by Holub, Josef
So the lieutenant wants me back. Just like that.
The captain of the cannoneers is produced. Then he and Sergeant Krauter are hissing and trembling with fury. They protest so noisily, with hands and feet, that the lieutenant count stands his Arab menacingly on its hind legs. But never mind what fuss the two of them try to make, none of it’s the least use. Because the lieutenant has in his hand a piece of paper issued by the colonel, allowing him to take the soldier Georg Bayh just like that, without further ado. As his servant. After all, a lieutenant count can’t very well go to war without a servant, especially a war that’s supposed to take place as far away as Russia seems to be.
Half an hour later, I’m mounted on the second of the splendid Arabs, riding away with my old and new master under the astonished glances of the cannoneers. It’s nothing to do with me, because naturally no one asks me for my preference. Where would that get us anyway, if a common soldier had to be asked whether he’s in agreement with an order or not?
So I’m able to escape Sergeant Krauter for a second time. I hope for good! Of course, I’m very happy to obey. In fact, I’m so delighted that I feel like flinging myself around the neck of my lieutenant. But I look completely unmoved, just like a good soldier should.
Straight afterward, another extraordinary thing happens. A farmer’s wife secretly slips me a hunk of bread with roast meat. Me. Not my master. How good people can be, after all! At least, some of them.
I wonder if I should share it with my lieutenant. Why should I? On the one hand, he got me out of the clutches of the sergeant, but on the other hand, the farmer’s wife meant her gift for me. So I eat it all by myself. But I don’t feel happy doing it. I’m sure my lieutenant is hungry, and I feel selfish and greedy.
Now I’m charged with currycombing the noble horses again and finding fodder for them. I try to provide for myself and for His Grace, the lieutenant, as well. At the moment, there’s no cook for the officers. Either he’s stuck in the dust, miles back with his kitchen equipment, or else he’s hightailed it, taken his supplies with him, and sold them off.
Finding food isn’t an easy matter. There’s nothing to be had far and wide, and the many regiments eat the country bare like a million-strong rat pack. There isn’t even anything to be had with money. Often, stealing is the only thing left to do. After all, I have to keep my lieutenant and me alive.
Every week, I wash his dirty pants and socks. My own as well. But separately. It wouldn’t do to have my things and His Grace’s muddled up while laundering them. Probably on account of the different qualities of dirt. My pants need to dry overnight. In the morning, when I creep out of the hay, I pull them on. I have only the one pair.
The many regiments are making slow progress at the moment. More are joining us all the time. From every side. My lieutenant tells another lieutenant that not in all the history of the world have there been so many soldiers assembled in one place. But then there has never been another Napoleon, either.
So here we have half a million men making their way to Russia, and — as if it were the main street of the village at home — I walk slap-bang into someone I know. Our cavalry is just passing an infantry regiment on the banks of the Elbe. People call out here and there. I know the accent. So these must be Wurttemburgers. I’m pleased to see them. The poor foot sloggers are shuffling along apathetically in completely done-in boots. I feel so lucky to have landed with the mounted Jagers. There are worse things than being saddle sore.
“Hey, you!” calls one of the foot sloggers. “Aren’t you our mayor’s farmhand?”
I’m startled, and ask my lieutenant for permission to hang back a little, because there’s someone from my village among the infantry. I wouldn’t mind stopping and having a chat with him.
I walk alongside the foot soldiers for a good long while, leading my horse by the reins. The soldier is Hanselmann, the son of the village cobbler, and he’s got plenty of news for me. There’s another fellow in the regiment who hails from the same village, and he’s just back from a visit there. Everything in the village is fine. My farmer has taken on a new farmhand. So he doesn’t seem to be counting on my return anymore. The farmer’s wife is on her deathbed. Sad for her! Ach, life is hard. I hear more news. Nothing particular, but the little village weighs heavy on my soul afterward.
