CHAPTER X
German Lovers
I was cleaning up in the stable one day when Miga rushed in with a telegram in her hand.
“Ben, Ben!” she exclaimed, quaking with excitement. “Karl is coming today!”
Who Karl was or what the matter had to do with me I couldn’t imagine. “Where is Warner?” she asked.
I told her, and she rushed out to find him. Evidently it was something which everybody had to know. I was interested. I rather liked Miga. She had travelled a bit, and I put her down easily the most intelligent member of the household. But who was Karl?
I soon had an opportunity of learning, for the boy August came in.
“Don’t you know,” he said winking. “That’s her beau!”
In due course Karl arrived, a smart young sergeant from a Dragoon regiment. He spent two days with us and though he was almost constantly with Miga, he frequently found time to joke with me about the mud on the Somme, soldiers’ fondness for beer, the capitalist bandits, et cetera; giving me a cigarette on each occasion. Like most soldiers from the front, he had less of the air of superiority toward prisoners of war than the civilians. He regarded the war as simply a rotten business for all parties concerned and avoided talking seriously on any topic.
For Miga it was a happy two days. The night before his departure, he went out to say goodbye to some friends, and she broke into tears.
“Silly, ain’t it?” observed Erna to me grinning, as Miga went weeping to her bedroom.
Miga drove with him to the station the next morning and we all turned out to see them off.
“Give my regards to my brother,” I said, “if you meet him on the Somme.”
“Ja wohl!” he answered laughing, “I’ll fetch him over to keep you company.”
He shook hands with everybody else and exchanged salutes with me. We watched them drive away, and Mutter stood silently at the gate long after the trap had vanished in the distance.
I saw no more of Miga after she returned until the next afternoon—she was confined to her bed with lovesickness. It was Kaffeetrinken time when she appeared again at the table. Her eyes were red and her cheeks were swollen. She ate in silence until the rest had left the table, and then waited to speak to me.
“What makes you men fight?” she asked slowly, gazing out of the window. “Isn’t it horrible!”
“Ja,” I agreed, “Horrible beyond all words.”
“He might be killed! How cruel the Engländer must be to kill such boys as Karl. Don’t you think it is cruel—cruel—cruel?”
“War is cruel,” I conceded. It was useless to start an argument. “But he’s been through three years of it all right, so why are you worrying now? Besides, the war is bound to end soon,” I added hopefully.
“Why didn’t you go and let him stay with me?” she demanded, clutching at a childish idea. “You always say that you would rather be back there fighting than here. What horrible mistakes the lieber Gott makes! Why don’t you go and fight in his stead and send him back to me?”
“I should hardly care to fight in his stead, Fraulein,” I said. I could not give her any comfort so I arose and went out, leaving her staring blankly out of the window.
She took me somewhat into her confidence after that, and often read me letters from Karl. The first letter found him at a reinforcement camp near Bruges.
“Pray God he stops there,” she said.
But he didn’t; for the end of March found him writing letters like this: “We have crossed the Marne! Peace and victory are in sight. We go forward with God!”
“Isn’t it noble!” Miga said.