*CHAPTER XX*
*FREEDOM*
Meanwhile, Destiny was at her loom, weaving with careless hand. TheAmerican and French armies were moving closer to the Rhine, but theInfantry regiment to which Harry Horton belonged lay at Chateau Dixawaiting orders. There Harry went upon the morning following the returnof Barry Quinlevin from Ireland. Upon his breast he wore the _Croix deGuerre_, but in his soul was a deathly sickness, the inward reflectionof the physical discomfort with which he had awakened. The prospectthat lay before him was not to his liking. The period during which hehad been out of uniform, the weeks of secrecy, of self-indulgence andabasement, had marked him for their own, and unfitted him for therigorous routine of discipline that awaited him. And so he faced theordeal with a positive distaste for his old associations, aware of asinking feeling in his breast that was not entirely the result of hisheavy potations while in Paris.
He felt the burden of his failure and a terror that he would not be ableto live up to the record Jim Horton had made for him. There would be nomore fighting perhaps, but always beside him there would stalk thespecter of his military sin, of which the medal at his breast was to bethe perpetual reminder. On the train down from Paris, the medal and itscolorful bit of green and red seemed to fill the whole range of hisvision. D---- the thing! He tore it off and put it in his pocket, andthen, somewhat relieved, sank back into his seat and tried to doze. Buthis nerves were most uncertain. Every sound, even the smallest, seemedto beat with an unpleasant staccato, upon his ear drums. And he startedup and gazed out of the window, trying to soothe himself with tobacco.That helped. But he knew that what he wanted was strongerdrugging--whisky or brandy--needed it indeed to exorcise the demons thatinhabited him. And the thought of the difficulties that would lie inthe way of getting what he craved, to-day, to-morrow, and the long daysand nights that were to follow still further unmanned him.
Before Moira had left for Nice, he had given her his promise to reportfor duty fit and sober, and he had put his will to the task, aware thatthe first impression he created with his Colonel was to be important.It was for this reason that he did not dare to open his valise and touchthe bottles hidden there because he knew that one drink would not beenough to sooth either his nerves or the dull pangs of his wearyconscience. That he had a conscience, he had discovered in the house inthe Rue Charron when the desire of Monsieur Tricot and _Le Singe_ to putJim Horton out of the way for good had brought him face to face with theevil image of himself. He hated his brother Jim as much as ever,because he was all the things that Harry was not, but the plans ofQuinlevin which seemed to stop at nothing, not even Moira herself, nowfilled him with dread and repugnance. His nerve was gone--that was it.His nerve--his nerve....
But arrival at regimental headquarters restored him for awhile. HisColonel gave him a soldierly welcome, fingered with some envy the _Croixde Guerre_, which Harry had pinned on his breast again before leavingthe railroad, and summoned Harry's Major, whose greeting left nothing tobe desired. And for the moment it almost seemed to Harry as though hemight be able to "put it over." But the next day was difficult. Hemanaged a drink early and that kept him going for awhile; but they gavehim his company in the morning, and from that moment the intimatecontact with those who had known him began--a lieutenant he had neverliked, a sergeant who was a psychologist, and a familiar face here andthere associated unpleasantly with the long weary days of training andpreparation until the regiment had been worked up into the advancedposition. But his long sickness in the hospital and his unfamiliaritywith recent orders served him well for excuse, and the _Croix de Guerre_upon his breast served him better. A corporal and a sergeant with whomin the old days he had had nothing in common, each of whom woredecorations, came up to him, saluting, and reported that it was they whohad carried him back to the dressing station from the rocks at BoissiereWood. He shook them by the hands with a cordiality which did notdisguise from himself the new terror, and when they attempted a recitalof the events of the great fight in which they had shared, he blunderedhelplessly for a while and then cut the interview short, pleading urgentaffairs.
Then, too, there was the nasty business of the wounds. He hadn't any.He was scathless. He had tried the ruse of the adhesive tape on Moirawith disastrous effect. Here the result of the discovery of hisunblemished skin would prove still more disastrous. And so at once hediscouraged familiarity, kept to his billet and attempted with all thecourage left to him to put through his daily round with all credit tohis new office. But it irked him horribly. His supply of strong drinkdid not last long, and the thin red wines, the only substituteprocurable, were merely a source of irritation.
And there were others in his company of whose approbation he was not atall certain. There was the sergeant, who had had the platoon that hadbeen caught with his own in the wheat-field. There were four or fivemen of one of his own squads who had been close beside him in the samewheat-field when he had been taken ill and they had left him face toface with the grinning head of the hated Levinski. And there was thelate Levinski's own "buddy," Weyl, who had sometimes shared in Harry'sreprobation. Weyl annoyed him most perhaps, with his staring, fishy eyeand his Hebraic nose, so similar to that of his lamented tent-mate.Weyl had been in the wheatfield and his heavy face seemed to conceal amalevolent omniscience. The large staring eyes followed the new Captainof infantry, inquisitive, accusing and contemptuous. Whenever CorporalWeyl came within the range of Harry's vision, their glances seemed atonce to meet and hold each other and it was the Captain who alwayslooked away. Weyl's fishy eye fascinated and haunted him. He saw it byday, dreamed of it by night, and he cursed the man in his heart with afury that did nothing for his composure.
