No more hardened resignation now: my wounds had been reopened. He could see that I was upset, and there were tears in his eyes as he set off back to Budapest.
I didn’t go to my usual place to dine that evening, or to the coffeehouse. I wandered about in the valley of the Séd, among the old watermills, until late in the evening. I was in very low spirits. The Betekints inn was still lit, and I ate some scrambled eggs.
I was still affected the next day, and the knowledge that my discomposure had caused my father pain weighed on my conscience.
The ceremonial giving of the oath of service was to take place the following Sunday on the square in front of the minster church, and on the Monday we would begin the seventy-five kilometer march to Keszthely.[13]
The mass was celebrated by the bishop, with a full supporting cast. It has to be said that the entire regiment of four thousand men reciting the words of the oath together created a very solemn effect. I made a bit of a mess of things as we paraded away from the square in double ranks, when I couldn’t think of the Hungarian command for Reien fällt ab; on the spur of the moment, I translated this as “fall out in rows,” whereupon the members of the platoon headed off in a variety of directions. The battalion commander, Captain Gyenes, was ready to have me trampled underfoot. At least it gave my fellow officers something to snigger about.
That night we bade farewell to Veszprém in style. Even more champagne than usual got put away, and I had a poor night’s sleep. Early the next morning I wrote a few words of thanks to my kind and courteous hosts. I also said goodbye to the housemaids, pressing ten korona into the hands of each of them. One of them burst into tears, wiping her eyes and nose on her apron.
4. THE MARCH
ANOTHER farewell. A ceremonial parade accompanied by resounding marches from the band, interspersed alternately by trumpets and drums to keep time. Crowds had turned out to shower us with flowers. Beside me marched little Dráfi, the gypsy, who pattered away on his drum. I told him to stop it, but it was oddly catching. Just what I needed!
This idiotic seventy-five kilometer march had been ordered by the regimental commander, former staff officer Bél Sérsits, who was from Kissár. By the time we reached our destination, half the regiment had been rendered unfit for action from damage to their feet and general exhaustion.
As we left town, the band stood aside, and with them the flock of children and young people who had accompanied us the whole way. As we passed, they pressed into our hands the flowers they had brought with them. A little old lady wiped her eyes and made the sign of the cross at us. The band played the Radetzky March over and over, without a pause, until the entire column had passed.
Silence fell; then the drums struck up to keep step. A kind of numbness descended over the column, deadening the sense of foreboding and the stress of waiting. This march may be no bad thing: a little exercise for the heart! The word was passed down: sing! Private First Class Solti—a stocky, fresh-faced Magyar—began singing in a splendid, clear voice. I murmured the words along with him:
A mulberry tree stands in my yard
And a brown maid gathers its leaves
Gather them, maid, to rest my head
For I know that I die for my home.[1]
Not exactly an optimistic song. Many put on a brave face and sang along with Solti, but most of the men were sunk in thought.
Silence once more. Only the rhythmical clump of two thousand heavy hobnailed boots caused the air, bathed in sparkling sunlight, to quiver.
Kovács, the company commander, rode up alongside. “We’re passing through Hungary’s loveliest landscape,” he called down to me.
“I’ve brought along a map, Captain. I find travel all the more enjoyable with a map.”
“Very good. I’ll borrow it from you.”
I took it at once from my bread bag. “Here you are, sir.”
He accepted it with thanks and rode on to the front of the company. From there I heard the command as it rippled back from the head of the regiment: “Halt! Ten minutes’ rest! Fall out to the right!”
Ten minutes. If only someone would order right-about-turn. I undid the straps of my knapsack. Under it, I was already sweating. I lay back on the bank of the roadside ditch. The others gathered round and lay down. Sérsits conferred with the battalion and company commanders. I stripped grass stalks and nibbled the tender ends, just as I used to do in peacetime.
Osztermann sat silently, his legs crossed. Földes sat down. “It’s all right so far. If it goes on like this, it won’t be too bad.”
“You can get used to any shit,” growled Kovács. “And we may have to.”
“My old life seems so far away now, it could as well have been in another world.”
“Anyone know a good joke?”
“Come on, Földes!”
“Cohen lives opposites the Weisses. One day he looks out of the window with his opera glasses and sees Mrs. Weiss in a state of intimate undress cavorting with a man. Next day, he bumps into Weiss. ‘Look here, Weiss. If the two of you want to fool around, at least pull the blind down! I could see everything again yesterday.’ Weiss replies. ‘Haha! Do you know what? I wasn’t even at home yesterday.’”
Osztermann didn’t laugh, but stared off into the distance.
“Kit on! Fall in!” The order rang out. We assembled into units and the column set off towards Nagyvászony. We were passing through a wood. The beauty of nature in August reigned everywhere. The boughs were a deep green, but the sprigs of barberry, the wild rose hips and the leaves of the sumac were already glowing in flaming colors of carmine, cinnabar, minium, and orange. Beauty before death, for autumn and decay were coming. In the meadows and fields, nothing but stubble and fine ploughed soil, the stalks of maize left tied into bundles. Subjects for landscapes: the colors from burnt sienna and ochre to gray umber. Marvelous colors in the shadows.
We had been marching for three hours. Monotony was setting in. Gradually, one was starting to put one leg in front of the other without thinking, without the exercise of will. The brain rested, as if some foreign body had been inserted into the cavity of the skull. External stimuli find their way infrequently to momentary snatches of awareness. An old peasant by the roadside, leaning against a tree at the edge of his field, watches us pass. Now there was something I hadn’t seen before. Peasants don’t usually cry.
Shouting and swearing from up ahead. A cow was determined to push its way through the column. A terrified boy, the cowherd, was whacking it. Its bones resounded under the blows.
Then on again. Nothing. No one was singing now.
“Rest break! Lunch! Boots off! Straighten out your foot bindings and socks!”
All those dusty, sweaty feet: a pretty sight, and a treat for the nose. A peasant spends all day on his feet; he stuffs his boots well with straw and rags, and he’s fine. Military boots and creased foot bindings chafe feet raw. Already, many feet were blistered.
By my calculation, we had covered about twelve kilometers: half the allotted distance for the day. I too removed my boots—the waterproof pair I had bought in Pest—and located, then shook out, a tiny piece of grit. How had the wretched thing managed to get in? It was the merest crumb, yet already it had raised a blister on my sole. I fished out the lard and rubbed it all over my feet. A definite improvement.
I appointed a good-looking Slovak lad called Jóska from my unit as my batman. He was glad to do it. Straight away, he went off to the field kitchen and fetched me a mess tin full of thick beef soup with marrowbone, and a piece of toast. I told Miklósik, the corporal, to find out from the team leaders if anyone was unwell. He reported back promptly: no one. Just in time, too, because Győri, the battalion’s medical officer, appeared. In peacetime, he was a dentist on the Ring, and this was the first time I had seen him riding a horse. He sat on it like a well-risen ball of dough. His voice sounded different, too, from the way it did in the coffeehouse. He seemed bored by the news that all was in order.
“So
I should jolly well think.”
“Földes! Give us a joke.” We lit up and stretched out.
“Cohen goes to see the rabbi. ‘O wise rabbi, I need advice. Weiss is the same age as me, but he’s always boasting about how youthful he still is, and what a great lover, and how, and how often . . .’ The rabbi strokes his beard for a bit, and then he says: ‘Well, Cohen, just say the same thing!’”
Raucous laughter. Kovács slapped Osztermann on the back. “What are you staring at? Laugh with us for once, damn you!”
The word came: Kit on! Fall in! The words of command snapped and rattled; then: “Heading Nagyvászony! By the left, quick march!”
