"Right you are, then," said the Chaplain recklessly. "A hundred crowns or Schweik the day after to-morrow."
He lost the hundred crowns and went sadly home. He was quite certain, beyond all manner of doubt, that he would never manage to scrape together the hundred crowns within the specified time, and to all intents and purposes he had basely and despicably sold Schweik.
"I might just as well have said two hundred," he grumbled to himself, but as he changed trams he was overcome by a sentimental feeling of self-reproach.
"It was a rotten thing of me to do," he pondered, as he rang his bell. "For the life of me I don't know how I'm to look him in the face, damn him."
"My dear Schweik," he said when he was indoors, "a very unusual thing happened. I was most infernally unlucky at cards. I blued every cent I had."
There was a short silence, and he continued :
"And I wound up by losing you. I got an advance of a hundred crowns with you as security, and if I don't give it back by the day after to-morrow, you won't belong to me, but to Lieutenant Lukash. I'm really very sorry about it."
"I've got a hundred crowns left," said Schweik. "I can lend it to you."
"Give it here," said the Chaplain, brightening up. "I'll take it to Lukash on the spot. I should really be sorry to part with you."
* * *
Lukash was very surprised to see the Chaplain again.
"I've come to pay you that debt," said the Chaplain, gazing round him triumphantly. "Let's have a flutter."
"Double or quits," declared the Chaplain, when his turn came.
And at the second round he once more went the whole hog.
"Twenty wins," announced the holder of the bank.
"My total's nineteen," said the Chaplain, very crestfallen, as he put into the bank the last forty crowns left over from the hundred-crown note which Schweik had lent him to redeem himself from fresh serfdom.
On his way home the Chaplain came to the conclusion that this settled matters once and for all, that nothing could now save Schweik, that it was predestined for him to become the orderly of Lieutenant Lukash.
And when Schweik let him in, he said to him :
"It's all no use, Schweik. Nobody can go against his fate. I've lost you and your hundred crowns as well. I've done everything I could, but fate was too much for me. It's thrown you into the clutches of Lieutenant Lukash, and the time has come for us to part."
"And was there a lot in the bank?" asked Schweik with composure. Whereupon he plunged into a long rigmarole about a tinker named Vejvoda and his gambling misadventure with a chimney sweep, which had led to a raid by the police.
"The bank amounted to millions and millions in I. O. U's," said Schweik, "and there was fifteen hundred in ready cash. When the police inspector saw what a lot there was, he didn't half stare. 'Why,' he says, 'I never saw the like of this before. It's worse than Monte Carlo.' "
Schweik then went to brew some grog and the end of it was that the Chaplain, when Schweik succeeded, late at night and with some difficulty, in getting him into bed, burst into tears and sobbed :
"I have sold you, comrade, shamefully sold you. Overwhelm me with curses, strike me. I will endure it. I throw myself at your mercy. I cannot look you in the face. Maul me, bite me, destroy me. I deserve no better fate. Do you know what I am?"
And the Chaplain buried his tear-stained face in the pillow, as
* * *
in a soft and gentle voice he murmured : "I'm a thorough-paced blackguard," and fell sound asleep.
The next day the Chaplain avoided Schweik's glance, went away early and did not return until nightfall, with a fat infantryman.
"Show him, Schweik," he said, again avoiding Schweik's glance, "where the things are kept, so as he can find his way about, and teach him how to brew grog. Report yourself to Lieutenant Lukash early to-morrow morning."
Schweik and the new man spent a pleasant night together brewing grog. In the morning the fat infantryman was standing on one leg and was mumbling to himself a queer medley of various popular songs. "Oh, there's a tiny stream that flows, my sweetheart serves the crimson beer, O mountain, mountain, thou art lofty. The maidens fared along the highroad. On the White Hill the peasants till."
"There's no need for me to worry about you," said Schweik. "A chap like you is bound to get on with the Chaplain like a house afire."
And so it came about that in the morning Lieutenant Lukash beheld for the first time the frank and honest countenance of Schweik, who quoth :
"Beg to report, sir, I'm Schweik who the Chaplain lost at cards."
II.
Officers' orderlies are of very ancient origin. It would appear that Alexander the Great had his batman. I am surprised that nobody has yet written a history of batmen. It would probably contain an account of how Fernando, Duke of Almavir, during the siege of Toledo, ate his batman without salt. The duke himself has described the episode in his Memoirs and he adds that the flesh of his batman was tender, though rather stringy, and the taste of it was something between that of chicken and donkey.
Among the present generation of batmen there are few so self-sacrificing that they would let their masters eat them without salt. And there are cases where officers, engaged in a regular life-and-death struggle with the modern type of orderly, have
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to use all possible means to maintain their authority. Thus, in 1912, a captain was tried at Graz for kicking his batman to death. He was acquitted, however, because it was only the second time he had done such a thing. On the other hand, a batman sometimes manages to get into an officer's good graces, and then he becomes the terror of the battalion. All the N. C. O's try to bribe him. He has the last say about leave, and by putting in a good word for anyone who has been crimed he can get him off. During the war, it was such batmen as these who gained medals for bravery. I knew several in the 91st regiment. There was one who got the large silver medal because he was an adept at roasting geese which he stole. And his master worded the proposal in support of the decoration as follows:
"He manifested exceptional bravery in the field, showing a complete disregard for his own life and not budging an inch from his officer while under the heavy fire of the advancing enemy."
To-day these batman are scattered far and wide throughout our republic, and tell the tale of their heroic exploits. It was they who stormed Sokal, Dubno, Nish, the Piave. All of them are Napoleons : "So I up and tells our colonel as how he ought to telephone to brigade headquarters that it was high time to get a move on."
III.
Lieut. Jindrich Lukash was a typical regular army officer of the ramshackle Austrian monarchy. The cadet school had turned him into a species of amphibious creature. In company he spoke German, he wrote German, but he read Czech books, and when he was giving a course of instruction to a group of volunteer officers, all of them Czechs, he would say to them in a confidential tone :
"I'm a Czech just the same as you are. There's no harm in it, but nobody need know about it."
He looked upon the Czech nationality as a sort of secret organization which was best given a wide berth. In other respects he was not a bad fellow. He was not afraid of his superior officers, and at manœuvres he looked after his squad, as was right and
* * *
proper. He always found comfortable quarters for them in a barn, and although his pay was modest enough he often treated his men to a barrel of beer. He was popular with the rank-and-file because he was extremely fair to everyone. When in his presence the N. C. O's shivered in their shoes and within a month he could turn the most cantankerous sergeant-major into a lamb.
Although he could shout if he wanted to, he never bullied. He always was most careful in his choice of words and phrases. "You see," he would say, "I don't like having to punish you, but I can't help myself, because the efficiency of the army depends on discipline. If your uniform isn't just as it should be, if the buttons are not properly sewn on or are missing, that shows you are forg
etting the duty you owe to the army. It may be that you cannot understand why you should get C. B. because a button was missing from your tunic on parade yesterday. You may think it's a trifling little detail which in civil life you'd never worry about. Yet you see, in the army, neglect of your appearance brings punishment in its train. And why? The point is not that you have a button missing, but that you must accustom yourself to discipline. To-day you omit to sew on a button and you begin to get slack. To-morrow you'll decide that you can't be bothered to take your rifle to pieces and clean it, the day after that you'll leave your bayonet in a pub or even go to sleep while on sentry-go, simply because you began to get slack over this wretched button. That's how it is, and that's why I'm punishing you, so as to save you from a worse punishment for some breach of discipline you might commit through slowly but surely forgetting your duties. So I'm going to give you five days' C. B. and I should like you, over your bread and water, to reflect that punishment is not revenge, but a means of training, the purpose of which is to correct and improve the soldier who is thus punished."
He ought to have been a captain long ago, but his cautious attitude toward racial matters was of no advantage to him, because he was very outspoken toward his superior officers. In regimental affairs he never toadied. This was his heritage from the peasant stock in southern Bohemia, where his birthplace was —a village among the dark forests and the fishponds.
While he acted fairly towards the rank-and-file, he detested his
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orderlies, because it had always been his luck to get hold of the most objectionable batmen. And he refused to regard them as soldiers. He used to smack their faces or cuff their heads, and altogether tried, by word and deed, to make them mend their ways. He had pursued this plan unsuccessfully for several years. They came and went continuously and at last he used to sigh to himself when a new one arrived :
"Here's another low brute been palmed off on to me."
He was remarkably fond of animals. He had a Harz canary, an Angora cat and a stable dog. All his previous orderlies had treated these pets about as badly as Lieutenant Lukash treated the orderlies when they had done something sneakish.
When Schweik came to report himself to Lieutenant Lukash, the latter took him into his room and said :
"Mr. Katz recommended me to you, and I want you to live up to his recommendation. I've had a dozen or more orderlies, and there wasn't one of them settled down properly with me. I give you fair warning that I'm strict and I drop very sharply on all meanness and lying. I want you always to speak the truth and to carry out all my orders without any back answers. If I say : 'Jump into the fire,' why, into the fire you've got to jump, even if you don't want to. What are you looking at?"
Schweik was gazing with interest at that side of the wall where the cage with the canary was hanging, and now, fixing his good-humoured eyes on the lieutenant, he said in that kindly voice of his:
"Beg to report, sir, that's a Harz canary."
And having thus interrupted the lieutenant's oration, Schweik looked him straight in the face without moving an eyelid and standing stiffly at attention.
The lieutenant was about to make some scathing remark, but perceiving the guileless expression on Schweik's countenance, he merely said:
"The Chaplain recommended you as a champion idiot, and I'm inclined to think he wasn't far wrong."
