Innocent Soldier (9780545355698) (15 page)

Behind some bushes, Konrad Klara finds a hidden market garden with a bed of beets and onions. Better than nothing.

Command from a general: “All horses are to be given in! The last two howitzers need draft horses.”

So we’re on foot once more. Step by step. We throw away everything we don’t absolutely need. We can’t be lugging useless weight with us. The furs are bothersome. They weigh down on our weak, hungry bodies. But what happens when the big freeze comes that everyone is
talking about? Then the furs might save our lives. So we keep the weight and drag it along with us.

Carriages overtake us, weighed down with trophies and junk and everything the heart desires, or greed demands, or that promises wealth.

A chaise with a noble coat of arms drives by. That’s the conveyance in which Sergeant Krauter rode through Moscow. Terror swirls in my veins. Konrad Klara starts to tremble as well. He has spotted his noble Arab steeds. “Stop!” he cries out. “Stop that swindler! He’s stolen my horses.” But no one takes any notice. A few soldiers nearby look contemptuously at the Portuguese lieutenant who speaks German. In Saxon dialect, someone says to him: “Don’t fancy walking anymore, eh? But if you want a horse, you’ll have to come up with something better than that old trick.” For a while, I run along behind the droshky. I almost catch it. I just need to hop up on the running board.

“You wretch!” I call out to the man on the box. He reaches for his whip and smashes me across the face. The sergeant sticks his head out the window. A woman lifts her face from his shoulder and looks at me in astonishment. “Hey!” Krauter calls out to his coachman. “Isn’t that our transport soldier running along after us?”

“Yes!” shouts the one on top. “That’s the idiot from my village!”

I stagger and fall. The following marchers step on me. Luckily, Konrad Klara comes along, pulls me to my feet, and drags me back into the moving stream of fugitives. The droshky is out of sight. Other conveyances with noble personages roll by. They’ve probably come straight from Moscow. Packed full of riches.

“Please give us a morsel of bread!” beg the tired soldiers. But no one glances at them. The elegant carriages drive past in a hurry, followed by a whole train of baggage.

On the street lies an upset barrel. Thousands of kopek pieces have spilled onto the dirt. What riches! But no one is interested. If only it were bread. What would we do with metal coin? There’s nothing to buy with it, and money would only weigh us down.

Winter announces itself. At first, with cold, steady rain. Knee-deep mud mires all the roads. The army is stuck in the sludge, and our feet are glued to the road. Droshkies and baggage carts lie by the roadside, stranded and looted. They are no more good for anything. The wheels are unable to cut through the morass.

Only a hard frost can overcome the mud and make the roads once more passable for foot and horse and carriage. Maybe that would be the lesser evil. We long for the feared cold to come.

Cossacks and Bashkirs and Lord knows what kind of Russians ride up from the side, hew and smite, and
disappear. Any of the
Grande Armée
who try to avoid the muddy highway are cut to ribbons.

How far is it to Smolensk? And how much farther home? There is said to be food in Smolensk. Huge storehouses full of it. I wonder if it’s true? We can’t trust all the things we’re told. We’ve been getting it from the wrong end of the horse too many times.

On one of the last days of October, there it is suddenly: the longed-for and long-dreaded frost. Overnight, an icy east wind freezes the mud to rock. Almost simultaneously, the heavy black clouds discharge their burdens.

Now it’s just as well we’ve held on to our furs. The first cold snowy night we have to spend out of doors. Far and wide, there’s only one single wooden structure. Which is full to the last inch. The men are even lying on top of each other.

“Let us in!”

“What have you got to pay with? Food? Vodka? Nothing? Then there’s no room. You can see for yourselves.”

Beside the road, we lay one fur down on the snow, and then we cover ourselves up with the other one. We
exhale our own warmth into the gap. Snow is still falling. It packs, insulates, warms. So we manage to survive half the night. Then I feel someone tugging at our top fur. I wake up in time and shoo away the thief. There’s no more hope of sleep. Beside us someone is lying there half-naked. He doesn’t stir. Frozen. Was he stripped first, or was he already dead when they stole his clothes?

Konrad Klara weeps to himself. His tears freeze on his cheeks.

“Come on, Konrad Klara. We must move on.”

“What about our regiment?”