One day as Harry was making his way to mess, he came upon Corporal Weylstanding at ease just outside his billet. The man's eye seemed moreround, more fishy, and his demeanor more contemptuous than ever. Thelast of the whisky was gone. Harry Horton's heart was behaving queerlywithin him, and muscles with which he was unfamiliar announced theirexistence in strange twitchings. The breakfast coffee would help. Inthe meanwhile--he glared at Corporal Weyl, his fists clenched.
"What the H---- do you mean by staring at me all the time?" he asked.
Weyl came to attention and saluted in excellent form.
"I beg pardon, sir. I don't understand," he said.
"Why the H---- do you stare at me?"
"I didn't know that I did stare, sir."
"Yes, you did. Cut it out. It annoys me."
But Corporal Weyl still stared as the regulations demand, looking hisCaptain squarely in the eye. And the Captain's gaze wavered and fell.
"When I'm about," he ordered, "you look some other way. Understand?"
"Yes sir. I understand," said Weyl, saluting again as Harry turnedaway, but still staring at him. And Harry felt the fishy stare, morethan ever omniscient, more than ever contemptuous, in the middle of hisback, all the way down the road to mess. But he had just enough of selfcontrol to refrain from looking around at the object of his fury.
And at mess a disagreeable surprise awaited him, in the person of amedico who had just joined the outfit. The new Captain had barelyfinished his coffee when he found himself addressed by the officer, aMajor, who sat just opposite him at table.
"How are you, Captain Horton?" asked the man cordially, extending a handacross. "Didn't recognize you at first. How's the head?"
Harry stammered something.
"I'm Welby--looked after you down at Neuilly, you know."
"Oh, yes," said Harry. "Of course. Glad to see you again, Major."
"Things were a bit hazy down there, eh?"
"Yes, rather," said Harry.
"Delicate operation that. Touch and go for awhile. But you came throughall O.K. Delusions. Thought you were another man--or something----"
"Oh yes," said Harry faintly, "but I'm all right."
"Glad to hear it. Ho
w's the head?"
"Fine."
"No more pains--no delusions?"
"No sir."
"I'd like to have a squint at the wound presently, if you don't mind.Interesting case. Very."
Harry rose suddenly, his face the color of ashes.
"Sorry, sir," he muttered, "I've got a lot to do now. Later perhaps,"and then without a word took up his cap and fled incontinently from theroom.
There were but two other officers present, but they stared at him as hewent out, for the conversation across the table had drawn attention.
"H-m," remarked the Major into his coffee-cup. "Surly chap that.Considering I saved his life--_Croix de Guerre_, I see?"
"Yes sir," said a Lieutenant. "Just joined up. Worried, maybe."
"Not much worried about me, apparently," said the Major.
Harry went straight out to his billet, locked the door of his soom andsank on the edge of his bed. The situation was horrible. This man ofall men who had seen Jim Horton through the hospital! Suppose out ofprofessional curiosity the fool came nosing around! Was Welby now withthe regiment? Harry cursed himself for the hurry of his departure.Would the man suspect anything? Hardly. But Harry couldn't take achance like that again. A second refusal of the Major's request wouldsurely make him an object of suspicion. And the wound in theshoulder--there was none! D--n them all! Why couldn't they leave himalone?
He couldn't face the thing out. It was too dangerous. Already he hadhad enough of it. And yet what was he to do? Yesterday he had thoughthe read suspicion of him in other men's eyes. They seemed to strip himnaked, those hundreds of eyes, to be gazing at the white uninjured fleshwhere his wounds should have been. All this in a week only--and whatwas to happen in the many weeks to follow? If this fool Welby had comewhy wouldn't there be other men of the regiment, of the battalion, whohad been at the hospital at Neuilly also? They would catch him in afalse statement, force him into a position from which he could notextricate himself, and then what? The Major,--the Colonel,--what answercould he give them if they asked to see his wounds?
To Harry's overwrought imagination the whole army seemed joined in aconspiracy to bring about his ruin. To go about his work seemedimpossible, but to feign illness meant the visit of a doctor, perhapsWelby himself. He would have to go on, at least for the day, and thenperhaps he would think up something--resignation, a transfer to someother unit....
He managed to put through the day, still wondering why men looked at himso strangely. Was there anything the matter with his appearance? Inthe afternoon, the youngest of his Lieutenants approached him kindly.
"Hadn't you better take a run down to the hospital, sir?" he asked."You look all in."
Harry stared at him stupidly for a moment.
"Oh, I'm all right--just--er--a little stomach upset----"
The youngster saluted and disappeared and Harry went back to hisquarters. There was no wonder that he looked "all in." He hadn't daredto go to the mess table since morning and he hadn't had a drink sinceyesterday. Tobacco had ceased to have the desired effect upon hisnerves. He felt like jumping out of his skin. The thing couldn't go on.He _was_ "all in." A short leave of absence which might give him timeto pull himself together meant being gone over by a doctor--it meantshowing his scarless shoulder--impossible! There was only one thing todo--to quit while there was time--before the truth came out. The morehe thought of his situation, the more clearly this course seemedindicated. To disappear silently--in the night. It could bemanaged--and when he didn't come back, perhaps they would think that thewound in his head was troubling him again, and that he was notresponsible for what he did. Or that he had met with foul play. Theycould think anything they chose so long as they didn't guess the truth.And they could never learn the truth, unless they examined his body forthe wounds.