The entire column set off. The bugler and the drummer took turns keeping time. There was a little more spring in our step, and one could even hear singing here and there. But the freshness soon wore off, and the regular, mechanical movement of legs took over. We checked the map: another twelve to fourteen kilometers to go. We could no longer keep up a four-kilometer-per-hour average. The road was monotonous, with slight rises and dips, the fields to left and right ploughed or bare, patches of woodland off in the distance, here and there, a solitary tree; and one monotonous pace after the other, maybe the twenty thousandth by now. The odd farmstead or wayside inn; the occasional peasant cursing by the roadside, or children following us for a stretch. So far, we had not passed a single settlement, but we must be approaching Tótvászony. We were, in fact, on a plateau; fortunately, there were few inclines to struggle our way up, but there was not much else to be said for it. The men’s heads strained forward now, and I gave them permission to undo their collars and hang their caps on the ends of their rifles. They were loaded down, all right: a rifle weighing six and a half kilos, a hundred and twenty rounds of ammunition, their bits and pieces in their knapsacks, bread bag, spade, hatchet, mess tin, rolled-up cape, and so on. Twenty to twenty-five kilos.
Corporal Miklósik reported that Privates Grossmann and Szabó were unwell.
“What’s the matter with them?”
“They don’t know. They just don’t feel well.”
“Tell them to go back to the sick wagons and report to the medical officer.” I told him to warn the men that if their feet got damaged, there would be would be an investigation to establish whether it was due to their negligence; if so, it would be a disciplinary matter.
He saluted and turned on his heel. The march dragged on. The clumping of boots was gradually turning into shuffling. Another eight kilometers by the map.
Lieutenant Kovács came up alongside.
“If I wasn’t ashamed to do it,” I said, “I’d get rid of this damned knapsack.”
“Send it back to the baggage cart.”
“Gyenes might give me hard time for it.”
“Too bad. You’re not practical enough.”
I waved Jóska over. “Take this back to the baggage cart. Tell them it’s mine.”
It was incredible how, having got rid of the thing, I felt as if I could fly. The poor squaddies didn’t even dare to envy me: I was an officer, after all.
The rhythm of the steps was starting to break up. Never mind now. Another six kilometers. My legs were like pieces of wood, no longer attached to my body. Maybe they would just go on marching by themselves, even when it was time to stop. They’d have to shoot them off me. It was three o’clock and the sun was getting lower in the sky, but it still burned our faces. A village could be seen some two kilometers away to the left. Another four kilometers or so to go, then. The road unchanging. A line of low wooded hills off to the left, just high enough to block the view. Alsócsepely-puszta: three kilometers to go . . . two kilometers.
I could make out our goal now, a smudge among the fields. I passed word to the men. One or two of them smiled, the others trudged on somberly, their heads forward. Even the desire for a cigarette had gone.
The village started to take definite shape.
The bellowed command: “Short rest! Smarten yourselves!”
The men threw off their loads and sprawled by the roadside. Not a good idea, I thought, to stop so suddenly after so much strain: I had seen horses driven too hard collapse when they stopped abruptly.
Miklósik reported three more men unwell. I noted down their names and sent them to the rear. To hell with theory: I threw myself down on the ground as well. I was lying in grass tall enough to hide me. It caressed my burning face with velvety coolness. Ants ran frenetically up and down the stalks. They knew why, which was more than I could say. Even they didn’t know, though, why men had lost their minds.
“Kit on! Fall in!”
I had Miklósik pass the word: tidy yourselves up, fasten collars, caps on straight. Let’s not look like a defeated rabble! A little early for that.
Nagyvászony: a proper village, with people out in the street, staring children, and the ruins of a castle on the right. That is all I remember of it.
Couriers had marked out where we were billeted. Captain Kovács ordered reveille at six and onward march at seven. He had been in the saddle all day and now he stood with his legs so wide apart that you could have crawled between them. Jóska showed me to my allotted billet. A peasant family welcomed us in with wonder, kindness, and respect, and chatted away with each of us. Decent, fine-looking, well-to-do folk. They showed me to my room, with a four-poster piled high with pillows and an eiderdown.
“I’d like two things, dear lady: a tubful of cold water, and a big jug of milk curd.”
