In remembrance of my brother Emil, who was hanged by the Hungarians on the Rumanian front in the year 1917.
L. R.
BOOK I
I
UNDER the ashen autumn sky, which resembled a giant bell of smoked glass, the brand-new gallows reared its head defiantly on the outskirts of the village and stretched its arm with the halter towards the dark plain, dotted here and there with copper-leaved trees. Superintended by a short, dark-skinned corporal and assisted by a peasant with a hairy, red face, two old soldiers were busy digging a grave. They spat frequently into the palms of their hands, and groaned with fatigue after each stroke with the pickaxe. From the wound in the earth the diggers threw out yellow, sticky clay.
The corporal twirled his moustaches and stared contemptuously around him. The scenery oppressed him, though he tried not to show his vexation. On the right stretched the military cemetery, ringed in by barbed wire, with its graves arranged as if on parade, the white crosses new and uniform. On the left, a few steps away, began the villagers’ cemetery, overgrown with nettles, gateless, the crosses sparse, broken and rotten. It looked as if no dead had been buried there for years, and as if none would ever be buried there again.
The village Zirin, headquarters of the infantry division, hid itself under a pall of smoke and fog, through which the scattered, leafless trees, the few thatched roofs, and the church tower, split by a shell, poked their timid heads. On the north side the ruins of the station and of the railway line blocked the view like a dyke without beginning and without end. The highroad, marked out in a straight line on the dreary plain, came from the west, passed through the village and ran right out to the front.
“What an ugly country you have, Muscovite!” said the corporal, suddenly turning towards the diggers and casting a baleful glance at the peasant, who had stopped to breathe. “Do you hear? Country … places … niet pretty!” he added, pointing at the landscape and raising his voice to make himself better understood.
The peasant stared at him with perplexed eyes and, smiling humbly, muttered something in Russian.
“He doesn’t understand our tongue, corporal,” volunteered one of the soldiers, straightening his spine.
“Well, it isn’t their fault, anyhow, that theirs is such a rotten country,” said the other soldier, leaning on his spade.
All three soldiers now stared very contemptuously at the peasant, who, not understanding the foreign words, bent shamefacedly over the yellow hole, which had now a depth of about half a metre.
“Here, what do you mean by stopping, you lazy beggars!” exclaimed the corporal all of a sudden, remembering his duty. “Call this a grave? Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves? The convoy will be here in a minute and the grave isn’t ready. Or is it that you want me to get into trouble? Now then, you, put your back into it and stop gaping at me!”
“You’re right, corporal,” mumbled one of the soldiers, tackling a huge lump with his pickaxe. “But that’s not army work, corporal.… To think that we should have come to be grave-diggers.… Well …”
The men fell to work with a will, and the corporal, appeased, answered once more in quite a friendly tone:
“A soldier’s duty in war-time is to do any job that comes to hand. That’s why war is war. Here, or at the front, or in the hospital, it’s all in the war. Why don’t you say instead how lucky we were to be delayed.… What on earth should we have done with ourselves if we had arrived at four as the orders were? We should have been jolly fed up, all of us.… But I’ll say one thing: I am an old soldier, but never till now have I heard of people being hanged like that, almost in the dark.”
He broke off abruptly. His eyes had fallen on the gallows, whose arm seemed to threaten the men standing in the grave. And just then the halter began to-swing gently. The corporal, with a cold shudder, turned his head away quickly, but his eye fell on the straight line of white crosses in the military cemetery and, greatly agitated, he left-about-turned, only to face the graves in the village cemetery. Fear gripped him as if he had come face to face with ghosts. He recovered his self-control quickly, however, and, spitting to show his disgust, muttered:
“What a life this is! … Wherever you look, there is nothing but the dead and the graves of the dead.”
