Simplicissimus (24 page)

There are one or two stories I must tell of things that happened to me before I quit the dragoons which, even though they are not particularly important, are amusing. I did not confine my activities to great deeds alone but was happy to be involved in minor affairs if I thought they would enhance my reputation.

My captain was ordered to take fifty or so men on foot to the Recklinghausen district, where we were to carry out an ambush. We thought that before the plan was put into effect we might have to spend several days hiding in the woods, so each man took a week’s provisions with him. However, since the rich convoy we were lying in wait for did not appear at the expected time, we began to run short of bread. We could not steal any for fear of giving ourselves away and ruining our plan, so that we were getting extremely hungry. In that area I had no contacts, as I had in other places, who would have secretly brought us some food, so that we had to think of other means of getting supplies if we were not to return home empty-handed. My comrade, a student who had only recently run away from the university and enlisted, sighed in vain for the gruel his parents had given him and which he had often spurned and left untouched. He talked of meals he had enjoyed in the past, especially some he had been given when he was a wandering scholar on his way between his home and the university.

‘Oh my friend’, he said to me, ‘isn’t it a scandal that I haven’t studied anything which would help me fill my belly now? I tell you for sure that if I could just go to the priest in that village I’d get a real feast from him.’

I thought over what he had said and assessed our situation. Those who knew the area could not go out or they would be recognised, those who were unknown did not know where there was the chance of stealing or buying something without being noticed. I made a plan involving the student and explained it to the captain. Although there was still a danger of our presence being given away he had such confidence in me, and we were in such a bad way, that he agreed to it.

I exchanged clothes with another soldier and strolled off with the student to the above-mentioned village, taking a long detour, even though it was only half an hour away. When we got there we saw immediately that the house next to the church was where the priest lived as it had the look of a town house and was built against the wall that went round the whole of the presbytery and garden. I had told the student what to say. He was still wearing his threadbare student dress while I was pretending to be a painter’s apprentice, since I imagined there would be no call for that art in the village as farmers do not often have their houses decorated. The reverend gentleman received us very civilly and when my companion made a deep bow, greeted him in Latin and told a pack of lies about how he had been attacked by soldiers and robbed of all his provisions, offered him some bread and butter with a drink of beer. I pretended we were not together, but said I would have something to eat at the inn and then call back for him so that we could go some way before nightfall.

I went to the inn, more to give me the opportunity of spying out the land to see what we could steal that night than to fill my belly. And I was in luck. On my way there I saw a farmer plastering over the door to his oven in which were large loaves of pumpernickel bread which are baked slowly for twenty-four hours. Since I already knew where there was bread to be found I did not waste any time at the inn but just bought some white loaves to take to the captain. When I got back to the presbytery to tell my comrade it was time to go he had already eaten his fill and told the priest that I was a painter and on my way to Holland to perfect my art. The priest welcomed me warmly and asked me to go to the church so he could show me some paintings that needed repairing. I had to go with him to keep up my disguise. He took us through the kitchen and as he unlocked the heavy oak door leading out into the churchyard I saw a sight for sore eyes or, rather, empty bellies: hanging up in the chimney were hams, sausages and sides of bacon. They seemed to be smiling at me, so I gave them a come-hither look, wishing they would come and join my comrades in the woods, but in vain; the hard-hearted things ignored me and stayed hanging there. I tried to think of ways of getting them to join the above-mentioned oven-load of bread, but it was not that easy. There was a wall round the presbytery and garden and all the windows had iron bars; there were also two huge dogs lying in the courtyard and I was sure they would not be sleeping during the night when people would try to steal the food of which they would get a portion in reward for their faithful vigilance.

In the church we discussed the paintings and the priest was keen to hire me to restore some of them. I kept making excuses, in particular my journey to study in Holland, and eventually the sexton said, ‘You look more like a runaway soldier to me, you young rascal, than a painter’s apprentice.’ It was a long time since anyone had spoken to me like that, but I had to grin and bear it, so I just shook my head and replied, ‘Just give me a brush and some paint, you old rascal, and I’ll paint you the portrait of a fool in no time at all, if you’ll just keep still.’ The priest made a joke of it and told us both it was not proper to argue in a sacred place like the church. It was clear he believed both me and the student. He gave us another drink and we left, but my heart stayed behind with the smoked hams and sausages.

We were back with our companions before nightfall. I told the captain what had happened, put on my own clothes and arms and selected six good men to help carry the bread home. We got to the village about midnight and took the bread out of the oven without causing any noise, since there was one amongst us who knew a spell to keep dogs from barking. As we passed the presbytery I could not bring myself to go on and leave the bacon behind. I stopped and looked carefully to see if there was any way of getting into the priest’s kitchen. The only way in was the chimney, which would have to serve as a door. We stowed the bread and our arms in the charnel house, found a ladder and rope in a barn and, since I could climb up and down chimneys as well as a sweep, having practised from my earliest days in hollow trees, I climbed up onto the roof myself. It had a double layer of hollow tiles and was ideal for my purpose. I twisted my long hair up into a bunch on top of my head and had myself lowered down on one end of the rope to my beloved bacon. There I tied the hams and sides of bacon one after another to the rope, the man on the roof pulled them up and the others carried them to the charnel house. But, pox on it, after I had tied on the last sausage and was about to climb up again, the bar I was standing on broke and poor Simplicius tumbled down to the ground. Now it was the huntsman who was caught in a trap. My comrades on the roof let the rope down, but when they tried to pull me up it broke before they had even lifted me off the floor. The noise had wakened the priest, who told his cook to light a candle. I thought to myself, ‘Now, Wee Huntsman, you’re the one who’s going to be hunted and you could well be torn to pieces like Actaeon.’

The cook came into the kitchen in her nightgown, her dress slung over her shoulders, and stood so close to me it touched me. She picked up a glowing ember from the stove, held the wick of the candle to it and blew on it. But I blew much harder, startling the poor woman so that she dropped the ember and the candle and ran back to her master. That gave me some breathing space to think up a way of getting out of this, but nothing occurred to me. My comrades whispered down the chimney that they were going to break open the door and bring me out by force, but I forbade it. I told them to put their weapons away and leave only Tearaway on the roof to wait and see if I could get out quietly and unnoticed and not jeopardise our ambush. If, however, that were not possible, then they could do their worst.

In the meantime the priest had lit a candle himself, but the cook told him there was a dreadful ghost with two heads in the kitchen (perhaps she had seen my hair bunched up on top of my head and taken it for another head). Hearing this, I rubbed ashes, soot and coal over my face so that I looked a fearful sight and quite the opposite of the angel the nuns in Paradise had called me. If the sexton had seen me he would have readily agreed I was a quick painter. Then I set up a terrible clattering in the kitchen, throwing pots and pans all over the place. My hand fell on the cauldron handle and I hung it round my neck, but the poker I kept hold of, to defend myself if necessary.

The good priest was not put off by all this, however. He entered the kitchen in procession with his cook, who was carrying two wax candles and a stoup of holy water. He himself was arrayed in surplice and stole, with a sprinkler in one hand and a book in the other from which he began to read the exorcism, asking who I was and what I was doing there. Since he took me to be the devil, it seemed perfectly reasonable for me to play the Father of Lies, so I answered, ‘I am the devil and I have come to wring your neck, and your cook’s too.’

He continued his exorcism, telling me I had no business either with him or his cook and bidding my by the most powerful incantation to return to the place I had come from. That, I replied in a fearsome voice, was impossible, even if I wanted to. In the meantime Tearaway, who was a wily rascal and would stop at nothing, added some special effects of his own from the roof. When he heard what was happening in the kitchen, namely that I was pretending to be the devil and the priest believed me, he hooted like an owl, barked like a dog, neighed like a horse, bleated like a billy goat and brayed like a donkey; sometimes he sounded like a whole ruck of cats on heat in February, sometimes like a hen about to lay an egg. He could imitate any animal noise; if he wanted, he could howl just like a whole pack of wolves together. The priest and his cook were frightened out of their wits but I was somewhat conscience-stricken at letting myself be exorcised as the devil. I believe the reason he took me for the Arch-fiend was that he had read or heard somewhere that the devil likes to dress in green.

In the middle of these terrors, which affected all three of us, I fortunately noticed that the door out into the churchyard was not locked, only bolted. Quickly I pushed the bolt back and slipped out into the churchyard, where I found my companions stationed with their muskets cocked, leaving the priest to continue his exorcism for as long as he liked. Tearaway jumped down from the roof with my hat and we packed the food and set off back to our camp in the woods, since there was nothing left to do in the village, except that we should have returned the ladder and rope we had borrowed.

The whole party was reinvigorated by the provisions we had stolen and such was our continued good luck that not one of us got the hiccoughs. Everyone had a good laugh at my adventures, only the student was unhappy that I had robbed the priest who had filled his belly so generously. He swore blind that he would gladly pay him for the bacon if he only had the wherewithal, though that did not stop him eating as if he had the sole rights to it. We spent another two days there waiting for the convoy for which we had been lying in ambush so long. We did not lose a single man in the attack, took thirty prisoners and as excellent booty as I have ever helped divide up. Since I had done most, I got a double share, consisting of three handsome Friesland stallions, laden with as much merchandise as they could carry, given that we had to make haste. If we had had time to look through the booty properly and bring it to a place of safety, each one of us would have been a wealthy man. We had to leave more behind than we carried off because we had to make all speed to get away, taking what we could with us. For security, we went back to Rheine, where the main body of our army lay and where we ate and shared out the booty.

While we were there I remembered the priest from whom we had stolen the bacon. You can imagine what a swaggering, conceited, honour-craving young man I was. Not satisfied with having robbed the good priest and frightened him to death, I wanted to come out of the affair with honour. I took a gold ring with a sapphire set in it that I had picked up on the expedition and sent it to the priest by a trustworthy messenger, together with the following letter:

To the peasant whose oven they had emptied, the party sent sixteen thalers from the common purse, for I had taught them that we must do this to keep the country people on our side, for then they will often help a party in difficulties, when otherwise they might well betray them and cost them their lives. From Rheine we went to Münster, from there to Hamm and then back to our quarters in Soest where, a few days later, I received a reply from the priest, which went as follows: