Читать книгу City of Endless Night - Milo Hastings - Страница 13

Table of Contents

The day I resumed my normal wearing apparel I was shown into a large lounging room for convalescents. I seated myself a short distance apart from a group of officers and sat eyeing another group of large, hulking fellows at the far end of the room. These I concluded to be common soldiers, for I heard the officers in my ward grumbling at the fact that they were quartered in the same hospital with men of the ranks.

Presently an officer came over and took a seat beside me. "It is very rarely that you men in the professional service are gassed," he said. "You must have a dull life, I do not see how you can stand it."

"But certainly," I replied, "it is not so dangerous."

"And for that reason it must be stupid--I, for one, think that even in the fighting forces there is no longer sufficient danger to keep up the military morale. Danger makes men courageous--without danger courage declines--and without courage what advantage would there be in the military life?"

"Suppose," I suggested, "the war should come to an end?"

"But how can it?" he asked incredulously. "How can there be an end to the war? We cannot prevent the enemy from fighting."

"But what," I ventured, "if the enemy should decide to quit fighting?"

"They have almost quit now," he remarked with apparent disgust; "they are losing the fighting spirit--but no wonder--they say that the World State population is so great that only two per cent of its men are in the fighting forces. What I cannot see is how a people so peaceful can keep from utter degeneration. And they say that the World State soldiers are not even bred for soldiering but are picked from all classes. If they should decide to quit fighting, as you suggest, we also would have to quit--it would intolerable--it is bad enough now."

"But could you not return to industrial life and do something productive?"

"Productive!" sneered the fighter. "I knew that you professional men had no courage--it is not to be expected--but I never before heard even one of your class suggest a thing like that--a military man do something productive! Why don't you suggest that we be changed to women?" And with that my fellow patient rose and, turning sharply on his metal heel, walked away.

The officer's attitude towards his profession set me thinking, and I found myself wondering how far it was shared by the common soldiers. The next day when I came out into the convalescent corridor I walked past the group of officers and went down among the men whose garments bore no medals or insignia. They were unusually large men, evidently from some specially selected regiment. Picking out the most intelligent looking one of the group I sat down beside him.

"Is this the first time you have been gassed?" I inquired.

"Third time," replied the soldier.

"I should think you would have been discharged."

"Discharged," said the soldier, in a perplexed tone, "why I am only forty-four years old, why should I be discharged unless I get in an explosion and lose a leg or something?"

"But you have been gassed three times," I said, "I should think they ought to let you return to civil life and your family."

The soldier looked hard at the insignia of my rank as captain. "You professional officers don't know much, do you? A soldier quit and do common labor, now that's a fine idea. And a family! Do you think I'm a Hohenzollern?" At the thought the soldier chuckled. "Me with a family," he muttered to himself, "now that's a fine idea."

I saw that I was getting on dangerous ground but curiosity prompted a further question: "Then, I suppose, you have nothing to hope for until you reach the age of retirement, unless war should come to an end?"

Again the soldier eyed me carefully. "Now you do have some queer ideas. There was a man in our company who used to talk like that when no officers were around. This fellow, his name was Mannteufel, said he could read books, that he was a forbidden love-child and his father was an officer. I guess he was forbidden all right, for he certainly wasn't right in his head. He said that we would go out on the top of the ground and march over the enemy country and be shot at by the flying planes, like the roof guards, if the officers had heard him they would surely have sent him to the crazy ward--why he said that the war would be over after that, and we would all go to the enemy country and go about as we liked, and own houses and women and flying planes and animals. As if the Royal House would ever let a soldier do things like that."

"Well," I said, "and why not, if the war were over?"

"Now there you go again--how do you mean the war was over, what would all us soldiers do if there was no fighting?"

"You could work," I said, "in the shops."

"But if we worked in the shops, what would the workmen do?"

"They would work too," I suggested.

The soldier was silent for a time. "I think I get your idea," he said. "The Eugenic Staff would cut down the birth rates so that there would only be enough soldiers and workers to fill the working jobs."

"They might do that," I remarked, wishing to lead him on.

"Well," said the soldier, returning to the former thought, "I hope they won't do that until I am dead. I don't care to go up on the ground to get shot at by the fighting planes. At least now we have something over our heads and if we are going to get gassed or blown up we can't see it coming. At least--"

Just then the officer with whom I had talked the day before came up. He stopped before us and scowled at the soldier who saluted in hasty confusion.

"I wish, Captain," said the officer addressing me, "that you would not take advantage of these absurd hospital conditions to disrupt discipline by fraternizing with a private."

At this the soldier looked up and saluted again.

"Well?" said the officer.

"He's not to blame, sir," said the soldier, "he's off his head."