The lieutenant has stopped treating me like a snot nose. Somewhere he seems to have noticed that I can think a little bit. I get a new uniform again. The old one never recovered from Sergeant Krauter’s efforts. My wellborn master obtains everything he wants, so of course that includes a fresh uniform for me, as his servant. There’s only one thing he can’t seem to get, and that’s enough food for his horses, himself, and me. The world around us seems to have been eaten bare. Only hunger is so plentiful that it hurts.
It’s something like the middle of April. One evening, the regiment emerges onto a wide plain. In the distance, we make out a large town on a big river. “Frankfurt and the Oder,” says my lieutenant. Not to me, of course, but to the squadron leader, who’s riding along at his side. This Frankfurt place seems incredibly far from home. I wonder if we’ll ever make it back? I hope Napoleon knows his way around.
The infantry marches into town with fifes and drums. We can hear the stamp of thousands of boots on the paving stones. The cavalry regiments, as ever, are told to take a roundabout route through the outlying villages. Because of the many horses, which would stink up the city in no time.
It’s a lovely spring with beautiful meadows and fresh-looking green forests. In the farm orchards and on the roadsides there is the snow white of sloe and cherry blossoms. The occasional pear tree even tries to bloom. The grass is full of masses of bright yellow dandelions. Our column rides across the country nine or ten hours a day. The weather is perfect. I have stopped thinking about my sore feet. They are healing well and hurt less and less. Instead, I have trouble with my behind. But that’s getting accustomed to whole days in the saddle. Perhaps it’s turning into leather too. Not my pants, though; they are getting thinner. The lieutenant has more trouble with his bottom. Apparently, his noble skin is finer and more delicate. At the end of hours of riding, he has to stand up in the stirrups for relief. In the evening he slinks into the stable for me to pull off his boots and also to rub some salve that the regimental doctor has prescribed into his wellborn bottom.
12
Blossom time is over, and the meadows have been mown. The air is full of the smell of new hay. The horses can eat to their hearts’ content. There is nothing else, anyway. Only hay and water. In the long run, it’s not good for them. There are no oats. Too many riders have already passed through in front of us. They and their horses have eaten up everything. In a few days, the hay will run out as well.
And the army is getting bigger all the time. Who ever saw so many soldiers? From the west, one regiment after another moves into line, Westphalians and Italians, Austrians, Bavarians, Portuguese, and more and more French. I am astonished by the number of Frenchmen. And boys, too. Poles come up from the south. They are especially colorful. They are also the only ones who seem to know what they are fighting for. They want to reclaim their country from the Russians. And what are the Wurttemburgers fighting for? For their greedy guts of a king? He’s fat enough already, if you ask me.
Damn it all, I think. What is this gigantic army going to live off? So many horses and men. Enough to graze the whole country down to stubble. It can’t go well. Eventually, they’ll end up eating one another.
Where are the forage wagons with oats and hay and biscuits? From what we hear, they’re miles back, sinking into the deep sand of the Polish roads. Another lieutenant tells my lieutenant count that the infantry regiments are making less and less progress. Their boots are useless, cheap rubbish that goes to pieces in no time. The king of Wurttemburg has the answer, smirks the other lieutenant. He has sent out fifty four-axled wagons, carrying ten thousand pairs of boots for his soldiers. And biscuits. From Stuttgart. The lieutenant
whispers behind his hand, “And what if it’s true? Even if it’s true, the wagons will never get here. They’re bound to bog down somewhere on the way, get looted, and have their contents flogged off!”
My conscience weighs on me. I stole boots, too, back then. I feel them burning on my feet. No, I convince myself, it wasn’t theft, it was necessity. After all, this is war. Other laws apply.
In a little town in Poland, there’s a huge procession. With priests and banners and crowds and flowers. Someone says it’s a Catholic-Popish celebration called Corpus Christi. They have something like that in Upper Wurttemburg, too. Some of the Bavarians and Austrians accompany the procession a ways. So we have Papists among us, too.
Today, the regiment requisitions for the first time. That’s what people do in war. They just take the food and the fodder they need for themselves and their horses from the local people. Of course it’s not theft as such, because it’s war, and the people it’s taken from are given a receipt for it. For that reason it’s not called stealing, but requisitioning. The squadron leader says mockingly to the lieutenant that he wouldn’t mind if the receipts were a bit bigger. Then at least people would have something to wipe their arses with.
My lieutenant has been put in charge of a forage unit. He has to requisition in a certain area. Cattle and sheep, as many as possible. And anything the horses will eat. Forage and food for three weeks. For the entire regiment. The unit is given three days. Then they have to be back. With food for the men and horses, of course. Otherwise, the regiment will starve. So the forage detail rides off into the Polish countryside on this Popish holiday, from place to place, and from farm to farm. But we don’t find anything. The farmers and their animals have fled into the forests.
Eventually, we do encounter some people: old women and small children. They stand around looking terrified. Too many soldiers had already been there before us, the old women say. The soldiers took everything and left them to starve.
“Who cares!” hisses the lieutenant. “It’s every man for himself, and besides, our regiment is part of the Grande Armée, which is to conquer Russia, and we can’t do that without food.”
Then the foraging troop catches the last chicken, looks through the woodshed, and finds a little sack of corn.
I look my lieutenant in the eye, and then I see that it’s not easy for him to take the last bit of food away from these poor people.
What was this Napoleon thinking of? Every farrier knows that a horse needs to eat so-and-so much, and people need so-and-so much. Napoleon should have done his sums ahead of time, and then he would have understood what his Grande Armée could be expected to get through.
For hours, the forage troop rides tired and depressed through loose birch woods. The last rays of the sun touch the trunks and make them gleam. Lying amongst them are patches of sour grass and black swamp holes. Nothing but crippled little birch trees with stunted bilberries among their roots and long-withered heather tufts. Since early afternoon, the platoon hasn’t encountered a single living soul. The world seems to be coming to an end here. The barrenness oppresses us. What are we doing here? There’s nothing useful for us in this place. No hay, not a speck of corn, no eggs, no goats, let alone any oxen or milk cows. From time to time a rabbit bounds over the dry ground from one burrow to another. That would be a tasty morsel. Perhaps one mouthful. But the little animal is just taunting us. It won’t let us catch it. It peeps out at us cheekily from its burrow, and if anyone makes a move toward it, it’s gone. The detail doesn’t have time to lie in wait for it or to dig up its underground tunnels.
I am tormented by a daydream or some sort of devilish notion. Each time I look around, I see a rider following us at a certain distance. That by itself wouldn’t matter so much. But the pursuer has the features and the outline of Sergeant Krauter. Even though I know I can’t recognize anyone for sure at such a distance, I am unable to shake off my anxiety.
I hope the lieutenant finds his way out of the swamp again.
By and by, the platoon could use somewhere to spend the night. But there isn’t anywhere. For over an hour now, we’ve been on a narrow path winding over swampy ground. One pace to either side, and the swamp will swallow up man and horse.
We are a sorry column — supposed to bring back food and fodder for an entire regiment, and we’re suffering from hunger ourselves. The path is getting ever narrower. Left and right of us, we hear the squelch and gurgle of swamp holes. Woe to anyone who steps in one of those! He won’t need burying. Of course, it starts to get dark, as on every other day, and, as if to make matters worse, a mist rises. The path disappears in the murk. No sign of a farm anywhere. No light and no sound. We feel out the narrow path and sway across the swampy land. Suddenly, it’s night through and through. The mist turns into a thick, impenetrable fog. No starlight can make its way through that soup. The lieutenant orders us to halt. Before someone makes a misstep and is gone for good.
Who has a torch? Or anything else flammable that we can use to light our way? Who thinks of such things ahead of time? The horses are getting restless. They can sense perdition half a step away. There is no possibility of resting or lying down. There is no place to sit or lie anywhere.
We must wait for morning. Thank God the nights are short at this time of year and not too cold.
