The Good Soldier Svejk (55 page)

"On the whole I cannot say I am surprised at this action on the part of Italy. I expected this to happen three months ago. There can be no doubt that of recent years Italy has become extremely arrogant, in consequence of the successful war against Turkey. Moreover, she is placing too much reliance on her fleet and on the feeling among the population in our Adriatic areas and in south Tyrol. Before the war I used to tell our district chief of police that our government ought not to underestimate the irredentist movement in the south. He quite agreed with me, because every farsighted man who is concerned about the preservation of this empire must long ago have realized what would happen to us if we were to show too much indulgence toward such elements. I well remember that about two years ago, in the course of a conversation with our district of police, I stated that Italy was only waiting for the next opportunity of making a treacherous attack on us.

"And
now
they've done it !" he bellowed, as if all the others were disputing his statements, although all the regular officers who were listening to his speech were wishing that the talkative temporary gentleman would go to blazes.

"It is true," he continued in quieter tones, "that in the vast majority of cases people were apt to forget our former relations with Italy, those great days when our armies were glorious and victorious, in 1848 and in 1866, which are mentioned in to-day's brigade orders. But I always did my duty, and just before the end of the school year, practically at the very beginning of the war, I set my pupils an essay on : 'Our Heroes In Italy from Vicenza to Custozza, or -' "

And the drivelling Lieutenant Dub solemnly added :

" '—Blood and Life for Habsburg, for an Austria Undivided and Uniquely Great.' "

He paused and waited for someone else in the staff carriage to express views on the new situation, so that he could show them

that he had known five years previously how Italy would one day treat her Ally. But he was grievously disappointed, for Captain Sagner, to whom battalion orderly Matushitch had brought the evening edition of the
Pester Lloyd
from the railway station, remarked from the depths of his newspaper :

"Look here, that actress Weiner who was starring at Bruck when we were there, was playing last night at the Little Theatre in Budapest."

And this concluded the debate on Italy in the staff carriage.

Battalion Orderly Matushitch and Batzer, Captain Sagner's orderly, viewed the war with Italy from a purely practical point of view, because, many years previously, when they were doing their regular military service, they had both taken part in manœuvres in south Tyrol.

"It won't half be a sweat for us, climbing about on those mountains," said Batzer. "Captain Sagner's got loads of boxes. There's mountains where I come from, but it's quite a different sort of stunt when you shove your gun under your coat and go to see if you can't bag a hare or two on his lordship's preserves."

"It's all according to whether they're going to send us off to Italy," said Matushitch gloomily. "I can't say as I'd be exactly keen on trapesing about on those mountains and glaciers and whatnot with messages. And then the grub down there, why, it's nothing but polenta and oil, oil and polenta."

"And I don't see why we should be the ones to do this mountain stuff," said Batzer, waxing indignant. "Our regiment's done its whack in Serbia and the Carpathians. I've done my share of carting the captain's box about in mountains. I lost 'em twice : once in Serbia and then in the Carpathians, when we were getting it fair in the neck. Maybe there's a third lot in store for me somewhere in Italy. And as for the grub -"

He spat with disgust.

Then he drew closer to Matushitch and said confidentially :

"You know, in my part of the country we make small dumplings with raw potatoes, we boil 'em, soak 'em in egg-yolk, stick plenty of bits of crust over 'em and then fry 'em on bacon."

He pronounced the last word with mysterious solemnity.

"And they're just fine with sauerkraut," he added in melancholy tones. "I got no use for macaroni."

This completed their conversation about Italy.

As the train had now been standing in the station for more than two hours, the occupants of the other trucks believed to a man that the train was going to be turned round and sent to Italy. This was suggested by a number of queer things that had been happening to the echelon. All the men had again been chivvied out of the trucks, there had been a sanitary inspector with a disinfecting committee which had come and liberally sprinkled all the trucks with lysol, a proceeding which met with great disapproval, especially in the trucks containing bread rations. But orders are orders. The sanitation committee had issued orders to disinfect all trucks of echelon 728, and so they stolidly squirted lysol over quantities of bread rations and bags of rice. This alone showed that something special was going to happen.

After that, everybody was chivvied back into the trucks, because an aged general had come to inspect the echelon. Schweik, who was standing in the back ranks, remarked to Quartermaster-sergeant Vanek on the subject of this worthy :

"There's an old perisher for you !"

And the old perisher trotted along the ranks, accompanied by Captain Sagner, and stopped in front of a young recruit. Apparently by way of encouraging the rank-and-file as a whole, he asked where the young recruit came from, how old he was and whether he had a watch. The young recruit had a watch, but as he thought that he was going to get another one from the old gentleman, he said he hadn't got one, whereupon the aged general gave a fatuous smile, such as Franz Joseph used to put on, whenever, on festive occasions, he addressed a few words to the mayors of towns, and said : "That's fine, that's fine," whereupon he honoured a corporal, who was standing near, by asking him whether his wife was well.

"Beg to report, sir," bawled the corporal, "I'm not married."

Whereupon the general, with a patronizing smile, repeated: "That's fine, that's fine."

Then the general, lapsing still further into senile infantility,

asked Captain Sagner to show him how the troops number off in twos from the right, and after a while, he heard them yelling : "One—two, one—two, one—two."

The aged general was very fond of this. At home he had two orderlies, and he used to line them up in front of him and make them number off : "One—two, one—two."

Austria had lots of generals like that.

When the inspection was safely over, and the general had lavishly expressed his approval to Captain Sagner, the men were given permission to move about within the precincts of the railway station, as a message had arrived that they were not leaving for another three hours. The men accordingly strolled about with an eye to the main chance, and as there were plenty of people in the station, here and there a soldier managed to scrounge a cigarette.

It was obvious, however, that the early enthusiasm which had evinced itself in the festive welcome extended to the troops in railway stations had sunk considerably and was being reduced to the point where cadging began.

Captain Sagner was met by a deputation from the League for Welcoming Heroes, consisting of two terribly jaded ladies who presented the gifts for the troops, to wit, twenty small boxes of throat pastilles (assorted flavours). These little boxes, which were distributed as an advertisement by a Budapest manufacturer of confectionery, were made of tin and on the lid was painted a Hungarian soldier shaking hands with an Austrian militiaman, with the crown of St. Stephen glittering above them. This was surrounded by an inscription in German and Magyar : "For Emperor, God and Country." The manufacturer of confectionery was so loyal that he put the Emperor before God.

Each box contained eighty pastilles, which worked out, on an average, at five pastilles for three men. Besides the pastilles, the jaded and worried ladies had brought a bundle of leaflets containing two prayers written by Géza Szatmur Budafal, Archbishop of Budapest. They were in German and Magyar, and contained the most dreadful imprecations against all enemies. According to the venerable archbishop, the Almighty ought to chop the Russians, English, Serbs, French and Japanese into mincemeat. The

Almighty ought to bathe in the blood of the enemy and slaughter them all as Herod did the babies. In his pious little prayers the worthy archbishop made use of such choice phrases as :

"May God bless your bayonets that they may penetrate deep into the entrails of your enemies. May the Almighty in His great righteousness direct your artillery fire upon the heads of the enemy staffs. Merciful God, grant that all our enemies may be stifled amid their own blood, from the wounds which we inflict upon them."

When the two ladies had handed over all these gifts, they expressed to Captain Sagner an urgent wish to be present at the distribution. In fact, one of them went so far as to say that on this occasion she would like to say a few words to the troops, whom she always referred to as "our brave boys."

They both looked terribly hurt when Captain Sagner refused them their wish. Meanwhile, the gifts were carted off to the truck which was being used as a store. The worthy ladies passed through the ranks and one of them patted a bearded warrior on the cheek. Knowing nothing about the exalted mission of these ladies, the warrior remarked to his comrades after their departure :

"There's a couple of brazen old tarts for you! Fancy those ugly, flat-footed old geezers having the sauce to try and get off with soldiers !"

The station was in a regular hubbub. The Italian complication had caused a certain amount of panic. Two echelons of artillery had been held up and sent to Styria. There was also an echelon of Bosnians who for some unknown reason had been left there for two days and completely overlooked. They had not drawn any rations for two days and were now going about the streets of Ujpest, begging for bread.

At last the draft of the 91st regiment was again got together and went back into the trucks. But after a while, Matushitch, the battalion orderly, came back from the railway transport office with the news that they were not starting for another three hours. Accordingly, the men who had just been collected were again let out of the trucks. Then, just before the train started, Lieutenant Dub entered the staff carriage in a very agitated state and asked

Captain Sagner to have Schweik put under arrest immediately. Lieutenant Dub, who had been notorious as a talebearer among his fellow-teachers, was fond of having conversations with soldiers, with the idea of getting at their opinions and also so that he could explain to them didactically why they were fighting and for what they were fighting.

While strolling round, he caught sight of Schweik standing near a lamp post behind the station buildings, and examining with interest the poster of some charitable war lottery. This poster depicted an Austrian soldier impaling a scared and bearded Cossack against a wall.

Lieutenant Dub tapped Schweik on the shoulder and asked him how he liked it.

"Beg to report, sir," replied Schweik, "it's a lot of rot. I've seen plenty of footling placards in my time, but I've never seen any flapdoodle as bad as that before."

"What is it you don't like about it?" asked Lieutenant Dub.

"Well, sir, first of all I don't like the way the soldier is handling the bayonet that he's been trusted with and all. Why, he'll smash it against the wall like that. And, besides, there's no need for him to do it, anyhow, because the Russian's put his hands up. He's a prisoner and you got to treat prisoners properly. Fair's fair, when all's said and done. That chap'll cop out for what he's doing."

Lieutenant Dub continued his investigations into Schweik's views and asked him:

"So you're sorry for that Russian, are you?"

"I'm sorry for both of 'em, sir. For the Russian because he's got a bayonet shoved through his inside, and for the soldier because he's going to cop out for it. What's the use of him smashing his bayonet like that, sir? Why, sir, when I was doing my regular service in the army, we used to have a lieutenant in our company and I bet the toughest sergeant-major hadn't got the gift of the gab like that lieutenant. On the parade ground he'd say to us : 'When I say 'Shun, your eyes have got to start out of your head like a tomcat spewing into a saucer.' But apart from that he was quite a nice chap. Once at Christmas time he went dotty and bought a cartload of cocoanuts for the whole company, and ever

since then I've known how easy it is to smash a bayonet. Half the company smashed their bayonets on those cocoanuts, and our colonel gave the whole company C. B. for three months, and the lieutenant was confined to his quarters."

Lieutenant Dub gazed cantankerously at the cheerful face of the good soldier Schweik and asked him in an angry tone :

"Do you know me?"

"Yes, sir, I know you."

Lieutenant Dub rolled his eyes and stamped his foot.

"Let me tell you that you don't know me yet."

Schweik again replied, with unruffled calm :

"Beg to report, sir, I know you. You're on our draft."

"You don't know me yet !" yelled Lieutenant Dub. "You may know me from my good side, but wait till you know me from my bad side. If a man gets on the wrong side of me, I can make him wish he hadn't been born. Now do you know me or don't you?"

"I do know you, sir."