the snow-storm that began on christmas afternoon raged for five days before the grey skies lightened and the wind died down. and it was but the first of a long series that during all of january kept archangel and the surrounding country buried beneath an impenetrable blanket which effectually put an end to fighting, other than small raids and infrequent air battles.
it was a world of snow; snow-covered roofs, paths dug between snow-walls, trees bent down with the burden of their snow-laden branches. even a shout given in the open seemed dulled and deadened. the air, ice-cold though it was, had no tonic sting to it. it penetrated, chilling and dispiriting, to the soldiers’ very bones. the sun peeped out from behind the everlasting clouds only to disappear again before its pale warmth was felt, and in its place fog descended over the snow-fields, shortening the brief hours of daylight still more, so that sometimes the noon dinner hour was no more than over before darkness began to fall.
the snow kept alan leslie in the american hospital for weeks after christmas, and when he and bob were well on the road to convalescence it prevented them from moving beyond the hospital’s small, crowded rooms, where they shivered in draughts or crouched by the stove, longing for sunshine and a chance to hobble about outdoors a little without plunging into snowdrifts.
“this is no place for you to get well, bob. we’ll send you away,” said major greyson one morning.
as a result of his friend’s negotiations bob received news about the first of february which raised his spirits with a joyful leap from their tired level.
“it’s all fixed, bob,” the surgeon told him, coming into the room, papers in hand. “you’re to go south at once, and what’s better, they have consented to your father’s request. you are to go to the convalescent hospital at badheim, near coblenz. captain leslie will travel with you on his way to england. this climate won’t do any longer for that foot of his.”
“greyson, it’s you who fixed it all for me. i’ll never forget it!” bob glowed with delighted anticipation, walking on his mended leg with sudden boldness and confidence. what were the eternal grey skies to him now, or the darkness of early afternoon that already began to fill the room? he forgot the hardships of the long journey before him, the weary painful days he had just passed through, as well as the lingering weakness of his body. “and alan can go with me!” he exclaimed, hardly believing his own good fortune. “when do we start, greyson? my leg feels as strong as iron.”
“next week if all goes well. i shall send a hospital corps man with you. remember you’re not a well man yet, and have a long way to travel. do you feel strong enough to undertake it? from here to moscow—to warsaw—to berlin?”
“around the world, if you like, so that it lands me somewhere out of the arctic circle,” said bob, undashed in spirit by any prospect of hardship ahead. “greyson, i’d like to go where the sun’s hot enough to sunburn me, and where oranges would drop off the trees into my lap.”
“coblenz won’t quite come up to that, but it’s a big improvement on archangel.”
“i wish you were coming, greyson. as alan would say, 'horrid beasts—bolshies.’”
ten days later bob and alan left archangel to begin their journey south. toward the end of february, after weeks of slow, interrupted, uncomfortable travel, they reached berlin, and realized with a swift reaction after days of discouragement, that the worst of the way lay behind them.
“the longest part, you mean,” remarked alan when bob made this observation. “don’t know about the worst.”
he said this as they emerged from the friedrichstrasse station onto the broad avenue friedrichstrasse.
while the hospital corps man who accompanied them went in search of a taxicab the two young officers stood looking curiously about them. alan had but once in his life passed through berlin and bob had never set foot in it, but this was not the reason for their motionless absorption. there was something strangely restless and uneasy about the crowd surging through the streets, hurrying in every direction, or stopping short to exchange excited words. a kind of suspense hung over the city, a tense expectation of disaster, perceptible even to strangers casually entering the capital.
“what’s wrong with them, anyway, alan?” asked bob, completely puzzled. “they look frightened. what can they be afraid of?”
“there’s something going on, that’s certain,” alan responded, doubtfully too. “here’s our taxi, anyway. let’s get to the hotel.”
miller, the hospital corps man, had managed, with the aid of a policeman, to find a ramshackle old vehicle, much the worse for wear, driven by a man who looked as frightened as the rest of the population and almost ran into the curb as he drew up before the station.
“a nice car you picked out, miller,” remarked bob as they got in. “hotel adlon,” he told the driver.
