Old Vogt quietly heard his son out, although he was burning to speak. Then he began: "Look here, youngster, you as a simple soldier can't understand it all. But depend upon it, this drill is the most important thing that every soldier must first be made to learn. For it alone teaches military obedience, soldierly subordination, discipline. It alone can give that unity which preserves a company from utter demoralisation if one of your horrible new-fangled shrapnel bursts among them. But for drill the cowards would turn tail without further ceremony, and take to their heels; and in the end even the brave ones would follow them. It is the drill that teaches them to stay on and stick together." He held to it, in spite of all his son could say about what he had seen of the kind of drill that the troops were kept at. "You could not have seen aright," said his father. The elder Vogt would not allow his son to put his hand to anything in the afternoons. He always insisted on sending the two young fellows out by themselves. "Be off with you, youngsters," he would say. "Take a walk, drink a glass of beer somewhere or other--whatever you like. Enjoy your few days of freedom!" Then the two young men would march off and let the hot sun and the fresh air burn them and brown them. Vogt had shown his friend his favourite spot, whence they could look out over the river to the castle in the neighbouring town. There they lay in the grass. The peasant felt impelled to get up every now and then. He was restless; he felt that he must keep looking at the fields that lay around them. But the clerk lay quite still in the short grass, and with blinking half-closed eyes gazed up into the summer sky. CHAPTER VIII [Illustration: Reveille] Baron Walther von Frielinghausen was made bombardier on July 1st. He had now got his foot on the ladder of military distinction, but he felt no special elation at the fact. What signified this little piece of promotion in a career which had now no attraction for him? Wegstetten had arranged that he should at once begin doing some of the work of a corporal; but this, too, had its inconvenient side. When merely a gunner he had always imagined that he knew better than those uneducated fellows the non-coms.; and he had occasionally looked forward to the moment when he would be put in authority, and would be able to show off some of his knowledge. But now to command had become more difficult than to obey, and there was certainly just as much blame going. One was scolded as if one were a silly boy, and the men always took notice of the fact.