A Soldier of the Great War (86 page)

Alessandro looked up. "I was riding with Second Battalion," he said.

"So?"

"We didn't encounter any Serbs. We didn't encounter anybody. This is Hungary. The Serbs are in Serbia. The
Hungarians
are in Hungary."

"It's all in the mind," Strassnitzky said, tapping his head and closing his lips to suck on his pipe.

"What's all in the mind?"

"Everything."

"Perhaps you mean First or Third Battalions?"

Strassnitzky thought it over. "All right," he said, "Third Battalion. You know, you're Italian, and I'm Viennese, and here we are in Hungary. So why can't the Bosnians be here, too?"

"You mean the Serbs."

"Yes, the Serbs." He resumed his narrative. "Third Battalion was the first to encounter the Serbs, who were hidden behind trees and on high ledges overlooking the route of travel. The Serbs exercised characteristic discipline and did not open fire until the column was completely enveloped. Our men dismounted without orders and formed assault squads. In close fighting in the trees and on the steep sides of the valley they drove off the enemy, killing eighteen of them. Six men of Third Battalion were killed, nine wounded.

"Meanwhile, Second Battalion, in the center, turned back upon hearing gunfire in the distance, so as to avoid an ambush."

"No it didn't," Alessandro stated.

"Yes it did."

"No it didn't. I was with it all day. We heard no gunfire. We never turned back."

Strassnitzky tapped his pipe upon the rock and emptied the spent tobacco. "All right," he said. "Correction: Third Battalion."

"But you just said that Third Battalion..."

"Excuse me, First Battalion."

Alessandro typed, "First Battalion."

Strassnitzky continued. "Upon turning back, First Battalion rode straight into an ambush of mortars and machine guns. The mortars, however, were fired too early, and only one shell burst near the column, giving it appropriate warning and enabling it to halt before coming within machine-gun range. The column was traveling in artillery formation, one long thin line, mainly because it was threading a narrow path through the valley. Thus the shells did little damage, killing one horse and wounding another, and cutting a trooper's binocular straps. The men whose horses had been hit quickly transferred to two remounts, and all rode out of firing distance.

"The Serbs stopped firing and stayed their ground, thinking that the engagement was finished, but First Battalion discovered that the route they were taking led to high ground over the enemy dispositions. A dismount was ordered, and the troopers steadied their rifles in prone firing positions. The Serbs, who had seen them, fired a few mortar shells and machine-gun bursts, but in vain, for our men were out of range. The enemy, however, was in our range, though just so, at about twelve hundred meters. Because we were firing from above we had reasonable expectation of hitting them, especially in view of the concentration and volume of fire. When the Mausers opened up, three of the enemy fell immediately and the rest withdrew from the open, losing one more man.

"Meanwhile, Second Battalion made its way through the center, unburdened," Strassnitzky said, and then he paused, "except by a landslide that was loosed upon it by partisans high above."

"What landslide?" Alessandro asked.

Strassnitzky suddenly grew cross. He turned to Alessandro, his pipe sending up too much smoke, and said, "Look! You just write what I tell you, or you're fired!"

"How can you fire me? I'm a prisoner."

"You're right, I can't fire you, but I can shoot you. Take this down."

Alessandro positioned his fingers on the keys in a sign of acquiescence.

"When the battalions converged on the outskirts of the town we discovered that it had been invested by the enemy, who had set up artillery and machine-gun positions, barbed wire, mine fields, and sandbagged revetments."

Alessandro's eyes darted to and fro as he typed at high speed.

"We are light cavalry, ill-equipped to lay siege to a city. We have no artillery of any kind, and only a few light machine guns. The enemy were relatively few, about a hundred and seventy-five, which was why the ambushes had been little more than harassment, but we hadn't much daylight left: for an assault. Their ordnance was impressive, as were their defenses, and the town is half circled by a river in a walled channel, which makes a defender's job very easy. Only the open part of the town was in need of heavy defensive work, and here wire had been laid and machine-gun positions set up.

