Simplicissimus (23 page)

Our landlady soon saw that she would have to get rid of my lodgers unless she wanted them to take over both herself and the whole house. She wasted no time, but threw my rags in the oven and fumigated them. They came out clean of vermin and I felt as if I were in a garden of roses. You have no idea how marvellous it was to be freed of the torment of the last months, which had been like living in an ant-hill.

To make up for it, though, I discovered I had another cross to bear. My master was one of the few soldiers who think they will go to heaven. He was quite content with his pay and wouldn’t harm a fly. His whole fortune consisted of what he could earn from sentry duty and save out of his weekly wages which, although they were pretty meagre, he guarded more closely than some do oriental pearls. Every copper he sewed tightly into his clothing, and his poor horse and I had to scrimp and save to help add to his store. The result was that I had to break my teeth on dry pumpernickel and make do with water or, if I was lucky, with small beer, which was not to my taste, especially now my throat was raw from the hard black bread. I grew quite thin, but if I wanted better food, he said, then I would have to steal it, only he made it quite clear that he did not want to know about it.

If everybody had been like him there would have been no need for gallows or rack, torturers, executioners or surgeons, nor even for sutlers or drummers to beat lights out. Nothing was further from his thoughts than eating and drinking, gambling and fighting. If he was ordered out on a convoy, raid or other kind of sortie he would amble along like an old woman with her stick. If this good dragoon had not exhibited these heroic military virtues he would never have captured me since he would have been dashing after the lieutenant-colonel. There was no hope of getting any cast-off clothes from him as he went about in rags and patches himself, just like the old hermit; his saddle and bridle were hardly worth a few coppers and his horse so weak with hunger neither Swedes nor Hessians had anything to fear from his hot pursuit.

All this led the captain to send him on guard duty to Paradise – the name of a nearby convent – as protection for the nuns. Not that he would have been much protection for them, but the captain hoped he might get himself fattened and his uniform smartened up. The main reason he sent him in particular, however, was because the nuns had asked for a pious, conscientious and quiet soldier. So off he rode, with me walking along beside him, since unfortunately he only had one horse.

‘Now there’s a piece of luck, Simbrecht’, he said (he never did manage to get my name right), ‘won’t we fill our bellies when we get to Paradise.’

‘The name is an auspicious portent’, I answered, ‘let’s hope the place lives up to it.’

He didn’t understand what I said properly and replied, ‘We’ll certainly live it up if we can pour ten pints of good beer down our throats every day. I’m going to get myself a fine new cloak made and if you behave yourself you can have my old one, there’s still plenty of wear in it.’ He was right to call it his old cloak, I imagine it could still remember the Battle of Pavia a hundred years ago. It was so weather-stained and threadbare I was hardly overjoyed at his offer.

Paradise, on the other hand, was all we had hoped it would be, and more. Instead of angels, it was full of beautiful young women who kept us so well supplied with food and drink I was soon my old plump self again. There was plenty of the strongest beer, the best Westphalian ham and sausages, tasty and tender beef, boiled in salt water and eaten cold. That was where I learnt to spread salted butter thickly on the black bread so that it slipped down nicely when I ate it with a hunk of cheese. And when I sat down to a gigot of lamb pricked with garlic and a mug of fine ale beside it, I felt I was refreshing both body and soul and forgot all the suffering I had been through. In a word, this Paradise agreed with me as well as if it had been the real one. My only complaint was that I knew it would come to an end and that I would have to leave it in such a shabby coat.

