Chapter XXXV
XXXV
and every time Bagger has laid eyes on Major General Lyon Reis, the man has been standing as if posing for a portrait, no matter the strategical blunder unfurling through his field glasses, an affect Bagger suspects the man has employed all his life to ameliorate the effect of his underdeveloped right arm, so it’s ominous to find Reis sitting, all alone in the dusky eigengrau, no staff of sycophants before which to perform his tin-soldier bit, staring into a hissing lantern,
and it’s with apparent great effort that Reis rotates his head a few inches to his right to aim his half-lidded eyes on the unbeckoned soldier standing at the base of the stairs, a body in his arms, and Reis delivers a blink of slow odium before staring back into the low flame, saying, in the rasp of the browbeaten, “Private Gravedigger,”
and though Bagger can’t salute while holding the angel, he snaps his heels and woofs with a fanatic’s brio, “Sir!,” in hopes Reis will notice his revitalized soldierhood and welcome him into the fold, but Reis only says, “Too little, too late,”
and Bagger shakes his head, dried mud flaking from his neck, and objects, “Sir, that’s why I’m here, it’s not too late, not too late for anything, sir, I have what you need,” to which Reis gives a rueful puff of laughter that makes the lantern flame duck, and in doing so discovers his left hand and examines the gleaming leather,
and he says, “In your intellectual free time, Private Gravedigger, while digging potties or sepulchering men, do you wonder what will come of us when this war ends?,” a question that bewilders Bagger, since Camp Winn he has thought of little else but his triumphant return to rookery, until only hours ago when an angel brought a dead kid back to life,
and yet Bagger senses the question isn’t for him, and, sure enough, Reis peels off his glove, feather-dusts it along his ivory coat, and says, “Some of us do think about it. Some of us have devoted our lives to our country. Lived and bled and died for it, only to live again so we could die again. Such was the marinade in which men like myself were cooked, the promise that our devotion would reap its reward. But it’s falderal, Gravedigger.
Even those of us gifted with vision cannot carry the day.
There is no appreciation for the feigned retreats and ambush attacks of Hannibal, the cunning delays of Fabius, the guileful maneuvers of Turenne.
Today’s generalship is that of a child with toy soldiers, hurling them into the face of a playmate.
I endeavored toward a superior design. I should have known better,”
and Bagger doesn’t know what to say, so takes a step closer to assert himself, and Reis cuts a look at him, the swiftest motion the major general’s made yet, and now he sees Bagger, really sees him, and makes the corners of his eyes sharp enough to chip away at the gravedigger,
and he says, “And who do they supply me with to execute their blunt stratagems? Men like you. Men afflicted with the European Disease. Are you familiar with the term, Private Gravedigger?,” and Bagger is pained, if he could only show Reis what he carries, so quickly he admits, “No, sir, but,”
and Reis runs over him, “Then permit me a professor’s privilege.
The European Disease is more insidious than the Spanish flu.
’Tis a curious scourge, one that has raced across the continent, soldier to soldier, debilitating millions with a peculiar feebleness of leg, the inability to fix bayonets, the disinclination to attack.
Sufferers of this condition show an unwillingness to do anything but sit in place and plead for more artillery.
And these are the men with whom I am supposed to orchestrate frontal attacks? ,”
and Reis gazes at the table before him, upon which lays a cartographer’s map, and as much as Bagger disdains the major general, he finds the stack of wooden-block battalions poignant, whatever grand plan Reis had hoped to demonstrate to Pershing, the army commander had ignored, and though Bagger ought to be delighted, he needs this overweening asshole, and Reis, though he doesn’t know it, needs Bagger, too,
and Reis picks up one of the blocks and says, “See this? This is you. You and the other leeches I left in Bois de Fays,” and he gives the block a jeweler’s inspection before flinging it to a cobwebbed shelf, where it gongs against a teakettle, a noise that makes Bagger, trained on ricocheted bullets, squat low, to which Reis chuckles,
and he says, “I did not expect to see you again, Private Gravedigger. You come like a wraith. It stirs in me a melancholy notion. That I expired out there in battle. And somehow went awry, for instead of opaline gates I have been routed to Lucifer’s caverns, and instead of St. Peter, it is you entrusted with my welcome.
I can think of no other explanation for your appearance.
This, by the by, is the sort of insight of which the general they are sending here will be incapable,”
and there it is, confirmation that Reis is being replaced, it only hasn’t happened yet, and Bagger feels another press of urgency, he may never get an audience with a new division leader, and so Bagger takes a step that brings him to the map’s edge, and that’s how he feels, on the edge of the world, but it’s an insouciance that makes Reis pull away in affront, Bagger knows this look, he’s about to be banished back to the empire of dung, he’s got to talk fast,
and so he blurts, “The screaming man wasn’t a man,”
and Reis’s clenched jaw dislodges in repugnance, and Bagger panics, “It was a… let me show you…,” to which Reis’s brow crashes down, “Do not uncover a dead soldier in my presence!” but Bagger’s already pawing through the cape to find the hood, and Reis uses his good arm to push himself to his feet, hollering, “Neurological hospital is too good for you! I’ll pin you with a blue ticket, Gravedigger! You will die a pariah!,”
and Bagger’s fingertips slip through fabric and graze the softest cheek, a scant touch that nevertheless fills him with the equilibrium of hope, and he takes the hood edge and draws it back, whereupon the dugout’s tabernacle of lanterns bows in deference to a brighter master, and Reis’s rage melts to butter inside the scintillant splendor,