The Spitzenberg army was backed by traditions of centuries of victory. In
its chronicles, occasional defeats were not printed in italics, but were
likely to appear as glorious stands against overwhelming odds. A favorite
way to dispose of them was to attribute them frankly to the blunders of the
civilian heads of government. This was very good for the army, and probably
no army had more self-confidence.
When it was announced that an expeditionary force was to be sent to
Rostina to chastise an impudent people, a hundred barrack squares filled
with excited men and a hundred sergeant-majors hurried silently through the
groups and succeeded in looking as if they were the repositories of the
secrets of empire. Officers on leave sped joyfully back to their harness,
and recruits were abused with unflagging devotion by every man from colonels
to privates of experience.
The Twelfth Regiment of the Line -- the Kicking Twelfth -- was consumed
with a dread that it was not to be included in the expedition, and the
regiment formed itself into an informal indignation meeting. Just as they
had proved that a great outrage was about to be perpetrated, warning orders
arrived to hold themselves in readiness for active service abroad in
Rostina, in fact. The barrack yard was in a flash transformed into a blue
and buff pandemonium, and the official bugle itself hardly had the power to
quell the glad disturbance.
Thus it was that early in the spring the Kicking Twelfth -- 1,600 men in
service equipment -- found itself crawling along a road in Rostina. They did
not form part of the main force, but belonged to a column of four regiments
of foot, two batteries of field guns, a battery of mountain howitzers, a
regiment of horse and a company of engineers. Nothing had happened. The long
column had crawled without amusement of any kind through a broad green
valley. Big white farm houses dotted the slopes, but there was no sign of
man or beast, and no smoke came from the chimneys. The column was operating
from its own base, and its general was expected to form a junction with the
main body at a given point.
A squadron of the cavalry was fanned out ahead, scouting, and day by day
the trudging infantry watched the blue uniforms of the horsemen as they came
and went. Sometimes there would sound the faint thuds of a few shots, but
the cavalry was unable to find anything to engage seriously.
The Twelfth had no record of foreign service, and it could hardly be said
that it had served as a unit in the great civil war when His Majesty the
King had whipped the Pretender. At that time the regiment had suffered from
two opinions. So that it was impossible for either side to depend upon it.
Many men had deserted to the standard of the Pretender, and a number of
officers had drawn their swords for him. When the King, a thorough soldier,
looked at the remnant he saw that they lacked the spirit to be of great help
to him in the tremendous battles which he was waging for his throne. And so
this emaciated Twelfth was sent off to a corner of the kingdom to guard a
dockyard, where some of the officers so plainly expressed their disapproval
of this policy that the regiment received its steadfast name, the Kicking
Twelfth.
At the time of which I am writing the Twelfth had a few veteran officers
and well-bitten sergeants, but the body of the regiment was composed of men
who had never heard a shot fired excepting on the rifle range. But it was an
experience for which they longed and with it came the moment for the corps'
cry, "Kim up the Kickers" -- there was not likely to be a man who would not
go tumbling after his leaders.
Young Timothy Lean was a second lieutenant in the first company of the
third battalion, and just at this time he was pattering along at the flank
of the men, keeping a fatherly lookout for boots that hurt and packs that
sagged. He was extremely bored. The mere faraway sound of desultory shooting
was not war as he had been led to believe it.
It did not appear that behind that freckled face and under that red hair
there was a mind which dreamed of blood. He was not extremely anxious to
kill somebody, but he was very fond of soldiering -- it had been the
career of his father and of his grandfather -- and he understood that the
profession of arms lost much of its point unless a man shot at people, and
had people shoot at him. Strolling in the sun through a practically deserted
country might be a proper occupation for a divinity student on a vacation,
but the soul of Timothy Lean was in revolt at it. Sometimes in the camp at
night he would go morosely to the camp of the cavalry and hear the infant
subalterns laughingly exaggerate the comedy side of adventures which they
had had when out with small patrols far ahead. Lean would sit and listen in
glum silence to these tales, and dislike the young officers -- many of them
old military-school friends -- for having had experience in modern warfare.
"Anyhow," he said, savagely, "presently you'll be getting into a lot of
trouble, and then the Foot will have to come along and pull you out. We
always do. That's history."
"Oh, we can take care of ourselves," said the cavalry, with good-natured
understanding of his mood.
