No Man's Land (46 page)

The
Prager Tagblatt
wrote in the same strain, ending its article by saying that the cripple volunteer was escorted by a crowd of Germans who protected him with their bodies from lynching by the Czech agents of the Entente.

Bohemie
published the same report and urged that the patriotic cripple should be fittingly rewarded. It announced that at its offices it was ready to receive gifts from German citizens for the unknown hero.

If in the eyes of these three journals the Czech lands could not have produced a nobler citizen, this was not the opinion of the gentlemen at the call-up board – certainly not of the chief army doctor Bautze, an utterly ruthless man who saw in everything a criminal attempt to evade military service, the front, bullets, and shrapnel.

This German's stock remark was widely famous: ‘The whole Czech people are nothing but a pack of malingerers.' During the ten weeks of his activities, of 11,000 civilians he cleaned out 10,999 malingerers, and he would certainly have got the eleven thousandth by the throat, if it had not happened that just when he shouted ‘About turn!' the unfortunate man was carried off by a stroke.

‘Take away that malingerer!' said Bautze, when he had ascertained that the man was dead.

And on that memorable day it was Å vejk who stood before him. Like the others he was stark naked and chastely hid his nudity behind the crutches on which he supported himself.

‘That's really a remarkable fig-leaf,' said Bautze in German. ‘There were no fig-leaves like that in paradise.'

‘Certified as totally unfit for service on grounds of idiocy,' observed the sergeant-major, looking at the official documents.

‘And what else is wrong with you?' asked Bautze.

‘Humbly report, sir, I'm a rheumatic, but I will serve His Imperial Majesty to my last drop of blood,' said Švejk modestly. ‘I have swollen knees.'

Bautze gave the good soldier Švejk a blood-curdling look and roared out in German: ‘You're a malingerer!'Turning to the sergeant-major he said with icy calm: ‘Clap the bastard into gaol at once!'

Two soldiers with bayonets took Å vejk off to the garrison gaol.

Å vejk walked on his crutches and observed with horror that his rheumatism was beginning to disappear.

Mrs Muller was still waiting for Å vejk with the bathchair above on the bridge but when she saw him under bayoneted escort she burst into tears and ran away from the bathchair, never to return to it again.

And the good soldier Å vejk walked along unassumingly under the escort of the armed protectors of the state.

Their bayonets shone in the light of the sun and at Malá Strana before the monument of Radetzky, Švejk turned to the crowd which had followed them and called out:

‘To Belgrade! To Belgrade!'

And Marshal Radetzky looked dreamily down from his monument at the good soldier Švejk, as, limping on his old crutches, he slowly disappeared into the distance with his recruit's flowers in his button-hole. Meanwhile a solemn-looking gentleman informed the crowd around that it was a ‘dissenter' they were leading off.

*
‘Down with the Serbs.'

JAROSLAV HAÅ EK

FROM HATVAN TOWARDS THE GALICIAN FRONTIER

from
The Good Soldier Å vejk

translated by Cecil Parrott

Å 
VEJK GOT CAUTIOUSLY INTO HIS VAN
and lying down on his greatcoat and pack said to the quartermaster sergeant-major and the others:

‘Once upon a time a man got sozzled and asked not to be disturbed…'

After these words he rolled over on his side and began to snore. The gases which he emitted by belching soon filled the whole compartment, so that Jurajda, inhaling the atmosphere through his nostrils, declared: ‘God! It certainly reeks of cognac here.'

Marek, who after all his tribulations had finally attained the rank of battalion historian, was sitting at a folding table.

He was engaged in writing up in advance the heroic deeds of the battalion, and it was obvious that he derived great pleasure from his look into the future.

Vaněk watched with interest how the volunteer was busily writing and laughing heartily in the process. Then he got up and leant over his shoulder. Marek started to explain to him: ‘You know, it's enormous fun writing a history of the battalion in advance. The main thing is to proceed systematically. In everything there must be system.'

‘A systematic system,' observed Vaněk with a more or less contemptuous smile.