But just as misfortune, once it had started to pursue me, had attacked me on all sides, it seemed that now good fortune was trying to make up for it. My master sent me back to Soest to bring the rest of his baggage and on the way I found a pack with several yards of scarlet cloth for a coat together with red silk for the lining. I took it and exchanged it at a cloth merchant’s in Soest for enough ordinary green worsted to make me a suit of clothes, plus all the other bits and pieces, on condition he made the clothes for me and included a new hat. All I needed now was a new pair of shoes and a shirt, so I gave the merchant the silver buttons and braid that went with the coat as well and he obtained them for me so that I was kitted out from head to toe in fine new clothes. When I got back to my master in Paradise he was furious I had not brought my find to him. I thought I had done a good piece of business, but he talked of giving me a good beating and even came close to stripping me and wearing the suit himself. Indeed, I think he would have if the clothes had fitted him and he had not after all been somewhat embarrassed at the idea.

After that the penny-pinching skinflint was ashamed to see his groom better dressed than he was, so he rode into Soest and fitted himself out in style with money borrowed from his captain, which he promised to pay back from the wages he got for guarding the convent, a promise he duly kept. He in fact had enough money of his own to pay for it, but he was far too crafty to dip into his savings. If he had done so, it would have been goodbye to the life of ease he intended to enjoy through the winter in Paradise, for some other indigent soldier would have been given his post. As it was however, the captain had to leave him there if he wanted to get his money back.

From then on we led the idlest life in the world; playing skittles was the hardest work we did. Once I had groomed, fed and watered my master’s nag I could play the gentleman and go for walks. The convent was also under the protection of a musketeer from of our opposite numbers, the Hessians in Lippstadt. By trade he was a furrier, which meant he was not only a mastersinger but also an excellent fencer. In order to keep his skill honed he spent a long time every day practising with me in all the different arms until I was so accomplished that I was not afraid to accept his challenge whenever he wanted. My dragoon played skittles with him instead of fencing, the loser having to drink most beer at dinner; that way it was the convent that paid for the losses of both men.

The convent had its own hunting grounds and therefore employed a huntsman. Since I was also dressed in hunting green I used to go out with him, and during that autumn and winter he taught me all his skills, especially as far as catching small game was concerned. Because of this, and since the name Simplicius was unusual and difficult for ordinary people to remember, or even pronounce, everyone called me
the Wee Huntsman
. I came to know all the paths and tracks, and afterwards put the knowledge to good use. When the weather was too bad for me to wander through the fields and woods I read all kind of books that the steward of the convent lent me. However, as soon as the aristocratic ladies of the convent realised that as well as having a good voice I could also play the lute, and a little on the clavichord as well, they started to look at me more closely. Since I was also well-proportioned and good-looking they concluded that my whole manner and bearing was noble so that before I knew it I was a very popular young gentleman and they could not work out why I put up with serving such a vulgar dragoon.

At the end of this delightful winter my master was relieved of his duties in Paradise, which so vexed him that it made him ill. His condition was aggravated by a violent fever and the old wounds he had received in the wars so that he did not last long and three weeks later I had a body to bury. I wrote the following epitaph on his grave:

It was the customary right in such cases for the captain to inherit the dragoon’s horse and arms and his sergeant all the rest. Since, however, I was a lively, well-built lad and looked as if in time I would be perfectly capable of holding my own, they offered to let me have the lot if I would join up in place of my late master. I accepted, all the more willingly because I knew that my master had sewn into his old trousers a considerable number of ducats he had managed to scrape together over the years. When I gave my name, Simplicius Simplicissimus, to the clerk who kept the roll (his name was Cyriacus), he didn’t know how to spell it and said, ‘There’s no demon in hell has a name like that.’

‘There is one called Cyriacus, then?’ I riposted, to which he had no answer, even though he thought himself so clever. This amused my captain and made him well-disposed towards me right from the start.

Since the commandant in Soest needed a lad for the stables and he thought I was ideally suited for the job, he was unhappy that I had become a dragoon. He tried to get me by claiming to my captain that I was too young and not yet a man. He sent for me too and said, ‘Wee Huntsman, I want you to be my servant.’ When I asked what my duties would be, he said, ‘You’ll help look after my horses.’

‘Sir’, I said, ‘we’re not for each other. I would rather have a master whose horses served me, but since I can’t find one like that, I’ll stay a soldier.’

