The Girl Philippa
At the same moment a sort of howl came from Asticot; he half rose, his
fingers curling up like claws; his expression had become diabolical.
Then he sank back on his seat.
The ambulance rolled forward faster, faster toward Sais, where a biplane
had come down into the river.
But Asticot had forgotten; and ever his blazing eyes were turned
backward where, among four troopers, Wildresse walked with a rope around
his neck and his clenched fists tied behind him.
*CHAPTER XXXVII*
The hussars conducted him toward headquarters. His huge hands were tied
behind him; there was a rope around his neck, the other end of which was
fastened to a hussar's saddlebow.
The troopers rode slowly, carbines poised forward with butt on thigh.
_Fantassins_ along the road looked on, somber-eyed; the murmured word
"spy" passed from lip to lip; the wounded turned their big, hollow eyes
on him; drivers, cyclists, cannoniers, looked upon him; but nobody
reviled him. Their silence was more terrible.
He spoke only once, looking up at the horseman beside him, his deep,
harsh voice breaking the rigid silence:
"He! Vous la-haut! Supposition that I confess? ... That I make a
statement involving others.... That Cossack there at headquarters! Do I
benefit?"
The cavalryman did not even glance at him.
"Tas de casse-geules!" rumbled Wildresse, and spat into the dust.
They crossed the pontoon, the troopers dismounting and leading their
horses, then into the saddle again, across the river meadows, and so
around to the lodge gates.
Across the road they were opening trenches for dead horses, and on the
plateau hundreds of soldiers' graves were being dug.
Wildresse glanced at them askance, and his bull neck roughened with
shivers as he thought of the quick-lime.
It was then that the first convulsive twitch jerked his face and left
the right eye turned slightly outward in a sort of cast. After that
something seemed to loosen in his cheek, and his jaw was inclined to sag
unless controlled with conscious effort.
_Fantassins_ on guard passed forward prisoner and escort with monotonous
formulae; the sentry on the terrace summoned assistance; a staff officer
came; two line soldiers arrived later, halted, fixed bayonets, and
loaded their pieces.
Half a dozen staff officers in the music room rose and stepped aside,
opening a lane to the table where General of Division Raoul Delisle sat
at the telephone. A cool-eyed major of dragoons relieved him of the
apparatus; the General turned and looked up at Wildresse.
"You are Constantine Wildresse?"
"Yes, General."
"Otherwise Constantine Volmark?"
"Well--yes! My name is Volmark."
"Which name do you claim?" asked Delisle dryly.
"Volmark. It is useless to deny it--no good to deceive anybody."
"You are Austrian?"
"And Greek, on my mother's side."
"Greek?"
"That is--she was Eurasian."
"From--Tenedos?"
But Wildresse had suddenly caught sight of Count Cassilis.
"You!" he cried. "Now, then, will you do anything for me?"
Cassilis stared.
"_Will_ you?" demanded Wildresse loudly.
Cassilis glanced at Delisle and tapped his forehead with a bored air.
"Oh!" shouted Wildresse. "So that's it, eh? I am crazy, am I?"
He passed a thick, dry tongue over his lips, made an effort; looked hard
at Delisle:
"Yes, _mon General_; I am Constantine Volmark, born in Tenedos. What
then, if you please?"
"You are known. No court is necessary. You will be shot immediately."
"Circumstances--in extenuation----"
"None!"
"And if I confess----"
"It is useless."
"A statement involving others, unsuspected----"
"What?"
"It is important. Nations are involved," muttered Wildresse. "An
officer in your entourage--eh? Is there any immunity in such things,
General?"
"No."
"No--immunity?"
"No."
"I am not permitted to make a statement?"
"I am here to listen. I always have time to listen."
"Then I may speak freely?"
"Yes, you may make a statement if you choose."
"Accusations?"
"If you choose."
"It will not help my case if I prove to you of what filth chancelleries
are made? If I expose to you what the faith of governments amounts
to?--If I show you a man who has betrayed everybody since his
boyhood--an officer here--your comrade and friend? All this will not
help my case?"
"No."
"And yet I may make my statement if I choose? Is that the situation,
General?"
"Yes."
"And I may denounce whom I please? I am free to accuse, am I? Free to
confess and involve others?"
"Yes."
"He! Nom d'un nom! Comme vous est un bon bougre!!" broke out Wildresse
in his harsh and dreadful voice. "I am to die, am I? So that's it, is
it? Then I'll pull down everybody and everything I can while I have the
chance. Men? Does it matter so much about a man or two if one can set
the treacherous nations flying at one another's throats? There's a real
revenge! I'll poison the belief in nations in you all!--You with your
alliances and leagues and ententes!--That's where you'll not forget me!
That's where your half crazy Kings and diseased Emperors will turn
cross-eyed with suspicion! That's where there'll be a ratty scuttling
to cover in your dirty chancelleries! I'll strip the orders and
epaulettes off one or two idols before I finish. And I want witnesses!
I demand witnesses to confront me----"
"Be quiet, Wildresse. Whom do you desire to confront?"
"You--for one! Then, the educated Kurd, yonder! That Cossack
there--that man over there in a green uniform, who pretends to be a
Christian!--That bashi-bazouk of Abdul--Major-General Count Cassilis,
Russian Military Observer at division headquarters!"
"Very well."
