Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 255, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 October 1914 — The Last Shot [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Last Shot

FREDERICK PALMER

(Copyright, 1914, by Charles Scribner's Sons)

SYNOPSIS. At their home on the frontier between the Browns and Grays Marta Galland ui her mother, entertaining Colonel Westerllng of tlte Grays, see Captain Lanstron, staff intelligence officer of the Browns, Injured by a fall in his aeroplane. Ten years later. Westerling, nominal vice but real chief of staff, reinforces South La Tir, meditates on war, and speculates on the comparative ages of himself and Marta. who is visiting in tl\e Gray capital. Westerling calls on Marta. She tells him of her.teaching children the follies of war and martial patriotism, begs him to prevent war while he is chief of staff, and predicts that if he makes war against the Browns he will not win. On the march with the 53d of the Browns Private Stransky, anarchist, decries war and playedout patriotism and is placed under arrest. Colonel Lanstron everhearing, begs him off. Lanstron calls on Marta at her home. He talks with Feller, the gardner. Marta tells Lanstron that she believes Feller to be a spy. Lanstron.confesses it is true.

CHAPTER Vl—Continued. “Oh, it’s you, Lanny—Colonel Lanatron!” he exclaimed thickly. “I saw that some one had come in here and naturally I was alarmed, as nobody but myself ever enters. And Miss Galland!” He removed his hat deferentially and bowed; his stoop returned and the lines of his face drooped. “I was so stupid; ft did not occur to me that you might be showing the tower to Colonel Laiistron.” ' “We are sorry to have given you a fright!” said Marta very gently. “Eh? Eh!” queried Feller, again deaf. “Friglit? Oh, no, no fright. It might have been some boys from the town marauding.” He was about to withdraw, in keeping with his circumspect adherence to his part, which he played with a sincerity that half-convinced even himself at times that he was really deaf, when the Are flickered back suddenly to his eyes and he glanced from Lanstron to the stairway in desperate inquiry. “Wait, Feller! Three of us share the secret now. These are Miss Galland’s premises. I thought best that she should know everything,” said Lanstron. “Everything!” exclaimed Feller. “Everything— ’’ the word caught in hie throat. “You mean nay story, too?” He was neither young nor old now. “She knows who I am?” he asked.

“His story!” exclaimed Marta, with a puzzled look to Lanstron before she turned to Feller with a look of warm sympathy. “Why,-there is no story! You came with excellent recommendations. You are our very efficient gardener. That is all we need to know. Isn’t that the way you wish it, Mr. Feller?” “Yes, just that!” he said softly, raising his eyes to her. “Thank you, Miss Galland!” He was going after another “Thank you!” and a bow; going with the slow step and stoop of his part, when Lanstron, with a masculine roughness of impulse which may be sublime genttenees, swung him around and seized his hands in a firm caress. "Forgive me, Gustave!” he begged. “Forgive the most brutal of all injuries—that which wounds a friend s sensibilities.” “’Why, there is nothing I could ever have to forgive you, Lanny,” he said, returning Lanstron’s pressure while instant his quickening muscles gave him a soldierly erectness. Then his attitude changed to one of doupt and inquiry. “And you found out that I was not deaf when you had that fall on the terrace?” he asked, turning to Marta. "That is how you happened to get the whole story? Tell me, honestly!” “Yes.”

“Yow saw so much more of me than the others. Miss Galland," he said with a charming bow, “and you are so quick to observe. I am sorry”—he paused with head down 'for an instant —“very sorry to have deceived you?' “But you are still a deaf gardeper to me,” said Marta, finding consolation in pleasing him. “Eh? Eh?” He put his hand to his ear as he resumed his stoop. “Yes, yes,” he added, as a deaf man will when understanding of a remark which he failed at first to catch comes to him in an echo. “Yes, the, gardener has no past,” he declared in the gentle old gardener’s voice, “when all the Howers die every year and he thinks only of next year's blossoms —of the future!” Now the air of the room seemed to be stifling him, that of the roofless world of the garden calling him. The bent figure disappeared around a turn in the path and they listened without moving until the sound of his slow, dragging footfalls had died away. "When he is serving those of his own social station 1 can see how it would be easier for him not to have me know,” said Marta. "Sensitive, proud and intense —” and a look of horror appeared in her eyes, “As he came across the room his face was transformed. I imagine it was like that of A man giving no quarter in a bayonefcharge!” Feller had won the day tor himself where a friend's pleas might have failed. /This was as it should be, Lanstron thought. \ "The right vlew-Lthe view that you were Abound to take!" he said.

