Simplicissimus (28 page)

The next morning I arrived back safely at Soest with my booty and my prisoners and got more honour and glory from this foray than from any before. Everyone said, ‘He’ll turn out to be another young John de Werth’, which tickled me greatly. However, the commandant refused to allow me to cross swords or exchange shots with the lieutenant, saying I had already defeated him twice. And of course, the more praise was heaped on me, the more envious became those who begrudged me my good fortune.

I could not get rid of my Jupiter. The commandant did not want to have anything to do with him because there was no money to be got out of him, so he made a present of him, as he put it, to me. This meant I now had my very own fool, when only a year ago I had been forced to let people treat me as one. It just goes to show how strange fortune is and how things can change with time. Not long ago I was being tormented by lice and now I had the god of fleas in my power; six months ago I was groom to a useless dragoon, now I lorded it over two servants who called me master; less than a year had passed since the stable lads were chasing me to ravish me and now it was the girls who were mad with love for me. I learnt at an early age that there is nothing as certain as uncertainty and this made me afraid that once Lady Luck decided to make me the object of her whims once more she would make me pay dearly for my present prosperity.

At that time Count von der Wahl, as supreme commander of the Westphalian District, was collecting troops from all the garrisons for an expedition through the lands of the bishopric of Münster towards the River Vechte, the neighbourhood of Meppen, Lingen and those places. His principal object, however, was to dislodge two companies of Hessian cavalry which were stationed some nine or ten miles outside the city of Paderborn and were causing our people there a lot of trouble. I was with the dragoons that were detailed to join them from our regiment and once a few troops had been collected at Hamm we set off quickly and by the time the rest of our forces arrived we had stormed the quarters of the Hessian cavalry, which were in a small and poorly protected town. They tried to escape, but we drove them back into the village. We offered to let them leave without horses and weapons, but keeping whatever they could take in their belts, but they would not agree and decided to defend themselves with their carbines, like musketeers.

So it happened that I had the chance that very night to see how my luck would be in an assault, for the dragoons were to lead the attack. And my luck held so well that Tearaway and I were among the first to enter the little town, completely unhurt. We soon cleared the streets, since everyone bearing arms was simply cut down and the townsfolk had refused to join in the defence, and started to enter the houses. Tearaway said we should find a house with a large dung-heap in front for that was where the fattest cats usually live on whom they billeted the officers. So we found one like that and, each having lit the candle in his torch, Tearaway went to inspect the stable, I the house, first agreeing that each would share what he found with the other. I called out for the master of the house but received no answer since they had all hidden. I came to a room where I found nothing but an empty bed and a kneading-trough with the lid fixed down. I prised it off, hoping to find something valuable inside, but as I lifted the lid some coal-black thing rose up towards me which I took to be Lucifer himself. I swear I never had such a fright in all my life as when I saw this black fiend appear so unexpectedly before me. Despite the shock I raised the axe with which I had opened the trough, saying, ‘If this doesn’t kill you may the powers of hell do it for me.’ However, I didn’t have the heart to bring it down on his head. He fell to his knees, raised his hands and said, ‘Master, spare me for the love of God.’ As soon as I heard him mention God and beg for his life I knew he wasn’t a devil, so I told him to get out of the trough. He did so and came with me, as naked as the day he was born. I cut off a piece of my candle and gave it to him to light my way which he did, most obediently, leading me to a small room where I found the master with all his household who stared at the spectacle and trembled as he begged for mercy. This was readily granted since he handed over to me the Hessian captain’s baggage, which included a fairly well filled, locked trunk; anyway we were not allowed to harm the townspeople. He reported that the captain and all his men, apart from one servant and the negro I had found, had gone to their posts to defend the town.

While all this was going on Tearaway had caught the above-mentioned servant in the stable with six fine horses, ready saddled. We brought these into the house, told the negro to get dressed and ordered the master of the house to serve us the food he had prepared for the Hessian captain. Unfortunately, once the gates had been opened, guards posted and our General, Count von der Wahl, entered the town he made his quarters in the house we were in so that we had to go out in the dark and look for somewhere else to sleep. We found a billet with our comrades, who had also taken part in the assault, and after Tearaway and I had divided up our booty we spent the rest of the night eating and drinking. My share was the negro and the two best horses, one of which was a Spanish stallion on which any soldier would be proud to face the enemy and on which I made a fine show later on. From the trunk I took various valuable rings and a portrait of the Prince of Orange in a gold case set with rubies and left the rest for Tearaway. If I had wanted to dispose of everything, including the horses, it would have brought me over 200 ducats. The most hard-earned part of the my booty, the negro, I presented to the General, who gave me a mere twenty-four thalers for him.

From there we rode quickly to the River Ems but found very little to do. As we then passed close to Recklinghausen I got permission to go with Tearaway to visit the priest from whom we had stolen the bacon. We had a very enjoyable time there and I told him how the negro had given me the same fright he and his cook had got from me. As a farewell gift I gave him a fine repeater on a chain that I had also taken from the Hessian captain’s trunk. In that way everywhere I went I made friends of people who would otherwise have had good reason to hate me.

As my good fortune increased, so did my pride and it led, as was inevitable, to a fall. We were camped about half an hour’s distance outside Rehnen and my comrade and I asked for and were granted permission to go there to have some repairs done to our arms. As our real intention was to have a good time together, we went straight to the best inn and ordered musicians to play as we drank our wine and beer. Things got pretty lively and anything that could be had for money, we had; I even stood rounds for men from other regiments, just like a young prince with land and subjects and lots of money to get through each year. Because of this we got better service than a party of cavalrymen who were not as wild as we were. That annoyed them and they started to pick a quarrel with us. ‘How is it’, one asked, ‘that these footsloggers’ – they thought we were musketeers; no beast is as like a musketeer as a dragoon and when a dragoon falls off his horse a musketeer gets up – ‘can make such a show with their few coppers?’

