Men in War | Page 5

all. It's worth going to war for."
The Mussulman pulled his mobile face flashing with youth into a grimace.
"The finest thing of all! No, sir. To be quite frank, the finest thing of all is to get a bath and a fresh bandage, and be put into a clean white bed, and know that for a few weeks you're going to have a rest. It's a feeling like--well, there's no comparison for it. But, of course, it is very nice, too, to be seeing ladies again."
The Philosopher had tilted his round fleshy Epicurean head to one side, and a moist sheen came into his small crafty eyes. He glanced at the place where a bright spot in the almost palpable darkness suggested the Frau Major's white dress, and began to tell what he thought, very slowly in a slight sing-song.
"The finest thing of all, I think, is the quiet--when you have been lying up there in the mountains where every shot is echoed back and forth five times, and all of a sudden it turns absolutely quiet--no whistling, no howling, no thundering--nothing but a glorious quiet that you can listen to as to a piece of music! The first few nights I sat up the whole time and kept my ears cocked for the quiet, the way you try to catch a tune at a distance. I believe I even howled a bit, it was so delightful to listen to no sound."
The captain of cavalry sent his cigarette flying through the night like a comet scattering sparks, and brought his hand down with a thump on his knee.
"There, there, Sister Engelberta, did you get that?" he cried sarcastically. "'Listen to no sound.' You see, that's what's called philosophy. I know something better than that, Mr. Philosopher, namely, not to hear what you hear, especially when it's such philosophical rubbish."
They laughed, and the man they were teasing smiled good-naturedly. He, too, was permeated by the peacefulness that floated into the garden from the sleeping town. The cavalryman's aggressive jokes glided off without leaving a sting, as did everything else that might have lessened the sweetness of the few days still lying between him and the front. He wanted to make the most of his time, and take everything easily with his eyes tight shut, like a child who has to enter a dark room.
The Frau Major leaned over to the Philosopher.
"So opinions differ as to what was the finest thing," she said; and her breath came more rapidly. "But, tell me, what was the most awful thing you went through out there? A lot of the men say the drumfire is the worst, and a lot of them can't get over the sight of the first man they saw killed. How about you?"
The Philosopher looked tortured. It was a theme that did not fit into his programme. He was casting about for an evasive reply when an unintelligible wheezing exclamation drew all eyes to the corner in which the landsturm officer and his wife were sitting. The others had almost forgotten them in the darkness and exchanged frightened glances when they heard a voice that scarcely one of them knew, and the man with the glazed eyes and uncertain gestures, a marionette with broken joints, began to speak hastily in a falsetto like the crowing of a rooster.
"What was the most awful thing? The only awful thing is the going off. You go off to war--and they let you go. That's the awful thing."
A cold sickening silence fell upon the company. Even the Mussulman's face lost its perpetually happy expression and stiffened in embarrassment. It had come so unexpectedly and sounded so unintelligible. It caught them by the throat and set their pulses bounding--perhaps because of the vibrating of the voice that issued from the twitching body, or because of the rattling that went along with it, and made it sound like a voice broken by long sobbing.
The Frau Major jumped up. She had seen the landsturm officer brought to the hospital strapped fast to the stretcher, because his sobbing wrenched and tore his body so that the bearers could not control him otherwise. Something inexpressibly hideous--so it was said--had half robbed the poor devil of his reason, and the Frau Major suddenly dreaded a fit of insanity. She pinched the cavalryman's arm and exclaimed with a pretense of great haste:
"My goodness! There's the gong of the last car. Quick, quick," addressing the sick man's wife, "quick! We must run."
They all rose. The Frau Major passed her arm through the unhappy little woman's and urged with even greater insistence:
"We'll have a whole hour's walk back to town if we miss the car."
The little wife, completely at a loss, her whole body quivering, bent over her husband again to take leave. She was