But the next day even Lean blessed the cavalry, for excited troopers came
whirling back from the front, bending over their speeding horses and
shouting wildly and hoarsely for the infantry to clear the way. Men yelled
at them from the roadside as courier followed courier, and from the distance
ahead sounded in quick succession six booms from field guns. The information
possessed by the couriers was no longer precious. Everybody knew what a
battery meant when it spoke. The bugles cried out, and the long column
jolted into a halt. Old Colonel Sponge went bouncing in his saddle back to
steer the general, and the regiment sat down in the grass by the roadside,
and waited in silence. Presently the second squadron of the cavalry trotted
off along the road in a cloud of dust, and in due time old Colonel Sponge
came bouncing back and palavered his three majors and his adjutant. Then
there was a bit more talk by the majors, and gradually through the correct
channels spread information, which in due time reached Timothy Lean. The
enemy, 5,000 strong, occupied a pass at the head of the valley some four
miles beyond. They had three batteries well posted. Their infantry was
intrenched. The ground in their front was crossed and lined with many
ditches and hedges, but the enemy's batteries were so posted that it was
doubtful if a ditch would ever prove convenient as shelter for the
Spitzenberg infantry. There was a fair position for the Spitzenberg
artillery 2,300 yards from the enemy. The cavalry had succeeded in driving
the enemy's skirmishers back upon the main body, but of course had only
tried to worry them a little. The position was almost inaccessible on the
enemy's right, owing to high, steep hills which had been crowned by small
parties of infantry. The enemy's left, although guarded by a much larger
force, was approachable and might be flanked. This was what the cavalry had
to say, and it added briefly a report of two troopers killed and five
wounded.
Whereupon, Major-General Richie, commanding a force of 7,500 men of His
Majesty of Spitzenberg, set in motion with a few simple words the machinery
which would launch his army at the enemy. The Twelfth understood the orders
when they saw the smart young aide approaching old Colonel Sponge, and they
rose as one man, apparently afraid that they would be late. There was a
clank of accoutrements. Men shrugged their shoulders tighter against their
packs, and thrusting their thumbs between their belts and their tunics, they
wriggled into a closer fit with regard to the heavy ammunition equipment. It
is curious to note that almost every man took off his cap and looked
contemplatively into it as if to read a maker's name. Then they replaced
their caps with great care. There was little talking, and it was not
observable that a single soldier handed a token or left a comrade with a
message to be delivered in case he should be killed. They did not seem to
think of being killed; they seemed absorbed in a desire to know what would
happen, and what it would look like when it was happening. Men glanced
continually at their officers in a plain desire to be quick to understand
the very first order that would be given, and officers looked gravely at
their men, measuring them, feeling their temper, worrying about
them.
A bugle called: there were sharp cries; and the Kicking Twelfth was off
to battle.
The regiment had the right of the line in the infantry brigade, and as
the men tramped noisily along the white road every eye was strained ahead,
but, after all, there was nothing to be seen but a dozen farms -- in short,
a country-side. It resembled the scenery in Spitzenberg; every man in the
Kicking Twelfth had often confronted a dozen such farms with a composure
which amounted to indifference. But still down the road there came galloping
troopers, who delivered information to Colonel Sponge and
then galloped on. But in time the Twelfth came to the top of a rise, and
below them, on a plain, was the heavy black streak of a Spitzenberg
squadron, and back of the squadron loomed the gray bare hill of the Rostina
position. There was a little of skirmish firing. The Twelfth reached a knoll
which the officers easily recognized as the place described by the cavalry
as suitable for the Spitzenberg guns. The men swarmed up it in a peculiar
formation. They resembled a crowd coming off a race-track, but,
nevertheless, there were no stray sheep. It is simply that the ground on
which actual battles are fought is not like a chessboard. And after them
came swinging a six-gun battery, the guns wagging from side to side as the
long line turned out of the road, and the drivers using their whips as the
leading guns scrambled at the hill. The halted Twelfth lifted its voice and
spake amiably but with point to the battery: "Go on, guns! We'll take care
of you. Don't be afraid. Give it to them." The teams -- lead, swing and
wheel -- struggled and slipped over the steep and uneven ground, and the
gunners, as they clung to their springless positions, wore their usual and
natural air of unhappiness. They made no reply to the infantry. Once upon
the top of the hill, however, these guns were unlimbered in a flash, and
directly the infantry could hear the loud voice of an officer drawling out
the time for the fuses. A moment later the first three-point-two bellowed
out, and there could be heard the swish and the snarl of a fleeting shell.
Colonel Sponge and a number of officers climbed to the battery's position,
but the men of the regiment sat in the shelter of the hill like so many
blind-folded people and wondered what they would have been able to see if
they had been officers. Sometimes the shells of the enemy came sweeping over
the top of the hill and burst in great brown explosions in the fields to the
rear. The men looked after them and laughed. To the rear could be seen also
the mountain battery coming at a comic trot with every man obviously in a
deep rage with every mule. If a man can put in long service with a mule
battery, and come out of it with an amiable disposition, he should be
presented with a medal weighing many ounces. After the mule battery came a
long, black, winding thing which was three regiments of Spitzenberg
infantry, and back of them and to the right was an inky square, which was
the remaining Spitzenberg guns. General Richie and his staff clattered up to
the hill. The blindfolded Twelfth sat still. The inky square suddenly became
a long racing line. The howitzers joined their little bark to the thunder of
the guns on the hill, and the three regiments of infantry came on. The
Twelfth sat still.