‘Oh, yes,' the volunteer said nonchalantly, ‘a systemized systematic system of writing the battalion's history. We can't march off straight away with a magnificent victory. Everything must go gradually according to a definite plan. Our battalion cannot win this world war all at once.
Nihil nisi bene
. The main thing for a conscientious historian like me is first to draw up a plan of our victories. For example, here I describe how our battalion – this will perhaps be in two months' time – nearly crosses the Russian frontier, which is very strongly defended by, let's say, the Don regiments of the enemy, while a number of enemy divisions surround our positions. At first sight it looks as if it's all up with our battalion and that the enemy will make sausage-meat of us. But at this very moment Captain Ságner gives the following order to our battalion: “It is not the Lord's will that we should perish here. Let's flee.” And so our battalion starts to flee, but when the enemy division, which has encircled us, sees that we are actually running after them, they begin to retreat in panic and fall into the hands of our army's reserve without firing a shot. It is at this point really where the whole history of our battalion begins. From unimportant events, to speak like a prophet, Mr Vaněk, far-reaching things develop. Our battalion goes from victory to victory. It will be interesting to read how it attacks the enemy when he is asleep. For this we obviously need the style of the
Illustrated War News
, which was published by Vilímek during the Russo-Japanese war. Well, as I said, our battalion attacks the camp of the enemy while he is asleep. Each man of us seeks out an enemy and with all his force thrusts a bayonet into his chest. The finely sharpened bayonet goes through him like a knife through butter. Only here and there a rib cracks. The sleeping enemy jerk convulsively in their death spasms. For a moment they roll and goggle their eyes, but they are eyes which no longer see anything. Then they give the death rattle and their bodies stiffen. Bloody saliva appears on their lips, and with this it's all over and victory is on the side of our battalion. Or it will be even better in, say, three months' time, when our battalion captures the Tsar of Russia. But we'll talk about that later, Mr Vaněk. Meanwhile I must prepare in advance small episodes which testify to the battalion's unexampled heroism. I'll have to think out an entirely new war terminology for it. I've already invented one new term. I intend to write about the self-sacrificing resolution of our men, who are riddled through and through with splinters of shrapnel. As a result of an explosion of an enemy mine one of our sergeants, shall we say, of the 12th or 13th company, has his head blown off.

‘By the way,' he said, hitting himself on the head, ‘I nearly forgot, sergeant-major, or if we're to talk on civilian terms, Mr Vaněk, that you must get me a list of all the officers and N. C. O.s. Give me the name of a sergeant-major of the 12th company. – Houska? Good. Houska now will have his head blown off by that mine. His head flies off, but his body still marches one or two steps forwards, takes aim and shoots down an enemy plane. It's quite obvious that in the future these victories and their repercussions will have to be celebrated within the family circle at Schönbrunn. Austria has very many battalions, but there is only one battalion like ours, which distinguishes itself so much that in its honour a small intimate family celebration is held in the Imperial Household. I visualize it in the following way, as you can see in my notes: the family of the Archduchess Marie Valerie moves from Wallsee to Schönbrunn for this celebration: the function is a purely private one and takes place in the hall next to the Monarch's bedroom, which is lit with white candles, because, as is well known, they do not like electric bulbs at the court in case there should be a short circuit, to which the old monarch has strong objections. The ceremony in honour and praise of our battalion starts at six o'clock in the evening. At this moment His Majesty's grandchildren are brought into the hall, which is actually part of the suite of the late Empress. Now it's a question as to who will be present besides the Imperial Family. The Monarch's general adjutant, Count Paar, must and will be there, and because during such family and intimate receptions someone occasionally feels faint (by which of course I don't mean that Count Paar himself should vomit), the presence of the personal doctor, the Counsellor of the Court, Dr Kerzl, will be required. For the sake of decency, to ensure that the court footmen shouldn't permit themselves any liberties with the ladies-in-waiting present at the reception, the Marshal of the Court, Baron Lederer, the Chamberlain, Count Bellegarde, and the principal Lady-in-Waiting, Countess Bombelles, will appear. The latter fulfils the same role among the ladies-in-waiting as madame does in the Prague brothel, U Šuh
. As soon as these exalted gentry are assembled the Emperor is informed and appears accompanied by his grandchildren. He sits down at a table and proposes a toast in honour of our march battalion. After him the Archduchess Marie Valerie makes a speech in which she pays a special compliment to you, quartermaster sergeant-major. Of course, according to my notes our battalion will suffer heavy and severe losses, because a battalion without dead is no battalion at all. I shall still have to prepare a new article about our fallen. The history of a battalion should not consist merely of dry facts about victories, of which I have already recorded in advance some forty-two. You, for example, Mr Vaněk, will fall by a small stream, and Baloun, who's staring at us here in such an extraordinary fashion, will die an entirely different death. It will not be by bullet, shrapnel or shell. He will be strangled by a lassoo, thrown down from an enemy plane at the very moment when he is wolfing his lieutenant's dinner.'

Baloun stepped back, waved his hands despairingly and remarked dejectedly: ‘I'm sorry, you know, but I can't help my nature! Even when I was in regular service I used to turn up some three times for mess in the kitchen until they put me in gaol for it. Once I had boiled rib of beef for dinner three times and because of that I was in quod for a month. May God's will be done!'

‘Don't be afraid, Baloun,' the volunteer consoled him. ‘In the history of the battalion there'll be no mention of the fact that you perished when you were guzzling grub on the way from the officers' mess to the trenches. You'll be mentioned together with all the men of our battalion who fell for the glory of our Empire, as for instance Quartermaster Sergeant-Major Vaněk.'