A Soldier of the Great War

by Mark Helprin

  "Why don't you?" Strassnitzky asked.

  "Come," said the strumpet, abandoning Strassnitzky to her two companions. "I also have a toy steam engine you might like. My brother gave it to me before he joined the army."

  "Is your brother alive?" Alessandro asked as they walked through the square.

  "Yes. He's a baker and he's always beyond range of the shells. I took his room."

  "What about your parents?"

  "My mother was a singer. We never knew our father, and she didn't, either. She gave us to our aunt, who gave us to our grandmother, who died, and then our mother didn't want us back—she's still a singer; she goes around from place to place. By that time my brother was old enough to be apprenticed, and I became a housemaid.

  "When he left for the army he wanted me to keep his room for him, and, because I'm his sister, I get some money from the state." She looked at Alessandro and smiled. "I'm very free," she said. "I do what I want. What about you?"

  "I never do what I want," Alessandro said.

  "I don't mean that. I mean about your family."

  "Everyone is dead except my sister."

  "That makes us close, doesn't it."

  "Why?"

  "You have only your sister, I have only my brother."

  "I don't think that makes us close."

  "Then maybe we should try something else."

  "You talk like a woman I once knew in Toulon," Alessandro told her. "She was an admiral's daughter, and she looked a lot like you—tall, blonde, sunburnt, perhaps not quite as athletic looking. We happened to be in the same compartment of a train. She said she loved to speak Italian, and as we were speaking, she rather haltingly, she said that something had happened to her brassiere. I thought she was going to excuse herself, but she asked me to fix it."

  "That sounds so lovely."

  "I couldn't fix it. I didn't even know what was wrong, but the more I tried and the more she struggled, the more everything ripped and came apart, until the brassiere was hanging by a thread. Then she took a deep breath, and broke the thread."

  The woman's teeth were partly clenched, and, as she breathed, the taste of champagne welled up from her lungs. Her eyes narrowed and were slightly out of focus. They hurried through the streets to her room above the bakery.

  ALESSANDRO MADE his way to Strassnitzky's camp beyond the town. The galleries around the square were empty and the streets were so silent that he could hear several fountains, and a river that had been channeled between stone walls. He crossed this river by one of several small bridges that spanned it, and looked down at the water passing below. In the blackest parts were the brightest reflections of the stars.

  The camp of the Hussars lay in a huge field bordered on four sides by tall trees swaying lightly in the wind. The proportions of the field made it seem particularly spacious and tranquil.

  Bending down to enter Strassnitzky's tent, where the field marshal was sitting in a camp chair, feet up, staring at the lantern, Alessandro looked deeply contented.

  "Mine were more demanding, I fear," Strassnitzky said.

  "They were?"

  "Maybe you should have taken mine and I yours. They were ravenous, almost violent. Perhaps they think that soldiers require such treatment. They, of all people, should know that certain parts of the body, no matter how exercised, cannot be toughened."

  Alessandro sat down at the typewriter and cracked his knuckles to limber them up. "We didn't get past the bakery. The baker gave us fresh bread and tea, and now I won't be able to sleep tonight."

  "It doesn't matter," Strassnitzky said. "By the time we finish it will almost be time to set out. Tell me, why are Italians always so unpredictable in regard to women?"

  "How do you mean?"

  "She wanted you. She was aching. I saw it."

  "I didn't want to."

  "Why?" Strassnitzky sat up.

  "When we were sitting in the bakery, at the marble table where the baker kneads his dough, my desire for her, which had been strong, vanished. Death does not weaken loyalty, it strengthens it."

  "Who's dead?" Strassnitzky asked.

  "The woman I love."

  "I see."

  "Only after all opportunity is forsaken does devotion come alive."

  "Like Dante and Beatrice."

  "Maybe."

  "I know how Italians think," Strassnitzky said. He was under no obligation to be polite to his prisoner. "Lose yourself in the spirit world now, and you'll be ready for it when it comes later. Devote yourself to the conditions of eternity, and suffer, but suffer no surprise. You're a Romano, are you not?"

  Alessandro nodded.