The riders of the platoon are drawn up in a long line along the narrow path. Behind me, I hear someone snoring. The horses are cropping the thin, sour plants on the wayside. That’s all there is. The lieutenant is tired as well. He’s slumped over the neck of his noble Arab and keeps slipping off. I hold his horse on a long tether and take up a position directly behind the lieutenant. So that he doesn’t fall off the path. Otherwise, he might sink in the bog. And if I happened to drop off as well, I wouldn’t be able to pull him out. That means I have to stay awake. That’s not too hard for me, because I feel this terrible grinding and churning in my belly. Even though there’s nothing to grind. I’ve got nothing in there but some pond water. But maybe I failed to notice a few tadpoles and they’re now swimming around. Anyway, I need to go, urgently. More urgently by the second. Of course, I can’t very well squat down next to my lieutenant count. That wouldn’t be right at all. On account of the respect I bear him, and the possible smell. So I crawl off a ways on all fours. Not in the swamp, please! I feel left and right with my hands. One side is dry. Still dry. Good! More dry! That way, I don’t need to do it directly on the path, where everyone would see it in the morning when we rode on. Further to the right. Dry. No more ponds. I stand up and feel my way forward. Suddenly, the fog disappears. I’ve reached the edge of the swamp.
Happily, I wake the lieutenant. I am so relieved I grab him crudely by the arm and pull him out of his sleep.
“Hey, Your Nobleness!” I yell, against all the rules. “Wake up! The world is just a few yards that way.”
For the first time, the lieutenant count touches me. He briefly lays his hand on my shoulder.
That same night, the forage troupe is riding across endless pastures, among calves and sheep. They must have corn and oats and everything the regiment so badly needs. The lieutenant is already building castles in the air. We can take half the sheep and calves. If every rider manages to drive ten animals ahead of him, the regiment will have nothing to worry about.
A clear early summer morning dawns over this paradise. In front of us is a large farmstead with all the trimmings, a noble manor house complete with barns and cow sheds and simple abodes for the farmhands and the maids.
The lieutenant laughs, he really does. Not just a tight grimace on either side of his mouth, but around his eyes and all over his face. For the first time I see that a young count can respond as naturally and wholeheartedly as, say, a stable boy.
Something jabs me in the back. Not literally, more in my imagination. There’s a rider far in the distance, almost on the morning horizon. Even though it’s totally impossible, I think I can make out Sergeant Krauter. That man is driving me crazy.
>
Dogs rush out to greet us. A powerful voice calls them back. The lieutenant and his second-in-command, a Jager sergeant, are invited into the house. The sergeant comes back out immediately. He orders me to go in there with him. I’m placed between the master of the house and an astonishing straw-gold blond girl at the breakfast table. The splendor! The posh people and the number of dishes! I’m so overcome with embarrassment, I hardly dare help myself to anything. I’m ashamed of how dirty I am and my lack of table manners. I’m ashamed for everything and for me.
The lieutenant explains that three places have been set for visitors, and he simply thought of his servant. Who is partly responsible for the fact that they are now able to eat and in such dignified circumstances. The lieutenant encourages me to help myself, and says that if my hunger is as great as his is, I shouldn’t hold back.
The blond girl lays a couple of tidbits on a snow white plate. There’s something wrong here. Why for me, of all people? An ordinary officer’s valet. She doesn’t even turn up her nose, and I’m sure I must stink like a fresh dung heap, or at any rate, like any ordinary stablehand. Can’t she smell me? She must. I feel incredibly embarrassed. I have no idea how to approach this fine breakfast among these fine people. In the sixteen and a half years of my life, I have never encountered anything like this before. The lieutenant chews with bulging cheeks. I suppose I’d better start eating. I keep looking over at my lieutenant and the others, and at the girl. I don’t need to look at the sergeant. He doesn’t know any better than I do. He looks just as sheepish and curious to see how the others are managing. Before long, I see how they use the fine china dishes, and the elegant eating irons. I’m back in heaven. Right at the top. White bread and butter and eggs, and things I’m completely unfamiliar with. But it all tastes heavenly, and I’m glad to be able to make its acquaintance. How good the girl smells. Not like me. Our host and the lieutenant converse largely in French. That’s just as well for me, because I don’t know any, so I don’t have to speak at all.
