That Which Hath Wings: A Novel of the Day
looked down from his superb height upon the bloodstained figure in the
stretcher. Its eyes were closed, and the haggard face beneath the grime
and bristles had the yellowish-white of old wax. He spoke to it
harshly, in his English, and the brownish lids split apart and the gaunt
sick eyes glimmered up at him. But no reply came from the livid lips.
He rapped his foot sharply on the floor, repeating:
"I suppose you know you are my prisoner, sir?" and a strange spasm of
mingled amusement and irony twitched the muscles of the haggard mask.
The faded negatives of eyes regarded him with the ghost of a smile in
them. The dissolving voice said in tones no louder than a sigh:
"Possibly. But not--for long!"
The voice stopped short. As von Herrnung took a step nearer to the
stretcher, his toe stubbed against and caught in the strap of a leather
case lying on the littered floor. He picked up the case and smiled as
he drew out a costly pair of Zeiss binoculars. His own, though hailing
from the Jena workshop, only magnified to 12x. These registered 25x. On
the metal rim of the larger lense was engraved the style and title of
the owner: "Capt. Rt. Hon. Viscount Norwater, Royal Bearskins Plain."
A find in the dual sense. He restored the binoculars to their case,
unbuckled the strap and slipped it under his heavy bandolier of
cartridges, hanging the case beside his own, loosened the upper
stud-clips that fastened his goggled helmet, and pushed it back so as to
reveal his whole face. The gaunt eyes were open, looking at him
attentively. He asked them:
"May it not be that we have met before? In Paris, yes? On the night of
the Grand Prix. At the Hotel Spitz, _ja, ja, gewiss_! A dinner given
by Sir Thomas Brayham for Lady Wathe and a few friends. You were one of
the friends. I another. How is the old woman, do you know?"
_Kreutzdonnerwetter!_ what inconceivable insolence! The eyes looked
through him as though he had not been there. His hard blue eyes, already
injected with blood, grew savage, and a purplish tinge suffused his
florid skin. He reflected an instant, pulled a capacious silver
spirit-flask from the deep side-pocket of his pneumatic, half-filled the
drinking cup that capped it, and knelt down beside the stretcher, saying
quite pleasantly, in his gutturals:
"See, here is some capital Cognac. Let me give you a sip, eh? Then you
will feel better." He poured a dram between the teeth, and waited
through a spasm of coughing, wiped the blood and mucus from the gasping
lips with a rag of the torn clothing, then pulled a stool from amongst
the rubbish, sat down near the feet of the wounded man, facing him, and
took a long pull of the belauded brandy from the neck of the big flask.
"That does more good than canteen coffee," he said, and sucked his red
moustache appreciatively. He set down the flask on the floor between
his feet, found his case, and carefully chose a cigar.
"A zigarre? No! You will, then, perhaps not object to my smoking? We
of the Field Flight have to comfort ourselves with snuff when in the
air. To burn tobacco and blaze up like a star-shell and come down like
a charred rocket-stick, that is not at all agreeable or _praktisch_.
_Sapperlot!_ you are not a very amusing companion. Nevertheless, my
fellow, I drink to your jolly good health!"
He knocked off the ash of his cigar, cleared his throat, and spat, just
clearing Franky's shoulder. The flicker of anger in the sunken eyes
brought a glitter of malice into his own. He sent out a long swaggering
stream of smoke, and knocked the ash from his cigar with the little
finger of his ringed left hand, continuing:
"You see, I have cut the long thumb-nail that amused you when we met in
Paris. The Day has come--though you would not join me in drinking to
its dawning!--and the German eagle has dipped his claws in English
blood. We Prussians have beaten out the iron sceptre of World Power
with giant blows upon the War Anvil, and the sun that never set upon the
swanky British Empire, has already risen to find the Roast Beef of Old
England in danger, and the Triple Entente a bankrupt syndicate." He
shrugged and twisted his red moustache, tilted his big body sidewise,
and spat at a carefully-calculated angle, missing the other shoulder of
the victim as he pursued:
"But you do not know ... _Donnerwetter!_ how should you?--lying here
like a stuck pig! Yesterday--in the neighbourhood of Ypres--took place
the ultimate, conclusive battle, in which the German mammoth pounded the
British Lion into pulp. Your little British Expeditionary Force may be
said to exist no longer. Your Brigade of Guards, who boast that, like
the Samurai, they do not surrender while yet unwounded, is practically
extinct. Maddened by despair the officers shot the few men who remained
and then blew one another's brains out. Your Commander-in-Chief is our
prisoner, Sir Rothesay Craig has been killed, also General Callonby and
General Jones-Torrian. The French Generalissimo has surrendered, with
the 5th French Army. The 6th French Army has been chopped into
sausage-meat. So, all is over! Total Kaput!"
"If what you say is Gospel," said the weak voice, and the faded eyes had
the ghost of a smile in them, "why do I keep on hearing our guns?"
For the hurly-burly of battle in the South had broken out afresh as
though in contradiction. The crazy floor vibrated, the tottering walls
shook with the distant fury of sound:
_Thud--thud--thud--thud!_ and the muffled _Boom!--Crash!_ of immense
explosions. And through all the steady slogging of Royal Garrison
Artillery howitzers, and the tireless, dogged hammering of Field
Artillery eighteen-pounders.
