Unto All Men (2 page)

He talked to the Czech custom officers. To his indulgent surprise, he found that they had no aversion at all to killing Germans. One of them pleaded for “just one chance!” Tomas laughed. One of the detachments, his own, was ordered back, and he laughed again. Of course, they were calling it all off.

They were, but not in the way Tomas thought. He reached his former station five miles from the border. There was ominous radio news. Prague was “blacked-out” at night. London (God Bless London!) was preparing for air raids. Paris was filling with troops. Thousands of refugees were leaving Sudetenland. Russia was mobilizing. Italy was mobilizing. Mussolini, the cleverest man in Europe, declared the Rome-Berlin axis stronger than ever. It was War!

When he could, Tomas sat down and thought about it soberly. He was no real soldier. He had no desire to kill or be killed. Life was very good. There was his school, his studies. He hated military life, even that little of what he had seen. He hated nobody. Wars were ridiculous when they weren’t tragic. They solved nothing. There were some that said that the question: “Why should men kill each other?” was childish, yet they never explained why, with any logic.

Yet here he, Tomas Slivak, was faced with war. He supposed he ought to hate. But he did not. He cared for nothing but his father, his studies, and simple honor. He would have to kill. But perhaps that was necessary. He loved his country, at the last, and he would have to defend her. (But Hitler would not dare!)

Then all at once a whisper began to be circulated through the camp. England was preparing to betray little Czechoslovakia. There was something about a conference at Munich, at the last awful moment. Chamberlain had gone there, and Daladier and Mussolini. Tomas shook his head. He smiled at his grim comrades. A conference! Good! Now they would tell Hitler just where he stood. Now they would deliver him their last ultimatum. Now they would bring peace! A fringe of the riotous Sudetenland, perhaps, but who really cared for that. Just a fringe of the malcontents. It was bad, of course, but not too bad. Then home again!

The sickening whispers became stronger. Czechoslovakia, England had eagerly agreed, was to be dismembered. England, and France, too, were presenting their little ally on a silver tray to the despicable monster. The hound of Britain, Chamberlain, had flushed out not Germany, but the Slovak republic, and was baying at her heels, driving her right in to the Teutonic ambush. British hypocrisy. The stench of it, the mortal, loathsome, pious stench of it!

Tomas did not believe until his company were given the actual and terrible summons to go back. Then, when he did believe, his mental upheaval was frightful. He went sick with hatred and rage. He knew what it was to want to kill, not quickly and without malice, but with delight and soul-satisfaction. His school! His silly foolish school! His petty insignificant school! Nothing mattered now but that Czechoslovakia had been given up.

All his logic, his reason, was gone. There was only tumultuous madness in him. When he thought of tragic Benes, he wept. Everywhere about him his comrades were weeping. It was a retreat of anguish. Even old Hardheel, his sergeant, wept, the tears tumbling down his brown peasant face. There was no sound but the rolling of trucks, the marching of men, the murmur of the weeping. Peace! Ah, God, but it was a peace bought with death.

Tomas knew eight of his comrades quite well by now. The little queer Jew with his white face and big black eyes, a dancer, whom the others teased yet pitied and liked, for he was quiet and harmless, yet full of a twisted and acrid wit when aroused. An ignorant little Jew, with an accent, who could sing popular songs, or sentimental songs, with artistry, and who knew the most agile steps. A meek little man, with a pale and secret smile. Then there was Boehn, a German democrat, a big young man with a flushed face and angry blue eyes, with the gentlest of voices and the kindest of manners. He was a butler, and an excellent one, too, according to himself. He had a “frau” at home, and two fat twin babies, of whom he spoke with sheepish grins, the angry blue eyes softening. There was Spitalny, of an old and aristocratic Magyar family, who now operated a Hungarian cafe in Prague. This cafe was noted for its miraculous cuisine, its distinguished guests. Spitalny sang there, weird and plaintive Magyar songs, full of soft savagery and mystic love and languid melancholy He was a young man with a profile like a clean sword, gray eyes like hoarfrost, and a smile full of exquisite charm. He spoke constantly of his mistress, who he thought it would be a desecration to marry.

Spitalny had a gay and ribald word for patriotism. He thought it enormously funny. He had laughed with Tomas at the war rumors of their comrades. And then, when the evil news had come of Czechoslovakia’s betrayal he had not laughed again. He had not even smiled faintly. As they marched together, Tomas heard him weeping in the darkness. When he spoke again, it was not of his mistress, whom he loved beyond himself, but of honor and death and killing. His voice was charming and light as always, and the bloody words sounded strange when spoken with that voice.

Then there was Sczwerski, who was of Polish descent, a massager in the baths at Karlsbad. His talk, in his uncouth and arrogant voice, had been of indecent scandals among his wealthy patrons. He said the most lascivious things calmly, and with dull brutality. He declared that a noble German countess had been in love with him, a dainty woman of great pedigree. He related the lewd details minutely, to the delight of his comrades. Repeatedly, she called him to appear in her room at night, for massagings. According to Sczwerski, the lady did most of the massaging herself. It was all such a scandal that he had been discharged. But the lady had truly loved him; she had given him a small fortune, as well as her kisses, when they had parted.

