King Matt the First

by Janusz Korczak

  Too bad, he was a good guy.

  Some would say “May he rest in peace,” and make the sign of the cross.

  The doctor would examine the wounded and send them to the field hospital at night.

  That’s war.

  Even Matt did not escape being wounded. He was sad to go to the hospital. It was such a little wound, the bone hadn’t even been touched. But the doctor insisted and sent him off to the hospital.

  Matt was in a bed for the first time in four months. What happiness! A mattress, a pillow, a quilt, a white sheet, a linen towel, a white table by the bed, a cup, a plate, a spoon a little like those he had used in the royal palace.

  His wound healed quickly, the nurses and the doctors were very nice, and Matt would have felt perfectly fine if it weren’t for one awful problem.

  “Come see how much he looks like King Matt,” a colonel’s wife said one time.

  “It’s true! He looked familiar somehow, but I couldn’t place him.”

  They wanted to take his picture for the newspaper.

  Not for anything in the world.

  They told him that King Matt might send him a medal when he came across a picture of such a young soldier in the newspaper, but Matt refused.

  “You can send your father the picture, you silly boy, it will make him happy.”

  “No, no, no!”

  Matt had had enough of having his picture taken, and besides, he was really scared. What if they recognized him and figured everything out?

  “Leave him alone if he doesn’t want to. Maybe he’s right. It might even hurt King Matt’s feelings and make him sad that he’s driving around the capital while other boys his own age are being wounded.”

  Who the hell was this Matt they were always talking about?

  Matt used the word “hell” because he had forgotten about etiquette and had picked up soldiers’ slang.

  It’s a good thing I ran away, and that I’m at the front now, thought King Matt.

  They did not want to release Matt from the hospital. They even pleaded with him to stay—they’d give him extra tea in the morning, he could help out in the kitchen.

  Matt grew indignant. “No, not for anything in the world!”

  Let that make-believe Matt in the capital hand out presents in hospitals and go to officers’ funerals. He, the real King Matt, was going back to the trenches.

  Which is just what he did.

  “WHERE’S FELEK?”

  “He’s gone.”

  Felek had grown bored with life in the trenches. He was a restless boy and could never sit still for a minute. And he had to sit in the trenches for weeks on end and never stick out his head, because the enemy would start shooting at once and the lieutenant would grow furious.

  “Get your stupid head down!” the lieutenant would shout. “They’ll shoot the fool, and then we’ll have to take him to the hospital to be bandaged up. We’ve got enough trouble as it is, without you causing any more.”

  The first two times the lieutenant only shouted, but the third time he sent Felek to the brig for three days with nothing but bread and water for food.

  And here’s what happened.

  The troops in the enemy’s trenches were being relieved. One division was going for a rest, replaced by fresh troops during the night. The trenches were now so close that one side could hear what the other side shouted. And so they began to insult each other.

  “Your king is a snot-nose,” shouted the enemy.

  “And yours is a good-for-nothing beggar.”

  “You’re the beggars. You’ve got holes in your boots.”

  “And you’re hungry dog-faces. You get slops instead of coffee.”

  “Come on over here and try it. When we take your soldiers prisoner, they’re hungry as wolves.”

  “And yours are ragged and starving.”

  “It’s a good thing you ran away from us.”

  “But we’ll beat you in the end.”

  “You don’t know how to shoot. You couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.”

  “And you know how to shoot?”

  “Sure we do.”

  Felek grew furious, jumped up out of the trench, turned his back to the enemy, bent over, pulled up his coat, and shouted: “Come on, shoot!”

  Four shots rang out, but all four missed.

  Great marksmen!

  The soldiers laughed, but the lieutenant was very angry and sent Felek to the brig.

  The brig was a deep underground pit covered by boards. The soldiers took boards from ruined huts and made walkways, floors, and even little awnings to keep the rain off them down in the trenches.

  Felek only spent two days in the wooden underground cell, because the lieutenant forgave him. But even those two days were too much for him.