  "Naturally. Rome is a training school for the heavenly city, a jumping-off place. You take earthly pleasures and gracefully translate them to the language of the Divine."

  "That's called art," Alessandro said.

  "But what if death is only a void?"

  "Even if heaven doesn't exist, I will have experienced it beforehand, because I will have created it."

  "What about pleasure and light-heartedness?"

  "You can be as light-hearted as you want, and still be devoted."

  "Like Aquinas and Augustine?"

  "They had fun."

  "They did, did they."

  "Yes," Alessandro replied. "Augustine in particular."

  "I think you'll regret that you didn't take that girl upstairs, spread her legs, and ram her as deep as you could get. She would have loved it. You would have loved it."

  "I'm sure you're right," Alessandro answered, "but I see a high window that shines through the darkness surrounding it. It's full of light, as if the sun were nearby, and in that window, although I'm not able to look straight at her, is Ariane, just as if she were alive. As time passes, she brightens, and I love her more and more."

  "In the end, Dante finds Beatrice."

  "Yes," said Alessandro. "He does, one way or another."

  "How did she die?"

  "Your planes. The building they bombed, that she was in, collapsed. The heat was so intense that nothing remained but ash."

  "War is war," Strassnitzky said.

  "War is war," Alessandro answered, "and I'll find the pilot."

  "How? Surely you didn't see him."

  "I saw him. I saw his face, but because of his aviator's goggles and helmet I couldn't really make him out."

  "Then you'll never find him."

  "Even the most Latin Germans," Alessandro said, looking at Strassnitzky as if through a tunnel, "the most relaxed, and the most humane, keep and preserve meticulous records."

  "So?"

  "The plane had a number."

  "You saw it?"

  "I saw it."

  Somewhat unnerved by what he felt were Germanic currents in a man whom he had taken to be just an Italian intellectual who ate flowers, Strassnitzky cautiously argued that "the records are secret, part of the War Office. How do you expect to match the number with the man?"

  "I haven't the slightest idea," Alessandro said, almost arrogantly, "but God is directly in charge of all things relating to life and death. That I've learned in the war."

  "You think God is going to get you the operations records of the Austrian army?"

  "I don't know, but if He were, wouldn't you imagine that the first thing He'd do would be to have me conveyed to Vienna?"

  STRASSNITZKY WAS capable of great variation. The day after neither he nor most of his men had slept for one second in their brightly illuminated camp outside the town, he galloped them toward a range of mountains that were purple between starlight and dawn, and then blood red, rose, pink, and, finally, as white as chalk, with a mist of light that hung like a curtain from the speckled golden cliffs.

  Seeking a place he had known before the war, he led his cavalry columns through oak forests at the base of the hills, trampling a path, jumping logs, passing striped wild boar that watched in horror as three hundred horsemen charitably ignored them.

  Then they rose beyond the line of
oaks to a region of red-hued rocks, short evergreens, pastures, and marshes, and came to a beautiful lake surrounded by clean granite outcroppings between which were beaches of sand as fine and white as the stuff in an hourglass.

  They wanted to stop everywhere, but Strassnitzky led them to the western end of the lake, where the river that fed it came down from the mountains. A great flat tongue of granite, like a river itself, formed a ramp that descended to the water, and the river flowed over it in half a dozen warming streams, circling and idling in pools, cascading into waterfalls, and spreading thin over pans of rock as gray as an elephant's back. The sun heated the water as it flowed over the shallows, so that by the time it regained its depth in a pothole it was oxygenated and pleasantly warm.

  Here they spent the day. They stood their weapons and slept on their saddles. They circled in the currents that led into and out of pools in the rock, lay on the shallow warming rushes of water, and jumped with the ten-meter fall that filled the lake, climbing up again on the granite by means of ladder-like holds and resinous pine boughs rooted firmly in the cliff.

  They ate nothing, and drank a lot of water. After several hours in which most soldiers slept, Alessandro was summoned by Strassnitzky, who was sitting on a flat rock, staring out over the tops of the pines and smoking a pipe that smelled as sweet as the evergreens. He turned to Alessandro.