But according to the Pole, he had hesitated to take the fortune. However she had insisted. He was just intending to set up a small establishment of his own, Turkish baths and such, in Prague, when this damned war-scare had broken out. It was a nuisance.

He was an enormous young man with shoulders and biceps. He had the head of a bull, and the body of a Roman statue. His face was thick and pursy, his eyes very small and sharp. But he was good-tempered and generous. When the little Jew had found it hard going on the march, the Pole had slyly carried the other’s gun for him, and he always managed to see that his weak comrade got his share of the food and the least uncomfortable place to sleep. But he was not very intelligent, and Tomas and Spitalny despised him.

The Pole had a fondness for the Germans, because of the great lady. And his own small bath establishment which he intended to open was the dear topic of his conversation. He described it to the minutest detail, with the gestures of love. It would be a real establishment! He, Sczwerski, knew how a bath should be. He would soon have the most elegant clients in all Prague. Foreigners would hear of him, and come flocking. When he spoke of this establishment his tiny eyes glowed, and his porcine face would take on the luminous quality of a lover’s.

Yes, he had a fondness for the Germans. He did not want to kill them. But there was Czechoslovakia. His section of his native Poland had been made a part of that country after the war. He had been only a baby at the time, but he remembered what his parents had told him of Poland. They had shuddered in the telling. His mother had a large hump on her back, caused by a kick delivered by a Polish landowner and gentleman, when she had been a very young child. His father had deep lash scars all over his body, and a thick scar over one eye. They had told their children that they had not known what it was to be thoroughly repleted with food until after their section of Poland had been made part of Czechoslovakia. They had not known what it was not to be afraid. Sczwerski’s father prayed nightly for the prosperity and the peace of his new country, and his mother made the sign of the cross. When their children came from school, able to read and write, they had cried with rapture, had embraced each other.

So Sczwerski loved Czechoslovakia and Tomas also heard his weeping in the dark marches. Poor Sczwerski knew nothing of politics; he could not understand that he was to hate England and France for their betrayal. He only knew that his country was to die, and he wanted to kill before he died too, in her death. When he thought of belonging to Poland again, he cursed aloud.

Then, there were the two simple brothers, Casimer and Boleslav Gowarski, Slovaks, illiterate in spite of teaching, good-tempered and innocent young men who farmed a communal farm together near the Polish border. They had married young Polish sisters, and had small families. They were happy and good and bewildered. But they had the peasant savagery and fierce patriotism. They clung together and wept when they heard the news.

Then, for the last, there was Jan Morvisz, Old Hardheel, who had the soldier’s love for country, and his ferocity. He never mentioned his children, but he carried soiled and tiny snapshots of them in his pack.

Last night they had pitched camp in the darkness and in one of the lower forests. The fires burned dimly. The vast company was silent. There were no songs tonight, no chaffing, no laughter. But for some reason Boehn, Schachner, Spitalny, Sczwerski, Slivak, and the Gowarskis stayed together in an incomprehensible comradeship.

Old Hardheel had been brooding, standing near a tree, biting the edge of his mustache. At times he clenched his fists, muttered to himself. Then he would shake his head and groan. So violent and strange were these manifestations that he attracted the weary attention of his fellow sergeants and corporals. They chaffed him without spirit; one even laughed a little. But he did not look at them.

The vast company finally fell asleep from exhaustion and depression. But Old Hardheel did not sleep, and neither did the seven others. They sat about not speaking, but thinking. They wiped their tears furtively in the darkness.

Old Hardheel suddenly appeared among them. They got up, sluggishly saluting heavily, looking at him with bleared eyes. Then when they saw his excitement, his fierce disordered gestures, the glinting of his eyes in the first light, they forgot their weariness and their grief. He bent towards them. He whispered:

“Comrades! Are you with me? Are you willing to die for our country?”

They stared. They murmured. They exchanged confused glances. Then they fixed their eyes on him eagerly, hardly breathing, drawing closely about him in order not to be heard.

He breathed heavily, looked from one to the other intently and fiercely in the dull red glow of the fire. There was a little madness about him.

“Yes, I mean die!” he whispered. “We will go somewhere; we will stay behind. We will hide in ambush. And then when the Germans come into the Sudetenland, we will kill many before we, too, shall die!”

This is insane, thought Tomas and Spitalny. But they listened, and as they did so, their hearts beat furiously. This is death, thought the little Jew, but he felt no fear. I’ll be blown to bits, thought the Pole; but he also thought of Czechoslovakia. I’ll never see my babies again, thought Boehn, but he lifted his head and gazed at Old Hardheel with his proud and angry blue eyes. No one will harvest the crops, thought the brothers Gowarski, but they saluted.

Old Hardheel saw their faces, and he nodded shortly and with ecstatic ferocity. He walked away, and they sat down again. But they did not sleep, and they did not speak. They did not even look at each other.

