The Good Soldier Svejk (64 page)

At this point Schweik waved his hand majestically.

"Worthy sirs," he said, mimicking the mayor's voice, "I once read in a book that when the Swedish wars were on, and there was orders to billet the troops in such and such a village, and the mayor tried to get out of it and wouldn't oblige them, they hung him up pn the nearest tree. And then a Polish corporal was telling me to-day at Sanok that when the billeting officers arrive the mayor has to call together all the chief men of the village and then he just goes round with them to the cottages and says : Three men here, four men there, officers in the parsonage, and everything's got to be ready in half an hour.

"Worthy sir," continued Schweik, turning to the mayor, "whereabouts is the nearest tree?"

The mayor did not understand the meaning of the word "tree," and so Schweik explained to him that it was a birch or an oak, or something that plums or apples grew on, or, in fact, anything with strong branches. The mayor did not quite understand this either, but when he heard the names of fruit being mentioned, he became alarmed because the cherries were now ripe, and so he said that he knew nothing about that kind of thing, but that there was an oak tree in front of his cottage.

"AU right, then," said Schweik, with an international gesture to denote hanging, "we'll hang you up in front of your cottage, because you've got to understand that there's a war on and we've got orders to sleep here and not in Krościenko or wherever it is. You're not going to change our military plans, and if you try to, you'll swing for it, like in that book about the Swedish wars. I remember, gentlemen, there was a case like this during the manœuvres at -"

Quartermaster-sergeant Vanek interrupted.

"Tell us about that later," he said, and then, turning to the mayor, he added:

"Now then, wake 'em all up and we'll find our billets."

The mayor began to tremble and stammered something about being anxious to do the best for the worthy sirs, but if it had to be, why, perhaps they could find room in the village after all, with everything to their satisfaction, and he'd bring a lantern at once.

When he had gone out of the room, which was very scantily illuminated by a small oil lamp underneath the image of some saint or other, Chodounsky suddenly exclaimed :

"Where's Baloun got to?"

But before they could take proper stock of the place, the door behind the stove, which led to some outer place, quietly opened, and Baloun squeezed his way in. He looked round cautiously to see if the mayor was still there, and then said snufflingly as if he had a terrible cold :

"I've been in the larder and shoved my hand into something and took a mouthful of it, and now it all keeps sticking together. It ain't salty and it ain't sweet ; it's dough for making bread with."

Quartermaster-sergeant Vanek flashed an electric torch on him, and they all agreed that never in their lives had they seen an Austrian soldier in such a ghastly mess. Then they had quite a scare, because they saw Baloun's tunic swelling up as if he were in the last stage of pregnancy.

"What have you been up to, Baloun?" inquired Schweik compassionately, as he prodded him in the bulging stomach.

"That's gherkins," wheezed Baloun, stifled by the dough, which wouldn't move up nor down. "Be careful, that's salt gher-

kins. I ate three of 'em in a bit of a hurry, and brought the rest for you."

Baloun began to extract gherkin after gherkin from beneath his tunic and handed them round.

At this juncture the mayor appeared on the threshold, with a light, and seeing what had happened, he crossed himself and lamented :

"The Russians took everything, and now our soldiers are taking everything, too."

They then all proceeded into the village, escorted by a pack of dogs who clung most obstinately to Baloun and pranced at his trouser pockets, where he had a lump of bacon. This was another of his finds in the pantry, but for sheer gluttony he had basely kept it to himself.

As they went round in search of billets, they ascertained that Liskowiec was a large place but that it really had been reduced to dire straits by the turmoil of war. It had not actually incurred any damage by fire, as, miraculously enough, neither side had included it in the sphere of operations, but on the other hand the inhabitants of neighbouring villages which had been destroyed were now crowded into it. In some huts there were as many as eight families living in the greatest misery, after all the losses they had suffered as a result of the pillage arising from the war, the first phase of which had swamped them like the turbulent waves of a flood.

The company had to be quartered partly in a small devastated distillery at the other end of the village, where half of them could be accommodated in the fermenting room. The rest, in batches of ten, were billeted on a number of farms, the wealthy owners of which had refused to admit any of the poverty-stricken rabble who had been reduced to beggary by being robbed of their goods and chattels.

The staff, with all the officers, Quartermaster-sergeant Vanek, orderlies, telephone operators, ambulance section, cooks and Schweik, quartered themselves in the parsonage, where there was plenty of room, because the incumbent had likewise refused to admit any of the families who had lost all their possessions.

He was a tall, gaunt old man in a faded and greasy cassock,

who was so stingy that he would scarcely eat anything. His father had brought him up in great hatred of the Russians, but he suddenly got rid of his hatred when the Russians withdrew and the Austrian troops arrived, eating up all the geese and chickens which the Russians had not interfered with, while a few shaggy Cossacks had been quartered on him. And his grudge against the Austrian troops had increased when the Magyars had come into the village and taken all the honey from his hives. He now looked daggers at his nocturnal guests, and if did him good to be able to shrug his shoulders and declare, as he paced to and fro before them:

"I've got nothing. I'm a complete pauper and you won't find so much as a slice of bread here."

Baloun looked particularly upset to hear of this distress, and it was a wonder he did not burst into tears. He found his way into the kitchen of the parsonage, upon which a sharp eye was being kept by a lanky youth acting as both handy-man and cook to the incumbent, who had given him strict orders to see that nothing, was stolen anywhere. And Baloun had found nothing in the kitchen, except a little caraway seed wrapped up in paper inside a salt cellar. So he had made short work of that.

In the yard of the small distillery behind the parsonage the fires were alight under the field cookers, and the water was already on the boil, but there was nothing in the water. The quartermaster-sergeant and the cooks had searched the village from end to end for a pig, but no pig had they found. Everywhere they obtained the same answer : the Russians had taken and eaten everything.

Then they knocked up the Jew in the tavern. He tugged at his side curls and displayed enormous distress at not being able to oblige them. But in the end he induced them to buy from him an ancient cow, a relic of the previous century, a gaunt eyesore on its last legs, a sheer mass of skin and bone. He demanded an exorbitant sum for this appalling object, and tearing his side curls he swore that they would not find another cow like this in the whole of Galicia, in the whole of Austria and Germany, in the whole of Europe, in the whole world. He wailed, whined and protested that this was the fattest cow which had ever come into the world at Jehovah's behest. He vowed by all his forefathers that

people came from far and wide to look at this cow, that the whole countryside talked about this cow as a legend, that, in fact, it was no cow at all, but the juiciest of oxen. Finally, he kneeled down before them, and clutching at the knees of one after another, he exclaimed :

"Kill a poor old Jew if you like, but don't go away without the cow."

He so bamboozled everybody with his howling that in the end the piece of carrion at which any knacker would have drawn the line was taken away to the field cooker. Then, long after he had the money safely in his pocket, he kept on wailing and lamenting that they had completely ruined him, destroyed him, that he had been reduced to beggary by having sold them so magnificent a cow at such an absurdly low price. He begged them to hang him up for having, in his old age, committed such a piece of folly which must make his fathers turn in their graves.

When, on top of this, he had wallowed in the dust before them, he suddenly shook all his grief aside, and went home, where he said to his wife:

"Elsa, my dear, the soldiers are fools, and your Nathan is a very shrewd man."

The cow gave them a lot of trouble. At times it seemed that they would never be able to skin the animal. When they tried to do so, they kept tearing the skin apart, and underneath they beheld sinews as twisted as a dried hawser.

Meanwhile, from somewhere or other, a sack of potatoes had been brought along, and hopelessly they began to cook the gristle and bones, while in the smaller field cooker a thoroughly desperate attempt was made to concoct from this piece of skeleton some kind of meal for the officers' mess.

This wretched cow, if such a freak can be called a cow, stuck in the memories of all who came into contact with it, and later on, if at the Battle of Sokal the commanders had reminded the troops of the cow from Liskowiec, it is fairly certain that the nth company, with terrible yells of wrath, would have flung themselves, bayonets in hand, upon the enemy. The scandal of the cow was such that it did not even produce any broth. The more the flesh was boiled, the tighter it stuck to the bones, forming with them a

solid mass, as stodgy as a bureaucrat who has spent half his life feeding on official
forms and devouring
files and documents.

Schweik, who, as a sort of courier, kept up the lines of communication between staff and kitchen,
in order to make sure when
the meal would be cooked, finally announced to Lieutenant Lukash :

"It's no use, sir, the meat on that cow is so hard that you could cut glass with it. The cook tried to bite a piece of it, and he's broke a front tooth. And Baloun, he tried to bite a piece of it, too, and he's broke a double tooth."

And Baloun solemnly stepped forward in front of Lieutenant Lukash, and handing him the broken tooth, wrapped up in a copy of the hymn which he had been given at Turowa Wolska, he stammered :

"Beg to report, sir, I've done what I could. This tooth got broke in the officers' mess when we was trying to see if we could make some beefsteak out of that meat."

At these words, a woebegone form arose from the armchair by the window. It was Lieutenant Dub, who had been brought along in a two-wheeled cart by the ambulance section. He was a thorough wreck.

"Make less noise, please," he said brokenly. "I'm very unwell."

He sank back into the old armchair, every chink in which swarmed with bugs' eggs.

"I'm tired out," he said in tragic accents. "I am sick and ailing, so please don't speak about broken teeth in my presence. My address is: 18 King Street, Smichov, and if I don't live until tomorrow, kindly see that the news is conveyed to my family in a considerate manner and that they don't forget to mention on my grave that before the war I taught in a school under His Majesty's Imperial Royal Government."

He then lapsed into a gentle snoring.

It was now decided that the troops had better have a nap before rations were issued, because in any case there would be no supper until morning.

In the kitchen, in front of a lighted stump of church candle, sat Chodounsky, the telephone operator, and wrote a stock of letters

to his wife, to save himself the trouble later on. The first was as follows :

My deer, deer wife, my beloved Bożenka,

It is nite and I keep thinking of you my deer one and see you thinking of me as you look at the empty plaice in the bed beside you. Please dont be angry with me if the thort of this makes me think about New-merus things. You no of corse I have bean at the f runt since the war started and I have herd Newmerus things from frends of mine who were wounded and went home on leeve and when they got home they wood rather have been under the Erth than find out that sum rotter had bean after their wives. It is Panefull for me deer Bożenka to rite to you like this I woodnt rite like this but you sed yourself I wasn't the ferst who was on close turms with you and before me there was Mr Kraus who lives down Nicholas Street well when I think of this in the nite that this Crock mite start making himself a Newsense to you I think deerest Bożenka I cood ring his neck on the spot, I kep this to myself a long time but when I think he mite start coming after you agane it makes my Hart ake and let me just tell you I wont stand any wife of mine running round like a Hoar with everybody and bringing Disgrace on my name. Forgive me deerest Bożenka for talking so plane but take care I dont here anything of that Sort about you. Or I shood have to do you both In because I am prepaired for anything even if it cost me my Life with lots and lots of Kisses best wishes to Dad and Ma Your own Tony.

P. S. Don't forget I gave you my name.

The next epistle which he added to his store ran :

My deerest Bożenka,

When you receeve these Lines you will no we have had a grate Battel in witch I am glad to say we came off Best. We shot down about io enemy airoplains and a general with a big Wort on his nose. In the Hite of the Battel when the shells were bersting above our Heds I thort of you deerest Bożenka and wondered what you were doing how you are and how everything is at Home. I allways remember how we were together at the beerhouse and you took me home and the next day you were Tired out. Now we are mooving on agane so their is no more Time for me to rite. I hope you have been Fathef ull to me becos you no I wont stand any nonsense of that Sort. But now we are starting to March again with lots and lots of kisses deer hoping all will turn out Well your own Tony.