“And yet, I don’t know your plank for him, Lanny. There is another thing to consider,” she replied, with an abrupt change of tone. “But first let us leave Feller’s quarters. We are intruders here.” “A man playing deaf; a secret telephone installed on our premises without our consent —this is all I know so far,” said Marta, seated opposite Lanstron at one end of the circular seat in the arbor of Mercury. “Of course, with our 3,000,000 against their 5,000,000, the Grays will take the offensive,” he said. “For us, the defensive. La Tir is in an angle. It does not belong in the permanent tactical line of our defenses. Nevertheless, there will be hard fighting here. 'lJhei Browns will fall back step .by step, and we mean, with relatively smaAl cost to ourselves, to make the Grays pay a heavy price for each step —just as heavy as we can.”

"/You need not use euphonious terins,” she said without lifting her lashes or any movement except a quick, nervous gesture of her free hand. “What you mean is that you' will kill ae many as possible of the Grays, isn’t is? And if you could kill five for every man you lost, that would be splendid, wouldn’t it?” “I don’t think of it as splendid. There is nothing splendid about war,” he objected; “not to me, Marta.” “And after you have made them pay five to one or ten to one in human lives for the tangent, what then? Go on! I want to look at war face to face, free of the will-o’-the-wisp glamour that draws on soldiers.” ’ “We fall back to our first line of dedense, fighting all the time. The Grays occupy La Tir, which will be out of the breach of our guns. Your house will no longer be in danger, and we happen to know that Westerling means to make it hie headquarters.” ' “Our house Westerling’s headquarters!” she repeated. With a start that brought her up erect, alert, challenging, her lashes flickering, she recalled that Westerling had said at parting that he should see her if war came. This corroborated Lanstron’s information. One side Wanted a spy in the garden; the other a general in the house. Wae she expected to make a choice? He had ceased to be Lanny. He personified war. Westerling personified war. “I suppose you havfe spies under his very nose—in his very staff offices?” she asked. “And probably he has in ours,” said Lanstron, “though we do our best to prevent it.” “What a pretty example of trust among civilized nations!” she exclaimed. “You say that Westerling, who commands the killing on his side, will be in no danger. And, Lanny, are you a person ( qf such distinction in the business of killing that you also will be out of danger?” She did not see, as her eyes poured her hot indignation into his, that hie maimed hand was twitching ’op how he bit his lips and flushed before he replied:

“Each one goes where he is sent, link by link, down from the chief of staff. Only in this way can you have that solidarity, that harmonious efficiency which means victory.” "An autocracy, a tyranny over the lives of all the adult males in countries that boast of the ballot and self-gov-erning institutions!” she put in. “But I hope,” he went on, with the quickening pulse and eager smile that used to greet a call from Feller to “set things going” in their cadet days, "that I may take out a squadron of dirigibles. After all this spy business, that would be to my taste.” “And if you caught a regiment in close formation with a shower of bombs, that would be positively heavenly, wouldn’t it?” She bent nearer to him, her eyes flaming demand and satire. “No! War—necessary, horrible, hellish!” he replied. Something in her seemed to draw out the brutal truth she had asked for in place of euphonious terms. “When I became chief of intelligence I found that an underground wire had been laid to the castle from the Eighth division headquarters, which will be our general headquarters in time of war. The purpose-was the same as now, but abandoned as that was- necessary was to install the instrument, which Filler did. I, too, saw the plan as chimerical, yet it was a chance —the one out’of a thousand. If it should happen to succeed we should play with our cards concealed and theirs on the table. “The rest of Feller’s part you have guessed already,” he concluded. “You can see how a deaf, inoffensive old gardener would hardly seem to know a Gray soldier from « Drown; how it might no more occur to Westerljng to send him away than the family dog or cat; how he might retain his quarters in the tower; how he could judge the atmosphere of the staff, whether elated or depressed, pick up scraps or conversation, and, as a trained ofljcer, know the value of what he heard and report Jt over the phone to Partow’s headquarters." “But' what about the aeroplanes?”

she asked. “I thought you were to depend on them for scouting.” “We shall use them, but they are the least tried of all the new resources,” he said. “A Gray aeroplane may cut a Brown aeroplane down before It returns with the news ve want. At most, when the aviator may descend low enough for accurate observation he can see only what is actually being done. Feller wquld know Westerling’s plans before they were even in the first steps of execution. This”—playing the thought happily—“this would be the ideal arrangement, while our planes and dirigibles were kept over our lines to strike down theirs. And, Marta, that is all,” he concluded. “If there is war, the moment that Feller’s ruse is discovered he will be shot as a spy?” she asked. "I warned him of that,’ said Lanstron.' “He is a soldier, with a soldier’s fatalism. He sees no more dander in this than in commanding a battery in a crisis.” "Suppose that the Grays win? Suppose that La Tir is permanently theirs?” “They shall not win! They must not!” Lanstron exclaimed, his tone as rigid as Westerling’s toward her second prophecy. “Yet if Jthey ah.ould win and Westerling finds that I have been party to this treachery, as I shall be now that I am in the secret, think of the position of my mother and myself!” she continued. “Has that occurred to you, a friend, In making our property, our garden, our neutrality, which is our only defense, a factor in one of your plans without our permission?” Her eyes, blue-black in appeal and reproach, revealed the depths of a wound as they had on the terrace steps before luncheon, when he had been apprised of a feeling for him by seeing it dead under hie blow. The logic of the chief of intelligence withered. He understood how a friendship to her was, indeed, more sacred than patriotic passion. He realized the shame of what he had done now that he was free of professional influences. “You are right, Mgrta!” he replied. "It was beastly of me—there is no excuse.” He looked around to see an orderly from the nearest military wireless station. | “I was told it was urgent, sir,” said the orderly, in excuse for his intrusion, as he. passed a telegram to Lanstron. Immediately Lanstron felt the touch of the paper his features seemed to take on a mask that concealed hie thought as he read: “Take night express. Come direct from station to me. Partow.” This meant that he would be expected at Partow’s office at eight the