"And I demand to be confronted with others, too. That Yankee painter,
Warner. Let him carry the poison I spill back among his own people.
They won't forget. And I want the British officer here, Captain Gray!
Let him report to his Government what I say, and see if it can swallow
it! ... That's a sufficiency of men.... And for my supplement I want
the Countess de Moidrey--so that the noble faubourg shall feel the
poison in its veins.... And, as proof documentary of the statement I
shall make, I demand to be confronted with the girl Philippa!"
"Is that all?"
"No.... The mercy, the extenuation denied me by the military autocracy
of France, I shall seek from another. I require two things only before
I die: understanding and absolution from--my son."
"Who?"
"My only son, Jacques Wildresse, 6th Company, Battalion of
Africa!--Jacques--of Biribi! That's all I want--so that he understands
and pardons. As for you others--_je m'en_----"
The staff officer at the telephone suddenly bent over and whispered to
the General. He listened, nodded, looked calmly at Wildresse.
"The soldier Wildresse, 6th Company, Battalion d'Afrique, was unable to
bear your disgrace. He is this moment reported dead by his own hand."
A terrible spasm shot like lightning across the prisoner's visage,
drawing his whole face to one side. Slowly the flaccid muscles resumed
their natural places; the screwed up features loosened.
"That's a lie," mumbled Wildresse; and his big, hairless head doddered
for a moment.
At a nod from Delisle a soldier picked up the wrist rope, coiled it, and
gave it a slight pull.
"March!" he said briefly to his prisoner.
Count Cassilis came over, faintly amused at the scene, to judge by his
expression.
"There's a good place under the north terrace," he said languidly. "You
don't intend to listen, I fancy, to this statement he wants to make....
Do you?"
"Oh, yes," said the General. "It's my business to listen always."
He sent an aid to find Warner and Gray, and to beg the honor of Madame
de Moidrey's presence and of Philippa's. Then he smiled pleasantly at
Count Cassilis.
"Yes," he said, "statements always should be listened to. It's the man
who doesn't care to hear who makes the most terrible mistakes in life.
I can't afford to make mistakes. I'd rather risk being bored. So, if
you don't mind, my dear General----"
"Not in the least," said General Count Cassilis languidly.
They had conducted Wildresse into the small, semi-circular library in
the northeast tower, the entrance to which gave on the terrace and
billiard room.
Gray and Warner appeared presently with the Countess and Philippa;
General Delisle went to them immediately, and remained in close
consultation with them.
"It may prove of some military importance to us; it may prove of no
value whatever--this statement he desires to make," concluded the
General. "Of course it is not possible for me to guess.... And yet,
Madame, if there is a chance that the statement might be of value, may I
not venture to hope that you and Mademoiselle are willing to submit to
this disagreeable proceeding in the interests of France?"
"Certainly," said the Countess, and linked her arm in Philippa's.
The girl was a little pale, a trifle nervous, too. She glanced at
Warner, tried to smile, then stood with lips slightly compressed and
head high, looking steadily at the soldier who stood before the closed
door of the little library.
"If you are ready," said the General quietly.
So they went in, one by one, very noiselessly, as though somebody had
just died in there. But their entrance did not arouse Wildresse from
his abstraction.
Two red-legged _fantassins_, with fixed bayonets and loaded rifles,
stood behind him.
The man himself sat huddled on a chair in a corner, his great, blunt,
murderous-looking hands hanging crossed between his knees, his big,
hairless head of a butcher wagging slightly as though palsied.
There was not an atom of color left in his face, except for the
pockmarks which were picked out in sickly greenish grey all over his
flabby features.
He did not look up when they entered, his little, wicked black eyes,
which had become dull and covered with a bluish glaze, remained fixed as
though he were listening, and his heavy lower lip sagged.
"Wildresse," said General Delisle.
There was no response; a soldier stirred the prisoner to attention with
the butt of his piece.
"Stand up," he said.
Wildresse, aroused, got to his great feet stupidly, looked around,
caught sight of Philippa, and silently snarled--merely opened his mouth
a little way till his upper lip curled back, emitting no sound
whatever--then he caught sight of the green uniform of General Count
Cassilis, and instantly the old glare blazed up in his eyes.
"By God, the Cossack!" he growled; and the heavy voice vibrated
ominously through the room.
Warner led Philippa to a chair as General Delisle seated the Countess.
Wildresse, his heavy arms hanging inert, stood looking from one man to
another, as they found scats in turn, on sofas or on chairs--Delisle,
Warner, Cassilis, Gray.
"Make your statement," said General Delisle dryly. And he added: "If it
is a long one, you may seat yourself."
Wildresse shot a terrible look at the Russian Military Observer.
"For the last time," he said hoarsely, "will you do something for me?
... For the last time?"
Cassilis lifted his expressive eyebrows and glanced rather wearily at
Delisle.
"You know!" bellowed Wildresse in a sudden fury. "You know what I can
say! If I say it, Russia and her allies will have an enemy instead of
another ally! If I speak, your country will earn the contempt of France
and of England too; and their implacable enmity after this war is ended.
If I speak! Will you do something for me?"
Cassilis, polishing his monocle with a heavily scented handkerchief,
shrugged.
"Very well!" roared Wildresse. "It is death, then, is it? You filthy,
treacherous Cossack, I'll do what I can to ruin you and your lying