"Beg to report, sir, the Chaplain as a matter of fact wasn't far wrong. When I was doing my regular service, I was discharged as feeble-minded, a chronic case, too. There were two
* * *
of us discharged from the regiment for the same reason—me and a Captain von Kaunitz. He was a rum old buffer, he was, sir, if you'll pardon me saying so. When he came with us on the parade ground, he always drew us up as if there was going to be a march-past and then he'd say : 'Now then, er, remember, er, that to-day's, er, Wednesday, because, er, to-morrow'll be Thursday, er.' "
Lieutenant Lukash shrugged his shoulders, like a man who is at a loss to find words to express his thoughts adequately. He paced the room from the door to the window, walking right round Schweik, and back again, during which process Schweik, according to where the lieutenant happened to be, faced eyes right or eyes left with such an emphatic expression of innocence on his face that Lieutenant Lukash looked at the carpet as he remarked :
"Yes, I must have everything clean and tidy. And I can't stand lies. Honesty's the thing for me. I hate a lie and I punish it without mercy. Is that clear?"
"Beg to report, sir, it's quite clear. The worst thing a man can do is to tell lies. As soon as he begins to get in a muddle and contradict himself, he's done for. I think it's always best to be straightforward and own up, and if I've done anything wrong, I just come and say: 'Beg to report, sir, I've done so-and-so.' Oh yes, honesty's a very fine thing, because it pays in the long run. An honest man's respected everywhere; he's satisfied with himself, and he feels like a new-born babe when he goes to bed and can say : 'Well, I've been honest again to-day.' "
During this speech Lieutenant Lukash sat on a chair, looking at Schweik's boots and thinking to himself :
"Ye gods, I suppose I often talk twaddle like that, only perhaps I put it a bit differently."
However, not wishing to impair his authority, he said, when Schweik had concluded :
"Now that you're with me, you've got to keep your boots clean, your uniform spick-and-span, with all the buttons properly sewn on, and, in fact, your get-up must be smart and soldierly. I don't want you to look like a civilian clodhopper. It's a funny thing, but there's none of you can carry himself like a soldier. Of all the orderlies I ever had there was only one who had a
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soldierly bearing, and he stole my dress uniform and sold it to an old-clothes dealer."
He paused for a while, and then continued, explaining to Schweik all his duties and laying special stress on how essential it was for him to be trustworthy and never to gossip about what went on in the lieutenant's quarters.
"There are ladies who come to see me," he added, "and sometimes one or the other of them stays all night, when I'm not on duty in the morning. In a case like that, you'll bring coffee for two into the bedroom, when I ring. Do you follow me?"
"Beg to report, sir, I follow you. If I came into the bedroom unexpected-like, it might be awkward for the lady. I remember once I took a young woman home with me, and just as we were getting on fine together, my charwoman brought in the coffee. She didn't half have a fright and poured all the coffee down my back. Oh, I know what's what when a lady's in bed."
"That's right, Schweik. We must always be extremely tactful where ladies are concerned," said the lieutenant, who was now getting more cheerful, because the subject was one which occupied all his leisure between barracks, parade ground and gambling.
His quarters revealed marked feminine influence. Numerous ladies had left knickknacks and other adornments as mementoes of their visits. One lady had embroidered a charming antimacassar for him, besides stitching monograms on all his underwear. She would probably have completed a set of wall decorations if her husband had not put a stop to the proceedings. Another had littered his bedroom with all sorts of bric-à-brac and had hung a picture of a guardian angel over his bed. A third had left her traces in the kitchen in the form of various utensils which, together with her passionate attachment, she had brought with her. There were an appliance for chopping vegetables, an apparatus for slicing bread, a mincemeat machine, casseroles, baking pans, tureens, ladles and heaven knows what else.
Lieutenant Lukash also carried on an extensive correspondence. He had an album containing photographs of his lady friends, together with a collection of keepsakes such as numerous garters, four pairs of embroidered knickers, three camisoles of
* * *
very delicate material, a number of cambric handkerchiefs, one corset and several stockings.
"I'm on duty to-day," he said. "I shan't be home till late. Tidy up the place and see
that everything's put straight. The last orderly was no good at all, and he's leaving to-day with a draft for the front."
When Lieutenant Lukash had gone, Schweik put everything straight, so that when he returned at night, Schweik was able to announce :
"Beg to report, sir, everything's been put straight, except for one little hitch. The cat got into mischief and gobbled up your canary."
"How did that happen?" bellowed the lieutenant.
"Beg to report, sir, it was like this. I knew that cats don't like canaries and do them harm if they get half a chance. So I thought I'd make them better acquainted and if the creature showed signs of getting up to any tricks, I'd give her a walloping that'd make her remember to her dying day how to behave when canaries are about, because I'm as fond of dumb animals as can be. Where I live there's a hatter who's trained a cat so well that whereas she used to gobble up three canaries without turning a hair, she won't touch 'em now, and even lets 'em sit on her tail. Well, I wanted to try my hand at that, so I took the canary out of the cage and let the cat sniff at it. But before I knew what was happening, the damned brute had bitten off the canary's head. Really, I never thought she'd be as low down as that. Now if it'd been a sparrow, sir, I wouldn't have said it, but such a nice Harz canary. And you'd never believe how greedy she was, too. Gobbled it up, feathers and all, and purred away the whole time, as jolly as could be. I've heard that cats haven't got a musical ear and they can't stand a canary singing, because the brutes can't appreciate it. I gave that cat a bit of my mind, that I did, but as God's my witness, I never laid a finger on her. I thought I'd better wait till you decided what to be done to the mangy brute."
The Good Soldier Svejk Page 16