An autumn wind, damp and dreary, began to blow from the direction of the village, swallowed in fog, carrying on its wings echoes of unending moans. The unutterable loneliness, which seemed to drop from the grey sky, oppressed the corporal so much that he stood there as if turned to stone, staring at the church tower and so lost to his surroundings that he did not notice that an officer was approaching on the road leading to the cemetery. He only roused himself when he heard the sound of footsteps. Startled, he turned to the grave-diggers and said, his voice still hoarse with uneasiness:
“Hurry up, boys, an officer is coming.… The convoy won’t be long now.… Phew! If only we could finish and be done with it! … Say what one will, this is not work fit for soldiers.…”
The officer approached unsteadily. The wind fluttered the flaps of his top-coat and seemed to drive him towards an undesired goal. He was of middle height and had a little beard, which gave him the appearance of a militiaman, though he did not appear older than about thirty-five. Under the rather wide-brimmed steel helmet his round, fair face looked troubled, the large, brown, protruding eyes were fixed apprehensively, in an unblinking stare, on the gallows. He seemed to find a morbid, insatiable interest in it. His mouth, with its full lips, drooped tremulously. His hands hung limp.
Noisily clicking together the heels of his heavy boots, the corporal saluted and stood at attention. The officer stopped a few paces away, nodded slightly, and, with his eyes still on the halter, asked:
“For what time is the execution fixed?”
“It was fixed for four o’clock, sir, may you live long,” answered the corporal in so loud a voice that the captain threw him a quick glance. “But I see it is five now and they haven’t arrived yet.”
“I see, I see …” muttered the captain, looking down on the diggers, who were digging away silently, their heads bent towards the earth. He then asked in a firmer tone: “And whom are you going to hang?”
“We couldn’t say, sir,” said the corporal, rather confused. “There are rumours that it is an officer, but we don’t know for sure.”
“And for what crime?” demanded the officer, staring at him almost angrily.
The corporal, more and ’more abashed, answered hesitatingly, with a smile of bitter compassion:
“Well, sir, how can we know? In war-time a man’s life is like a flower, its petals fall off and leave us wondering why. The Lord has made us very sinful, and mortals are not forgiving.”
The captain stared hard at him, as if he were surprised at his words, and asked no more questions. He looked up and, his eyes having caught sight of the gallows, he drew back a few paces as if from a threatening foe. At that moment from the road leading to the village a harsh, commanding voice called out:
“Corporal! Ready, corporal?”
“Ready, sir!” shouted the corporal, turning round smartly, his hand at the salute.
The lieutenant, with the grey fur collar of his trench-coat turned up, came along quickly, almost at a run, talking all the time.
“Is everything ready, corporal? The convoy is on the way and will be here in a few moments. Where is the sergeant-major? Why has he not come on first? If I, who am not directly concerned in this, could take the trouble to come along, surely …”
He broke off abruptly on catching sight of the unknown captain, who was looking at him uneasily. The lieutenant saluted and, advancing to the margin of the grave, exclaimed excitedly:
“The stool, corporal!
Where is it? Why are you staring at me like a fool? What is the condemned man to stand on? What men! Such indifference I have never met! If need be, you’ll have to dig me out a stool from the bowels of the earth! Now then, look alive! What are you gaping at?”
The corporal set off for the village at a run, and the lieutenant, with a side look at the captain, who was standing apart, went on more calmly:
“With men of that type, we’ll certainly not beat Europe. Where there is no sense of duty …”
While he was speaking he crossed over to the fir-wood stake and stood under the now motionless halter. He examined the grave and, displeased, muttered something. Then, looking up, he caught hold of the rope above his head with both hands, as if he wished to test its strength, but, meeting the scared gaze of the captain, he let go the halter, confused and abashed. He stood where he was for a few seconds undecided, then, making up his mind, he went up quickly to the stranger and introduced himself.
“Lieutenant Apostol Bologa.”
“Klapka,” put in the captain with hand outstretched, “Otto Klapka. I have just arrived from the Italian front. At the station I heard that you were having an execution, and, I don’t quite know how, I found my way here.”
The captain’s voice was so obviously nervous that the lieutenant, much against his will, again felt ashamed and, to hide his embarrassment, said with forced heartiness:
“Then you have been transferred to our division?”
“Yes, to the 50th Field Artillery.”
“Ah, our own regiment!” exclaimed Bologa, really pleased this time. “Welcome!”
The captain’s face cleared. It seemed as if the lieutenant’s open-heartedness had brought to light a new man. They exchanged a look of sympathy. A short silence, then Klapka shuddered and asked nervously:
“Whom are you hanging?”
In Apostol Bologa’s blue and deep-set eyes there flashed an odd look of pride. He answered with barely restrained indignation:
“A Czech sub-lieutenant, Svoboda; all the more shame for the officer fraternity. He was caught just as he was about to go over to the enemy with maps and plans in his pocket. Shameful and revolting, isn’t it?” he added after a short silence, as Klapka had said nothing.
“H’m … yes … perhaps”; the captain started and answered uncertainly.
This ambiguous answer made Bologa obstinately determined to convince him, and he began to talk with a volubility that one could see was not natural to him.
“I had the honour to be a member of the court martial which judged and condemned him. As a matter of fact, he did not even deny it. Not that it would have made any difference; in face of the undeniable proofs any sort of defence would have been useless. He did not open his mouth during the whole proceedings, and would not even answer the President’s questions. He looked at each of us in turn defiantly, with a sort of superb contempt. Even the death sentence he received with a smile and a look in his eyes like… like … Of course, not even an infamous death terrifies that type of man. When a patrol led by an officer caught him, he tried to shoot himself. What clearer proof of guilt could there be than that attempt to commit suicide? The court condemned him unanimously, without discussion, so obvious was the crime. I myself, although I am usually inclined to waver, feel in this case that my conscience is perfectly satisfiedabsolutely satisfied.”
Disconcerted more especially by the harshness of the young man’s tone, Klapka muttered:
“Oh, my God … proofs … when it’s a question of a man’s life!”
The thin, colourless lips of the lieutenant curled with a mixture of irony and contempt.
“You forget, sir, that it is war-time and that we are at the front! One cannot consider a man’s life when the life of one’s country is in jeopardy. If we allowed sentimental considerations to influence us, we would have to capitulate all round. One can see that you are a reserve officer, otherwise you would not speak thus of a crime.…
“Yes, that’s true enough,” Klapka made haste to agree nervously. “I was a lawyer in time of peace. Now, however …”
“I also am a reserve officer,” interrupted the lieutenant with pride. “The war snatched me from the midst of my studies at the University, where I had almost lost touch with real life, but it did not take me long to wake up, and now I realize that war is the real generator of energy.”
The captain smiled as if he found the answer absurd, and said softly, with a tinge of quiet irony:
“Really? I had always thought that war was a destroyer of energy!”
Apostol Bologa blushed like a girl and avoided the captain’s eye; he felt fearfully ill at ease and tried to find a harsh answer to put an end to the conversation. Just then the gasping corporal returned with the stool.
“Excuse me, sir!” exclaimed Bologa, relieved, turning to the perspiring corporal as if the latter were bringing him salvation. “It is too high, can’t you see?” he shouted angrily. “How is the prisoner to climb on that? But really I don’t see why I should worry about it, for I am not responsible for the execution.… You must listen to what the general will have to say to you, and mind you remember his words! What on earth are you waiting for now? Get a move on and try to put things straight.… Pull up that rope a bit.… What beings!”
He raised both hands, revolted, and turned his back on them. But he immediately calmed down at sight of a group of officers who, with very solemn demeanour, were approaching from the direction of the village. At their head walked the C.O. of the division, small and fat, with very short legs and a very red face. He kept on striking the leg of his boot with a riding-whip, while he listened to something that the military prosecutor—a captain with a big belly and grey moustaches—was explaining, while gesticulating widely with the right hand, in which he held a sheet of paper.
“The convoy is coming—look, and the general also!” whispered Bologa with a quick wink at the captain, who drew back as from an unexpected vision.
The lieutenant ran to meet the general and, saluting, reported importantly:
“I happened to get here earlier, Excellency, and I noticed that there was no stool.”
“No stool?” repeated the general with a dissatisfied glance at the prosecutor, who was desperately trying to catch Bologa’s eye.
“But I at once took measures to remedy this,” added the lieutenant hastily to relieve the confused prosecutor.
Nevertheless, the prosecutor felt that the general was annoyed and, muttering an apology, he hastened his steps so as to arrive first at the place of execution and see how his orders had been carried out. One quick glance showed him that all seemed ready, and without taking the slightest notice of the corporal, who was still standing at the salute like a petrified figure, he was about to turn smilingly to the general, who had almost caught him up, when suddenly a thought struck him, and he asked in a worried voice:
“Where’s the executioner, corporal?”
“We don’t know, sir,” answered the corporal. “We had orders to dig the grave and …”
“What do you mean by saying you don’t know, you fool?” exclaimed the prosecutor, really disturbed. Then he shouted angrily: “Where’s the sergeant-major? What has the sergeant-major done about it? Sergeant-major! … Imagine, Excellency, we have no executioner!” he added, now completely flurried, turning to the general, who had just come up to the grave. “In vain I take all the required measures; the men have no sense of duty.…”
A sergeant-major with an ashen face came running up at full speed and halted tremblingly at the side of the gallows.
“What have you been up to, you rascal? Where’s the executioner?” the prosecutor shouted at him, and, grinding his teeth, added: “I’ll … I’ll …”
“Thirty days’ confinement!” barked, the general, stroking his left moustache and cracking his whip. “A man, however, will be wanted at once …”
“Corporal, you’ll act as executioner!” broke in the prosecutor quickly, somewhat relieved.
“Sir, I beg with all submission to be excused,” mumbled the corporal, turning pale. “I beg you, sir, with all submission …”
The prosecutor did not even listen to what he was saying; he had again turned to the general and, as a kind of indirect excuse, began to complain of and to bemoan the lack of sense of duty amongst the men. The general, however, with restrained indignation, cut him short:
“We’ll talk later.… Now to our duty!”
On the grey road in the rapidly descending twilight the body of the convoy swung slowly nearer. The condemned man, wrapped in a greenish cloak, with collar turned up, and wearing a civilian’s hat on his bent head, walked mechanically, leaning on the arm of an old chaplain. Four soldiers with fixed bayonets surrounded the two. Groups of officers and soldiers followed. These had been brought back purposely from the front to witness the execution. All were dressed in dirty uniforms smelling strongly of the trenches, and were wearing their steel helmets. They came on in a thin, straggly line just as they pleased, and the tail end of the convoy almost touched the outskirts of the village.
Under the gallows, the corporal, anxious-eyed, stood stock-still waiting, while the sergeant-major told him in a whisper what he had to do.
The moist wind had gathered force and was now sweeping the ground, whirling round the graves of the cemeteries and buffeting the men who were approaching.
The priest with the condemned man halted at the margin of the grave. A slight shudder shook the latter at the sight of the sticky yellow clay.
“God is good and great,” the scared priest mumbled into his ear, holding up the crucifix to the prisoner’s lips.
“To the other side, Father, please!” came again from the prosecutor, whose voice sounded strained and hoarse. “These things must be done in accordance with the regulations.… Sergeant-major, attention! Don’t you know your business?”
The pace of the convoy increased as at a word of command and in a few minutes the men had formed a circle round the gallows. They were all silent, as if afraid of disturbing the sleep of a sick man, worn out with suffering. The sound of impatient footsteps mingled with the moans of the insistent wind.
Forest of the Hanged Page 1