A Soldier of the Great War (84 page)

"But where," Alessandro asked, "are the other three hundred and forty-one men?"

"Trust me. Some matters are not to be discussed too deeply. This is war, you are an enemy prisoner, and I am a field marshal. You don't expect me to discuss items of military secrecy, do you?"

"I suppose not."

"You may come to understand. Tell me, you are finely educated, but do you have an elegant hand?"

"No."

"You don't? What a pity."

"For me to write a single word is like grasping a set of live electrical poles. My hand and arm want to do anything but what I want them to do, and it hurts. Yet I must write papers and articles almost continually, and I have neither the temperament nor the opportunity to dictate. When I served in my father's law office, God help me, I worked as a scribe. He never knew how difficult it was for me. He thought I was merely careless. I forgive him."

"Why didn't you choose another profession, in which you would not have to suffer?"

"Is it unusual for someone to be mated to what incapacitates him?"

"What about one of those things, what are they called, that print letters as you strike them?"

"Typewriters."

"No, it's another name, a French name, like
rotopisseur.
"

"That's one of those kiosks where you pee."

"Ah, I know, it's called an
engrosseur papyréanne.
"

Alessandro began to worry. Naturally, any kind of enthusiasm, of any sort, about the typewriter was deeply disturbing to him, and he hoped that Strassnitzky would change the subject.

"Can you use one?"

"Surprisingly, in view of my muscle-control difficulties, quite well. My problem comes from grasping. When my fingers can fly freely, they can do just about anything. But the learned journals still look askance at typescripts, so I'm doomed. Of course, that's a petty doom."

"This is why I ask. I need an educated man to be my private secretary until we get to Vienna. There, my personal secretary will rejoin me after he recuperates from a wound he received in Russian roulette."

"How did the bullet miss his brain?"

"That was easy."

"Do you have a typewriter?"

"We have a little machine that the ministry sent out to the staffs of all the field marshals."

"Forgive me, but why not one of your officers? Their German would be more precise, you can trust them more than you can a prisoner, and they would be familiar with addresses and salutations."

"No," Strassnitzky said. "They prefer not to compose the story of their own exploits. They find it embarrassing. My secretary, you see, is a civilian. That's why I thought a prisoner might be a good substitute."

"I'd like to do it," Alessandro said.

"Good. I'll pay you the going rate. Dankwart is very happy with what I provide: he keeps an apartment in town and a chalet near Innsbruck, where he ski-jumps."

"But I'm a prisoner of war."

"The war will soon be over, the empire is finished, and everything has changed. Let us resume our lives with equity and decency."

"That's kind of you," Alessandro said. "And, after Vienna, what will happen to me?"

"At the rate we're making our way north, we should reach Vienna sometime in September. The war may be over by then. If it isn't, it will be over soon. Get the typewriter. Things are changing very rapidly, and they must expect a field marshal's reports to be engrossed. Why else would they have sent the engrosser?"

 

A
FTER
A
LESSANDRO
had taken half an hour to position himself and the machine so that his elbows would be bent at just the right angle, he was ready to take Strassnitzky's dictation.

"I'll put in the unit names and the codes later. Leave appropriate spaces. Ready?"

"Yes."

"0400: We break camp in darkness at Szegy-Maszlow, and proceed northwest, by light of quarter moon, in four columns spaced at two kilometers.

"0600: With full daylight, columns wheel north, breaking into squadrons to sweep a path of fifty kilometers.

"0700: Charger disabled by fall. Broken leg. Shot. Substitute mount obtained from rear echelon encountered on western flank at 0725.

"1200: Break for midday meal.

"1230: Resume northward sweep.

"1315: Sweep-line wheels west, proceeds with all speed fifteen kilometers to group of hills running northeast-southwest. Our maps show that beyond this small rise lies a lake. Patrols sent out during halt to find condition of hills and terrain beyond.

"1337: Front rider, west patrol, returns to report smoke and gunfire at the edge of the lake.

"1340: Re-form into four columns, proceed over hills. Riders sent on point.

"1350: Halt at summit of hills. Gunfire audible, smoke visible, west-northwest near the lake. Await return of patrols.