“best i could do, sir,” declared miller, getting in after them. “there’s some sort of a row on here.”
to bob’s and alan’s surprise the policeman climbed up beside the driver and began talking volubly to him, evidently silencing the man’s uneasy protests. the taxicab started off jerkily, the motor missing explosions so frequently that bob pricked up his ears, thinking of his airplane the night he had fallen. “we shan’t get far in this,” he prophesied.
alan was staring through the dirty window. a light snow had fallen over the city, but now the sky was clearing and the sun shone from behind drifting clouds. the same hurrying, debating, anxious crowd filled the streets as the taxicab turned into the fine avenue of unter den linden and approached the pariser platz and the more populous part of the city. half a mile from the station shots echoed from beyond a building close at hand. a group of men ran out from behind a wall. the crowd shrieked, and some soldiers, suddenly appearing, plunged after the fugitives.
the policeman beside the taxi driver shouted in his ear. the man shook his head with every sign of unwillingness, but put on speed nevertheless, and drove rapidly through the disorderly throng, dodging the people as best he could.
“there’s a bit of a tittup here, bob, and no mistake,” said alan, his face toward the window. “do you 'sprechen sie deutsch’ enough to ask the bobby to explain?”
“yes, but why explain now? let’s get to the hotel. it looks like a riot. i’m not a bit anxious to get into a german quarrel.”
“neither am i,” agreed alan fervently. “jove, it seems to be getting thicker here.”
he pointed to a new congestion in the crowd which, apparently divided into conflicting parties, swayed back and forth across the thoroughfare.
“beg pardon, captain gordon,” broke in miller, who sat grasping the two hand-bags as though prepared to jump out at any emergency, “i understood the policeman to say that there’s a fight on between the government party and the rebels. nobody knows yet who’s got the upper hand.”
bob and alan listened uncomprehendingly. no news had reached them in archangel of the serious outbreaks of bolshevism in berlin and elsewhere in germany. the name of spartacans which the rebels had taken was an unknown word to them. but the terror of the people, the disorder in the once strictly governed city, was plain enough to their eyes.
the taxi continued to force a difficult way through the crowds clustering about the streets, drawn into frightened groups that dispersed into mad flight at each new alarm. suddenly more shots rang out, this time from the roof of a building bordering the great square called pariser platz. the taxi came to an abrupt stop, and, before the policeman could impede him, the driver had sprung from his place and was running headlong across the square toward shelter.
shots from rifles and machine guns placed on the roofs rained down on the open. the people fled in screaming panic, leaving some of their number stretched on the pavement. a company of soldiers, sheltered behind improvised breastworks of tipped-over wagons, returned the fire, but ineffectually, for the rebels were lying flat on the roofs, nearly invisible. shots pattered over the taxicab and a bullet smashed a window and buried itself in the cushion behind miller’s back.
“we can’t stay here!” bob shouted. “come, both of you. we’ll run for it!”
“you can’t run, sir,” protested miller, at his wits’ end. “get behind the cab, sir. won’t that protect some?”
the policeman was already down and crouching against the cab, calling out unintelligible orders to people who did not stop to heed him. another company of infantry reached the square on a run and went to the help of their comrades. but the rebels’ increasing fire now made the place almost untenable.
“we can’t stay here like rats in a trap,” bob panted, furious at his helplessness. “we can run if we take it slowly, alan. go ahead, miller. no need for you to dawdle, too.”
“take the cushions, bob! hold them over us! better than nothing,” cried alan.
he seized one of the heavy, hair-lined seats from the cab, tossed it to bob, picked up the other and, holding it above his head, began to run slowly and limpingly across the square. bob followed, groaning once in spite of himself at the pain in his leg from this unaccustomed speed. he heard bullets strike the pavement around him, and every second expected one to penetrate the cushion, but desperately he ran on, following as best he could the zigzag course alan led to put the spartacist riflemen off their aim. in five minutes they reached the shelter of the houses on the east side of the square and, spent and breathless, sank down on the first threshold their steps encountered.
miller, pale with alarm for his charges, opened one of the bags he had doggedly clung to and thrust a flask into bob’s hand. “we can’t stop here but a moment, sir. the shots still reach us.” he pointed to a bullet which had just clanged against the pavement.
