“No thank you, I am not that old.”
He really did not look old, despite his grey hair. He had the fresh, shapely, clean-shaven features of an actor, with grey sideburns, one of those Austrian faces that so effectively combine features of the Latin, Germanic and Slav races. Thick black eyebrows. Something of the Roman and a hint of “old Vienna” in Colonel Leithuber’s general appearance created the type much sought after in later years by film studios.
The regimental commanding officer resided in Andrásfalva, at the Hotel Hungaria on the market square. He came to visit the regiment in a carriage belonging to the battalion, sometimes earlier in the day, sometimes later, depending on how soon he managed to read all the Viennese daily newspapers in the Café Budapest.
On stepping out of the carriage, he exchanged a few words with the adjutant, then with Bachmatiuk, who spoke perfect German, after which he made straight for his office, his spurs jingling. Bachmatiuk did not return to the paymaster’s table. He looked in on the sick-bay to check how many of those reporting sick had been confirmed by the doctor as indeed being ill, and he went upstairs to his office. Without removing his cap, he sat down on the bed and looked through the papers, preparing material for his daily conference with the lieutenant-colonel.
The lieutenant-colonel’s conversations with Bachmatiuk would have been on a perfectly sincere basis if Alois Leithuber had had it in him to be honest with himself. The discussions with the RSM were held mostly face-to-face, which of itself indicated a need for sincerity. Actually, they were not conversations but monologues for two voices. Leithuber expressed out loud all the doubts that troubled him, and he resolved them with Bachmatiuk’s help. When he had something to reproach himself with or when he was dissatisfied with himself, he shouted at Bachmatiuk. The latter put up with it all, obediently and calmly, but he often had objections. He knew that he was the only man at the barracks who had not only the right but indeed the duty to disagree with the commanding officer. The officers, who were all uninitiated newcomers, always shared the views of their commandant. But Leithuber did not consider himself the infallible oracle by any means. To be able to give orders with a clear conscience, he needed someone who would raise doubts. Whenever Bachmatiuk suggested something that was contrary to his—Leithuber’s—wishes, the lieutenant-colonel looked away, but actually he pricked up his ears at the same time.
There he sat, behind his desk, gazing at a photograph of a lady with an elegant coiffure. The desk-top concealed his massive torso, and his arms were hidden.
“That’s impossible,” Bachmatiuk was insisting in his calm, hoarse voice, which sounded as though it was scorched. “The battalion will not be able to set off at the beginning of September. The machine-gun crews are not yet ready… Lieutenant Lewicki…”
Leithuber suddenly slammed his left hand down on the table so hard that the lady with the elegant coiffure fell on her back. He picked her up and carefully put her back where she belonged, appearing to give her an apologetic look. But he could not control his rage. What angered him was that he trusted Bachmatiuk’s judgement better than his own. Whenever he felt that he had to concede, he flew into a rage and pounded the table with his left hand.
He had no control over the right arm. It had long since been withered. On account of this he never removed his black leather gloves in front of anyone. The colonel found this disability no less humiliating than his dependence on the RSM. He never appeared before his men without the cape. He also avoided situations where he would be obliged to turn up with his sabre unsheathed. The disabled right arm was wonderfully compensated for by his left. Not only did it take over all the functions of his right arm, but it did so with a kind of super-efficiency. Leithuber used his left arm for saluting, eating and writing. His handwriting was very elegant and legible. The orders issued daily by the barracks command in ten cyclostyled copies, bore his clearly written signature:
Leithuber, Col.
With his left hand he could fire a pistol and he could probably manage to handle his sabre, but somehow it did not seem appropriate to wear it on his right side. What made the greatest impression, however, was his left-handed slaps. To get a right-handed slap in the face was something to be expected. But when Leithuber struck you with his left hand, while his right hand was dead as the dodo, dangling under his cloak, this was something incredible, something contrary to nature. Actually, the lieutenant-colonel was a kindly man, benign in the way some tumours are. But he often got carried away and lost his self-control.