"As we arrived, shells began to fall around us. We were worried that the ambush parties would try to envelop us from the rear, perhaps with the aid of others unknown to us. The mood among the men was not encouraging, and they were tired and hungry. My officers urged me to bypass the town.

"Not only did I reject that course of action, I refused to order a withdrawal from the bombardment. Something was bothering me.
Though shells were falling, the tubes were out of sight, and our men, even while mounted, were able to suppress the spotters (who were in a church tower) with just a few volleys from their rifles. This was the second incident in a day to confirm the wisdom of cavalry carrying long-barreled rifles.

"As the shells fell around us and our horses stomped in protest, I found what I had been seeking. I ordered a trooper to go on foot and measure the watercourse. It took two to do it, because they had to use a cord. When they returned, I had them lay the cord on the ground. Then I had a fence pulled down and laid along the length of the cord. I wheeled my horse around and brought him back toward the road. Then I turned him and spurred him forward, straight at the fence. He took it with no room to spare, but he took it.

"This energized the men. They knew, as I did, that a five-hundred-meter stretch along the river was defended only by a dozen riflemen who were supposed to pick off whoever might laboriously climb into the watercourse, swim the river, and climb out.

"We formed into two lines and assembled facing the river. The twelve riflemen realized what was going to happen, and they began to fire. Then we charged. I led the first line over, and we went right past the riflemen so as to take the others from behind before they could turn their guns.

"The second wave killed the riflemen, with pistols and swords. Eight of our men died when they were shot or when their horses fell short of the other side and threw them against the wall and they dropped into the river. Seventeen horses, altogether, didn't make the jump, but, of these, six were found later in a field west of the town, their saddles dangling underneath them.

"The battle for the town was quick, ferocious, and costly. The first line broke up in the streets and hit the enemy defenses with no mass, in small groups, and not all at once but over a period of
about a minute. The enemy appeared to be defeated not so much by our presence behind him, by our fire, and by our swords and lances, as by his own conviction that he was doomed. In such instances, madmen or drug fiends are better able to fight than ordinary soldiers, for they do not understand the calculus of defeat, and they fight on, sometimes turning the great weight of battle.

"Had only one of the enemy erupted in rage or shown enthusiasm for the fight, the result might have been different, but our horses carried us at great speed against their backs, and when they turned they were trapped by their own barricades. We lost twenty-eight dead, and fifty were wounded. Some of the wounded will die. Of the enemy, sixty-one prisoners are to be delivered to the next labor column we meet on the road. Those who were wounded we have left with the local guards. The rest, more than a hundred, are dead."

"Is that it?" Alessandro asked.

"No," Strassnitzky said, continuing.

"Our ranks are steadily thinning from almost daily contact with strong enemy forces spilling over the mountains to the west. In this regard, our intelligence apparatus has proved invaluable, in that the local population directs us to an enemy who would prefer to avoid a strong opponent."

"Now I understand where your other unit is," Alessandro said. "It's in your head. You draw it down bit by bit in fictional battles until, by the time you return to the Belvedere, you will have sustained enormous casualties—every other man killed—and yet all of you, unscathed, untouched by battle, will ride in as a group. What a system! The war will end, and you'll be a great hero, having marched successfully through the deepest valleys of death."

Strassnitzky pulled his pistol from its elaborate holster. "Prepare to die."

"Look here," Alessandro said. "I told you that the only thing I had left was the truth. And the truth will carry me through death.
I've been prepared to die since I first went into the line. What I've said is true. You can shoot me a thousand times, and the truth will not be altered."

"Is the truth really worth dying?" Strassnitzky asked, pulling back the hammer of the pistol. Alessandro could see that the safety was off. He thought that now his life was going to end, and he felt a sense of tremendous elation and purity.

"It is," he said. "Yes, it is."

Strassnitzky aimed at Alessandro's heart, and pulled the trigger. The hammer clicked, but no shot was fired. Alessandro had remained calm throughout. He was almost getting used to such things. He felt that he was about to be pulled up on lines hanging from above, but that he was supposed to swing through history before his dizzying elevation.