next morning. He wrote his answer; the orderly saluted and departed at a rapid pace; and then, as a matter of habit of the same kind that makes some men wipe their pens when laying them down, he struck a match and set fire to one corner of the paper, which burned to his fingers’ ends before he tossed the charred remains away. Marta imagined what he would be like with the havoc of war raging around him —all self-possession and mastery; but actually he was trying to reassure himself that he ought not to feel petulant over a holiday cut short. “I shall have to go at once,” he said. “Marta, if there were to be war very soon—within a week or two weeks — what would be your attitude about Feller's remaining?” "To carry out,his plan, you mean?” '“Yes.” -* There was a perceptible pause on her part. “Let him stay,” she answered. “I shall have time to decide even after war begins.” “But instantly war begins you must go!" he declared urgently. “You forget a pre,cement,” she reminded him. “The Galland women have hever deserted the Galland house!” “I know the precedent. " But this time the house will be in the thick of the fighting." “It has been in the thick of the fighting before,” she said, with a gesture of impatience. * ; “Marta, you will promise not to remain ?” he urged.

"Isn’t that iny affair?" she asked. “Aren’t you willing to leave even that to me after all you have been telling how you are to make a redoubt of our lawn, inviting the snells. of the enemy into our drawing-room?” What could he say? Only call up from the depths the two passions of his life in an outburst, with all the force of his nature in play. “I love this soli, my country’s soil, ours by right—and I love you! I would bp true to both!” “Love! What mockery to mention that now!” she cried chokingly. "It’s monstrous! ” "I—I—” He was making an effort to keep his nerves under control. This time tim stiffening elbow failed. With a lurching abruptness he sivung his right hand around and seized the wrist of that trembling, injured hand that would not be still. She could not fail to noice the movement, and the sight was a magic that struck anger out of her. “Lanny, I am hurtlngyou!” she cried miserably. “A little,” he said, will finally dominant over its servant, and he was smiling ae when, half stunned and in agony—and ashamed of the fdct —he had risen from the debris of cloth and twisted braces. “It’s all right,” he concluded. She threw back her arms, her head raised, with a certain abandon as if she would bare her heart. “Lanny, there have been moments when I would have liked to fly to your arms. There have been moments when I have had the call that comes to every woman in answer to a desire. Yet I was not ready. When I really go it must be in a flame, in answer to your flame!” “You mean—l—” ’ But If the flame were about to burst forth she smothered it in the spark. “And all this has upset me,” she went on incoherently. “We’ve both been cruel without meaning to be, and we’re in the shadow of a nightmare; and next time you come perhaps all the war talk will be over and —oh, this is enough for today!” She turned quickly in veritable flight and hurried toward the house. “If it ever comes,” she called, “I’ll let you know! I’ll fly to you in a chariot of fire bearing my flame—l am that bold, that brazen, that reckless! For l am not an old maid, yet. They’ve moved the age limit up to thirty. But you can’t drill love into me as you drill discipline into armies—no, no more than I can argue peace into armies!” For a while, motionless, Lanstron watched the point where she had disappeared.