‘That milksop’, replied another, ‘must be a country squire whose mother has sent some pin money and he’s using it to treat his comrades so they’ll pull him out of the mud or carry him across the next ditch they come to.’

This was aimed at me since they took me for a young nobleman. The girl who was serving us told me this, but since I hadn’t heard it myself I couldn’t do anything about it. All I did was to have a large beer tankard filled with wine and to pass it round with a toast to all honest musketeers, making such a racket that no one could hear himself speak. That made them even more angry and they said so that everyone could hear, ‘What a life these footsloggers lead!’

‘And what business is it of you bootblacks?’ replied Tearaway, but they let it pass; he had such a grim, threatening expression on his face none of them felt they wanted to cross him. After a while, however, another could not resist shooting off his mouth, a rather well-built fellow who said, ‘I suppose if these wall-shitters can’t cut a dash on their own dung-heap’ – he assumed we belonged to the garrison since our clothes were not as weather-worn as those of musketeers who spend all their time in the field – ‘then where can they show their faces? Everyone knows that as soon as they get onto a battlefield they fall to the cavalry just as surely as a pigeon falls to a goshawk.’

‘We’re the ones who have to take towns and fortresses’, I replied, ‘and they’re given to us to guard, whereas you cavalry couldn’t drive the horse out of a one-horse town. Why shouldn’t we enjoy ourselves in a place that belongs to us more than to you?’

‘The fortresses go with the side that is master in the field’, the trooper replied, ‘and that means we have to win battles. I wouldn’t be afraid of three children like you, muskets and all. I’d pin two to my hat and ask the third where all the rest were. And if I was sitting next to you’, he added with derision, ‘I’d give your little lordship a couple round the ear on account.’

‘Although I’m willing to bet I have a pair of pistols as good as yours’, I answered, ‘and although I’m not a cavalryman, but just a cross between you and a musketeer, this milksop is ready to meet a braggart on horseback like you, with all your weapons, in open combat, on foot and armed with just his musket.’

‘I say you are a cowardly rogue’, said the trooper, ‘if you don’t back up those words with deeds like a man of nobility and honour right away.’

At that I threw my glove to him and said, ‘If I can’t get this back from you in the field with my musket and on foot, then you have the right to call me publicly by the name you have just had the presumption to give me.’

So we paid the innkeeper and the trooper prepared his carbine and pistols, I my musket. And as he rode off with his comrades to the place we had agreed on, he told Tearaway he’d better start digging my grave, but Tearaway replied that it was the trooper who should be getting one of his own men to dig one for himself. To me, however, he said I had been foolish to provoke them like that and he was afraid I was about to meet my maker. I, however, just laughed. I had long since worked out how I would deal with a fully armed trooper if I should be attacked by one in the field when I was on foot and only had my musket. By the time we came to the place where the fight was to happen I had already loaded my musket with two balls, primed it and smeared the lid of the priming pan with tallow, as careful musketeers do in rainy weather to protect the touch-hole and the powder in the pan from damp.

Before the duel began, our comrades agreed that it should take place in a field surrounded by a fence, that one of us should enter from the west, the other from the east, and that we should treat each other as if we were facing an enemy soldier. They further stipulated that none of the soldiers watching the fight should try to help their comrade, either before, during or after the contest, nor attempt to avenge his death or any wound he might receive. After they had sealed this agreement with a handshake, my opponent and I shook hands and each gave the other in advance his forgiveness if he should be killed. For two supposedly rational men it was the most absurd piece of foolishness. Each hoped to demonstrate the superiority of his arm of the service, as if the entire honour and reputation of both depended on the outcome of our iniquitous affair.

I entered my side of the field with both matches burning, and as soon as I saw my opponent I made as if to shake out the old priming powder as I walked. I then pretended to replace it, but in fact I just poured some powder onto the lid of the pan, blew up my match and checked the pan with two fingers, as is the habit of musketeers, my opponent keeping a close watch on me all the time. Before I could see the whites of his eyes I took aim and burnt off the priming powder on the pan lid. My opponent, assuming my musket had misfired and the touch-hole would be blocked, charged straight at me, pistol in hand, all too eager to make me pay for my presumption. Before he realised what was happening, I had uncovered the pans and fired again, stopping him dead in his tracks.

Then I retired to join my comrades, who all embraced me. The other troopers saw to the body, freeing it from the stirrup, and behaved decently towards us, returning my glove with great praise. But just at the moment when I thought my reputation was at its height, twenty-five musketeers came from Rehnen and arrested me and my comrades. I was shackled and sent to headquarters since all duels were forbidden on pain of death.

As our general was a stickler for discipline, I was afraid I might end up minus my head. Yet I still had hopes of escaping with my life since, although still young, I had always behaved well in the face of the enemy and gained a great reputation for courage. However, my hopes were rather uncertain because this kind of thing was happening every day, so that it was becoming necessary to make an example of someone.

At that time we had just blockaded a fortified town, but the enemy, knowing we had no heavy artillery, refused to surrender. Count von der Wahl moved all his forces there and sent a trumpeter to demand they hand over the town, threatening to storm it if they did not. The only reply was the following letter: