Innocent Soldier (9780545355698)

by Holub, Josef

  It’s time. I set off on my quest. The baggage cart must be some little way on the other side of the fire. If I haven’t made it up. Certainly well hidden and with the horses I heard whinnying earlier next to it. They can’t be that far from the fire. On account of the wolves.

  The sentry seems pretty relaxed. He can’t see me, because he’s prodding the fire. That must make him blind to anything else. I make a large detour around the campsite. From time to time, I stop and listen. I need to be careful around the horses, in case I scare them and they start to whinny.

  It doesn’t take me long to find the cart. And right beside it are the horses, made fast to birches. I count half a dozen of them. Low-set Cossack ponies. Stolen, of course. They turn a little restless, and they whinny happily. Probably they don’t much mind who comes out to visit them, so long as it’s someone.

  The wagon is under a large tarpaulin. I take one more look back at the fire. The sentry is still gazing into the embers. Perhaps he’s dropped off too. I can see him wriggling to get comfortable.

  Next, things happen very quickly. I climb onto the wagon, get under the canvas, reach here, reach there, touch something round, biggish. Aha! A little barrel. I don’t care what’s in it. I heave it up onto my shoulders and drag it the long way around the fire and into the forest beyond.

  Where’s my lieutenant with the horses? I ought to be somewhere near our own campsite. As long as I haven’t lost my way. I hope not. Softly, I call out to my horse a couple of times. He answers me with delight. All’s well. The lieutenant’s still alive. More, he’s even capable of speech. The roast snake has done him a power of good. He hasn’t been attacked by a wolf, and he hasn’t drunk any puddle water, either. His voice is cracked with thirst, but he’s feeling better.

  He suddenly seems all devoted. He says he was worried about me. And he tells me some of the peculiar things that were going through his mind. He honestly thought I might have run off somewhere without him. Like one of his previous servants.

  Stuff and nonsense.

  But what luck! The barrel contains wine. It seems it must be quite good wine, at that. At any rate, the lieutenant is gulping it down. I turn the tap off. I want to get some for myself, after all. “It’s nectar!” gasps the lieutenant. “I feel completely better. My stomach is cured!”

  That’s as it may be, but I remain firm. “That’s enough now,” I decree. “Your Highness doesn’t need to celebrate by drinking himself to death.”

  I’m very happy. My lieutenant really seems to be a whole lot better.

  Then I set off back to the campsite again. I have to remember not to sing, I feel so joyful. The sentry has gone to sleep. The fire has died back, because no one has fed it fresh fuel.

  The baggage cart is half full of things in sacks and bags. I test a few. I lick my finger, poke around in the bags, and then taste. It’s much too dark to see anything. Biscuits and sugar and flour. Miracle after miracle. And oats for the horses. I take some of everything, but not too much, because I still need to be able to carry it, and I don’t want its absence noticed right away. I also find a blanket, which I use to carry the things in.

  There’s activity by the fire. The sergeant has woken up. He’s cursing and raging and beating the sentry.

  It’s time I was gone. Before any of the men goes to check up on their provisions.

  The morning sky is already pressing forward after the short night.

  Once again, I lug my bounty the long way around the fire. This time, I don’t need to look and call. My sense of direction is spot on, and the lieutenant’s waiting for me too. He’s an intelligent man, and his head is working again. Perfectly rightly, he reasons that after this bold theft we need to disappear as a matter of urgency. Get away, far away. It doesn’t bear thinking about, what Krauter would do to us if he saw us with his goods. I pack the supplies and help the lieutenant onto his horse.

  We ride out into a glorious morning. Into a new life. Which way to go? We don’t know. Into the sun. East. But clear away from Krauter. The forest looks the same everywhere, sparse and alien-looking. From time to time, we cock an ear behind us in the birches. We make one brief stop, get down off our horses, eat some biscuits, drink some wine. The lieutenant seems to be improving all the time. The way I can really tell how much better he’s feeling is the return of his sense of shame. He’s noticed himself now that he smells utterly disgusting. And then he laughs so heartily about it that it makes me feel good in my heart. I’m sure that it’s not just the return of life and health, but also the cheery, beneficial effect of what’s in the little stolen barrel.

  “That’s enough now, Your Honor!” I say to my almost tipsy lieutenant. “We must try and conserve our wine, and conserve a clear head, what’s more. Not least on account of the Cossacks, and Sergeant Krauter.”

  “Hoo, pardon me!” burps the lieutenant. “None of that Your Honor stuff. I want you to call me Konrad Klara. Because you’re almost a brother to me now.”

  I remember the gypsy girl.

  “What does Your Honor want me to call you?”

  “Konrad Klara.”

  “But I can’t do that, Your Honor.”

  “I command it!”

  “Very well, Your Honor, Konrad Klara.”

  “And your name is Georg?”

  “No, I’m Adam.”

  “Adam? Why Adam?”

  “It’s just my name isn’t Georg, it’s Adam.”

  “Just Adam? Nothing else?”

  “Just Adam.”

  “All right. Then I’m going to call you Adam Neve. So that you have a girl’s name as well.”

  “Why a girl’s name?”

  “Because that’s how it has to be! All the boys in our family have always been given their mothers’ Christian names after their own.”

  “I see!”

  And then we both laugh. I laugh about Klara, and the lieutenant laughs about Eve.

  17

  We don’t run into Krauter that week.

  We emerge from the forest early one morning. As far as we can see, only pastures and the ruins of wooden huts, their straw roofs cropped by the army horses. Most of the beams were torched on the spot. In the distance is a long, dirty cloud over the endless Russian plain. Dust in commotion. The cloud stretches across the whole horizon, from end to end. As far as the eye can see.

  It’s the army route, still full of soldiers and all the important and unimportant baggage that the Grande Armée lugs along after it.

  The lieutenant is well. Better and better! Already he can get on his horse unaided.

  “No! I don’t want to go to the hospital in Vilnius, I don’t need to,” he declares. “Why would I, anyway? I’m healthy. Besides, hospitals are bad for your health.”

  I am skeptical. I mutter to myself, “If the Wellborn Konrad Klara is of the opinion that he’s healthy, then I’m sure he’s right. And if he says hospitals are bad for your health, then by all means, he doesn’t have to go to the hospital. He doesn’t have to die now, of course. Now that he’s able to mount his horse all by himself.”

  We ride up to the army road and join the mucky rear guard. Once more our horses have to wade up to their fetlocks in dried dung, and we gulp the thick dust that is stirred up by marching columns, riders, and carriages.

  Already by early afternoon, the light seems to be failing. The sun disappears. Even a fresh wind is incapable of dislodging the dust cloud from over the road. It just pushes more smoke and fire reek our way.

  “Hey, Adam Neve!” cries the lieutenant. “It stinks abominably. Is the world on fire?”

  “Possible! Your Wellborn Konrad Klara.”

  “Drop the Wellborn, Adam Neve.”

  “All right, not-Wellborn Konrad Klara.”

  We hear the rumble of artillery. Somewhere ahead of us. Either side of the road, houses are ablaze, sometimes whole villages. Women and children sit next to the smoking ruins. The lieutenant looks away. He doesn’t want to confront such misery.

  �
�Why has God so punished them?” I ask.

  “It’s not God, it’s Napoleon who has punished them. It’s part of his great strategy. He pushes hundreds of thousands of soldiers back and forth in divisions and regiments, and leaves scorched earth, dead and wounded, starving women and children. All that is part of his plan.”

  “I suppose there’s no such thing as a decent war.”

  On the side of the road lie rotting horses and unburied corpses of soldiers. Beside them is an encampment of wounded. Probably on their way back to Vilnius to the hospital. They’ve built a fire of charred beams, and are just skinning a cat.

  On the right is a large birch forest.

  We want to stop for a while, and so we take our horses by the bridle and slip in among the trees. Everywhere, there are sick, dying, and dead soldiers. I wish I could have given the sick ones something to eat and a mouthful of wine. But that’s impossible — it would be suicide. As soon as we showed anything of our supplies, we would be beaten to death and robbed.

  We have to go farther into the forest, then. At last, things get quieter. We don’t encounter any Cossacks. They’re somewhere else, I’m sure. I don’t expect they want to have anything to do with the sick and decrepit. There’s no need to go to the trouble of killing them. Only healthy enemies need to be destroyed.

  Finally, we’re on our own.

  I make a little fire of twigs. We don’t want to create needless smoke or smell. We knead little cakes and dumplings of flour and wine, and bake them in the embers. The results are wonderfully crispy. “We really must economize on our wine,” I worry. “It’s dwindling fast.”

  Then we return to the army road.

  The smell of burning becomes oppressive. There’s not a single atom of fresh air in the whirling dirt. The evening haze keeps it off.

  All of a sudden, Cossacks come galloping out of the murk, swinging their sabers, and disappear again. The injured soldiers scream in panic for their lives.

  Farm carts full of wounded pass us, going back. The wounded have either not been treated at all, or only barely, and their uniforms are soaked with blood.

  “What’s going on up ahead? Where have you come from?”

  “Smolensk. There’s been a big battle. The devil of a battle! Three days it raged. We won, we almost won, but too many of the Grande Armée are dead or wounded and unable to carry on. Another victory like that will wipe us out.”

  My lieutenant is becoming restless. No sooner can he crawl like an infant than he wants to be where the action is.

  He curses and moans, “Oh, now we’ve missed the first big battle. Napoleon’s gone and won without our help.”

  I am seized by a great rage. I feel like grabbing Konrad Klara by the shoulders and giving him a good shaking and a talking-to. “Hey, you silly fool!” I want to yell in his face. “You only just managed to give Death the slip, and now you want to chase along after Him!”

  But I don’t. It would be unpardonable, and I would never be able to set things right again.

  Instead, I look sadly at Konrad Klara’s glazed eyes. “Don’t get all excited, Lieutenant,” I comfort him. “There are a lot of battles ahead of us yet, far too many, in fact. So what if we’ve missed one? Anyway, what would it matter if we missed all of them? Your Wellborn!”

  “Don’t keep saying Your Wellborn to me.”

  The evening is bright. The whole country is ablaze. Fires all around. Some are from burning towns and villages, others are where the shattered victors and defeated are warming their bones.

  We ride on along the army road to Smolensk, overtaking stragglers, unhorsed cavalrymen, and ragged foot soldiers. We try to overlook the sights of misery by the side of the road, and the wailing and cries for help. A large building is on fire. There are nuns kneeling in front of it, weeping.

  “What’s the matter with those sisters?”

  “Soldiers have raped them.”

  “Is that war?”

  “That’s war.”

  Suddenly, Konrad Klara sobs aloud. How can he still want to fight and be a hero?

  “Bloody bloody war!” I curse.

  Night brings no rest. The smell of fire bites our nostrils and burns from our throats down to the tips of our lungs. We’re freezing in our light cavalry uniforms. I’m going to have to find some warm coats. No one would willingly surrender anything like that, so I’m going to have to steal them. The nights are bitter cold again.

  In the morning, we move on. The lieutenant is desperate to rejoin his regiment. He doesn’t need to squat down by the side of the road anymore. The rebellion in his belly is over, his innards are nicely dried out.

  Good.

  We’re unable to enter Smolensk. The town is turned to ashes. A wooden town burns easily. Only the remnants of copper roofs lie scrolled up next to the ruins. We ride through the outskirts of Smolensk, heading toward Moscow now. Barefoot infantrymen are sitting by the roadside. Fellow Wurttemburgers, to go by the uniforms. The lieutenant stops and questions a lieutenant of these ragged troops. He doesn’t exactly look like a hero, and he doesn’t know much, either, but he is able to tell us that it’s mid-August, give or take a day or two, and that Napoleon is rushing toward Moscow like a madman to catch up with the Russian army. He needs to defeat it and force the czar to sue for peace. With a sigh, the other lieutenant adds: “Napoleon has to make peace, and fast! Otherwise we’re all done for.”

  The passage of the Grand Armée is clearly marked. Impossible to mistake, and ghastly. Thank God the road dust obscures a lot of the misery from sight. I need to be careful I don’t lose my lieutenant in the dirt and smoke. He’s in a tearing rush. Going faster and faster. What is it that makes him hurry like a madman — and to his possible doom, what’s more? He’d be better off to try and avoid the fight and be pleased he’s been spared, so far.

  Two days later, we catch up with the remains of the army. We even find our own regiment, after a little searching. It’s a pretty sorry sight, consisting of a small group of men and a handful of horses. Ripped and ragged like a bunch of highwaymen. “Fought too bravely,” moans the platoon commander. “And all for nothing!” He rides up close to the lieutenant, and whispers in his ear: “You know, we should be fighting against Napoleon, and not against the Russians.” My lieutenant looks about him in alarm. Hopefully, no one else heard. Apparently, Napoleon has spies everywhere.

  It’s not much farther to Moscow now.

  There, the Russians will once again have to give battle, say the regimental officers. Definitely! They can’t allow their capital city to fall into Napoleon’s hands. It’s sacred to them.

  “The campaign will be decided at the gates of Moscow. We will be victorious, and be richly rewarded for the sacrifices and privations we’ve had to endure,” the officers and men all hope. “Moscow is immeasurably rich, and we will take some of its treasures back home with us.”

  It turns into a pleasant evening. Our platoon is bivouacked next to the smoking beams of a farmhouse. I dig up our treasures. We bake the rest of our flour and share the warm flatbread and the rest of our biscuits with nine reasonably fit comrades. We wash them down with wine, of which there’s one mugful per man. And suddenly, its magical powers creep into us and, for one fleeting moment, conjure up visions of a happy and livable future.

  Then I am torn out of my happy reverie with a jolt. A cold shiver runs down my spine. Sergeant Krauter is standing behind my lieutenant, staring as if hypnotized at the little wine barrel. I think I must be seeing things. I wipe my sleeve across my eyes and scatter the camp-fire smoke. No, there’s no sergeant. I must have been deceived. But it takes a while for the shock to melt away. To the devil with him, I say to myself. I’m not about to have waking nightmares about that rogue. I drink down the last of my wine and wash away the Krauter ghost.

  18

  My lieutenant is surplus to requirements. He has no more men left to command. His platoon consists of two horses, himself and me. It doesn’t take much imagination to appreciate th
at the only reason we’re still alive is because the lieutenant’s belly gripes ensured that we missed the battle at Smolensk.

  The regimental commander comes by in person to take a look at the lieutenant. The two of them are well acquainted. In fact, it turns out one of them is the uncle, and the other is the nephew. The wellborn colonel is reasonably pleased with his nephew’s state of health. Even so, he pulls a face, and scolds him in French and German, of which I only understand the German. “Thunder and lightning!” he snorts. Had his nephew taken leave of his senses when he ignored the order to report to the hospital in Vilnius and get himself cured? And had he instead taken off after the army, to meet his death with it? Then he wrinkles up his nose, sniffs at his nephew, and barks in disgust: “Thunder and lightning! It’s high time my nephew changed back into being a respectably scented lieutenant, got rid of his filthy gear, and cleaned himself up.”

  In less elegant language, I am instructed to put the lieutenant and his tunic into militarily acceptable shape. After all, it is the foremost duty of an officers servant not to let his master run around in such foul condition.

  We go looking for a suitable lake. The first is too close to the highway. Too many filthy foot soldiers and whole cavalry regiments, including horses, have already availed themselves of it. The water looks like it, and it stinks horribly. This lake wouldn’t exactly get us clean, so we look farther afield. And because the war is just now in a phase of relative calm, the colonel has left us a whole day to that end. So we have plenty of time to do our laundry, and we don’t need to stop at the first puddle we see.

  The second and third lakes don’t impress us, either. In the second there are bodies of men and horses floating about, looking none too healthy. The third smells bad, and its shores are muddy. Whereas what I’m looking for is a clean spot for my laundry, with fine sand. After all, I need something to scour the clothes with. The fourth lake is a long way from the highway, and accordingly clean, with a sandy shore. And it has the great advantage of being deserted. Just a dozen or so cranes promenading along the shore.