“alan!” said bob, suddenly aghast. he seized the britisher’s hand, pushing back the sleeve from the wrist about which alan was hurriedly winding a blood-stained handkerchief. “you’re wounded!”
alan shook his head. “nothing but a flea-bite. a grazing bullet nipped off a bit of skin. honor bright, bob.” he let miller fasten the handkerchief more securely. “wounded upholding the german empire,” he remarked scornfully. “not much glory to be got out of this.”
at the moment that he spoke a fresh burst of firing from the roofs on the opposite side of the square sprayed the pavement in front of the threshold where they sat with bullets. the square was now deserted, except for the two companies of infantry crouched behind their shelter.
“come on,” cried alan, starting to his feet. “we’re done for if we stop here.”
he glanced out into the square, then at the houses on each side of them.
“no chance out there,” said bob. “inside a house,—it’s the only way.”
alan nodded, his keen eyes on the closed windows. bob ran to one near the street level, cold with a prickling dread of bullets in his back, climbed upon the stone coping and tried to force up the sash. the window was locked.
“inhospitable beggars,” muttered alan. he sprang on the coping and grasped the window shutters. “push me up, miller—on to the sill!” he ordered.
the orderly offered his shoulder for support. alan reached the window-sill, clung there kneeling, and, driving his elbow through the glass of the upper frame, thrust in his hand and unlocked the catch. he threw open the window, pushed back the heavy curtains and stepped into the house. “all right,” he cried, holding out his hands to his companions.
the next moment all three were standing inside a luxuriously furnished room, leaving behind them the deadly rain of bullets and the wounded lying in the sunlit square.
“what now?” inquired bob, glancing about him uncertainly. “we look uncommonly like housebreakers, but heaven knows we had excuse enough.”
“yes, my conscience doesn’t trouble me,” said alan, closing the broken window. “i tell you, bob, i had the shakes at thought of coming all through the war only to be brought down in the cross-fire of a silly boche quarrel. you’ve found out something on your journey at any rate, my lad—the answer to one of those questions that are always worrying you. whether or not there are germans with the bolsheviki at archangel, there are certainly bolshies in germany.”
“i say, alan, we’d better go and explain ourselves to somebody,” suggested bob, smiling in spite of himself at the cool casualness which allowed alan to stand and converse at his ease in any and all circumstances.
“right-o. shall we go on through the house? doesn’t seem to be anyone in it. pretty taste in furniture.”
the windows of the big drawing-room which they had entered were draped with red velvet and white lace curtains and its floor was covered with a red plush carpet. the cushions and upholstery of the massive chairs and sofas were of the same color, and on the chimneypiece stood huge gilt vases filled with artificial flowers. an air of gloomy richness pervaded everything.
the young officers and the orderly went on into a hall, across from which was a closed door. carpeted stairs led to the second story. behind the closed doors sounded the murmur of voices.
“shall we beard the prussian in his den, bob, or go out again and be shot at?” asked alan, jerking his head toward the door.
for answer bob knocked at the door, put his hand on the knob and turned it, alan close behind. “you might wait here, miller,” said bob. the door opened and the two officers entered a large library, around the center table of which sat half a dozen grave, bearded, pompous-looking men, engaged in excited discussion.
at sight of bob and alan several of them sprang to their feet in startled haste. one or two showed signs of terror, the rest looked puzzled, which feeling changed to something like indignation as the young men’s uniforms identified them to the germans’ eyes.
“what do you wish here, meinen herrn?” demanded a beetle-browed, professorial-looking person, whose worn frock coat curved tightly over his rounded form. “have you mistaken your way?”
“we came into this house to escape being shot in the square outside,” said bob without apology. “we have no other desire than to reach our hotel in safety.”
“you haven’t noticed that there’s shooting going on, herr professor? take a short walk about the city,” suggested alan, eyeing the group.
his german was so bad that he was scarcely understood, but something of veiled contempt in his tone penetrated the germans’ wits. resentful glances were turned on the intruders. the man who had spoken before said sharply, his bushy brows drawn closer together:
“we regret extremely that you were exposed to danger. i and my colleagues, the herrn councillors, are gathered here to decide how to restore order.” casting an unfriendly eye at the young officers’ immovable faces he added with gloomy bitterness, “this anarchy is the result of a long and cruel war.”
“yes, too bad you started it,” remarked alan, losing his temper.
bob nudged him to be silent. “could you give us a police escort, or a vehicle of some sort, mein herr?” he asked. “we want to reach the hotel as soon as possible. our train goes out this evening.”
