The Man on Horseback/Chapter 38
CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE COLONEL'S PROPOSAL
There was no doubt of the verdict from the moment Tom entered the large, gray court-room of the Kriegsgericht, armed guards on either side and an officer with drawn saber walking ahead, straight through the Captain Prosecutor's indictment, the hearing of the witnesses all telling the same tale, his refusal to avail himself of the services of a Kriegsgerichtädvokat, a military lawyer, his refusal even to answer a single one of the questions put to him by the Captain Prosecutor and the three Generals who acted as judges, to the moment when the presiding judge, General von Kanitz, rose, put on his helmet, and announced with a clear voice that defendant was guilty of insubordination, killing a brother officer in a duel, breaking out of Festung, insulting a superior officer, threatening him with death, and trying to kidnap him.
The punishment, according to the Prussian Military Law Code, paragraph 578, reënforced by paragraphs 789 and 452, and doubly reënforced by paragraphs 66 1, 107 and 322, was—Death!
The times being what they were, the enemy beyond the frontier preparing for war, the General went on, defendant must show cause at once for reopening the case or setting aside the judgment or registering an appeal.
Defendant shook his head.
Furthermore, continued the General, defendant had the right to beg His All-Gracious Majesty the Kaiser for a reprieve …
"Quite useless!" cut in the Captain Prosecutor.
"Order, order!" cried the General.
And then Tom, for the first time since he had entered the court-room, opened his lips. He spoke—in good, plain American:
"I agree with the Prosecutor," he said. "You just bet your boots I do. Why," looking straight at the presiding judge, "you damned sanctimonious humbugs with your talk of reprieve—forget it! Cut it out! You've railroaded me!"
Officers rushed up to him, threatening, waving sabers, ordering him to be silent, but he went right on, raising his voice clear above the turmoil:
"Yep! You've cooked up the whole thing, you saber-rattling, cowardly coyotes! I'm not fool enough to kick against the impossible—I'd have less chance than a hog on ice!"
And he turned on his heels, and marched out between the armed guards.
All that afternoon, half through the night, he paced up and down the stone-flagged floor of his cell.
Death—in the morning!
A firing squad! The end of his life, his youth, his ambition, his love!
The final gift of the Hoodoos rightly named, he thought.
There was nothing vainglorious, nothing romantic about Tom Graves. But he said to himself that he would die like a man. He'd be true to his traditions, his ancestors, his country—true to his love.
Finally he fell asleep, and it was the rattle of the keys in the steel door that startled him into wakefulness.
Haggard rays of sunlight were filtering in through the window high up on the wall—well—he shrugged his shoulders—soon there would be darkness. The light was over.
"All right. I'm all ready for the last act," he said as the door opened.
Then he drew back in surprise. He had expected armed sentries commanded by a Captain. But only two men came in: Colonel Wedekind, accompanied by Ensign Baron von Königsmark who, note-book and pencil ready to hand, was evidently acting as the former's secretary.
"What's up?" asked Tom. "Going to court-martial me all over again? You can only murder me once, you know."
Then he gave a cry of utter amazement. For the Colonel smiled. He shook Tom's hand.
"Guten Morgen, Herr Leutnant!" he said affably.
And, before Tom knew what to say, the German went on:
"Well, did the confinement and the court-martial cool your hot blood a little?"
"Cut out the heavy sarcasm," replied Tom. "It isn't your line."
"Sarcasm? Not a bit of it. Only—" he smiled, "I do believe that loneliness, confinement, and a good scare is the best medicine in the world for an impatient young cavalier like you. And now—" he motioned to the Ensign, who at once got busy with notebook and pencil, taking down the words, "Lieutenant Graves!"
"Well?" asked Tom, who knew less than ever what to make of the other's ingratiating manner. "What's up? Can it be that you've conscience troubles and that you're sorry for that bit of—oh—Montana justice you pulled off yesterday in the court-martial? Hang your prisoner first, and try him afterwards?"
"No, no," Wedekind went on in the same affable, half-playful manner. "I have a proposition to make to you, and I wish you would think about it very seriously. In fact, I am sure you will not say no."