CHAPTER VII. Making a War. Hedworth Westerling would have said twenty to one if he had been asked the odds against war when he was parting from Marta GallandP in the hotel reception room. Before he reached home he would have changed them to ten to one. A scare bulletin about the" Bodlapoo affair compelling attention as his car halted to let the traffic of a cross street paes/he bought a newspaper thrust in at the car window that contained the answer of the government of the Browns to a dispatch of the Grays about the dispute that had arisen in the distant African jungle. This he had already read two days previously, by courtesy of the premier. It was moderate in tone, as became a power that had 3,000,000 soldiers against its opponent’s 5,000,000; nevertheless, it firmly pointed out that the territory of the Browns had been overtly invaded, on the pretext of securing a deserter who had escaped across the line, by Gray colonial troops who had raised the Gray flag in place of the Brown flag and remained defiantly in occupation of the outpost they had taken. As yet, the Browns had not attempted to repel the aggressor by arms for fear of complications, but were relying on the Gray government to order a withdrawal of the Gray force and the repudiation of a commander who had been guilty of so grave an International affront. The surprising and illuminating thing to Westerling was the inspired statement to the press from the Gray foreign office, adroitly appealing to Gray chauvinism and justifying the “intrepidity” of the Gray commander in response to so-called “pin-pricking” exasperations. At the door of hie apartment, Francois, his valet and factotum, gave Westerling a letter.' “Important, sir,” said Francois. Westerling knew by a glance that it was, for it was addressed and marked “Personal” in the premier’s own handwriting. A conference for ten that evening was requested in a manner that left no doubt of its urgency. Curiosity made him a little ahead of time, but he found the premier awaiting him in his study, free from interruption or eavesdropping. In the shadow of the table lamp the old premier looked his years. From youth he had been in politics, ever a bold figure and a daring player, but now beginning to feel the pressure of younger men's elbows. Fonder even of power, which had become a habit, than in his twenties, he saw it slipping from his grasp at an age when the downfall of his government meant that he should never hold the reins again. He had been called an ambitious demagogue and a makeshift opportunist by his enemies, but the crowd liked him for his ready sti*tegy, his genius for appealing phrases, and for the gambler’s virtue which hitherto bad made him a good loser. T “You saw our communique tonight that went with the publication of the Browns’ dispatch?" he remarked.

■ ' r"Yes; and l am glad that I had been careful to send a spirited commander to that region,” Westerling replied. “So you guesa my intention,! see.” The premier smiled. He picked up a long, thin ivory paper-knife and softly patted the palm of bls hand with it. “Certainly!” Westerling replied in hie ready, confident manner. ‘{We hear a great deal about the precision and power of modern arms as favoring the defensive,” said the premier. “I have read somewhere that it will enable, the Browns to bold us back, despite our advantage of numbers. Also, that they can completely man every part of their frontier and that their ability to move their -reserves rapidly, thanks to modern facilities, makes a powerful flanking attack in surprise out of the question.” “Some haJf-truths in that,” anWesterling. “One axiom, that must hold good through all time, is that the aggressive which keeps at it always wins. We take the aggressive. In the space where Napoleon deployed a divisibn, we deploy a battalion today. The precision and power of mqdern arms require this. With such immense forces and present-day tactics, the line of battle will practically cover the length of the frontier. Along their range the BroWns have a series of fortresses commanding natural openings for our attack. These are almost impregnable. But there are pregnable points between them. Here, our method will be the same that the Japanese followed and that they learned from European armies. We shall concentrate in massed and throw in wave after wave of attack until we have gained the positions we desire. Once we have a tenable foothold on the crest of the range the Brown army must fall back and the reSt will be a jnatter of skillful pursuit.” The premier, as he listened, rolled the paper knife otSbr and over, regarding its polished sides, which were like Westerling’s manner of facile statement of a program certain of fulfillment.

“How long will It take to mobilize?" “Less than a week after the railroads are put entirely at our service with three preceding days of scattered movements,” ’answered Westerling. “Deliberate mobilizations are all right for a diplomatic threat that creates a furore in the newspapers and a depression in the stock market, but which ife not to be carried out. When you mean war, all speed and the war fever at white heat.” "You would have made a good politician, Westerling,” the premier remarked, with a twitching uplift of the brows and a knowing gleam in his shrewd old eyes. “Thank you,” replied Westerling, “n man who is able to lead in anythin/! must be something of a politician.” "Very true, indeed. Perhaps I had that partly in mind in making yov vice-chief of staff,” responded the premier. “Then it all goes back to the publio —to that* enormous body of humanity out there!” He swung the paper knife around with outstretched arm toward the walls of the room. “To public opinion—as does everything else in this age—to the peofile- -our masters, your and mine! For no man can stand against them when they say no or yes.” "You know the keys to play on, though,” remarked Westerling with a complimentary smile. “No one knows quite so well.” "And you are sure—sure we can win?” the premier asked with a long, tense look at Westerling, who was steady under the scrutiny. “Absolutely!” he answered. "Five millions against three! It’s mathematics, or our courage and skill are not equal to theirs. Absolutely! We have the power, why not use it? We do not live in a dream age!” From a sudden,-unwitting exertion of his strength the knife which had been the recipient of his emotions snapped in two. Rather carefully the premier laid the pieces on the table before he rose and turned to Westerling, his decision made. “If the people respond with the war fever, then it is war,” he said. “I take you at your word that ,you will win!” “A condition!” Westerling announced. “From the moment war begins the army is master of all intelligence, all communication, all resources. Everything we require goes into the crucible!” (TO BE CONTINUED.)

"They Shall Not Win! They Must Not!"