Of a sudden a bugle rang its warning, and the officers shouted. Some used
the old cry, "Attention! Kim up the Kickers!" and the Twelfth knew that it
had been told to go in. The majority of the men expected to see great things
as soon as they rounded the shoulder of the hill, but there was nothing to
be seen save a complicated plain and the gray knolls occupied by the enemy.
Many company commanders in low voices worked at their men and said things
which do not appear in the written reports. They talked soothingly; they
talked indignantly, and they talked always like father. And the men heard no
sentence completely. They heard no specific direction, these wide-eyed men.
They understood that there was being delivered some kind of exhortation to
do as they had been taught, and they also understood that a superior
intelligence was anxious over their behavior and welfare.
There was a great deal of floundering through hedges, a climbing of
walls, a jumping of ditches. Curiously original privates try to find new and
easier ways for themselves instead of following the men in front of them.
Officers had short fits of fury over these people. The more originality they
possessed the more likely they were to become separated from their
companies. Colonel Sponge was making an exciting progress on a big charger.
When the first faint song of the bullets came from above, the men wondered
why he sat so high. The charger seemed as tall as the Eiffel Tower. But if
he was high in the air, he had a fine view, and that is supposedly why
people ascend the Eiffel Tower. Very often he had been a joke to them, but
when they saw this fat old gentleman so coolly treating the strange new
missiles which hummed in the air, it struck them suddenly that they had
wronged him seriously, and a man who could attain the command of a
Spitzenberg regiment was entitled to general respect. And they gave him a
sudden quick affection, an affection that would make them follow him
heartily, trustfully, grandly -- this fat old gentleman, seated on a too-big
horse. In a flash, his touseled gray head, his short, thick legs, even his
paunch had become specially and humorously endeared to them. And this is the
way of soldiers.
But still the Twelfth had not yet come to the place where tumbling bodies
begin their test of the very heart of a regiment. They backed through more
hedges, jumped more ditches, slid over more walls. The Rostina artillery had
seemed to have been asleep, but suddenly the guns aroused like dogs from
their kennels and around the Twelfth there began a wild, swift screeching.
There arose cries to hurry, to come on, and as the rifle bullets began to
plunge into them, the men saw the high, formidable hills of the enemy's
right, and perfectly understood that they were doomed to storm them. The
cheering thing was the sudden beginning of a tremendous uproar on the
enemy's left.
Every man ran, hard, tense, breathless. When they reached the foot of the
hills they thought they had won the charge already, but they were
electrified to see officers above them waving their swords and yelling with
anger, surprise and shame. With a long, murmurous outcry, the Twelfth began
to climb the hill. And as they went and fell, they could hear frenzied
shouts. "Kim up the Kickers." The pace was slow. It was like the rising of a
tide. It was determined, almost relentless in its appearance, but it was
slow. If a man fell, there was a chance that he would land twenty yards
below the point where he was hit. The Kickers crawled, their rifles in their
left hands as they pulled and tugged themselves up with their right hands.
Ever arose the shout, "Kim up the Kickers." Timothy Lean, his face flaming,
his eyes wild, yelled it back as if he was delivering the gospel.
The Kickers came up. The enemy -- they had been in small force, thinking
the hills safe enough from attack -- retreated quickly from this
preposterous advance, and not a bayonet in the Twelfth saw blood. Bayonets
very seldom do.
The homing of this successful charge wore an unromantic aspect. About
twenty windless men suddenly arrived and threw themselves upon the crest of
the hill and breathed. And these twenty were joined by others and still
others until almost 1,100 men of the Twelfth lay upon the hilltop. The
regiment's track was marked by body after body, in groups and singly. The
first officer -- perchance, the first man -- one never can be certain -- the
first officer to gain the top of the hill was Timothy Lean, and such was the
situation that he had the honor to receive his colonel with a bashful
salute.
The regiment knew exactly what it had done. It did not have to wait to be
told by the Spitzenberg newspapers. It had taken a formidable position with
the loss of about 500 men, and it knew it. It knew, too, that it was a great
glory for the Kicking Twelfth, and as the men lay rolling on their bellies,
they expressed their joy in a wild cry. "Kim up the Kickers." For a moment
there was nothing but joy, and then suddenly company commanders were
besieged by men who wished to go down the path of the charge and look for
their mates. The answers were without the quality of mercy. They were short,
snapped quick words:
"No, you can't."
The attack on the enemy's left was sounding in great rolling crashes. The
shells in their flight through the air made a noise as of red-hot iron
plunged into water, and stray bullets nipped near the ears of
the Kickers.
