, at peace, save for one deep core of anxiety, which
knew that it was not all over, that he was still high in space against
the wall. But the chief effort of will was gone.
There came into his consciousness a small, foreign sensation. He woke up a
little. What was it? Then slowly it penetrated him. His water had run down his
leg. He lay there, clinging, still with shame, half conscious of the echo of
the sergeant’s voice thundering from below. He waited, in depths of shame
beginning to recover himself. He had been shamed so deeply. Then he could go
on, for his fear for himself was conquered. His shame was known and published.
He must go on.
Slowly he began to grope for the rung above, when a great shock shook through
him. His wrists were grasped from above, he was being hauled out of himself up,
up to the safe ground. Like a sack he was dragged over the edge of the
earthworks by the large hands, and landed there on his knees, grovelling in the
grass to recover command of himself, to rise up on his feet.
Shame, blind, deep shame and ignominy overthrew his spirit and left it
writhing. He stood there shrunk over himself, trying to obliterate himself.
Then the presence of the officer who had hauled him up made itself felt upon
him. He heard the panting of the elder man, and then the voice came down on his
veins like a fierce whip. He shrank in tension of shame.
“Put up your head—eyes front,” shouted the enraged sergeant,
and mechanically the soldier obeyed the command, forced to look into the eyes
of the sergeant. The brutal, hanging face of the officer violated the youth. He
hardened himself with all his might from seeing it. The tearing noise of the
sergeant’s voice continued to lacerate his body.
Suddenly he set back his head, rigid, and his heart leapt to burst. The face
had suddenly thrust itself close, all distorted and showing the teeth, the eyes
smouldering into him. The breath of the barking words was on his nose and
mouth. He stepped aside in revulsion. With a scream the face was upon him
again. He raised his arm, involuntarily, in self-defence. A shock of horror
went through him, as he felt his forearm hit the face of the officer a brutal
blow. The latter staggered, swerved back, and with a curious cry, reeled
backwards over the ramparts, his hands clutching the air. There was a second of
silence, then a crash to water.
Bachmann, rigid, looked out of his inner silence upon the scene. Soldiers were
running.
“You’d better clear,” said one young, excited voice to him.
And with immediate instinctive decision he started to walk away from the spot.
He went down the tree-hidden path to the high road where the trams ran to and
from the town. In his heart was a sense of vindication, of escape. He was
leaving it all, the military world, the shame. He was walking away from it.
Officers on horseback rode sauntering down the street, soldiers passed along
the pavement. Coming to the bridge, Bachmann crossed over to the town that
heaped before him, rising from the flat, picturesque French houses down below
at the water’s edge, up a jumble of roofs and chasms of streets, to the
lovely dark cathedral with its myriad pinnacles making points at the sky.
He felt for the moment quite at peace, relieved from a great strain. So he
turned along by the river to the public gardens. Beautiful were the heaped,
purple lilac trees upon the green grass, and wonderful the walls of the
horse-chestnut trees, lighted like an altar with white flowers on every ledge.
Officers went by, elegant and all coloured, women and girls sauntered in the
chequered shade. Beautiful it was, he walked in a vision, free.
