Simplicissimus (40 page)

Thus I survived the great physical danger, but as far as the danger to my soul was concerned I must tell you that as a musketeer I became really wild, without the least concern for either God or God’s word. No deed was too evil for me; forgotten all the goodness and loving kindness I had received from Him. I was not bothered about this world or the next, but lived from day to day like a brute beast. No one would ever have believed I had been brought up by a pious hermit. I rarely went to church and never to confession. I cared nothing for the welfare of my own soul, which made me all the more of a danger to my fellow men. If I could trick anyone, then I did so and prided myself on it, so that no one who had dealings with me came away unscathed. I often got a good beating for this and was made to ride the wooden horse even more often. I was threatened with the gallows or the strappado, but it had no effect, I continued on my iniquitous way so that it looked as if I were determined to take the fast road to hell. Although I committed no crime by which I would have deserved death, my behaviour was so infamous that it would be almost impossible to imagine a greater reprobate (apart from sorcerers and sodomites).

I came to the attention of the regimental chaplain, who was a real zealot. At Easter he sent for me and asked why I had not come to confession or communion, but I treated his well-meant admonitions as I had done those of the pastor in Lippstadt so that the poor priest got nowhere with me. Finally, coming to the conclusion that Christ and baptism were wasted on me, he exclaimed, ‘Oh, you miserable wretch! I thought you sinned out of ignorance, but now I see you do it out of wickedness and are determined to continue in your sinful ways. Do you think anyone will take pity on your poor soul and try to save it from damnation? Before God and the world, I swear that it is none of my fault. I have done everything I can to ensure your salvation and would have continued to do so undaunted. I am afraid, however, that my only duty will be to make sure your body, when your soul leaves it in such an unregenerate state, is not buried in consecrated ground with other Christians, but hauled off to the carrion pit with the carcasses of dead beasts or to the place where the ungodly and those who give way to despair are disposed of.’

This solemn threat was no more effective than his previous exhortations, though the only reason was that I was ashamed to confess my sins. What a fool I was! I would often recount my villainies to a whole company and lie to make them seem worse, but now that I had to mend my ways and humbly confess my sins to a single person, as God’s intermediary, in order to receive forgiveness, I stubbornly kept them locked away saying, ‘I am a soldier and I serve the emperor. If I die as a soldier it will not be surprising if I have to find a grave outside the churchyard like other soldiers. We cannot always be buried in consecrated ground, but often have to make do with a pit on the battlefield, a ditch or even the bellies of wolves and carrion crows.’

With that parting shot I left the chaplain. His zealous efforts got him nothing from me but the refusal of a rabbit he begged me to let him have. I told him it had hung itself in a noose and killed itself and that it would be wrong for one who had given in to despair to be buried in consecrated ground.

So there was no improvement in my conduct; in fact, the longer things went on, the worse I got. The colonel once said to me that since I refused to behave properly he was minded to give me a dishonourable discharge. Knowing he did not mean it seriously, I replied I would be quite happy with that as long as the discharge did not come from a gun. He dropped the idea, knowing full well that if he let me go he would not be punishing me but doing me a favour. I had to remain a musketeer against my will and starve until well into the summer. But the closer Count Götz came with his army, the closer was my liberation. When he set up his headquarters in Bruchsal, Herzbruder, whom I had helped with my money in the camp outside Magdeburg, was sent by his commander on business to the fortress, where he was received with great honour. I happened to be on sentry duty outside the colonel’s quarters and recognised him as soon a I saw him, despite the black velvet coat he was wearing. But I could not bring myself to address him at once. I was afraid that, given the way of the world, he would be ashamed of me or refuse to recognise me, since from his dress he had clearly reached a high rank while I was only a lowly musketeer. After I had been relieved, I checked his name and rank with his servants, just to make sure I was not confusing him with someone else before speaking to him. However, I still lacked the nerve to address him to his face so I wrote a letter which I gave his manservant to hand to him next morning:

As soon as he read it he sent for me and said, ‘Who is the man who gave you this letter, my friend?’

‘Sir’, I replied, ‘he is a captive in this fortress.’

‘Well then’, he said, ‘go and tell him I will help to free him, even if the noose is already round his neck.’

‘Sir’, I replied, ‘that will not be necessary. I am poor Simplicius myself. I have come to thank you for releasing me at Wittstock and to ask you to release me again, this time from this musket which I have been forced to bear against my will.’

He did not let me finish, but hugged me in an embrace the warmth of which showed his willingness to help me. He assured me he would do everything a true friend would do, and before he asked me how I came to be serving in the garrison, he sent his servant to the Jew to buy a horse and clothes for me. While we were waiting for him to return I told Herzbruder everything that had happened to me since the death of his father in Magdeburg. When he heard that I was the Huntsman of Soest, of whom he had heard many famous exploits, he regretted that he had not known sooner, since he could have helped me to the command of a company.

When the Jew arrived with a whole sackful of soldier’s clothes he picked out the best, told me to put them on and took me to see the colonel. ‘Sir’, he said to him, ‘in your garrison I came across this man to whom I am under such a great obligation that I cannot allow him to remain in such a base position, even if his qualities did not deserve better. I therefore ask if you would do me the favour of finding him a better place, Colonel, or of allowing me to take him with me so I can help further his career in the army, for which you perhaps lack the opportunity here.’

The colonel was so astonished to hear someone praise me that he crossed himself. ‘My dear sir’, he said, ‘you will forgive me if I assume this is just a test to see if I am as willing to be of use to you as you deserve. If that is the case, then ask for anything it is my power to do and you will see how willing I am. As far as this fellow is concerned however, he is not really under my command but belongs, from what he claims, to a regiment of dragoons. Added to that, he is such a tiresome pest that he has given my provost-sergeant more trouble since he has been here than a whole company. He seems to be completely incorrigible. Every time he’s put down he bounces straight back up again.’ The colonel finished with a laugh and wished me luck.