"Don't you count your chickens before they're hatched—every darned, fluffy one of 'em," drawled the Westerner.
"Ah!" smiled the Colonel. "I see that you have kept your old jesting mood, even in the face of death. Charming, perfectly charming, my dear sir!"
"Well?"
Something caused Tom to look at the Ensign. His head was bent over the note-book, his pencil busily scratching. But there was something in the boy's attitude, in the vivid blush that mantled his forehead, which convinced Tom that he was uneasy. Perhaps he was ashamed of the Colonel's suave, hypocritical manner. Perhaps he knew that the latter had set some artfully prepared trap, had knotted another noose in the Web.
All right. He would be careful, decided Tom, and he looked inquiringly at Wedekind, who continued:
"I am speaking in the name of the army, the Government, the Emperor himself. We are willing to—na, sagen wir 'mal—squash all these disagreeable court-martial proceedings against you. We are even willing to accept your resignation from the army with honor, and to pay you liberally, more than liberally, for the Yankee Doodle Glory."
"Gosh! What's the use of paying for a thing after you've swiped it?" interrupted Tom sarcastically, but the other went on unheeding:
"We will even pay you an extra bonus and confer upon you the Order Pour Le Mérite of the second class. For one condition!"
"Shoot it!"
"We need your help."
"Well? Go on. Don't be so mysterious!"
"Oh, there's nothing mysterious about it. All we want of you is to have you transfer, in your name, to American flag and registry a certain line of fast freighters running between Tacoma and Hamburg … though," he corrected himself, "perhaps the port of destination won't always be Hamburg. It may change to some other port."
Tom looked up. He remembered Martin Wedekind's letter. The thing puzzled him. He could not imagine why it should be so hard to find somebody in the United States, most likely a German-American, who would be willing to play cat's-paw for the German Government, and he said something of the sort.
"Why pick on me?" he asked. "The woods are full of people ready to earn a dishonest penny."
The Colonel winked at him in a manner that said, more plainly than words, that Tom knew more than he tried to make believe.
"Lieutenant Graves," he replied, "I'll put my cards on the table, face up. The British Government does not want these ships to get to their destination. They are suspicious, thanks to your friend Vyvyan. But the very fact that you are Vyvyan's friend will disarm their suspicions, and we will make assurance doubly sure by changing the ships' names, by making one or two other small changes. In fact, we have already done so."
"Oh? Pretty sure I would accept, eh?"
The Colonel smiled.
"My dear sir, remember the firing squad. Of course I am sure!"
Tom was thinking rapidly. Suddenly he smiled to himself. He considered that more than one can play at the ancient game of double cross.
"Colonel," he said, "I have half a mind to close on that deal …"
"Delighted, delighted, my dear sir!" Wedekind rose. He was pleasurably excited. Fervently he shook Tom's hands. "Why, it's splendid. Ganz famos! Of course we will all be sorry to see you leave Germany. But it will be for your own best interests. Why—everybody likes you here. Only this morning Baron von Götz-Wrede told me that you …"
The words were out. He could not choke them back.
There was a pall of utter silence, broken by Tom's incredulous:
"Von G6tz-Wrede? I thought he was dead!"
"Let me explain, my dear sir," the Colonel cut in, clumsily. "The Baron …"
"A frame-up, eh?" continued Tom, icily. "A dirty, stinking trick to get me, eh?"
"No, no! Please let me explain. I will …"
"Lieutenant Graves is right!"
It was the little Ensign speaking. All during the interview he had felt in his inner conscience the pitiless Prussian discipline fighting against a fierce desire to blurt out the truth whatever the consequences.
And he did so now, with a sort of hot, angry boyishness:
"I am sorry, Colonel," he said. "I am afraid I am not a very good officer, perhaps not even a very good Prussian. I am one of those terribly unsatisfactory people whose soul and brain are half the time at odds. I can't help it." He turned to the Westerner. "Yes. You are right. The whole thing was a trap!"
Tom was staring straight at the Colonel.