"_Macht nicht!_"
Von Herrnung shrugged contemptuously, though his keen ear did not miss
the fact that the guns were coming nearer: "That must go on--for a
little!--until the last show of resistance is broken down. If it be a
military virtue not to be aware when you are beaten--your big-jawed,
dull-brained, short-headed British bull-dogs of soldiers have that
virtue, of course. But comes the awakening! The Russian Navy has been
blown off the Baltic, the Czar has accepted our Kaiser's ultimatum--the
Belgian Government has made its submission--the Belgian Army has laid
down its arms. Our 17-inch siege-howitzers are bombarding the shores of
England from their emplacements at Calais. The Army of Invasion is
embarking--your British Navy--the floating bulwark of your Empire--lies
at the bottom of the North Sea. Ministers run from one end of England
to the other, begging, coaxing, persuading--your proletariat. There is
panic in the English War Office, and despair at Buckingham Palace;
rebellion in the streets of London, _debacle_ in the City, and stampede
in the West End. To-morrow the Emperor of Greater Germany and the Crown
Prince, Viceroy of the Brito-German Possessions, will, with the Empress
enter Paris. Ten miles of films will record for all Posterity this
colossal and magnificent scene. The London pageant of triumph follows.
Well may you weep, my unlucky fellow, over the collapse and ruin of your
proud country"--for tears were really trickling from the puckered
eyelids of the now flushed and quivering face.
"_Himmelkreuzbombenelement_! You are not weeping. You are laughing, you
dirty English swine!"
"What else do you--expect--when you're so--dashed amusin'?" gasped
Franky painfully. "Roll along with some more of it--why don't you,
Anatole?"
"You do not believe me, no? You think that I am rotting," von Herrnung
shrugged his huge shoulders and laughed with forced heartiness. "Always
to rot, that is the English custom." He added, with a cruel relish:
"_Desto besser_, you will die more pleasantly. For of course you will
die. This is the third day you have lain here, _Alter junge_, and you
have the smell and colour of gangrene. You are a lump of carrion,
Norwater, not worth the taking away!"
"Possibly not!"
The eyes met his calmly, though their laughter had died out. It angered
von Herrnung to be baulked of the ferocious enjoyment he had promised
himself. He finished the Cognac slowly, seeking in the fiery drink a
spur to inventiveness, and sucked his moustache slowly as he capped and
pocketed the flask.
"I am hellishly sorry, I assure you, Norwater," he said, adopting a
bluff and hearty manner as he sucked the stump of the nearly finished
cigar. "One is hardened to death and wounds in War, but one is human.
And I have been on friendly terms with many Englishmen and _Angenehme
Englanderinn_ such as Lady Wathe, whom I have known for years, and that
superb brunette, Mees Saxham. We flirted desperately that night in
Paris. Later on, in London, she became my mistress----"
"You lie, you aeroplane-stealing cad!" said Franky, feebly but with
great distinctness. Von Herrnung swore and spat, full in his face. Its
nostrils winced disgust, but the brown eyes were indomitable. And from
the blue lips came a mere thread of human utterance, pregnant with
scathing irony:
"I--say to you what the--Belgian woman said to your Kaiser--when
his--horse splashed her. '_This kind of filth--wipes off!_'"
"You think so, eh? You----"
Von Herrnung clenched his fist, and might have dashed it in the eyes
that defied him, but for a sudden, significant change in the sound of
those distant guns. The barrage of the German Field Artillery was
becoming intermittent. The slogging of the British had increased in
energy.
A flare of red spurted into the Kaiserman's pasty cheeks, and his hard
eyes lighted eagerly. He forgot his rule of sleeping off liquor before
again taking to the air. With a confidence in his own powers largely
justified by his successes, his mind leaped to the scene of conflict.
Now, when the German batteries were weakening, was the moment for the
arrival of a pilot-aviator of the Imperial Field Flight, skilled as
aerial observer and signaller, and known to be indifferent to risk.
Here was the chance one had hoped for. Restitution of the forfeited
decoration. Restoration to the Emperor's favour. Reinstatement in the
lost place upon the regimental roster. Promotion--the bestowal of new
honours--danced before him like little, gaudy demons, drowning with
their buzz the voice of prudence, luring him to the essay.
"I am compelled to leave you now, Norwater," he said smilingly to the
man on the stretcher; "thanks so much for our interesting chat! I shall
carry away a pleasant recollection, and leave you also a memento in the
shape of a bomb, which I shall drop on you when I have climbed to a
suitable height. So _Gut Abend, Alter junge_. Though before I go there
is a trifling formality----"
He knelt down by the stretcher, and without unnecessary gentleness
rifled the pockets of the wounded man. The victim had swooned when von
Herrnung rose, transferring to his own person a small purse, heavy with
English sovereigns, and a pigskin case full of crisp French banknotes,
with a thin gold wrist-watch that had a luminous dial, and a coroneted
monogram upon the back.
Sheer waste, according to the German War Book, issued by the Great Staff
for the use of German officers, to leave upon the person of the fallen
opponent articles likely to be of use to the conqueror. He rinsed his
hands in the water-can, and dried them on his clothing, pulled up his
helmet, fastened it, and buttoned his pockets, straightened his
bandolier, nodded pleasantly at the reflection of his giant person in
the skewed wall-mirror, jumped lightly through the window-gap, and went
upon his way.
The slight figure lying so still upon the stretcher had never been
remarkable for beauty of proportion. The sharpened face with its hue of