‘Your beard hasn’t grown enough yet’, he said.

‘I guarantee to beat a man of eighty, however long his beard’, I replied. ‘A beard never killed a man, or goats would be highly valued as soldiers.’

‘Well’, he said, ‘if your courage matches your lip, you’ll certainly pass for a soldier.’

‘That can be tried out at the earliest opportunity’, I said, giving him to understand that that I refused to be employed as a stable lad. He acquiesced in this, saying the proof of the pudding would be in the eating.

After that I made straight for the dragoon’s old trousers and after I had dissected them I removed from the entrails enough to buy a good mount and the best musket I could find and polished it till it shone like a mirror. I had a new suit of green clothes made, since I liked being called ‘the Huntsman’, and gave my old one to my groom, since it was now too small for me. I rode around like a young lord and thought no end of myself. I made so bold as to wear a huge plume in my hat, just like an officer, with the result that there were soon some who looked on me with an envious and jaundiced eye. It came to words between us and eventually to blows, but once I had shown two or three what I had learnt from the furrier in Paradise not only did everyone leave me in peace, they wanted to make friends with me as well.

At the same time I went out on raids, both on foot and on horseback, for I was a good rider and could run faster than the rest. And whenever we encountered the enemy I threw myself at them and was always in the van. Very soon I was well known to both friend and foe. Such was my fame that both sides thought highly of me since I was given the most dangerous assaults to carry out, being put in command of whole detachments for that purpose. I started to grab booty like a Czech and whenever I made a valuable catch I gave my officers such a good share that I could even plunder in places where it was forbidden, since I was backed up in whatever I did.

General Count Götz had left three enemy garrisons in Westphalia, at Dorsten, Lippstadt and Coesfeld, and I was a constant thorn in the side of all three. I was at their gates daily with small detachments, now here, now there, and snapped up many a good prize. And since I always managed to get away, people came to believe I could make myself invisible and was as bullet-proof as iron or steel. I was feared like the plague and a party of thirty of our opponents were not ashamed to flee if they knew I was in the vicinity with just fifteen. Eventually it came to a point where, whenever there was a contribution to be levied from any place, I was the man to do it, and my purse grew as much as my fame. My officers and fellow soldiers loved their Wee Huntsman, the leaders of the opposing party were terrified, and the country people I kept on my side by a combination of fear and love, since I punished those who opposed me and richly rewarded those who did me the least service. In fact I gave away almost half of my booty, or used it to pay for information. The result was that no raiding party, convoy or expedition left the enemy’s camp but it was reported to me, allowing me to work out their plans and make my dispositions accordingly. And I carried them through successfully, often with a portion of good luck, so that everyone was astonished at how young I was and even many of the officers and best soldiers among our opponents were keen to make my acquaintance. I treated my prisoners well, so that they often cost me more than the booty I had taken, and if I could do a favour to any of the opposing side, especially officers, without contravening my duty or allegiance, then I did so.

My behaviour would have quickly led to me being promoted to officer rank had I not been so young. Anyone of my age who aspired to become an ensign had to be of noble birth. In addition, my captain could not promote me because there were no vacancies in his company and he refused to let me go to another, since in losing me he would lose the equivalent of several milch-cows. I was made a lance-corporal, however. This honour, albeit a small one, for which I was preferred to much older soldiers, and the praise that was daily heaped on me spurred me on to higher things. Day and night I was trying to think of deeds I could do to make myself even greater, often I could not sleep because of these foolish fantasies. And since I realised I lacked the opportunity to show my true mettle, I was annoyed that I did not have the chance of crossing swords with the enemy every day. I often wished I was back in the Trojan wars, or in a long siege, like that of Ostend; fool that I was, I forgot that the day of reckoning was bound to come. It always does when a young and reckless soldier has money, courage and good fortune. The result is overweening arrogance. In my arrogance I had two servants instead of a stable lad, and I decked them out splendidly and mounted them, attracting the envy of all the officers.