The Kickers looked and saw. The battle was below them. The enemy was
indicated by a long, noisy line of gossamer smoke, although there could be
seen a toy battery with tiny men employed at the guns. All over the field
the shrapnel was bursting, making quick bulbs of white smoke. Far away two
regiments of Spitzenberg infantry were charging, and at the distance this
charge looked like a casual stroll. It appeared that small black groups of
men were walking meditatively toward the Rostina entrenchments.
There would have been orders given sooner to the Twelfth, but
unfortunately Colonel Sponge arrived on top of the hill without a breath of
wind in his body. He could not have given an order to save the regiment from
being wiped off the earth. Finally he was able to gasp out something and
point at the enemy. Timothy Lean ran along the line yelling to the men to
sight at 800 yards, and like a slow and ponderous machine, the regiment
again went to work. The fire flanked a great part of the enemy's
trenches.
It could be said that there were only two prominent points of view
expressed by the men after their victorious arrival on the crest. One was
defined in the exulting use of the corps' cry. The other was a
grief-stricken murmur which is invariably heard after a hard fight: "My God,
we're all cut to pieces!"
Colonel Sponge sat on the ground and impatiently waited for his wind to
return. As soon as it did, he arose and cried out, "Form up and we'll charge
again! We will win this battle as soon as we can hit them!" The shouts of
the officers sounded wild like men yelling on shipboard in a gale.
And the
obedient Kickers arose for their task. It was running down hill this time.
The mob of panting men poured over the stones.
But the enemy had not been at all blind to the great advantage gained by
the Twelfth, and they now turned upon them a desperate fire of small arms.
Men fell in every imaginable way, and their accoutrements rattled on the
rocky ground. Some landed with a crash, floored by some tremendous blow;
others dropped gently down like sacks of meal; with others it would
positively appear that some spirit had suddenly seized them by the ankles
and jerked their legs from under them. Many officers were down, but Colonel
Sponge, stuttering and blowing, was still upright. He was almost the last
man in the charge, but not to his shame, rather to his stumpy legs. At one
time it seemed that the assault would be lost. The effect of the fire was
somewhat as if a terrible cyclone was blowing in the men's faces. They
wavered, lowering their heads and shouldering weakly as if it were
impossible to make headway against the wind of battle. It was the moment of
despair, the moment of the heroism which comes to the chosen of the war god.
The colonel's cry broke and screeched absolute hatred. Other officers simply
howled, and the men silent, debased, seemed to tighten their muscles for one
last effort. Again they pushed against this mysterious power of the air, and
once more the regiment was charging. Timothy Lean, agile and strong, was
well in advance, and afterward he reflected that the men who had been
nearest to him were an old grizzled sergeant, who would have gone to hell
for the honor of the regiment, and a pie-faced lad who had been obliged to
lie about his age in order to get into the army.
There was no shock of meeting. The Twelfth came down on a corner of the
trenches, and as soon as the enemy had ascertained that the Twelfth was
certain to arrive, they scuttled out, running close to the earth and
spending no time in glances backward. In these days it is not discreet to
wait for a charge to come home. You observe the charge, you attempt to stop
it, and if you find that you can't, it is better to retire immediately to
some other place. The Rostina soldiers were not heroes, perhaps, but they
were men of sense. A maddened and badly frightened mob of Kickers came
tumbling into the trench and shot at the backs of fleeing men. And at that
very moment the action was won, and won by the Kickers. The enemy's flank
was entirely crumpled, and, knowing this, he did not await further and more
disastrous information. The Twelfth looked at themselves, and knew that they
had a record. They sat down and grinned patronizingly as they saw the
batteries galloping to advance positions to shell the retreat, and they
really laughed as the cavalry swept tumultuously forward.
The Twelfth had no more concern with the battle. They had won it, and the
subsequent proceedings were only amusing.
There was a call from the flank, and the men wearily came to attention as
General Richie and his staff came trotting up. The young general, cold-eyed,
stern and grim as a Roman, looked with his straight glance at a hammered and
thin and dirty line of figures which was His Majesty's Twelfth Regiment of
the Line. When opposite old Colonel Sponge, a pudgy figure standing at
attention, the general's face set in still more grim and stern lines. He
took off his helmet. "Kim up the Kickers," said he. He replaced his helmet
and rode off. Down the cheeks of the little fat colonel rolled tears. He
stood like a stone for a long moment, and then wheeled in supreme wrath upon
his surprised adjutant. "Delahaye, you damn fool, don't stand there staring
like a monkey. Go tell young Lean I want to see him." The adjutant jumped as
if he was on springs, and went after Lean. That young officer presented
himself directly, his face covered with disgraceful smudges, and he had also
torn his breeches. He had never seen the colonel in such a rage. "Lean, you
young whelp, you -- you're a good boy." And even as the general had turned
away from the colonel, the colonel turned away from the lieutenant.