"1400: Patrols return in a single group, having lost two men. (See casualty reports appended.) A prisoner-of-war group camped by the lake had rebelled after catching its guard unaware. The escort, all Bulgarians, were murdered to the last man, and the prisoners, many of whom were able soldiers of considerable experience, were in possession of at least a hundred rifles and pistols. Though their ammunition was limited, our patrols reported that they had begun to deploy in defensive positions and were aware of us. Perhaps they were clever enough to judge, from the faint sparkle of dust rising high in the air behind the hills, that eight hundred horses were riding toward them. Depending upon the geology of a specific region, it is sometimes possible to hear, through the ground, a large group of cavalry as it approaches. Also, we have seen mirages on the plain for weeks, and, perhaps, in the heat that bent the light, they saw us galloping across the sky."

Alessandro took this down almost without breathing.

"Thinking that the sooner we engaged, the less time the enemy would have to build revetments, firing positions, and barriers, I divided the regiment into eight formations and immediately charged. Orders were simply to overwhelm the enemy camp as quickly as possible with a direct assault from three sides. Troopers were advised to fire low so as to avoid wounding their fellows attacking from a different direction.

"1408: Simultaneous contact with enemy on three sides. Their breastworks were under construction and not too high for our horses to jump. We penetrated the lines by sailing right over them with such speed that we all were in within a minute or two. After
a pause in which we and they gathered wits, they climbed to the other side of their breastworks and began to fire.

"Without ground for a running start, our horses would not jump, especially when they saw that those that attempted to do so were stopped.

"At about 1410 I ordered the bugler to sound dismount. In these minutes we suffered most of our casualties. Enemy fire was accurate and well controlled. When one of the enemy would fall, another would pick up his weapon. Thus, the battle was prolonged at surprising intensity.

"At 1500 I ordered Second Battalion to remount. Finding their way through gaps in the defenses, they then encircled the main body of the enemy, who broke by 1530.

"At 1600 we remounted the two other battalions and set out after the stragglers.

"1730: Recovered by shore of the lake. Watered horses. Buried our dead. Forty-three dead, no wounded. The enemy had notched its bullets for maximum impact, and the firing distances were extremely short. Counted five hundred and fourteen enemy dead. Approximately three hundred escaped. One prisoner. (See attached and supplementary reports by adjutant.)

"2000: Made camp on south bank of river exiting from lake as described. Will proceed northwest, 0400 tomorrow."

When Alessandro finished typing, his fingers were shaking.

"I didn't make the war," Strassnitzky said, "and neither did you. Our only responsibility is to get through it as best we can. The empire is finished, and so is Italy. Italy will win, but will collapse inward. I think God made war so that you and I could sit here by this stream, in the lamplight, covered with sweat, amazed that we escaped killing one another.

"Anyway, we ride at 0400 tomorrow, without breakfast. That's why we eat regally in the evening, though some men have difficulty sleeping after a full meal. The vagaries of the digestive tract
have no rhyme or reason. Someday, they'll use Röntgengrams to make maps of the stomach."

 

A
T THREE
in the morning, under a sky blazing with shoals of stars, the troopers, their prisoners, and the civilian auxiliaries were awakened by a subdued reveille. The sentries were glad that the watch was over and that they were no longer the only ones awake so far in advance of dawn.

By four o'clock, assembled according to squadron and company, they faced Strassnitzky and his officers, whose horses, unlike the less fretful horses of the lower ranks, pranced back and forth. Alessandro was mounted on a mare who compared favorably with Enrico, and the saddlery was as good as any he had ever owned.

Alessandro had seen Italian cavalry on the roads that led to Rome, riding between ranks of tall poplars that sparkled in the wind and sun. Both lancers and swordsmen always had a grave expression, as if they were not entirely sure that they could stay on their horses, and their armament seemed purely ceremonial. Strassnitzky's men, however, were armed more like infantry than cavalry. A hundred were lancers, and every man had a sword, but here their similarity to traditional cavalry ended.