“certainly. that is reasonable,” acceded the german, pompously. he sat down before a telephone on the table and for five minutes vainly tried to get any communication. one of his colleagues muttered angrily:
“the spartacans have cut some of the wires. i doubt if you can get a police station.”
the man at the telephone shook his head. “no, no. it’s the current that’s weak. the power houses are not——” he broke off to say to bob, with a sort of exasperated dignity, “i will send a servant to fetch you a taxicab and an escort.”
“very well,” agreed bob. “shall we wait in the drawing-room across the hall?”
“yes, yes—sehr gut.” the german walked with the officers to the library door, his face showing all the angry annoyance he was powerless to conceal. “cursed rebels,” he growled, more to himself than to his listeners. “i will inform you, gentlemen, when the taxi arrives.”
“he’s more put out because we saw his helplessness than at the real state of things,” said alan as they sank down into the depths of a red plush sofa to wait.
“it’s funny,” pondered bob, looking out between the heavy curtains at the square, where the firing had slackened. “in spite of berlin’s former good government they don’t seem to have any resources at a time like this. those old codgers talking in there aren’t going to accomplish much.”
“they only know how to govern by force. their leaders have no real influence over the people,” commented alan, in one of his rare thoughtful moments. “i expect that burly chap who talked with us is lord and master of all this grandeur.” he waved one hand about the drawing-room. “how can he think at all, bob? wouldn’t even your lively brain be stifled in this wilderness of plush and lace? why, hello—they’ve sent a woman for the taxi! isn’t that just like them?”
the street door had closed before he spoke and a slight figure came into view in front of the house—a woman with head and shoulders wrapped in a shawl, who hesitated, visibly frightened, though the firing had ceased and a few citizens again ventured abroad. bob went to the window and looked down at her as, having evidently summoned up her courage, she stepped off the curb, only to hesitate again on the edge of the square.
“what a beastly shame! let’s stop her,” he exclaimed, fumbling with the window-catch beyond the layers of curtain.
“out the front door’s the best,” said alan, making for the hall. “she won’t hear you from inside.”
he unbolted the house door, pulled it open and ran down the steps. “you speak to her, bob,” he called back as his cousin followed him. “my german is rather worse than yours.”
though all was quiet in the square, an uneasy silence, and the crouching, watchful figures of infantrymen below and spartacans above suggested that the firing might recommence at any moment. bob ran to the woman’s side and touched her arm just as she started at last to cross the square.
“you need not go, frau,” he said, close to her ear. “it’s no time for women to be out. tell me where the police——” he paused, staring into her face, struck dumb with amazement.
“mr. bob!” the woman’s voice quivered. her thin hands clasped the young officer’s arm in her overpowering excitement. “oh, mr. bob—you here!”
she spoke in english and bob abandoned his halting german, though now he hardly knew what he answered in the shock of his astonishment. “you—elizabeth! wait, you can’t go on. come back into the house.”
“i say, she speaks english? she knows you?” demanded alan, staring.
bob had not time to reply before the machine guns on the opposite roofs, as though they had received a fresh supply of ammunition-belts, reopened fire. the silence of the square was rudely shattered. put-put-put-put-a-put the machine guns hammered, and the rifles cracked in scattering shots sent by both rebels and loyalists. cries resounded from neighboring windows, and from the spartacan stronghold on the roofs came faint shouts of triumph.
bob caught elizabeth’s shoulder and pushed her toward the house door. “go back! hide!” he ordered. “we’ll run for it.”
the bullets were not yet falling dangerously near. both bob and alan felt so unwilling to return to the herr councillor’s drawing-room for an indefinite wait that in silent agreement they began running along the street bordering the square, to the first corner, down which they turned.
the firing sounded fainter, though even here few passers-by were to be met with, their pale, frightened faces, and the locked and shuttered windows of every house showing a state of fear bordering on panic. at the next corner bob and alan paused uncertainly, looking vainly about for a policeman.
“not that way, mr. bob! to the right side turn,” cried a panting voice just behind.
elizabeth came up running, her thin little figure shivering in the poor shawl wrapped about her, her quick breath puffing into the cold air.
“elizabeth!” bob’s voice held sharp reproach. “why didn’t you go back to your master’s house? what are you doing here?”
“you cannot the police find, mr. bob. i will show you,” declared the german woman, still panting. “this way come!” she led the way across the street and around a corner. the officers followed, alan’s curiosity no longer to be suppressed.
