Innocent Soldier (9780545355698) (17 page)

We join a group of Prussians. We have to join someone. Our own regiment no longer exists. The last of them must have drowned in the Beresina. The Prussians have had it up to here with Napoleon. Their officers wish him to the devil. They don’t want to die for that madman. Well-mounted and reasonably well-armed, they are heading for Vilnius. They avoid larger troops of Cossacks, while smaller units or bands of armed peasants steer clear of them in turn. But the Prussians have one great disadvantage. Their uniforms are no good in the cold. Napoleon was only planning on a brief summer campaign, and the Prussians left too late to get warm clothing. They don’t want civilian gear. That doesn’t go with the Prussian pride in their uniform. On cold nights, they shelter in remote villages or farmhouses. There’s usually a bit of wood there for a fire. That way, they and we are spared more casualties from frostbite. As long as there’s a fire going.

But the war isn’t over yet. It follows us wherever we go.

Whoever thought that by crossing the Beresina, we
would be over the worst was in for a big disappointment. Kutusov himself, the tough Russian marshal, has crossed the Beresina and set off after the vanquished army with a huge force. There is no time to rest or linger.

We, too, need to get our skates on. The Prussians are too slow for us. Every night, they spend a long time looking for warmth and shelter. But there is almost nothing to be had. The whole region has been burned and destroyed, and firewood is becoming increasingly scarce. But without fire, the Prussians are doomed. The cold puts a merciless end to any life. The Prussian captain is freezing the most. He doesn’t show it, but I see him secretly eyeing Konrad’s fur and mine. We really have to be on the lookout.

On our second night with the Prussians, I have an awful nightmare. Krauter has turned up again. Unbelievable! That fiend is standing with a horrible smirk right in the middle of the campfire and extinguishing it with his piss. And suddenly it turns icy cold. So cold that even my thick fur coat no longer warms me. If I am cold, then Konrad Klara beside me must be cold as well. A violent rage shakes me. I want to hurl myself at Krauter, that miscreant! Then I wake up. Krauter isn’t pissing on the fire, because Krauter isn’t there. But it’s still cold. Very cold. And no wonder — the fire’s gone out. The sentry went to sleep and didn’t keep the fire banked up with wood. I blow on the embers. Except for a few pathetic
sparks, too weak to light anything, the fire’s gone cold. No, there in one corner is a last glowing core. Konrad crawls out of his fur. Together, we puff on the few remaining embers, urging them to catch again. With a lot of effort and persuasion, a little warmth spreads to the sleeping Prussians. But the warmth causes no stir of life. Only the captain still moves, sits up, and stares in front of him. The others remain rigid. They won’t be thawed out. No — one suddenly leaps up and stomps out into the night, screaming. He must have lost his mind. He doesn’t return.

After four days, we are in Vilnius. The French have already gone, the storehouses are empty, and the local population hostile. Anything the Guards didn’t take with them, the inhabitants helped themselves to. Only people with a great deal of money can afford to buy anything. And we don’t have any money.

After one night trembling with cold under the city walls, our horses are gone. The leather harness with which we tied them up was cut. Our fur coats weren’t taken, though. The following day, we slip into a little hut in an outlying district. The old woman inside takes pity on us poor young fellows. It’s reasonably warm in the hut, and we have a lot of sleep to catch up on. After two days, the old woman wakes us. She gestures animatedly with her hands and feet, and explains that the advance
guard of the Russian army is already moving into the other end of the town. It’s high time we fled.

But already it’s too late. The Cossacks have ringed the city. All loopholes are closed. Vilnius has become a trap. Its buildings are full of sick and mangled soldiers. Before they left, the French forced the townspeople to billet their wounded. Now, the citizens are getting their own back. The sick and injured French are simply pushed out of doors and windows. The misery is indescribable.

We have burned our Guards’ hats. We know from hearsay that there is no love lost between the Cossacks and the French. There never was much to begin with, and then there’s the matter of Moscow. In the eyes of the Russians, Napoleon is responsible for the destruction of their beloved capital. It doesn’t therefore seem advisable to us to be caught wearing the hated uniform.