"It's not loaded," Strassnitzky announced. "You did well. In having come to terms with death, you'll have a marvelous life, no matter what happens to you."

"Why isn't it loaded? Are you afraid that you'll shoot yourself as you ride?"

"Of course not. These weapons don't go off accidentally. You have to do five things in a row before they'll fire, and accident can seldom count higher than three—which is a mystery of probability that my intuition tells me is rooted at the very base of physics.

"No, it's never loaded. I'm a pacifist."

"A pacifist!"

"When I was in school," Strassnitzky said, "I went out one morning in my riding clothes and shod in heavy boots, and as I left the last step I came down on a young bird that had been resting at the foot of the stairs, having been savaged by a hawk. My weight on it pushed the air out of its lungs, and when I turned to see what had made that unearthly noise, the bird looked at me in such a way that I knew that even animals have souls. Only a creature with a soul could have had eyes so expressive and so understanding, and I
had crushed it as it lay dying. It took a full day to die, and since then I have been what is called a pacifist. The term is inexact and demeaning, for a pacifist has no peace in his soul, and he knows rage as much as anyone else, but he simply will not kill."

"What about defenseless people in your charge? Wouldn't you kill, if you had to, to save them?"

"I would hold them in my arms, and we would go together."

"Forgive me," Alessandro said, "but even though I'm Italian, and religious, and find your principles intriguing, I'd like to turn the conversation to something more practical."

"What?"

"How did a pacifist become a field marshal?"

"If the emperor knew, he would have me shot."

"Naturally. To someone in authority, inconsistency is betrayal, and you are certainly the only field marshal in the world, in history, to live according to the principles of nonviolence. How did you advance?"

"Marriage. I never thought we'd have a real war, no one did. I was an excellent rider, my family is of the high nobility, and we have a great deal of money. It was only natural that I join the Hussars, but the Hussars were a circus troupe. The long and the short of it was parades, beautiful horses, dazzling bayonets, a magnificent laundry, and a corps of tailors. We dressed to kill, but no one in the entire regiment had ever fired a shot in anger. That's what war should be, I think.

"When I wasn't riding in parades I was dancing at royal receptions. In the summer of 'eight I danced with a princess, a favorite of the emperor, and by Christmas we were married. The promotions came rapidly thereafter. When the war started, I was already a colonel, and then the general in command died of compounded gout.

"I was put in charge, made a general, and sent into Serbia, where, by dint of my own ingenuity, we served honorably but did
not kill a soul. And that, believe me, is very hard with the Serbs, because they are very ingenious themselves, and they have a passion for martyrdom.

"I've been a field marshal for two years. I have so many medals that when I wear them I look like a window in a junk shop."

"And not a single one earned," Alessandro interjected.

"
Au contraire,
" Strassnitzky shot back. "Every single one. Of my three hundred men who really exist, I have not lost one. We have not deprived a single child of its father, or a mother of her son, or a wife of her husband or brother. We have not burned a single town or trampled a single field. When we encounter starving peasants, we use our considerable resources to feed them. We liberate prisoners, we heal the sick, we do not kill."

"How have you avoided detection? How can you exist without being thrown into battle? I don't understand."

"It was more difficult when I was just a general," Strassnitzky said, staring past the rust-colored trunks of the evergreens at mountains that glowed in the blue air, "but with this field marshal stuff it's very easy. A field marshal normally commands one or more armies. The post is semi-political, and normally I would command an entire front.

"But as I have only three hundred men, it's out of the question. Instead, I go where I want and I do what I want, trying not to step on anyone's toes. If I enter another field marshal's sphere of operations my presence challenges his authority, so it is considered political finesse for me to disappear. Everyone is grateful. In this way, we travel, we go anywhere except where there's a fight, and we fight imaginary battles that no one else can either confirm or deny.

"I created the other three hundred men, requisitioned the money for their training and supply, took three hundred real cavalrymen from the Russian front, sent them home to their families, changed their names slightly, and,
voila,
my ghost unit, integrated platoon by platoon, man by man, with the one that really exists. In the battles, only they are killed.