  "Surprise," he said, gesturing at the little typewriter standing by itself on a boulder nearby, with a sheet of paper already in it waving gently to and fro in the wind. "The engrosser. Bernard, who can do anything with machines, took it apart so he could carry the rolling pin in one of his saddlebags and the dentures and piano keys in the other. What a setting for clerical work! We'll do two days' reports in these pleasant surroundings, maybe three or four."

  "How can we do that?" Alessandro asked. "Today isn't even › over.

  "Matrices," Strassnitzky answered. "Matrices and sets."

  Not about to argue, Alessandro put the typewriter on his lap and cracked his knuckles. With the machine so close, he thought, he might injure his elbows.

  "Ready with the engrosser?" Strassnitzky asked, shielding his eyes from intense sunlight.

  "Yes."

  "All right. Here we go. I'm going to dispense with the times and all that, and inform them that I've written long after the fact."

  Strassnitzky began to dictate, and Alessandro to type.

  "Due to events I will now describe, I write this report upon some reflection, a day after the actions. Leaving camp at the usual hour, we broke into six columns and went west-southwest for about twenty kilometers before turning north, as has been our practice. Because the mountains and their foothills extend into the puszta, we were no longer sweeping across flat and boundless ground.

  "Eventually, we faced three small valleys that led to a common juncture at the town of Janostelek. Intelligence gathered from the local population led us to believe that the Serbs controlled one or more of the valleys and perhaps the town. The first to encounter the Serbs was Second Battalion, in the center."

  Alessandro looked up. "I was riding with Second Battalion," he said.

  "So?"

  "We didn't encounter any Serbs. We didn't encounter anybody. This is Hungary. The Serbs are in Serbia. The Hungarians are in Hungary."

  "It's all in the mind," Strassnitzky said, tapping his head and closing his lips to suck on his pipe.

  "What's all in the mind?"

  "Everything."

  "Perhaps you mean First or Third Battalions?"

  Strassnitzky thought it over. "All right," he said, "Third Battalion. You know, you're Italian, and I'm Viennese, and here we are in Hungary. So why can't the Bosnians be here, too?"

  "You mean the Serbs."

  "Yes, the Serbs." He resumed his narrative. "Third Battalion was the first to encounter the Serbs, who were hidden behind trees and on high ledges overlooking the route of travel. The Serbs exercised characteristic discipline and did not open fire until the column was completely enveloped. Our men dismounted without orders and formed assault squads. In close fighting in the trees and on the steep sides of the valley they drove off the enemy, killing eighteen of them. Six men of Third Battalion were killed, nine wounded.

  "Meanwhile, Second Battalion, in the center, turned back upon hearing gunfire in the distance, so as to avoid an ambush."

  "No it didn't," Alessandro stated.

  "Yes it did."

  "No it didn't. I was with it all day. We heard no gunfire. We never turned back."

  Strassnitzky tapped his pipe upon the rock and emptied the spent tobacco. "All right," he said. "Correction: Third Battalion."

  "But you just said that Third Battalion..."

  "Excuse me, First Battalion."

  Alessandro typed, "First Battalion."

  Strassnitzky continued. "Upon turning back, First Battalion rode straight into an ambush of mortars and machine guns. The mortars, however, were fired too early, and only one shell burst near the column, giving it appropriate warning and enabling it to halt before coming within machine-gun range. The column was traveling in artillery formation, one long thin line, mainly because it was threading a narrow path through the valley. Thus the shells did little damage, killing one horse and wounding another, and cutting a trooper's binocular straps. The men whose horses had been hit quickly transferred to two remounts, and all rode out of firing distance.

  "The Serbs stopped firing and stayed their ground, thinking that the engagement was finished, but First Battalion discovered that the route they were taking led to high ground over the enemy dispositions. A dismount was ordered, and the troopers steadied their rifles in prone firing positions. The Serbs, who had seen them, fired a few mortar shells and machine-gun bursts, but in vain, for our men were out of range. The enemy, however, was in our range, though just so, at about twelve hundred meters. Because we were firing from above we had reasonable expectation of hitting them, especially in view of the concentration and volume of fire. When the Mausers opened up, three of the enemy fell immediately and the rest withdrew from the open, losing one more man.

