The Prussian Officer | Page 7

and perceive.
The soldiers were tramping silently up the glaring hillside. Gradually
his head began to revolve, slowly, rhythmically. Sometimes it was dark

before his eyes, as if he saw this world through a smoked glass, frail
shadows and unreal. It gave him a pain in his head to walk.
The air was too scented, it gave no breath. All the lush green-stuff
seemed to be issuing its sap, till the air was deathly, sickly with the
smell of greenness. There was the perfume of clover, like pure honey
and bees. Then there grew a faint acrid tang--they were near the
beeches; and then a queer clattering noise, and a suffocating, hideous
smell; they were passing a flock of sheep, a shepherd in a black smock,
holding his crook. Why should the sheep huddle together under this
fierce sun. He felt that the shepherd would not see him, though he
could see the shepherd.
At last there was the halt. They stacked rifles in a conical stack, put
down their kit in a scattered circle around it, and dispersed a little,
sitting on a small knoll high on the hillside. The chatter began. The
soldiers were steaming with heat, but were lively. He sat still, seeing
the blue mountains rising upon the land, twenty kilometres away. There
was a blue fold in the ranges, then out of that, at the foot, the broad,
pale bed of the river, stretches of whity-green water between
pinkish-grey shoals among the dark pine woods. There it was, spread
out a long way off. And it seemed to come downhill, the river. There
was a raft being steered, a mile away. It was a strange country. Nearer,
a red-roofed, broad farm with white base and square dots of windows
crouched beside the wall of beech foliage on the wood's edge. There
were long strips of rye and clover and pale green corn. And just at his
feet, below the knoll, was a darkish bog, where globe flowers stood
breathless still on their slim stalks. And some of the pale gold bubbles
were burst, and a broken fragment hung in the air. He thought he was
going to sleep.
Suddenly something moved into this coloured mirage before his eyes.
The Captain, a small, light-blue and scarlet figure, was trotting evenly
between the strips of corn, along the level brow of the hill. And the
man making flag-signals was coming on. Proud and sure moved the
horseman's figure, the quick, bright thing, in which was concentrated
all the light of this morning, which for the rest lay a fragile, shining

shadow. Submissive, apathetic, the young soldier sat and stared. But as
the horse slowed to a walk, coming up the last steep path, the great
flash flared over the body and soul of the orderly. He sat waiting. The
back of his head felt as if it were weighted with a heavy piece of fire.
He did not want to eat. His hands trembled slightly as he moved them.
Meanwhile the officer on horseback was approaching slowly and
proudly. The tension grew in the orderly's soul. Then again, seeing the
Captain ease himself on the saddle, the flash blazed through him.
The Captain looked at the patch of light blue and scarlet, and dark
head's, scattered closely on the hillside. It pleased him. The command
pleased him. And he was feeling proud. His orderly was among them in
common subjection. The officer rose a little on his stirrups to look. The
young soldier sat with averted, dumb face. The Captain relaxed on his
seat. His slim-legged, beautiful horse, brown as a beech nut, walked
proudly uphill. The Captain passed into the zone of the company's
atmosphere: a hot smell of men, of sweat, of leather. He knew it very
well. After a word with the lieutenant, he went a few paces higher, and
sat there, a dominant figure, his sweat-marked horse swishing its tail,
while he looked down on his men, on his orderly, a nonentity among
the crowd.
The young soldier's heart was like fire in his chest, and he breathed
with difficulty. The officer, looking downhill, saw three of the young
soldiers, two pails of water between them, staggering across a sunny
green field. A table had been set up under a tree, and there the slim
lieutenant stood, importantly busy. Then the Captain summoned
himself to an act of courage. He called his orderly.
The name leapt into the young soldier's throat as he heard, the
command, and he rose blindly, stifled. He saluted, standing below the
officer. He did not look up. But there was the flicker in the Captain's
voice.
"Go to the inn and fetch me..." the officer gave his commands.
"Quick !" he added.
At the last word, the heart of the