Every trooper had a semi-automatic pistol hanging from his belt. Two pouches for extra magazines were lined up behind it, and a leather bag with half a dozen others was strapped to the saddle. In a scabbard on the left of the saddle, running neatly under the rider's calf, was a rifle, the Mauser 98: it never jammed, it was powerful, and it was accurate. Kangaroo-style on the scabbard was a bayonet. Other leather bags, tightly strapped down, were balanced on the back of the saddle. They held rifle ammunition, wire cutters, a steel helmet, a medical kit, a canteen, and two hand grenades. Every thirtieth man carried in lieu of a rifle and saddlebags a light machine-gun strapped across a special mount on the
back of his saddle and held in balance by a geometric arrangement of straps that could be rapidly disengaged. The large amounts of ammunition for these guns were spread among everyone almost equally. Strassnitzky himself rode with fifty rounds.

Many of the horsemen had knives strapped across their chests, extra bandoliers of ammunition, and trench clubs. Alessandro felt that a thousand or more standard Italian infantry and their armament would be required to match these three hundred men. Each was an expert rider and an experienced soldier. Deeply impressed, Alessandro imagined that he would see within days the fierce Balkan engagements of which he had heard on the Isonzo. These were of mythical proportions, perhaps because, when Italian troops looked toward the east as the sun rose, the mountains had an air of distance not only in space but in time. He was confused, however, about where they might find an enemy, for, as far as he knew, the countryside all around them was entirely peaceful.

Strassnitzky trotted to the unit where Alessandro sat in the saddle nervously awaiting the order to ride. The stars were wheeling in the sky, and a faint band of light was visible on the rim of the hills. Strassnitzky looked at it and stood in his stirrups. As he sat down he turned back to Alessandro. His horse shuddered, made two steps to the rear, and then two to the front. "If you can't ride like a cavalryman, as you assured me," he said quietly, "I'll shoot you."

"You wouldn't be the first Austrian to shoot at me," Alessandro told him.

"I didn't say shoot at you."

"Prepositions are to language what aim is to a gun," Alessandro stated.

"Exactly."

"Where is the enemy?" Alessandro asked, because they were set to move as if into the fiercest battle, and yet were a thousand kilometers from the nearest front.

"The enemy," Strassnitzky said, "is out there."

Strassnitzky guided his horse into the open. He stood in his stirrups once more, so that his voice would carry over the heads of men in the front rows. "Six groups, close spaces, on the road west until dawn. Then we turn north. Ride!"

He spurred his horse and took to the stream. In the water the animal moved like a hobbyhorse, casting off sheets of white. Then he mounted the opposite bank and disappeared over it onto the road. The others followed, churning up the stream. In a few minutes the three hundred horses were galloping at full speed, and they sounded like a thunderstorm lost on the plain.

 

S
OMETIMES THEY
passed rows of short trees that enclosed the road like one of the columned galleries in Rome where businessmen and lawyers spent three-hour lunches in the shade. Even before dawn, the cooler air seemed to linger in the space between the two rows of trees. When the sun lit the fields obliquely and put the sides of hills in shadowless light, the smell of grass and dew filled the atmosphere with its promise of contentment. And when the sun was on the troopers' shoulders and their horses cast monstrously elongated shadows, the columns wheeled right and advanced northward at tremendous speed.

The sound of steel-shod hooves compressing the grass was like that of a field being chewed by locusts. The horses breathed steadily and gave the impression that, like airplane engines, they could go for hours without so much as a twitch. They were always able to break through the bushes, jump hedgerows and walls, and wind their way through the trees. They sailed over ditches, marsh, and logs, at full speed, never hesitating, responding to obstructions not by slowing down but by speeding up.

To ride this way is almost as taxing as if the rider were carrying the horse. He shifts his balance so often that all his muscles are in
continual flex, his eyes dart, and he thinks so hard as he is propelled along that the time goes as fast as if he were falling from a cliff. When, at midday, they halted in a hot field full of the bleached golden stubble of harvested winter wheat, Alessandro was soaked with sweat and breathing like a wounded stag. For eight hours he had thought nothing save what the physics of plunging forward forced him to think. He had been like an eagle or a hart, with no power of reflection, no time for the future, no time for the past, but only an unbearably rich profusion of motion, color, scent, and sound. He loved it.