The Good Soldier Svejk

by Jaroslav Hasek

  Sapper Voditchka mused for a while, and then remarked:

  "When you come up before this provost-marshal bloke, Schweik, don't get flurried, but just pitch the same yarn as you did at the cross-examination, or else I'll be in a hell of a mess. The chief thing is that you saw those Magyar chaps go for me. Don't forget we share and share alike in this little rumpus."

  "Don't you worry, Voditchka," said Schweik consolingly.

  "Just keep calm. It's no use getting excited. Why, there's nothing much in a divisional court-martial, is there? You ought to have seen the way a court-martial polished chaps off years and years ago. There was a school master serving with us, and he told me once, when we were in clink, that in the Prague Museum there's a book with records of a court-martial in Maria Theresa's time. Why, every regiment had its executioner, and he just chopped off heads at a dollar a time. According to this book, he sometimes earned as much as five dollars a day."

  They were just entering the offices of the divisional court-martial, and a sentry at once took them to office No. 8, where, behind a long table containing stacks of papers, sat Provost-Marshal Ruller. Before him lay a volume of the legal code, and on it

  * * *

  stood a half-full cup of tea. On the right-hand side of the table stood an imitation ivory crucifix with a dusty Christ who was gazing in despair at the base of his cross, covered with ashes and cigarette ends. Provost-Marshal Ruller was just causing the crucified deity fresh distress by knocking out a cigarette against the base of the crucifix, while with his other hand he was lifting the cup of tea, which had got stuck to the cover of the legal code. Having liberated the tea cup from the cover of the legal code, he went on turning over the pages of the book which he had borrowed from the officers' casino. It was by F. S. Krauss and bore the promising title : Investigations into the Historical Development of Sexual Morality.

  He was contemplating the diagrams which so effectively supplemented the text, when he was interrupted by a cough. It was Sapper Voditchka.

  "What's the matter?" he inquired, searching for more diagrams and sketches.

  "Beg to report, sir," replied Schweik, "my chum Voditchka here has caught cold and now he's got a nasty cough."

  Provost-Marshal Ruller now looked at Schweik and Voditchka. He endeavoured to impart a stern expression to his countenance.

  "Oh, you've turned up at last, have you?" he said, burrowing among the papers on the table. "I sent for you at nine o'clock, and now it's nearly eleven. Is that the way to stand, you lazy lout?" The last question was addressed to Voditchka, who was casually standing at ease. "Until I tell you to stand at ease, you stand up properly to attention."

  "Beg to report, sir," announced Schweik, "he's got rheumatism."

  "You'd better keep your mouth shut," said Provost-Marshal Ruller, "and don't answer back till I ask you something. Where the devil's that file got to? You two jailbirds are giving me a hell of a lot of work. But you'll find it won't pay you to cause all this unnecessary trouble."

  From a stack of documents he now drew a bulky file, labelled "Schweik & Voditchka," and said :

  "Just look at that, you mongrels. If you think you're going to

  * * *

  fritter your time away at the divisional court-martial over a paltry rumpus, and dodge going to the front, you're damned well mistaken, let me tell you."

  He sighed.

  "We're going to quash the proceedings against you," he continued. "Now you're going back to your units, where you'll be punished by the orderly room. Then off you'll go to the front. If you ever come my way again, you blackguards, I'll give you something you won't forget in a hurry. Take them away to No. Z."

  "Beg to report, sir," said Schweik, "that we'll both take your words to heart, and we're much obliged to you for all your kindness. If we was civilians, I wouldn't mind calling you a jolly old sport. And we're both very sorry for all the trouble you've had because of us. We don't deserve it, and that's a fact."

  "Oh, go to Hades !" the provost-marshal yelled at Schweik. "If Colonel Schroder hadn't put in a good word for you, you'd have had a damned rough time of it."

  As the military clerks in the office had gone to fetch rations, the soldier who was escorting them had to take them back to the cells, which he did to the accompaniment of much invective against the whole race of military clerks.

  "They'll take all the fat from the soup again," he lamented, "and leave me nothing but gristle. Yesterday I had to escort a couple of fellows to camp, and somebody pinched half my bread rations."

  "You chaps here think of nothing but your grub," said Vo-ditchka, who was now his old self again.

  When they told the volunteer officer how they had fared, he remarked :

  "On draft, eh? You've been invited to join the personally conducted trip to Galicia. Well, you can start on your journey without any misgivings whatever. And I hope you'll find yourselves attracted by the regions where you'll be introduced to the trenches. It's a fine country and extremely interesting. You'll feel quite at home there. The wide and valuable experiences of our glorious army while retreating from Galicia on its first trip will certainly prove useful when the programme of the second

  * * *

  trip is being arranged. Follow your noses straight into Russia, and fire all your cartridges into the air for sheer joy of living."

  In the office they settled everything promptly. A sergeant-major, his mouth still greasy from his recent meal, handed Schweik and Voditchka their papers with an exceedingly solemn expression. He also took advantage of the opportunity of delivering a speech, in which he made a special appeal to their soldierly spirit. His remarks were liberally embellished with elegant terms of abuse in his native Polish dialect.

  The time now came for Schweik and Voditchka to take leave of each other. Schweik said :

  "Well, when the war's over, come and give me a look up. You'll find me in The Flagon every evening at six o'clock."

  "You bet I will," replied Voditchka.

  They parted, and when there was a distance of several yards between them, Schweik shouted :

  * * *

  "Don't forget. I'll be looking out for you."

  Whereupon Sapper Voditchka, who was now turning the corner by the second row of hutments, shouted :

  "Right you are. After the war, at six o'clock in the evening."

  "Better make it half past, in case I'm a bit late," replied Schweik.

  Then, at a great distance, Voditchka's voice could be heard :

  "Can't you make it six?"

  And the last that Voditchka heard of his departing comrade was:

  "All right. I'll be there at six."

  And that was how the good soldier Schweik parted from Sapper Voditchka.

  * * *

  5.

  From Bruck-on-the-Leitha to Sokal.

  Lieutenant Lukash, in a state of great agitation, was pacing up and down the office of draft No. II. It was a dark den in the company hutment, partitioned off from the passage by means of planks. A table, two chairs, a can of paraffin oil and a mattress. Facing Lieutenant Lukash stood Quartermaster-Sergeant Vanek, who spent his time drawing up pay lists and keeping the accounts for the rations of the rank-and-file. He was, in fact, the finance minister of the whole company, and he spent the entire day in that dark little den, which was also where he slept at night.

  * * *

  By the door stood a fat infantryman with a long, thick beard. This was Baloun, the lieutenant's new orderly, who in civil life was a miller.

  "Well, you've chosen a fine batman for me, I must say," said Lieutenant Lukash to the quartermaster-sergeant. "Thanks very much for the pleasant surprise. The first day I sent him to the officers' mess for my lunch, and he ate half of it."

  "Begging your pardon, sir, but I spilled it," said the bearded giant.

  "AH right, then you spilled it. You might have spilled some soup or some gravy, but you couldn't have spilled the roast meat. The piece you brought me was about big enough
to cover my fingernail. And what did you do with the pudding?"

  "I -"

  "You ate it. It's no use saying you didn't. You ate it." Lieutenant Lukash uttered the last three words with such solemnity and stern emphasis that Baloun involuntarily stepped two paces backward.

  "I've made inquiries in the kitchen, and I've found out what we had for lunch to-day. First of all, there was soup with dumplings. What did you do with those dumplings? You took them out on the way, didn't you? Then there was beef with gherkins. What did you do with that? You ate that, too. Two slices of roast meat. And you only brought me half a slice, didn't you? Two pieces of pudding. Where's that gone to? You gobbled it up, you greedy hog, you. Come on, what did you do with that pudding? What's that? You dropped it in the mud? You damned liar ! Can you show me the place where it's lying in the mud? What's that? A dog came up and ran away with it before you could stop him. For two pins I'd give you such a bloody good hiding that your own mother wouldn't know you. You'd try to make a fool of me in the bargain, eh, you low-down skunk, you! Do you know who saw you? Quartermaster-sergeant Vanek, here. He came to me and said : 'Beg to report, sir, Baloun's eating your lunch, the greedy hog. I was looking out of the window and saw him stuffing himself as if he hadn't eaten anything for a week.' Look here, sergeant, really you might have found something better for me than this lousy fellow."

  * * *

  "Beg to report, sir, Baloun seemed to be the most satisfactory man on our draft. He's such a thickheaded idiot that he forgets all his drill as soon as he's taught it, and if we was to let him handle a rifle, he'd only do some more damage. The last time he was practising musketry with blank cartridges, he nearly shot the next man's eye out. I thought he'd be all right as an orderly, at any rate."

  "And eat up an officer's lunch," said Lieutenant Lukash, "as if his own issue of rations wasn't enough for him. I suppose you'll tell me now that you're hungry, eh?"

  "Beg to report, sir, I'm properly hungry. If anyone's got any bread left over from his rations, I buy it from him for cigarettes, and even then it don't seem enough, somehow. It's just the way I'm made. Just when I think I can't eat any more, I feel as if I'd got nothing inside me. If I see somebody eating, or just smell food, my inside comes over all empty like. Why, when I feel like that, I could chew up nails. Beg to report, sir, I made one application to receive a double issue of rations, and I went before the M. O. at Budejovice, but he gave me medicine and duty and ordered them to give me nothing all day but a small bowl of plain soup. 'I'll teach you to be hungry, you impudent lout,' he says ; 'just you come here again,' he says, 'and you'll be as thin as a rake before you get away again.' As soon as I see anything that's good to eat, it just makes my mouth water. I can't help it, sir. Beg to report, sir, I'd take it as a great favour if you'd let me have a double issue of rations. If it's not meat, something else'll do ; some pudding, potatoes, dumplings, a little gravy—it all helps to keep you going."

  "Well, of all the bloody impudence!" remarked Lieutenant Lukash. "Sergeant, have you ever come across a soldier with as much confounded cheek as this fellow? He eats my lunch, and then on top of that, wants me to let him get a double issue of rations ! I'll see that you get a thundering big belly ache for this, my fine fellow.

  "Now then, Sergeant," he continued, turning to Quartermaster-sergeant Vanek, "you take this man to Corporal Weiden-hofer and tell him to tie him up for two hours near the cookhouse door, until the rations of stew are issued this evening. He's

  * * *

  to tie him up properly, so that he can only just stand on tiptoe, and so that he can see the stew cooking in the saucepan. And tell him to keep the blighter tied up while the stew rations are being issued in the cook house, so that it'll make his mouth water like a hungry tike sniffing outside a butcher's shop. And tell them to let someone else have his rations."

  "Very good, sir. Come along, Baloun."

  When they were on their way out, the lieutenant stopped them in the doorway, and looking at Baloun's horrified countenance, he remarked gloatingly :

  "You've done it this time, Baloun. Well, I hope you'll enjoy your feed. And if you try any more of those tricks on me, I'll have you court-martialled without any beating about the bush."

  When Quartermaster-sergeant Vanek returned and announced that Baloun was already tied up, Lieutenant Lukash said :

  "You know me well enough, Vanek, to be quite sure I don't like doing that sort of thing. But I can't help myself. I can't have a low blighter like that around me. And it'll have a good moral effect on the rank-and-file when they see Baloun tied up. These fellows who're on draft and know they're going to the front in a day or two think they can do what they damn well please."

  Lieutenant Lukash looked very upset.

  "Don't you worry your head about that, sir," said Quartermaster-sergeant Vanek, trying to console him. "I've been on three different drafts and it was just six of one and half a dozen of the other, sir, not a scrap of difference between them. They all got cut to pieces with the whole battalion, and then what was left of us had to be reorganized. The worst of the lot was the ninth. Every man Jack of them was taken prisoner, N. C. O's and company commander and all. And I'd have been taken as well, only I just happened to have gone to fetch the company's regular issue of rum, and that's what saved me."

  "It strikes me," remarked Lieutenant Lukash, "that you're a bit of a boozer. But don't imagine that the next time we go into action you'll just happen to have gone to fetch an issue of rum. As soon as I spotted your red nose, I had you sized up all right."

  "That's from the Carpathians, sir. When we got our rations

  * * *

  up there, they were always cold. The trenches were in the snow ; we wasn't allowed to make fires, and rum was the only thing we had to keep us going. And if it hadn't been for me, it would have been like in the other companies, where they hadn't got any rum and the men were frozen. The rum gave all of us red noses. The only drawback was that orders came from the battalion that only men with red noses were to be sent out on patrol duty."

  "Well, the winter's practically over now," remarked the lieutenant meaningly.

  "You can't do without rum, sir, in the field, whatever season it is. It keeps you in good spirits, as you might say. When a man's got a drop of rum inside him, he's ready to go for anyone. Hallo, who's that knocking at the door? Silly ass, can't he read what it says on the door : 'Don't knock. Come in'?"

  Lieutenant Lukash turned on his chair toward the door, and he saw the door open slowly and softly. And just as slowly and softly the good soldier Schweik entered the office of draft No. 11.

  Lieutenant Lukash closed his eyes at the sight of the good soldier Schweik, who gazed at him with much the same gratification as might have been displayed by the prodigal son when he saw his father killing the fatted calf.

  "Beg to report, sir, I'm back again," announced Schweik from the doorway, with such frank informality that Lieutenant Lukash suddenly realized what had befallen him. Ever since Colonel Schroder had informed him that Schweik was being sent back to afflict him, Lieutenant Lukash had been hoping against hope that the evil hour might be indefinitely postponed. Every morning he said to himself: "He won't be here to-day. He may have got into trouble again, so perhaps they'll keep him there." But now Schweik had upset all these expectations by turning up in that bland and unassuming manner of his.

  Schweik now gazed at Quartermaster-sergeant Vanek and turning to him, handed to him with a smile some papers which he took from the pocket of his greatcoat.

  "Beg to report, Sergeant," he said, "I've got to hand you these papers that they signed in the regimental office. It's about my pay and rations allowance."

  * * *

  Schweik's demeanour in the office of draft No. 11 was as free-and-easy as if he and Quartermaster-sergeant Vanek were old cronies. The Quartermaster-sergeant, however, replied curtly:

  "Put 'em down on the table."

  "I think, Sergeant," said Lieutenant Lukash, with a s
igh, "that you'd better leave me alone with Schweik."

  Vanek went out and stood listening at the door to hear what these two would say to each other. At first he heard nothing, for Schweik and Lieutenant Lukash held their peace. For a long time they looked at each other and watched each other closely.

  Lieutenant Lukash broke this painful silence by a remark, to which he endeavoured to impart a strong dose of irony:

  "Well, I'm glad to see you again, Schweik. It's very kind of you to look me up. Just fancy now, what a charming visitor !"

  But his feelings got the better of him, and he gave vent to his bottled-up arrears of annoyance by banging his fist on the table, so that the ink pot gave a jerk and ink was spilled over the pay roll. He also jumped up, thrust his face close to Schweik and yelled at him :

  "You bloody fool!"

  Whereupon he began to stride up and down the narrow office, spitting whenever he came past Schweik.

  "Beg to report, sir," said Schweik, while Lieutenant Lukash continued to pace up and down and kept furiously flinging into a corner crumpled scraps of paper which he snatched from the table each time he came near it, "I handed over that letter just as you told me. I found Mrs. Kâkonyi all right, and I don't mind saying that she's a fine figure of a woman, although when I saw her she was crying -"

  Lieutenant Lukash sat down on the quartermaster-sergeant's mattress and exclaimed hoarsely :

  "When is this foolery going to stop, Schweik?"

  Schweik continued, as if he had not heard the lieutenant's exclamation :

  "Well, then there was a little bit of unpleasantness, but I took all the blame for it. Of course, they wouldn't believe that I'd been writing letters to the lady, so I thought I'd better swallow the letter at the cross-examination, so as to put them off the scent, like.