Jóska made himself useful and generally conducted himself very well, bringing my knapsack and the rest of my stuff. Then they brought in the tub and a bucket of water. I chased everyone out, stood in the tub, and washed myself from head to foot.
I felt revived. Now for the jug of milk curd. I would have dived into it if I could. My parched throat and swollen tongue dissolved intoxicatingly with the pleasure of the cool nectar, so that I practically merged into it. I gobbled up the whole lot—more than a liter—in moments. Then into bed.
My hosts were also putting up my NCOs in the adjoining room, and I could hear a few muffled fragments of conversation through the wall.
“Do they mean us to go all the way to Galicia like this? What’s the point?”
“God only knows.”
“The condition we’re in now, a pair of Russkies armed with slingshots would give us a thrashing.”
I recognized Miklósik’s voice, then Solti’s, then Corporal Zsimonyer’s; then a bedbug crawled across my stomach . . . little bugger . . . and then I fell asleep the way only the very young and the very old can do.
“Ensign, sir! Ensign, sir!”
Where was I? I tried to gather my senses.
“Sir, time to get up, sir! It’s way past reveille.”
Jóska’s voice. I had to pull myself together. The damp eiderdown was well and truly twisted round me. I could hardly move. My clothes and bedding were soaked with sweat. I tried to clamber out of bed, but the bedsheet came with me. I could utter only an idiotic mumbling. Jóska held me up and led me out to the well, where I stuck my head into the tub and had him wash my back. All my limbs ached with muscle pains. Somehow, though, I was coming back to life.
“Lord! You’re not going to wear those wet clothes all day, are you? Why don’t you put some fresh clothes on, and I’ll give these a quick wash.”
“There’s no time for that.”
“It won’t take a minute. I’ll wring them out and they’ll be dry by the end of the day.”
I did as I was told. The dry clothes had the miraculous effect of making me feel human again, though I was embarrassed at the horrid mess I’d made.
“You’re better off this way. Who knows what you could have come down with, if you hadn’t sweated it out.”
I rushed about frantically getting everything ready and gulped down half a liter of fresh milk. I exchanged a few words with my hosts and thanked them for everything. They wouldn’t accept any payment for washing my underclothes or the milk; when I said goodbye to
the children, I gave each of them five korona—the price of a pair of shoes. They accompanied me out to the gate, from where they kept waving to me as I headed off.
We resumed the march relatively smart and rested, resigning ourselves to a further stretch of some twenty kilometers. We were told to keep good order, as breaking step would tire us, and to maintain marching pace for as long as possible. This was all true; but once fatigue reaches the brain, no force on earth can compel men to stay in step.
Here and there, a song could be heard, and from time to time, as we passed through settlements, bugles and drums went into action; but the tunes were feeble, didn’t carry far, and lacked conviction. Then everything subsided and the march resumed its mechanical character.
“Short rest! Fall out to the right!” The men threw off their packs. I made them stack their rifles. They lay flat in the cool, restful grass. I drank half a mess-tinful of strong black coffee. We gestured at each other with our chins.
“Go on,” I indicated to Földes.
“Right, pay attention! Old Cohen goes to see a doctor, because he thinks he may have diabetes. The doctor tells him to come back the next day with a urine sample. Cohen shows up with a huge jarful. The doctor looks a bit surprised, but examines the contents and says to Cohen: ‘I can put your mind at rest. There’s nothing the matter with you.’ Cohen rushes off to a telephone. ‘Good news! The entire family is healthy!’”
This was a big hit. Even Osztermann smiled.
“Kit on! Fall in!” The landscape was a little more varied, and provided some distraction. Miklósik reported three more men unfit. Back to the wagons. I sent my knapsack back too. I was a little bit anxious about this, because all my money was in it—about five hundred korona, though the closer we got to battle, the less it would be worth. If I copped it, it would be stolen anyway.
Let’s see the map. Sixteen kilometers to go.
Captain Kovács rode up alongside us. “Report, please!”
The Burning of the World Page 5