“I can’t see anyone. Probably the regiment doesn’t exist anymore.”

The street is still almost empty. Nothing is coming from Moscow now. Either the fugitives are asleep under the snow, or else they’ve already frozen to death. In the dawn, Konrad Klara sees a young man in a thin French uniform leaning against a birch.

“Hey, you! You’ll freeze if you stay there.”

The young man doesn’t stir. He must have fallen asleep with exhaustion. I tramp over to him to shake him awake. I’m too late. He is stiff as a wooden beam. Konrad Klara wipes his eyes. Is my pity already frozen? It only pipes up very feebly.

The days are dark, the nights clear and
icy.
On the side of the road are cannons stuck in the snow. They’ve
gone as far as they can go. They’ve been nailed up. There are no more commands and no more organization. Who would go to the trouble of lugging cannons around anymore? Everyone just wants to save his own life. Rifles are tossed into the snow. A thin branch, a half-charred beam, a bundle of straw are all more use. They offer the chance to be admitted to a campfire site at night. A fire that would save a person from freezing.

We must have something like a guardian angel, Konrad Klara and I. Through the blizzard we spot a dark stain some little way off the road. A barn? Or something better still? We should have a look. We haven’t been attacked by Cossacks for a whole day now. It’s not a great risk, then. We leave the road and stamp through the loose snowdrifts. We’re wallowing about up to our chests. What it is is a baggage cart. The wind cleared the snow from the top of it. That was the dark thing we spotted from the road. With our bare hands, we dig our way into the cart. What wonders! Frozen bread and lard are in there. Hopefully, no one has seen us. Having something like that could be fatal for us.

But now we have food again. We stash it under our fur coats.

At night, we leave the road a few paces, dig a hollow in the snow, and bury ourselves in it in our furs. One underneath, one on top, a little snow over that. Our own warmth stays in.

Young Alsatian soldiers, aged sixteen or thereabouts, come out to meet us. They are Napoleons last throw. They have just gotten here, and take over the rear guard from us. They are desperate to fight. There’s nothing we can do for them. I wonder how long they’re going to live?

The snow lets up, but it gets colder.

“I’m not going to make it home,” Konrad Klara sighs to himself.

“What are you doing, spouting such nonsense?”

“Just talking.”

“No, come on. Spit it out. Is something hurting you?”

“No. Not really. But I saw the black butterflies last night.”

“You saw what? Black butterflies? In the middle of winter? With this cold?”

“Not really. In my sleep, you know. I saw Sergeant Krauter as well.”

“Oh, I see. Do you have any idea of the stuff I dream? Lots of nonsense. I expect the butterflies were brown, you just didn’t see the colors clearly. And Krauter, that bastard, he can’t do anything to us as long as we stick together. Together, we’re stronger than he is. Let’s not think about him anymore.”

Konrad Klara’s eyes brighten.

“You’re right!” he says, sounding slightly calmer. “Nothing can happen to us. Fortune favors us. And together we’re going to make it back.”

Even the sun comes out. Admittedly, it doesn’t succeed in making the air any warmer. Our breath freezes in front of our faces. The following night is the coldest of all. We dig our sleeping place deep into the snow on the edge of a forest. A few twigs underneath and over us to keep our body heat in the hole. During the night, thousands freeze.

Smolensk is a huge disappointment. There is nothing left to eat there. The Imperial Guards have emptied out the storehouses. They’ve lived like maggots in bacon, they’re full to bursting, and now they’re on their way home with Napoleon their emperor. That’s the rumor. Truth or lie.

The fury of the troops following after is indescribable.

Konrad Klara breaks down and cries again. Tears of rage, this time.

It’s a particularly nasty day in late November. Cannons are thumping ahead of us and behind us and either side of the marching route. Rifle fire is crackling very nearby. Step-by-step, the men shuffle along in the thousandfold tracks left in the snow.

At around midday the procession suddenly grinds to a halt. It gets going again with curses. Beyond the edge of the highway the surface of the snow has been smashed. Cannonballs have plowed through it. There are corpses lying among wrecked baggage carts. No one notices them. Probably a surprise attack from Cossacks and artillery. Four mortally wounded horses are twitching in their death agonies. Men are hunkered around them, cutting into the steaming bodies. Others are tearing off cartwheels and planks and feeding them to a fire.