The dawn came, and the Army prepared to march eastward once more, heavy with their grief, their shame, the bitterness of their betrayal. There was a great deal of activity and confusion before they were under way. But eight of them stayed behind, hiding themselves in the forest. It was not until the company were miles away that they were missed. Then it was too late.

The sun was well up when the eight gathered together again beside the cold campfires. Old Hardheel permitted himself no sentimentalities, no elaborations. In his harsh reluctant peasant voice he brought them to attention. They went through the forest, keeping from the sight of any chance passers on the roads. But the countryside was curiously silent. Thousands of refugees had fled from it. Even when they went deeper and deeper into the Sudetes mountains they met few people, and these barely gave them a glance. A small group of Czech soldiers, keeping together, marching briskly. The people had seen thousands of these in the past few days.

They struck the road now, and marched westwards. They did not speak. They marched with pale set faces and eyes straight ahead, following Old Hardheel, carrying their guns, their packs on their backs. Then in the distance, in the exact center of the road, a very strange place indeed, was the schoolhouse.

Today the “token” detachment of German troops was to enter Czechoslovakia. Nearly all the populace had swarmed towards the border, rapturous, eager to greet the conquerors and “deliverers.” It was a holiday. The schools, the little farmhouses, the tiny villages, were empty, even the square stone schoolhouse, standing there in the center of the road. Old Hardheel forced open the door, and his followers entered.

The shutters were drawn. They locked the door after them. They looked at the scrawls on the blackboards, at the books, the desks and the doll. They tried on their gasmasks, rubbed their guns. They removed their packs. Some of them sat down. Old Hardheel and one or two others stood by the shutters, watching the road. It was down that road, triumphant and singing, that some of the German troops would come.

It is madness. It is the end, thought Tomas, sitting on his pack. But he did not believe it. In his heart, he did not believe it.

He got up and went to one of the shutters. By craning his neck and squinting he could see beyond the green of the fields; he could see the far fugitive gold of harvests, shimmering in the brilliant light. He could see the hollow blue and shining whiteness of the mountains. Then suddenly he could not help laughing. A solemn string of cows marched across the road not twenty yards from the schoolhouse. The others heard the laughter, and they got up and went to the shutters. When they saw the cows, moving majestically across the road, with the dignified imbecility of their kind, they burst into laughter also. Even the little white Jew laughed.

But the laughter ended. They were silent again, resuming their former positions. Someone passed cigarettes around. Everyone smoked. There was no sound in the schoolhouse; there was only the huddled shapes of the soldiers, the glinting of their fixed bayonets, the gray coiling of their smoke. Old Hardheel watched the road.

Each man thought his thoughts. To each of them, there was now nothing but their thoughts. Death was approaching them on the long empty highway. The sun was moving westwards, and each lengthening shadow was the finger that pointed to their end. There was no chance for them. It was their last day, perhaps their last hour, on earth.

Tomas had seen death many times in the hospitals. It had ceased to be mysterious and terrible to him. Loathsome at times, perhaps, disgusting other times, painful to watch at others. But not tragic. And in the last analysis, not very important. He attached no mysticism to it.

He had occasionally thought of death in connection with himself, but only as a very distant and vague possibility. When he was very old, perhaps, and tired of living, heavy with experience, smothered with grandchildren. He had seem himself with a white beard and white hair, perhaps a little doddering and old machine that had lost its usefulness. Once or twice he had thought that he might die of some middle-age disease, but that was very remote, also. Life had seemed endless to his youth, a long highway bordered with delightful pleasures and interesting events, and losing itself dimly on the horizon.

But now he was forced to think of death in immediate connection with himself. It seemed incredible to him. He looked at the face of death, appalled, rebellious, repudiate. Death to Tomas Slivak, who was scarcely twenty-one! His cigarette fell from his lips as full realization struck him to the heart. His young flesh turned cold with horror as though it suddenly understood for the first time. His blood seemed to stand still in his veins, chilling him with a mortal stagnation.

Death! For what? Last night in the firelight, out in the cool odorous forest, it had appeared that death was a small thing, not to be counted before that bitter grief and shame. But now it was no small thing, but a terrible one, stony with horror. He felt as a criminal feels before his execution. Now an icy sweat broke out all over him. He stood up abruptly. He found himself glancing about, as a man does who frenziedly looks for escape. There was the door. He had only to go to it, to lift its bolt, and step out, free and alive, into the sunshine. No one would mock him or blame him, or call him coward. He would not even feel that he was a coward, himself. For the others, no decorations. Czechoslovakia herself would be forced to disown and disclaim them, as trouble-makers who had threatened to destroy her precarious and loathsome peace. The Germans would throw their mutilated bodies in some roadside ditch, toss the hasty earth over them. No one would ever know where they lay, nor would they be remembered by a shaft of marble or a passing glance. And Tomas’ father would be left alone, in his elegant silver and curio shop. Tomas could see him greeting his customers, bowing to them, beaming on them. But there would be only a glazed anguish in his eyes. He would not even have the poor recompense, the agonized pride of saying: “My son! He died in honorable combat, fighting with his comrades in defense of his country!”