  “I don’t want to serve in the infantry.”

  “But where will you go?”

  “To the air force.”

  At that time there was a shortage of gasoline in Matt’s kingdom, and that made it difficult for airplanes to carry heavy loads. And so an order went out that only light soldiers were to fly in the airplanes.

  “Not guys like you, you big sausage,” said the soldiers, laughing at one fat soldier.

  After much discussion, they let Felek go. Because who could be lighter than a twelve-year-old boy? The pilot would fly the plane and Felek would drop the bombs.

  Matt was a little sad that Felek was gone, but he was a little happy, too.

  Felek was the only one who knew that Matt was the king. True, Matt had asked him to call him Tomek. But it wasn’t right for Felek to treat him as an equal. And he didn’t even do that. Matt was younger, and so Felek was disrespectful to him. Felek drank vodka and smoked cigarettes, but whenever someone wanted to treat Matt to some, Felek would say right away: “Don’t give him any, he’s too little.”

  Matt didn’t like drinking or smoking, but he wanted to say no, thank you, himself, and not have Felek answer for him.

  Felek would always talk the soldiers into taking him on night reconnaissance missions.

  “Don’t take Tomek. What good’ll he be to you?”

  Reconnaissance was dangerous and difficult. You had to crawl silently on your belly right up to the enemy’s barbed wire and cut it with clippers while keeping an eye out for the enemy’s sentries, who would be hiding. Sometimes you had to lie still for an hour, because if they heard the slightest sound, they would set off flares immediately and start shooting at the daredevil reconnaissance team. So the soldiers took pity on Matt because he was smaller and more delicate, and usually took Felek. This made Matt sad.

  But now Felek was gone and Matt was able to perform great services for his unit: he brought cartridges to the sentries, he crawled under the barbed wire to the enemy’s trenches, twice stealing over to their side in disguise.

  Dressed like a shepherd, Matt slipped under the barbed wire, walked more than a mile, then sat down in front of a ruined hut and pretended to cry.

  “Why are you crying?” said a soldier who spotted him.

  “Why shouldn’t I cry? Our hut’s been burned down and I can’t find my mother.”

  The soldiers took Matt to headquarters and gave him coffee. Now Matt felt bad.

  These are good people, he thought. They gave him food, they even gave him an old jacket because he was shivering from the cold; Matt had put on some miserable old rags for his disguise. These were good people, and he was deceiving them; he had come there to spy.

  Then Matt decided that he wasn’t going to tell his own officers anything. Let them say that he was stupid and didn’t know anything and not send him out any more. He didn’t want to be a spy. But then he was called in to see the staff officer.

  “What’s your name, little boy?”

  “My name is Tomek.”

  “All right, listen, Tomek, you can stay with our soldiers if you want, until your mother comes back. You’ll get clothes, a mess kit, soup, and money. But you have to slip over to the other si
de and see where their ammunition dump is.”

  “What’s an ammunition dump?” asked Matt, pretending not to know.

  So they took him to theirs and showed him the cannon-balls, bombs, grenades, gunpowder, and cartridges.

  “Understand now?”

  “Now I do.”

  “All right, then, go over there and see where they keep theirs, then come back here and tell us.”

  “All right,” agreed Matt.

  The enemy officer was so pleased with himself that he gave Matt a whole bar of chocolate.

  So that’s how it works, thought Matt with relief. Well, if I have to be a spy, I’d rather do it for our side.

  They brought him back to the trenches, then sent him on his way. So that no one would hear him moving, they shot a few times, but only up in the air.

  On his way back, Matt felt happy and started nibbling on the chocolate, crawling on his belly some of the time and on his hands and knees the rest of the time.

  Then, suddenly—bang, bang—his own men were shooting at him. They could even have killed him, because they had caught sight of someone stealing up on them and didn’t know who it was.

  “Set off three flares over there,” shouted the lieutenant.