But that was not enough for Herzbruder. He asked the colonel to invite me to dine with them, which the latter also agreed to. His purpose in doing this was to tell the colonel, in my presence, everything he had heard in Westphalia about me from Count von der Wahl and the commandant of Soest, which he did to such good effect that all those present were forced to conclude that I was a good soldier. At the same time I kept modestly in the background so that the colonel and his officers must have thought that the change of clothes had brought a change of personality. When he had finished, the colonel then wanted to know how I had acquired the name of doctor, so I told him all about my journey from Paris to Philippsburg and how I had cheated the peasants to fill my belly, which they found very amusing. Finally I confessed that it had been my intention to vex the colonel with all kinds of mischief until he was so tired of me that he would have to expel me from the garrison just to get peace from all the complaints about me.

Then the colonel recounted some of my misdeeds since I had been in the garrison, how I had boiled up some peas, poured a layer of lard over them and sold it for pure lard; how I had sold sacks of sand as salt by filling the tops of the sacks with salt; he told them some of the hoaxes I had played on people and how I had annoyed them by circulating lampoons. They spent the whole meal talking about me and if I had not had such a highly respected friend, all my activities would have been regarded as punishable offences. I looked on it as an analogy to what happens at court when a rogue has the prince’s favour.

After the meal we found that the Jew had no horse Herzbruder thought good enough for me. However, he stood in such high regard that the colonel could not risk losing his favour and presented him with a steed, complete with saddle and bridle, from his own stable. This my lord Simplicius mounted and rode joyfully out of the fortress with his Herzbruder. Some of my former comrades wished me the best of luck while others, green with envy, muttered something about fortune favouring the knave.

While we were riding, Herzbruder and I agreed that I should pretend to be his cousin so that I would be treated with greater respect. He promised to buy me another horse, together with a groom, and send me to Colonel Neuneck’s regiment where I could serve as a volunteer until there was an officer’s post free in the army, which he would help procure for me.

In no time at all I looked like a proper soldier again, but I saw very little in the way of action that summer, apart from helping to steal a few cows here and there in the Black Forest and getting myself thoroughly acquainted with the Breisgau and Alsace. I had very little luck at all and after my horse and groom had been captured by Weimar troops at Kenzingen I made much greater demands on the one I had left and ended up riding it into the ground and joining the Order of Merode’s Brethren. Herzbruder would have been willing to buy me a new mount, but since I had got through the two horses so quickly he decided to let me sweat it out for a while until I learnt to be more cautious. I was quite happy with that. I found my new companions such congenial company that I wished no better until it was time to go into winter quarters.

I will tell you a little about Merode’s Brethren since there are doubtless some readers, especially those with no experience of war, who know nothing about them. I have so far not come across any writer who has included anything on their customs, habits, rights and privileges in his works, even though it would be very useful for both commanders and country folk to know what kind of a crew they are. As far as the name is concerned (and Marauder Brethren might be more apposite), I am sure it will not bring the bold gentleman from whom they got it into disrepute, otherwise I would not bandy it about in public in this way. The fact that a certain kind of boot with twisted threads instead of eyelets (to make them better for going through mud) is called a Mansfelder does not make General Mansfeld a cobbler, and it is the same with this name, which will stick as long as Germans wage war. The way it came about is as follows: General Merode once raised a regiment, but the men were as weak and decrepit as the Breton troops Richelieu sent Guébriant. They could not stand up to all the marching and rigours soldiers undergo in the field and their brigade was rapidly so reduced it was scarcely more than a company. The result was that whenever anyone came across sick or wounded men in the market place, in houses, in fields or hedges, and asked them what their regiment was, they would generally answer, ‘Merode’s’. Eventually all troops, whether sick or healthy, wounded or not, who straggled along out of line or for any reason did not quarter with their own regiment in the field, came to be known as ‘Merode’s Brethren’. They used to be known as ‘honey-stealers’ because they are like drones in the hive that have neither stings to defend it nor work to make honey, but just eat. A trooper loses his horse, a musketeer’s strength fails, a soldier’s wife and child fall ill and have to stay behind: there you already have a trio of Merode’s Brethren. They are best compared to gypsies. They not only wander round at will in front of, behind, beside and in the middle of the army like gypsies, but they have the same habits and customs. You see them huddled together, like partridges in winter, behind hedges, in the shade or sunshine depending on the season, or round some fire, smoking and idling, while honest soldiers who stay with their regiment have to put up with heat, thirst, hunger, cold and all kinds of misery. You will see a pack of them alongside the column, thieving and pilfering, while many a weary soldier is almost collapsing under the weight of his arms. They plunder everything they can find in front of, alongside and behind the army, and anything that is no use to them they spoil, so that when the regiment reaches its quarters or camp the men often cannot find any decent water to drink. When it is made clear that they must stay with the baggage train, that often becomes more numerous than the army itself.

When they march, quarter, camp and mess together they have no sergeant to keep them in line, no corporal to send them on guard, no drummer to remind them of lights out, patrol or sentry duty, no adjutant to give them their battle orders and no quartermaster to assign them a billet. All in all they do as they please, but whenever there’s a hand-out for the men they are the first in the queue, even though they have done nothing to earn it. Their bane is the provost-marshal and the provost-general who, when they go too far, clap them in iron bracelets or even give them a hemp collar and hang them by their precious necks.