His right hand was, literally, Bachmatiuk. Although they were roughly of equal age, the RSM behaved like an old clerk towards his young boss.
“Colonel,” he explained, “we work from six to eleven, and from two to five. The men get exhausted. In this heat you can’t do more… Night exercises twice a week—”
“You can! You can!” interjected the lieutenant-colonel. “You have to! High command informs us that the general will be inspecting at the end of the month!”
“With respect, sir, may I request that you give the order to work from five to twelve and from two till seven?…”
They were both aware that such an order was impossible, being contrary to the regulations regarding working hours in summer. Leithuber glanced at the photograph, then he changed his tone and changed the subject. Now he wanted to explore Bachmatiuk’s views about his decision to send Captain Slavíček to the front. He wanted to get rid of this captain, because he could not stand Czechs. His dislike of Czechs went back to his childhood. The family house was in a working-class district of Vienna and it was attached to a wine bar owned by the lieutenant-colonel’s father Johann, popularly known as Leithuber-Johnny. Leithuber-Johnny was a member of the Christian-Social Party and he venerated Mayor Lueger… In the noisy arguments with customers around little green tables covered with red-and-white chequered tablecloths, he predicted the imminent fall of the monarchy at the hands of the Czechs and the socialists. Leithuber’s son (Leithuber-Al) became convinced of the accuracy of his father’s predictions many years later, on the outbreak of the infamous zde affair. Czech reservists were unwilling to announce their presence in German: “Hier!”, calling out in their own language: “Zde!” This scandal echoed loudly round the walls of the neoclassical Parliament. He could not forgive the Czechs for 1912. During that partial mobilization, reservists in the Czech infantry regiments—the Imperial and Royal 18th, the Imperial and Royal 36th, and the 8th Regiment of Dragoons—had openly mutinied.
“Captain Slavíček,” respectfully remarked Bachmatiuk, “is a professional officer. He has served in the regiment for eighteen years, without a break. Captain Castelli came to us out of retirement. I don’t know what he did previously. With my own ears I heard him utter an obsolete command that is no longer in the regulations. It was used back in the days of—”
“I said Captain Slavíček will leave with the battalion while Captain Castelli will be in charge of the recruits. That’s that and there is no more to be said!”
“Yes sir!”
Bachmatiuk clicked his heels, took out his notebooks and began giving a detailed report of everything that had taken place at the barracks during the last twenty-four hours. In this way, as he did every morning, he confidentially conveyed the most important information to his commanding officer. As he listened to Bachmatiuk, the lieutenant-colonel occasionally jotted down names and numbers on a separate pad. Bachmatiuk reported every incident. Yesterday, around eleven at night, he had passed by the guardhouse and looked in through the window. It turned out that the commander of the guard had been asleep. This morning in the baths a certain Jew had felt sick.
“It’s amazing what sort of human material they’re sending us now!” he complained, like an estate steward to the heir.
The recruits’ state of health was of no interest to the lieutenant-colonel. It was a matter for the doctors.
“Pachmatiuk!”—Le
ithuber pronounced his “B”s, in his Viennese accent, as “P”s. “See to it that you get me all the recruits into uniform by tomorrow. Done and dusted! I will attend the swearing-in.”
“Yes sir!”
Someone knocked at the door. It was the adjutant—with two bulky folders. He also had sideburns, but they were black, shiny as satin. And a moustache to match.
“Pachmatiuk, dis—miss!”
Bachmatiuk saluted both superiors in turn, then he left.
Leithuber disliked the adjutant. For a start, he was offended by the title of “Baron”, though he derived considerable satisfaction from the fact that the son of a bar-keeper had “under him” someone high-born, even born in one of those romantic feudal castles perched like birds’ nests on top of wild rocks, to the delight of passengers on the Vienna–Venice railway line. He was offended by the baron’s appearance. A fop. Shirker in the barracks, son-in-law of some influential field marshal in the War Ministry, wearing field uniform as though he was leaving with the battalion this very day. Instead of medals he wore thin ribbons, covering the stars on the collar with a silk handkerchief, so they would not accidentally be revealed to the enemy he was never going to meet. Leithuber could not bear comedy and pretence. He ostentatiously wore peacetime uniform. He did not conceal his gold collar. He also disliked the adjutant for his affected manner of speech. No, he could not swallow it! Why had they sent this dandy to the Galician regiment, not understanding a word of Polish or Ukrainian?
But speaking fluent French! There was not a single Frenchman in the regiment. There were no Frenchmen in the entire Imperial and Royal Army. Even in conversations with him—with Leithuber—he used French expressions. En attendant!… On one occasion, Leithuber could not stand it any longer and he yelled in his face:
“Am attandan, Lieutenant, I don’t think it is right for an Austrian officer to speak to his superior in the language of a nation with whom we are at war!” Lieutenant-Colonel Leithuber could not speak French.
Today the baron turned up once more in battledress. In a voice quivering with submissiveness, he reported on all the day’s occurrences, presenting paper after paper for signature, and finally reading out the draft orders of the day. Reluctantly, Leithuber listened to him. At Item 6, he lost patience, interrupting the adjutant and ordering him to find a pencil and take down, in shorthand:
“It has come to my attention that some guard commanders, guard commanders—are asleep while on duty in the guardroom. I order, no—I draw attention to the fact that it is a serious offence, punished severely—severely punished, not as a disciplinary matter but according to the code of war. If anything similar occurs again, the offender will be immediately brought before the divisional court. Divisional. Full stop. Let no one think that I can be deceived. I can—are you taking this down?—I can see everything and I forgive nothing. Full stop.
Item 7. PENALTIES. As of today, I impose the following penalties on the following NCOs and privates—you will fill in the names yourself, but please write clearly, so the typists make no mistakes. Names have been misspelt in the orders several times before. When I pointed this out to Sergeant Kandl, he reported that they transcribed the adjutant’s shorthand accurately in the orderly room. Where did you learn your shorthand, Lieutenant? In the conservatoire?”
A delicate allusion to the baron’s violin-playing, which Leithuber hated. At each gathering in the mess, it was always the same pieces: Schumann’s ‘Träumerei’, Chopin’s Nocturne no. 2, and Si j’étais roi. Like a lovelorn cadet at the military academy.
“Please take this down: Item 8. ASSIGNMENTS. As of today, Captain Erwin Castelli is assigned to the 1st Battalion and will enter the field as commander of the second company. Command of the battalion recruits will be assumed by Captain Jaroslav Slavíček… have you got that, Lieutenant?—Jaroslav.”
Can you imagine a war conducted in frock-coats, jerkins, kaftans, ties, bowler hats and Jewish skull-caps? No, not even Piotr Niewiadomski could imagine such a war. He clearly understood that you were only allowed to kill a man when wearing uniform, and death in the name of the Emperor only counts if bodies are packaged in the official state wrapping and intact. You see, besides his monopoly in tobacco and salt, the Emperor also had a monopoly in the killing of people. But God created man in his own image and likeness, so the Emperor too gave men a uniform in order to create at least some likeness. Of course, there was a great difference between the uniform of the Emperor himself and that which Piotr Niewiadomski was to wear today. Yes, but there was also a good deal of difference between those two mortals.
Ah, what fine caps and costumes people have worn as they die for their kings and emperors! They have died in all colours, in iron armour, and in shining coats of mail. They have snuffed it in helmets, in busbies, in enormous headgear the size of wine jugs with glittering brass plates, in capes and helmets sporting birds’ feathers or horsehair. And so that a private could not be distinguished from his comrades in the regiment, so that he totally lost the appearance he had in the world as a son, a father and a husband, emperors ordered military tailors to make the same caps, the same tunics and the same trousers for everyone in the regiment. The only regret they had was that they could not convert all the faces to conform to a single model.
