Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Only Vogt and Klitzing looked at him with compassion; who could tell what trouble this Frielinghausen was suffering from? Weise became only the more gay. He took on himself to enliven the feast with jokes and drollery, and they all listened willingly; it kept off dulness, and the disagreeable thoughts that assailed them. The corporal, too, listened awhile, well pleased.
Klitzing had frank honest eyes; one could not but feel sorry for his pallor and languor; how was he going to stand the hard work? The men were still sitting over their meal when the little corporal brought in another recruit, a tall overgrown lad with a pink and white boyish face, apparently several years younger than the rest.
His appearance had certainly been much improved by soldiering. Vogt was quite pleased; shaking his finger good-naturedly at him, "Hullo, Heinrich!" he asked, "haven't you been liquoring up a bit on the sly? or is this one of your lucky days?" And Klitzing answered, "Ah! I feel to-day I don't know myself how I feel.
Then the men stood round the sergeant-major, and each one pricked up his ears to hear whether there was anything for him. Klitzing had moved aside, he had nothing to expect. Suddenly his name was called. There was a small box for him, and it was not very light either when he took it in his hand.
Vogt slowly raised his head and looked about him in surprise. The draught had revived him wonderfully. Where was he? A horse was standing near him bleeding from a gaping wound in the flank. Not far off lay one of his comrades stretched out like a corpse, and pale as death, with eyes closed and blood-stained froth on his lips. Why, it was Klitzing!
When Vogt returned from his sentry-duty between eleven and one, he found his comrade Klitzing singularly depressed, and after a time the clerk confided to him that he had been very unlucky all the day before. "You see, Franz," he said, "I can't get on at all without you. If you are my neighbour at foot-drill, I know just where I am. But yesterday you were absent, and I was a regular blockhead.
It is true she was neither pretty nor particularly youthful; but then she never failed to pay for all his drinks, and when he had promised to marry her she had even bought him new regimentals. Vogt had taken a favourable opportunity of begging Sergeant Wiegandt to put him and Klitzing together, when, on the completion of their preliminary training, the men were grouped into detachments.
Then he would quickly polish up boots and buttons for him and hand him his cap when it was time for the after-noon drill to commence. "Come, Heinrich, I have made you smart," he would say with an attempt to joke. "Now we shall be all right." And Klitzing would go down the steps with aching limbs and fall into line. Vogt's care for him only ceased at night and began anew every morning.
Truchsess, the most easy-going of them all, whose clothes after drill were as wet with perspiration as if they had been in water, Truchsess called it "a little bit of extra drill"! But before he could speak, Klitzing began again: "Franz, you mustn't mix yourself up in this. If they mean to do it you can't prevent it. The best thing will be for me to submit quietly."
The courage with which the weakly clerk performed his duties filled him with an almost reverential admiration, and the honest fellow was ready to stand by the poor, harassed lad whenever it was possible. During the dinner hour, if Klitzing were too much fatigued to go to the dining-hall, Vogt would carry his rations to him, and if possible would add his own piece of meat to the other's portion.
Word Of The Day