We join them and help. No one minds. There’s
enough meat after all, four whole horses. That’s enough for a lot of people. But not for long. More soldiers keep turning up. The scent draws them. Food! More and more hungry men huddle around the fire. They reach forward into the embers to grab at morsels. Those sitting at the front are knocked over. Oaths and shouts.

I fish out a couple of pieces of meat from the embers, shove them under my fur coat, and then drag Konrad Klara away from the fire. A few elbows to left and right, and we’re clear of the crowd. We walk on, and before long we find a quieter place, where we gulp down our still warm pieces of horseflesh. A little strength returns to our tired bodies.

Shortly thereafter we see the horrible end of Hanselmann, the son of the Schonbronn cobbler. He was the cannoneer who always followed Sergeant Krauter around. He’s lying in some dark red snow. A cannonball tore off his lower limbs. He didn’t stand a chance against a direct hit like that. There’s nothing left for the surgeon to stitch there. I feel sad, even though Hanselmann hit me across the face with a whip only a couple of days ago. It didn’t have to be such a big cannonball as that. The sergeant isn’t there. It seems he’s managed to get away once more.

Toward evening of that same day, a sleigh forces its way with loud whip cracking and shouts through the men trudging along. There are four men in furs seated on it.
“Ho, you!” one of them calls out, and the sleigh brakes. “Thunder and lightning! Aren’t you young Count Lammersdorf?”

Konrad Klara perks up. Thunder and lightning? His uncle, the colonel, always said that. O terror! O joy! So the colonel’s still alive.

The colonel orders him without much hoo-ha to hop in and turns to ask the bundle of fur beside him: “Your Excellency surely won’t mind if we take along my nephew? If we squeeze together, there’s enough room.”

A great man, that uncle. What a turnup! That’s how quickly things can change, from one second to the next. It’s good for Konrad Klara and for me. Suddenly, we have a little more future to look forward to. The stomping through the snow is over for now. We can save our strength. I’m sure the gentlemen will have something that Konrad Klara and I can eat as well. And the sleigh covers the ground much faster than our dog-tired legs. Suddenly, home has moved considerably nearer.

Joyfully, the lieutenant leaps up onto the sleigh and squeezes into the seat beside his uncle.

“Adam Neve! Come along! Hop on board!”

“Hold on!” the uncle butts in. “We don’t have that much room!”

“But can’t Adam Neve sit on me, or the other way round?” begs Konrad Klara.

“Thunder and lightning! Who is this Adam Neve? Another young lieutenant?”

“No, uncle! He’s the corporal! You remember the one, my former servant!”

“Well, I’m afraid we can’t have that. We don’t have room for any servants here. You have to come on your own. Alone. No one with you.”

The mass of men on the road is pushing and surging. I am picked up by it and pushed past the sleigh. I feel utterly miserable, my head is empty, I am incapable of thought.

The Excellency in the sleigh orders crossly: “Onward!”

The horses pull. Cracks of the whip and shouts clear a space for the sleigh.

Then Konrad Klara jumps off.

“Not without him,” he calls out to the colonel, waves to him, and is once again trudging at my side on the snow-covered marching route.

“Thunder and lightning!” the colonel shouts back to his nephew. Along with something else, which is swallowed up by his fur collar.

Tangles of thoughts bounce back and forth in my head. What should I say? Konrad Klara has turned down the comfortable offer of rescue. On my account. I wipe my nose several times. I need to too, because the damned cold at nightfall freezes everything on the spot.

Each time a horse collapses, soldiers fall on it, beat and fight one another for it, and hack off pieces for themselves. There’s not usually much meat to be had. The animals are mostly skin and bone. But that’s worth something, too. More than nothing.

How much farther is it home?

But we’re lucky. We’re still alive. And healthy. We haven’t even got frostbite on our fingers and toes. Usually, we have a little something to eat. What more could we wish for? Sometimes we walk half the night. That gives us a little edge. At night, the road is almost empty. By day, it’s only the Imperial Guards who are ahead of us, a few half-preserved regiments, maybe Poles, who are reasonably well armed, and some like us, who want to stick close to the Guards because they keep the swirling bands
of Cossacks at bay. There is reported to be a Wurttemburg regiment there as well.