The old woman is like a kind grandmother. She provides us with shirts, trousers, and tunics. All of them too small. Maybe she once had sons or grandsons whom these things fitted. The trousers end just below my knees. So the old woman wraps linen rags around our bare legs. We look like a couple of dirty urchins sitting with the woman as the Cossacks search the house, looking for enemies. They don’t find anything in the poor wooden hut to cause them to suspect. The poverty is too glaring, and the pair of us don’t look to them like enemy soldiers.
Just as well the Cossacks either didn’t spot or didn’t think about the fur coats. Then they would have realized that they don’t belong in such a place.

We feel well guarded and sheltered with our Russian grandmother.

The world is mad. Things happen that you wouldn’t have believed possible.

Suddenly, they’re back. Konrad’s noble Arab horses. Unmistakable! They gallop past the entrance to the hut. This time they’re harnessed to a sleigh. They’re haring out of Vilnius. The sleigh has one single occupant. Krauter! It’s bound to be. He lashes out at the horses with his whip. From time to time, he cranes his neck to look behind him. And now we see why the sleigh is being driven at such speed. A band of Cossacks is at his heels, the distance between them diminishing steadily. Slowly but surely, they’re gaining on him. Closer to him all the time.

We watch the chase excitedly. “This is it for him!” I say. “I hope they get him.” It sounds very spiteful, and I mean it too. I don’t care what happens to Krauter. Konrad Klara adds in sorrowful tones: “This is it for my horses as well.”

In wild pursuit, they race across the white expanse outside the city. The sleigh in front, and the Cossacks behind.

A few of the Cossacks have overtaken Krauter now.
Probably they want to head him off. They’re almost successful in that too. But the sleigh charges on. The horses are whipped. The advantage grows again. It’s a splendid and knuckle-whitening spectacle. A real contest.

“My horses,” says Konrad Klara, not sure whether to be proud or to lament. The Cossacks don’t give up. Once again, they close in on the sleigh. Very close! They have Krauter in a pincer movement. This time he won’t get away.

“Bravo!” I call out.

“For shame …” mourns Konrad Klara.

A dusting of snow from the other side. A troop of horsemen. The horses bigger. Not Russians, for sure. Are there any more well-armed French units around?

“Poles!” says Konrad Klara.

The Cossacks veer off. Probably they don’t want to get in a fight over one sleigh. Most likely, they’re going back for reinforcements. That’ll take a while. By the time they’ve arrived, it will all be over. The Poles and the sleigh with Krauter in it move slowly along the horizon, a sprinkling of dots. They won’t be caught.

Konrad Klara is happy that his horses have managed to get away from the Cossacks. He doesn’t even mind that Krauter gave them the slip. He probably doesn’t have it in him to really hate someone. Not even Krauter. I’m disappointed.

Vilnius is sealed, the Russians are letting no one in and no one out. For the moment, we’re not in danger. But how long will that be the case? It can change from one day to the next. The old woman won’t betray us or throw us out, but we’re going to have to live off something. We have no supplies, and we can’t buy anything, either. The little that the nice old granny has we mustn’t continue to eat up.

Twice already we’ve tried to get out and promptly turned back. No success. The Russians are mounting patrols round the clock. There are no gaps and no way through. Not at night, even. For the past few nights, the sky has been clear and bright, and the moon about twice as big as we’d wish it to be, shining on the snowy fields around the city. There’s no way we can sneak out across them. Any sign of life on that paper-white surface will be
detected right away. We need fast horses to get us out of the city.

We ponder the various possibilities. What can we do to get food for ourselves? Work? Without knowledge of Russian? That won’t be possible. We’d be identified right away as enemies in hiding or — even worse — as spies. That would be the end. Begging? But most people have nothing here themselves, and the ones that do don’t give to beggars. There’s only stealing left.

“Not again,” moans Konrad Klara. “I don’t hold with stealing. I’d rather starve!”

“So the little blue blood is too delicate to steal,” I sneer. “Well, where else are we going to get anything from? What are we going to live off? We’ll just go under.”

“What did you call me? Blue blood?”

“Yes, blue blood!” I repeat crossly.

Whereupon one word leads to another, and for the first time there’s a big silence between us. All day long we don’t talk to each other. We avoid each other, insofar as that’s possible in a not very big hut. By late evening, we’ve used up our ill temper. We’re getting along again. And then we head out together to steal bread, beets, or whatever it might be. One of us goes here, the other there. We both come home empty-handed. It appears that stealing under such difficult circumstances is something that requires practice. Konrad Klara seems not to have any talent for it at all, and I’m not that good, either. Vilnius has
been picked clean, and those people that have anything at all guard their possessions more closely than they would their souls. There’s nothing left for simple thieves.

What now?

“We have to get out of Vilnius.”

“Definitely.”

“But how?”

The old woman senses our perplexity. She furrows her already creased brow a little more, reflects a little, and then with her mouth and her feet, she makes the clopping sound of horses. Because we look at her doubtfully, with her right hand she makes the apparently international mime for theft.

Brief reflection.

“Fine, but?”

“Of course! We have to steal horses.”

Luckily, it seems horses are more plentiful in Vilnius than unattached loaves of bread. In stables, sheds, barns, outhouses, even under lean-tos, there they are. The city is full of Cossack and other Russian cavalry regiments. There are even more horses than turnips.

Konrad Klara has no objection to this type of theft. It’s not crime, to his way of seeing it, but an act of war. We would merely be confiscating enemy soldiers’ horses. No dishonor attaches to that.

On the same night, we try to break out. It’s not quite as bright as previously. The moon is behind clouds, so
the snow is a little less luminous, though for our purposes it still looks pretty bright. Anyway — it’s either or. We don’t have any other choice. With heavy hearts, we eat with the old woman one more time. Some grain porridge and a piece of bread. Then we kiss her on both cheeks. Like a mother.

We find a couple of good horses, not far away. They’re standing in an open paddock. It’s easy to lead them out. There’s a big bundle of hay in front of them, so they’re not going to be hungry, either. They’ve already had their dinner. That’s good, because who knows when they’ll get their next meal. We can’t see any saddles. Too bad. But it would be dangerous to hunt around for too long. Any moment, someone could come out to see to them and catch us.

I take the smaller of them. I talk to it softly and soothingly. Then I try out the seat. As a boy, I often rode bareback. Konrad Klara doesn’t find it quite so easy. He’s only ever had saddled horses between his thighs. But he can manage, too.

We ride cautiously to the edge of town. A patrol is just galloping past. The Cossacks are talking together casually and calmly. The next patrol is just on its way. So go! We sidle through between them. First slowly, then very fast. We’re in luck. We’re spotted and followed. But our head start is enough. Eventually, the pursuers give up the chase. The dim night swallows and hides us.

Ice-cold days and nights follow.

The same hunger gnaws at us, and the same merciless cold plagues us. We get lost in this vast, almost uninhabited country. God grant that the direction is more or less right. We steer by the sun and stars. There are no excitements. No skirmishes, no acts of heroism, no encounters with Cossacks, just the one continuing struggle for our bit of life, for a warm place to sleep, food for us and for the horses. Just hope and courage to put off the end as long as possible.

On his own, neither of us could cope. We are fortunate to have each other. Fortunate that some baffling chance brought us together.

“You’re like a brother to me,” enthuses Konrad Klara.

“Well…” I laugh. “But not as wellborn as you.”

“Drop the wellborn!”

We have one object in mind. To get home. Home isn’t so far now. With every step, it’s a little closer. Maybe another six hundred miles or so. But a few either way don’t matter.

We’ve left Russia behind. In Polish territory, things are in slightly better condition. The big hunger and the perpetual cold seem to be past. There are farms dotted about here, with barns and stables. The nights are bearable dug into the straw or with the animals in the warmth of the stalls. The Poles are hospitable and help us where they can. Life becomes a little more humane.

The Russians haven’t delayed. They didn’t encounter any resistance, so they quickly rode on. After Napoleon. Past us, at some stage.

We’re looking for the farm with the golden blond girl. The place where we spent the night and breakfasted on the march out here. I get shivers when I even think of it. The good food, and, well, the girl too.

We ride across a moor. This could be the place where I had my terrible bellyache. It’s not such a dangerous place this time of year. Step off the path, and you don’t risk your life. You don’t sink into the marsh because it’s all frozen. Now the forest ought to stop. The farm with the blond girl ought to be farther out in the plain. Of course, everything looks different in winter. And birch
woods are birch woods. So it’s not easy to find that one farmyard pressed into so much emptiness. Even so, we keep on looking. It could be here, it could be there, it could be anywhere.