“who is she, bob? are you in league with the enemy?”
“she’s not the enemy, poor old soul. she’s as pro-ally as we are. she’s done the allies more than one good turn. she was our servant at home in america before the war. which way now, elizabeth?” he asked, as the german woman paused for a second, undecided.
“this way, i think.” she hurried on down another street, evidently avoiding open places and crowded thoroughfares. in ten minutes more the three emerged on to unter den linden and saw the colored lamp of a police station over a door a few steps away.
“now, elizabeth, we’re all right. go back, won’t you? get under shelter before the firing grows worse. else you may not be able to get into the house at all,” entreated bob, pausing on the sidewalk by the police station door.
“i don’t want to go back, mr. bob,” said elizabeth, her voice shaking with some emotion that was neither fear nor weariness.
bob looked into her face and saw that the soft, dark eyes were shining with a sudden hope and joy that illumined her thin, worn face and brought almost a smile to her pale lips.
“i want to stay with you, mr. bob. oh, don’t leave me behind, dear, kind mr. bob! take me back to america! surely god put me in your path!”
the objections trembling on bob’s lips were too many to find expression at that moment. he could not bring himself to speak a curt refusal. the little german woman’s face touched him too deeply with all its gentle reminders of old days. he hesitated, glanced around him at the avenue, along the sidewalks and pavements of which disorderly crowds were strolling, arguing, fighting, shouting and gesticulating—occasionally broken up by groups of harassed policemen charging fiercely into their midst. bob felt alan’s hand on his arm and put elizabeth off for the moment by saying:
“elizabeth, we can’t talk now. wait until we find a taxi and get to the hotel. you can come that far, anyhow.”
elizabeth nodded, her habitual patience overcoming her eager longing to be answered. she followed the two young men into the station, where a red-faced, worried-looking police sergeant was seated before a desk, his ear to the telephone, his hand fingering reports lying in scattered heaps in front of him. he spoke into the telephone:
“ja, ja. you can do nothing? himmel! then call out men from the next precinct. there are none? you ass, what is the use in telling me that? wait? yes, yes—hurry!”
he hung up, breathing fast, caught sight of his visitors, stared, then rose to his feet, demanding, in a voice still unsteady with anger, “what do you wish, herrn officers?”
“a taxi, please, and a policeman to escort us to our hotel,” requested bob.
“everybody’s shooting at us. they don’t seem to know the war’s over,” added alan, looking without any trace of sympathy at the sergeant’s frowning, troubled face.
alan had suffered much during the war, and, in the course of many gallant exploits, had been three times wounded, and left with a bullet buried in his knee which hurt him atrociously when least expected. human nature forbade that such mild revenge as this should not be sweet to him.
the sergeant grew a deeper crimson, casting a sour look at the young britisher. “i will get you a taxi, herr officer,” he said to bob. “but a policeman—where are they? i haven’t a man left here.”
“all right, a taxi will do,” said bob. “only, please tell the driver to stick to his job and not run away at the first shot.”
“and if i tell him, will he do it?” grumbled the sergeant. he picked up the telephone once more.
it was half an hour before he succeeded in getting hold of a taxi, and he probably never would have done so if bob had not told him to offer double tariff to pay the driver for his fear of death. in that half hour elizabeth drew from bob as much of the gordon family’s recent history as he could collect his wits to impart. at the news that general gordon was stationed at coblenz she gave a little cry of joyful thanksgiving.
“i could go there with you, mr. bob? say yes! i could the house of your father keep? i will the hardest work do!”
“elizabeth, don’t be in a hurry,” bob fenced, casting about for decisive objections. “how can you run away from berlin like this? it’s idiotic. you may be sorry. why, you’ve no baggage nor anything.”
“my baggage, mr. bob? the best clothes i have are on my back. no people in berlin have good clothes now, not even the rich.”
alan said in bob’s ear, “boche and all, i feel sorry for her. let’s buy her a new shawl, if nothing else.”
bob gave up the struggle of trying to harden his heart against elizabeth’s pleadings. with lucy in his mind he said, as the slow taxi neared the hotel, which after all this delay turned out to be on the pariser platz itself, some hundred yards from the councillor’s house.
“all right, elizabeth, i’ll take you to coblenz. i don’t say to america.”