  He looked through his binoculars and began to tremble with fear. “Don’t shoot. It looks like Tomek coming back.”

  Matt made it the rest of the way without any more problems and then told the lieutenant about everything he had seen. The lieutenant immediately telephoned the artillery. They didn’t waste a second and began firing on the enemy’s ammunition dump right away. The first twelve shots missed, but there was no question about the thirteenth. The ammunition kept exploding until the whole sky was red, and there was so much smoke you couldn’t breathe.

  Pandemonium broke out in the enemy’s trenches. The lieutenant lifted Matt up in the air and said three times: “What a kid, what a kid, what a kid!”

  Now the soldiers loved him even more, because the division was awarded a whole keg of vodka. And because the enemy now had no powder, they could sleep for three days in peace. And now the lieutenant said they could even leave the trenches for a short while and stretch a little. Meanwhile, the enemy had to stay in their trenches, and they were furious, because they couldn’t do anything.

  Then everything went back to normal. In the daytime, Matt studied with the lieutenant. Sometimes he would do some digging, because the rain was constantly ruining the trenches, or he might be put on guard duty or even fire at the enemy. Many times Matt thought: How strange. I wanted to invent a magnifying glass to blow up the enemy’s ammunition dump. And my wish came true, in a way.

  And so fall came to an end and winter began.

  Snow fell. They were brought warm clothing. Everything was white and still.

  AGAIN MATT WAS to learn something new and important. After all, the troops couldn’t just sit there in the trenches. What would be the point of that? How would the war end that way?

  It was quiet in the trenches at the front, but there was an enormous amount of work going on in the capital. Everything had to be prepared so that Matt’s army could be concentrated in one spot to strike the enemy full force and break through his lines. Then the enemy would have to flee, because Matt’s army would pour through the breach and start firing on them from behind.

  After the winter, the lieutenant was promoted to captain, and Matt was given a medal. That made him very happy. And his unit had already been commended twice for valor.

  A general came to their trench and read the order: “In the name of King Matt, I thank this unit for blowing up the enemy’s ammunition dump and for valiant service in defense of our country and our countrymen. And now I will give you a secret order—you are to break through the enemy’s front line as soon as the weather becomes warm.”

  That was a great honor.

  Secret preparations were begun at once. Many cannons and shells were brought up to the front. The cavalry came up from the rear and waited.

  Every day the soldiers looked up at the sun to see if it was getting any warmer. By now they were terribly bored.

  So the poor soldiers kept waiting and working. But they didn’t know how much they were going to have to suffer. The captain had invented a new military strategy—rather than send in all their forces on the first day, only part of their troops would attack. They would only pretend to advance but then would retreat right away. The enemy would think that they were weak. Only on the second day would they hurl all their forces into battle and break through the enemy line.

  They tried the new plan.

  They sent half the troops in to attack. Before the attack, the captain ordered the artillery to fire long and hard at the enemy’s barbed wire to rip it apart and make a clear path for the infantry.

  “Charge!”

  How wonderful to run out of those unbearable wet trenches, run as fast as you could and shout “Hurrah! Charge! Forward!” Terrified by the sight of them rushing forward with bayonets fixed, the enemy fired only a few shots, and poor ones at that. Matt’s troops had already reached the barbed wire, which had been torn apart in places, when the captain gave the signal to withdraw.

  But Matt and a few other soldiers either didn’t hear the command or had already gone a little too far; they were surrounded by the enemy’s sentries and taken prisoner.

  “Aha, your men got frightened,” the soldiers teased them. “They came running full speed ahead, shouting and hollering, but as soon as they got near us, they turned tail and ran. Weren’t all that many of you, either.”

  The enemy soldiers said those things because they were ashamed of themselves for acting like cowards and even forgetting to shoot.

  For a second time, Matt was brought to their headquarters. The first time he had been a military spy in disguise, but now he was a prisoner of war in a soldier’s coat.

  “We know you, my little bird,” shouted the enemy officer, who was enraged. “You were here during the winter, and our ammunition dump was blown up because of you. Oho, this time you won’t give us the slip the way you did before. Take the other soldiers to the prisoner-of-war camp, and the little one is to be hanged for spying.”

  “But I’m a soldier!” cried Matt. “You have the right to shoot me, but not to hang me.”

  “You think you’re so smart,” shouted the officer. “Now look what he wants. Maybe now you’re a soldier, but back then you were Tomek and you betrayed us. And we are going to hang you.”

  “You can’t hang me,” Matt insisted, “because I was a soldier then, too. I came here in disguise and I sat down in front of the burned house on purpose.”

  “Enough talk. Put him under heavy guard and take him to prison. Tomorrow a military tribunal will examine the case. If you were really a soldier back then, too, then maybe you’ll win yourself a firing squad, but I’d rather see you hang.”

  The next day the field court met.

  “I accuse this boy,” said the officer to the court, “of spying on us last winter, finding out where our ammunition dump was located, and reporting that information to enemy artillery. They fired twelve times without a hit, but the thirteenth shot was a direct hit.”

  “Is that true? Do you admit you are guilty?” asked one judge, a gray-haired general.

  “It wasn’t like that. I didn’t sneak around. That officer took me there, showed me everything, and then ordered me to find out where our ammunition dump was and tell him. And he gave me a chocolate bar. Isn’t that so?”

  The officer turned very red, because he had made a bad mistake—a soldier is never supposed to tell anyone where his ammunition is stored.

  “I was a soldier and I was sent out on a reconnaissance mission, but your officer wanted to make a spy out of me,” Matt continued boldly.

  “How was I to know?” said the officer, trying to explain himself.

  But the general did not allow him to finish. “Shame on you for being tricked by such a little boy. You made a bad mistake and you wi
ll be punished for it. But this little boy cannot be forgiven either. What do you think?” said the general to the lawyer.

  The lawyer began defending Matt to the judges. “Your honors, the defendant, known as Tomek, is not guilty. He was a soldier and he had to obey orders. He went out on reconnaissance because he had been sent out. And I think he should be sent to the prisoner-of-war camp along with the others.”

  This made the general a little happier, because he was feeling sorry for the little boy. But he didn’t say anything, because a soldier does not have the right to show he’s feeling sorry for anybody, especially an enemy soldier.

  And so he only bent over the book that listed all the rules of war, to see what it said about military spies.

  “Oh, here it is,” he said finally. “Civilian spies who betray us for money are to be hanged at once; military spies can be shot at once, but if the lawyer appeals, all the papers must be sent to a higher court and the firing squad put off for a little while.”

  “And so I demand,” said the lawyer, “that this case be sent to a higher court.”

  “Fine,” agreed the general and all the other judges.

  Matt was taken back to prison.

  Matt’s prison was just an ordinary country hut. There are no big stone buildings with bars on the windows out on the battlefield. The front is not like a city. And so Matt was escorted back to his hut, but now there were two soldiers with loaded rifles and revolvers by the windows and two more by the door.

  Matt sat down and began thinking about his fate. But somehow or other, he still hadn’t lost all hope . . . They were going to hang me, but they didn’t. And I might even get out of the firing squad, too. So many bullets have missed me already.

  He ate his dinner hungrily. It tasted good because people who are sentenced to death are fed well, that’s even a rule. And Matt was being treated like a man sentenced to death.

  Matt sat by the window and looked out at the sky, where airplanes were darting past. Are those ours or the enemy’s? he wondered.

  Then three bombs exploded, all of them right by Matt’s prison.

  Matt didn’t remember what happened next, because another hailstorm of bombs fell. One hit the hut, and everything heaved up in the air. There were groans, shouts, roars. Matt felt someone picking him up but couldn’t lift his head to see who it was. He was dizzy, so dizzy. And when he finally came to again, he was in a great big bed in a room full of beautiful furniture.