But they would never find him to do that if he ever got safely back ofthe lines. He had managed it before. He could do it again now; becausehe wouldn't have to trust to blind luck as he had done back of BoissiereWood. The more he thought of his plan, the more he became obsessed withit. At any rate it was an obsession which would banish the otherobsession of the watching eyes. It was the dark he craved, the securityand blessed immunity of darkness--darkness and solitude. He wouldn'twait for the ordeal of the morrow ... to-night!
And so, driven by all the enemies of his tortured mind, and planningwith all the craft of a guilty conscience, he arranged all things tosuit his purpose, passing beyond the village with the avowed purpose ofvisiting a friend in another unit and then losing himself in thethicket.
He traveled afoot all night, using his map and making for the railroadat St. Couvreur, and in the early morning breakfasted at a farmhouse,telling a story of having lost his way and craving a bed for a fewhours' sleep. He was well provided with money and his host washospitable. He slept a while, awoke and no one being about, searched thehouse for what he sought. He found it in a wardrobe upstairs--a suit ofclothing which would serve--and leaving some money on a table, made offwithout ceremony into the thicket, covering a mile or so in a hurry,across country, when he found a disused building in which he tore offhis uniform and donned the borrowed clothing, leaving his own, includingits _Croix de Guerre_, under a truss of straw.
It grew dark again. But he did not care. In a village he managed bypaying well to find a bottle of cognac. His cares slipped from him.Nothing mattered--not even the rain. His soul was set free. He paidfor a good lodging and slept, warm inside and out; purchased the nextday a better suit of clothing and then boldly boarded a train for Paris.
It was extraordinary how easily his liberty had been accomplished. Theywould look for him, of course. The M.P. would bustle about but he hadgiven them the slip all right and they would never find him in Paris.Paris for awhile and then a new land where no questions would be asked.Curiously enough the only human being he seemed to think about, toregret, in what he had done, was Moira. His thoughts continuallyreverted to the expression on her face the night that Jim had surprisedthem in the studio. Its agony, its apprehension, so nearly depicted thevery terrors that had been in his own soul. He remembered hazily too,that she had been kind to him when Quinlevin had left him there to watchher and he had finished the bottle of Irish whisky. Then, too, again inthe morning she had awakened him and started him upon his way back tohis post, while the expression of her face had shown that she was tryingto do her duty to him even when her own heart was breaking. She had hada thought that even at this last moment he still had an opportunity to"make good." He felt that Moira, his wife in name only, would know thepain of his failure. Quinlevin would sneer, Jim would shrug, but Moirawould weep and pray--in vain.
He had cared for Moira in his strange selfish way, permitted Quinlevinto use him for his own purposes, hoping for the fortune that would bringease and luxury for them all, and with it a glamour that he might turnto his own account and win the girl to a fulfillment of their marriagevows. But Jim had dashed the cup from his lips, Jim--his herobrother--now like himself an outcast! So there were to be two of themthen after all. "It served him right--D--n him!" Harry Horton found amalicious pleasure in the situation. If _he_ wasn't to have her, Jimshouldn't either. He wasn't going to give his brother the pleasure ofreading _his_ death notice in the morning paper. He, Harry Horton,would just go on living whatever happened, and he knew that without theevidence of his death, Moira would never marry again.
He had gathered in a cloudy way the general meaning of the visit to theDuc de Vautrin at Nice and had wondered at Moira's consent to go withQuinlevin on such a mission after what she must have heard that night.But he had been in no humor to ask questions the next morning, and knewnothing whatever as to the prospects of success for the undertaking. Itlooked very much as though with Jim Horton in on the game, the missionwas dubious. And yet Quinlevin might succeed. If he did there would beenough money to stake Harry in a new life in some distant part of theworld. This was the price that they would pay fo
r immunity--and Harrywould go. He knew now that Moira was not for him. She had settled thatmatter definitely the night when he had come in drunk from the RueCharron.
He reached Paris and lost himself in Montmartre, avoiding the oldhaunts. There he found new acquaintances and many bottles to soothe theawakening pangs. Many bottles ... moments of lucidity ... how long wouldit be before Moira and Quinlevin returned to the Rue de Tavennes? Hewould have to sober up. Things weren't bad at all now. What differencedid it make to any one but himself what he did or what he became? Itwas his own life to do what he pleased with. And it pleased him to dowhat he was doing with it. He laughed at the amusing inversion. Goodjoke, that!
But he would have to go down to the studio in the Rue de Tavennes andtalk things over. No use quarreling with Quinlevin. Everything amiableand friendly. No. 7 Rue de Tavennes. If Moira wasn't there, he'd go inand wait. Her studio ... his too. Perhaps a little of the Irish whiskyand a doze....