But long gone were the days when a foot soldier went to his death immaculate, colourful and resplendent as a peacock. Now, emperors were more concerned with hiding infantrymen from the eyes of the enemy than dazzling those eyes with a fine uniform. So everywhere armies adopted uniforms that were grey, matching the earth or the sand. They had the illusion that this way they would manage to fool the enemy and their long-range field glasses. In their concern for the life of the soldier they tried to make him look like the Mother Earth he was supposed to defend with his body. But Mother Earth has more colours than the cloth dyers have dreamt of. If only they could come up with a material that changed like opal, according to all the colours of the terrain and all the seasons! Now white as the snow, now yellow like the stubble, now grey-blue like the forest or colourless like water. Who knows, perhaps not a single Hutsul would die in the war. But what kind of war would that be, in which no Hutsuls perished?
However, the most garish colour of all—red—was not immediately banished from the Imperial and Royal Army. In the first months of the war they kept it on the trousers of the Uhlans and the Hussars—to let them enjoy it for a while longer. But when this speeded up the wiping out of the cavalry, red was completely banned in the army and from then on red was represented only by blood. It would be untrue to say that all soldiers were immediately dressed in field uniforms. In Andrásfalva, for example, the reserve militia received old castoffs from their predecessors to wear during training. The issuing of uniforms was a ritual carried out under the supervision of Regimental Sergeant-Major Bachmatiuk.
Before Piotr Niewiadomski’s eyes there opened up stores containing everything due to him from the Emperor. A soldier consisted of a tunic, trousers, an overcoat, boots, a rifle, belt, two cartridge pouches, a bayonet, knapsack, haversack, spade (or pickaxe), bowl, flasks, two blankets, one canvas tent sheet, a large quantity of straps, and himself. Oh, and a cap. Without a cap, he was almost a cripple, he was like a lamp without a shade, a stem without a blossoming crown.
The barracks clothing store was stacked to the ceiling with shelving full of grey-blue and dark blue uniform garments. All this cloth smelt of malt barley, because the store was set up in the former brewery malt house. With a long pole ending in a fork, the storekeeper reached for the uniforms and cast them on the ground. In a fragrant cloud of dust, cloth legs and cloth sleeves descended, birds of cloth one just like another, thread for thread, button for button. The old tunics had orange squares on the collars; the new ones had only a narrow braid showing the colour of the regiment. The recruits casually tried on the Imperial uniform, but some pulled faces; this was too wide, this was too tight. They were be
having as though they had paid for these uniforms to be made to measure. Pious Jews recoiled from putting on old sweaty trousers and smelly caps. Who knows what the previous owners had put in their pockets as they crawled about? Perhaps they were getting all this from men who had fallen in the war?
Bachmatiuk stood to one side, staring at the empty uniforms. He cast a loving eye over the most beautiful creation to come from the tailors’ shears. An empty infantry uniform was dearer to him than the man who was to wear it. He begrudged each item taken away by some dolt. He begrudged Piotr Niewiadomski the uniform he was trying on. He stood gazing at the piles of tunics, coats and trousers and the pyramid of caps, as if giving them his blessing.
They collected more or less everything from this store that was due to them from the Emperor, throwing the whole load over their shoulders, then they set off, following Bachmatiuk.
A thousand rifles with fixed bayonets in dull sheaths awaited them in the murky arsenal. They lay in rows on the shelves—quiet, innocent, sleeping. But the tawny barrels and rusty butts glinted disturbingly. How powerless were rifles without human hands! Now the hands were reaching out that would extract the roar of death from this mute iron. Slowly, slowly! Regimental Sergeant-Major Bachmatiuk watched intently as the platoon gunsmith handed the weapons to the recruits, recording a number against each name. If a uniform was dearer to Bachmatiuk than the man, what then of a rifle, the chief organ of the infantryman, more important than his heart and his brain! For Bachmatiuk people did not exist; there were only annual intakes, material that was cheaper than the Mannlichers produced in Steyer at over 100 crowns apiece. And what was a man in comparison with a Mannlicher, and even an old Werndl that lives longer than a man? That is why Bachmatiuk became so indignant when people said of a regiment that it consisted of three thousand soldiers. An infantry regiment is made up of three thousand rifles, a cavalry regiment of two thousand sabres.
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