Goylan was back in Judenbach. It was four in the afternoon. He had searched everywhere for Peter Mowbray. The whole war zone was getting blacker and blacker to his sight. He had even gone to the Grim House to look for the white-fire creature who had taken his companion to her breast, figuratively speaking; but neither she, nor the weak-shouldered little chap who had brought the hospital steward's blouse, was there. There remained Dabnitz, who more than any other was aware generally of what passed. Big Belt returned to headquarters and waited. Darkness was thickening before the Lieutenant came in.
“Where's Mowbray?”
Dabnitz came close and looked at the other sorrowfully.
“How long have you known Mr. Mowbray?”
Boylan tried to think. His faculties were at large. According to facts he had known Peter (and not at all intimately) during a mere ten weeks before the column left Warsaw. Facts, however, hadn't anything to do with the reality. Peter Mowbray was his own property. He said as much, his voice going back on him.
“Mr. Boylan, I have seldom been more hard hit. He was my friend, too. A more charming and accomplished young American would be hard to find, but we who are out for service, a life and death matter for our country, must not let these things enter. Mr. Mowbray is affiliated in various ways with our enemies—not the Austrians, but enemies more subtle and insidious.”
“For God's sake—Dabnitz!”
“I thought it would hurt you.”
“You might just as well say it of me.”
“Not at all. Your record stands. It was well known to us when you were accepted to accompany our column. You will recall that it was your estimate of Mr. Mowbray's superior that decided us to accept the younger man—”
“I have been with Mowbray night and day. He is a newspaper man, brain and soul—one of the coolest and most effective I have ever met. He has been for years in Paris and Berlin, before Warsaw.”
“I am sorry. You did not know that he caught a young surgeon by the throat this morning, when the former was very properly stimulating a malingerer?”
“I did not. But a personal matter ought not to weigh against a man's life—”
“You did not know that he was seen in somewhat extended conversation yesterday and last evening with one of the most dangerous of our recent discoveries among the revolutionists?”
“I did not.”
“Or that a woman came to him last night, in the heart of the night—and talked long—and was called for by the same revolutionist; that Mr. Mowbray went to her a little after daybreak this morning—”
“Ah, Dabnitz—a little romance! All night he was serving in the hospital. I went out to find him this morning, and saw him turn into the amputation house. Following, I saw him standing there.... He had probably never seen her until last night. You know how some young fellows are. They—you turn around—and they are in an affair—”
“But the two were overheard to speak of days in Warsaw together. It is not such a little affair.”
“I know nothing of it, but is such a thing fatal?”
“She is under arrest with the other revolutionist that I mentioned—a case against her that is hardly breakable—”
Boylan sat down,
“Of course you are aware—of the remark he made this morning in the field headquarters? I saw how gallantly you tried to cover it. It was that remark, by the way, which nearly cost the life of our General. The hospital steward, took up the action as you know—”
“Dabnitz, I was shocked as you. Peter was beside himself. He had come in from the field—the actuality of it. He forgot where he was. The unparalleled energy of the General to win the day, you know—and Peter had just come in from the hollows where the men lay—”
“My dear Boylan, I'm sorry—”
For the first time, Big Belt felt the iron personality of the other. There was something commercial in the manner of the last, a kind of ushering out one who would not do. There are men who remain as aloof as the peaks of Phyrges, though their words and intonations come down running softly out of a smile. Boylan looked away, and then, with an inner groan, turned back.
“I tell you it is a mistake. The boy is as sound as—”
He couldn't finish. There were exceptions to everything he thought of. “I want to see him,” he added.
“I'll try to manage that for you, a little later.”
It was darkening. In the front room of the house, Kohlvihr sat bung-eyed by a telegraph instrument. The further strategy from Judenbach was still in the dark to Boylan. He wished the heavens would fall. As never before, he had the sense that he had pinned his life and faith to matters of no account; not that Peter Mowbray belonged to these matters, but that he, too, was meshed in them.... A shot from somewhere below in the town. Boylan shivered. There was shooting from time to time for various butchering reasons, but this particular shot was all Big Belt needed to finish the picture.
“Why, they'll shoot the lad,” he muttered.
The sentence remained in his brain in lit letters.
The States of America couldn't help him; even Mother Nature had turned her face from this war.... “My dear Boylan, I'm sorry—” something crippling in that.
Dabnitz returned, bringing a pair of saddle bags.
“They're Mr. Mowbray's,” he said. “His horse got loose and tangled himself in a battery. One of the men brought in the bags.”
“Thanks, Lieutenant,” said Boylan.
Dabnitz started to the door when Boylan called, “Oh, I say, did you look through 'em?”
The Russian smiled deprecatingly.
“Of course, I needn't have asked that, but I wanted you to. I'll gamble you didn't find anything—”
“A little book of poems by a man we're familiar with. A woman's name on the front page—a woman we're familiar with. Nothing startling, Mr. Boylan.”
Dabnitz was gone, the bags lying on the floor. Big Belt opened the nearest flap. On top was a case containing a tooth brush and a pair of razors.
“Peter will want these,” he muttered.
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