"What have you got to say for yourself?" he asked thickly; and he was absolutely unprepared for the man's serene, merry, joyous arrogance.
"Nothing, my dear sir. The cat's out of the bag. I admit it. I. did it acting under orders, for the sake of the Fatherland. But"—with a gesture, as if brushing aside a regrettable, but wholly negligible fact—"it doesn't matter. It doesn't change the main question under discussion. You accept my proposal?"
"Yesterday you were all for a firing squad!"
"Yes, yes—but—something has happened, conditions have changed. You accept?"
Tom looked at him with something like admiration for the man's colossal, brutal, sprawling insolence. His own wits were at fever heat. Only one thing mattered—to regain his own liberty, his very life, to help Bertha get out of the country and, if possible, to frustrate the German designs, whatever they were, in connection with the line of ships, with the mine.
"All right," he said, "the joke's on me."
"That's the spirit," from the Colonel. "And my little proposition?"
"It's O. K. for me … On one condition!"
Wedekind wagged a coquettish finger.
"I know your condition, my dear sir, and I regret I cannot comply with it. You want to take my niece back to America with you. Impossible! I do not mean—well—to seem to doubt you. But I am in the habit of playing safe. As long as Bertha is in Germany, I have a lever on your emotions, my dear sir. You will be afraid to—pardon me—try to deceive us. No, no! I know your condition!"
The Colonel had been right in his guess. But Tom had not been a poker expert for nothing. Before this, about to play a pat hand, he had suddenly changed his mind and bought cards after watching the other man's draw.
That's what he did now.
"You're wrong, Colonel," he said. "I am fond of your niece. I don't deny it. But her returning to America with me wasn't the condition I want to make. You see, I do not want to return to America myself."
"What? You …"
"Sure. Don't you understand?" Tom's voice came strong and clear and sincere. "I like Germany. I am mad about the army, the uniform, the chance to see a bit of a bully old scrap. I guess, horses apart, I haven't been much good as an officer in the past. But I'll try my darnedest in the future, Colonel. Give me another chance. Let me stick to Germany and the Uhlans! That's my condition!"
Tom had succeeded beyond his hopes. The Colonel shook his hands again and again, pump-handle fashion.
"Grossartig! Kolossal!" he bellowed. "I shall speak of it to His All-Gracious Majesty. The Fatherland needs men such as you. Why"—with a severe side glance at the little Ensign—"you can set an example in patriotism to many a native-born Prussian." He clicked his heels and saluted. "I thank you in the name of the Uhlans, in the name of the army, the name of the Emperor. And now—let's go back to business—your condition is accepted."
He drew some papers from his pocket. Tom read through them. They were an official bill of sale of six ten-thousand-ton ships, the Walla Walla, Seattle, Carson City, Salt Lake City, Santa Rosa and Denver, all built in American yards, from the Hamburg-American Line to one Tom Graves, a citizen of the United States, Another paper agreed to the transfer of these same ships to American registry.
Tom looked up, pen in hand. He remember Poole's repeated protests that he had lost his citizenship by donning the blue and crimson of the Uhlans. He said something of the kind.
"Sure that's all right? It says here that I am an American citizen/
The Colonel smiled.
"Our army has many experts," he said. "They are not all experts with the sword. Some are …"
"Experts with the pen. I get you. Experts at forgery. Well—here goes!" and the Westerner signed both papers with a firm hand, at the same time reading again the names of the ships. He did not mean to forget them.
Once more the Colonel shook hands.
"You will be released at once," he said. "Back with your old regiment."
"Any chance of seeing Bertha?"
"To be sure. You may call. But—you understand …"
"You bet. I won't be allowed to see her alone. That's all right."
Tom smiled when he was again by himself.
He had accomplished one thing. He was a free man once more, with a free man's chance the chance—to take Bertha away from Germany, home to America.
Only one thing puzzled him.
How would he be able to communicate to Lord Vyvyan the names of certain ships that had recently changed names, flags, and ownership?
Why there was the little silver ring with the letters B.E.D.