  "Meanwhile, Second Battalion made its way through the center, unburdened," Strassnitzky said, and then he paused, "except by a landslide that was loosed upon it by partisans high above."

  "What landslide?" Alessandro asked.

  Strassnitzky suddenly grew cross. He turned to Alessandro, his pipe sending up too much smoke, and said, "Look! You just write what I tell you, or you're fired!"

  "How can you fire me? I'm a prisoner."

  "You're right, I can't fire you, but I can shoot you. Take this down."

  Alessandro positioned his fingers on the keys in a sign of acquiescence.

  "When the battalions converged on the outskirts of the town we discovered that it had been invested by the enemy, who had set up artillery and machine-gun positions, barbed wire, mine fields, and sandbagged revetments."

  Alessandro's eyes darted to and fro as he typed at high speed.

  "We are light cavalry, ill-equipped to lay siege to a city. We have no artillery of any kind, and only a few light machine guns. The enemy were relatively few, about a hundred and seventy-five, which was why the ambushes had been little more than harassment, but we hadn't much daylight left: for an assault. Their ordnance was impressive, as were their defenses, and the town is half circled by a river in a walled channel, which makes a defender's job very easy. Only the open part of the town was in need of heavy defensive work, and here wire had been laid and machine-gun positions set up.

  "As we arrived, shells began to fall around us. We were worried that the ambush parties would try to envelop us from the rear, perhaps with the aid of others unknown to us. The mood among the men was not encouraging, and they were tired and hungry. My officers urged me to bypass the town.

  "Not only did I reject that course of action, I refused to order a withdrawal from the bombardment. Something was bothering me. Though shells were falling, the tubes were out of sight, an
d our men, even while mounted, were able to suppress the spotters (who were in a church tower) with just a few volleys from their rifles. This was the second incident in a day to confirm the wisdom of cavalry carrying long-barreled rifles.

  "As the shells fell around us and our horses stomped in protest, I found what I had been seeking. I ordered a trooper to go on foot and measure the watercourse. It took two to do it, because they had to use a cord. When they returned, I had them lay the cord on the ground. Then I had a fence pulled down and laid along the length of the cord. I wheeled my horse around and brought him back toward the road. Then I turned him and spurred him forward, straight at the fence. He took it with no room to spare, but he took it.

  "This energized the men. They knew, as I did, that a five-hundred-meter stretch along the river was defended only by a dozen riflemen who were supposed to pick off whoever might laboriously climb into the watercourse, swim the river, and climb out.

  "We formed into two lines and assembled facing the river. The twelve riflemen realized what was going to happen, and they began to fire. Then we charged. I led the first line over, and we went right past the riflemen so as to take the others from behind before they could turn their guns.

  "The second wave killed the riflemen, with pistols and swords. Eight of our men died when they were shot or when their horses fell short of the other side and threw them against the wall and they dropped into the river. Seventeen horses, altogether, didn't make the jump, but, of these, six were found later in a field west of the town, their saddles dangling underneath them.

  "The battle for the town was quick, ferocious, and costly. The first line broke up in the streets and hit the enemy defenses with no mass, in small groups, and not all at once but over a period of about a minute. The enemy appeared to be defeated not so much by our presence behind him, by our fire, and by our swords and lances, as by his own conviction that he was doomed. In such instances, madmen or drug fiends are better able to fight than ordinary soldiers, for they do not understand the calculus of defeat, and they fight on, sometimes turning the great weight of battle.

  "Had only one of the enemy erupted in rage or shown enthusiasm for the fight, the result might have been different, but our horses carried us at great speed against their backs, and when they turned they were trapped by their own barricades. We lost twenty-eight dead, and fifty were wounded. Some of the wounded will die. Of the enemy, sixty-one prisoners are to be delivered to the next labor column we meet on the road. Those who were wounded we have left with the local guards. The rest, more than a hundred, are dead."