The Good Soldier Svejk (40 page)

After a brief silence the Chaplain turned to the subject of culinary problems in the Old and New Testament. Those were the times, he said, when they attached much importance to the preparation of tasty dishes after prayers and other religious ceremonies. He then called upon them all to sing something, whereupon Schweik, with his usual propensity for doing the wrong thing, struck up :

"Oh, Mary, from Hodonin town she went, And the beery old parson was hot on the scent."

But the Chaplain did not mind in the least.

"It's a pity we haven't got a little rum here. There's no need to be beery, is there?" he said with the broadest of friendly smiles.

The corporal cautiously thrust his hand into his greatcoat pocket and produced a flat bottle of rum.

"Beg to report, sir," he said in a muffled voice which showed what a great sacrifice he was making. "I hope there's no offence if I -"

"No offence at all, my boy," replied the Chaplain, with a chuckle in his voice. "Here's to our journey."

"Crikey!" exclaimed the corporal to himself when he saw that, after the Chaplain had taken a good swig, half the contents of the bottle had disappeared.

The Chaplain had another good swig at the bottle, and then handing it to Schweik, he said in a dictatorial manner :

"Have a go at that."

"War is war," said Schweik indulgently to the corporal, as he returned the empty bottle to him.

"And now I'll just have a bit of a snooze till we get to Vienna," said the Chaplain. "You might just wake me up when we get there."

"And you," he continued, turning to Schweik, "you go to our mess, get a knife and fork and the rest of it, and bring me some lunch. Tell them it's for Father Łacina and see that you get double helpings. After that, bring me a bottle of wine from the kitchen and take a mess tin with you and get them to pour some rum into it."

Father Łacina fumbled in his pockets.

"Look here," he said to the corporal, "I haven't any change. Lend me a gulden. That's it, there you are. What's your name?"

"Schweik."

"Very well, Schweik, there's a gulden for you to go on with. Corporal, lend me another gulden. Now then, Schweik, you'll get the other gulden when you've carried
out
all
my
instructions. Oh, yes, and afterwards get some cigarettes and cigars for me. If there's any chocolate going, collar a double share, and if there's any tinned stuff, ask them to let you have some tongue or goose-

liver. And if they're handing out any Emmenthaler cheese, see they don't palm off on you a piece near the rind. And similarly, if there's any salami, no end pieces, if you please. Get it well from the middle where it's nice and meaty."

The Chaplain stretched himself out on the seat and in a moment he was fast asleep.

"It strikes me," said the volunteer officer to the corporal, amid the snoring of the Chaplain, "that you ought to be very pleased with our foundling. He seems to have found his feet all right."

"Yes, Corporal," remarked Schweik; "there's no flies on him. He's up to snuff, he is, and no mistake."

The corporal struggled with himself for an instant and then, throwing aside all his humility, he said sullenly:

"He's a pretty cheap specimen."

"That wheeze of his with the change he hasn't got," interposed Schweik, "is like a chap named Mlicko, down at Deivice. He was a stone mason and he never had any change, till at last he got head over heels into debt and was had up for pinching money. He got through pots of money but he never had any small change."

"In the 71st regiment," remarked a man from the escort, "there was a captain who spent all the regimental funds in booze before the war, and he was cashiered. Now he's a captain again. Then there was a sergeant-major who pinched the supplies of cloth for facings, more than twenty bales of them there was. He's a staff-sergeant now. And not long ago a footslogger was shot in Serbia for eating up his rations of bully beef that was supposed to last him for three days."

"What do you want to drag that in for?" demanded the corporal. "All the same, he goes and cadges two gulden from a corporal who can't afford to pay his tips for him."

"Here's your gulden," said Schweik. "I don't want to make money at your expense. And if he gives me the other gulden as well, I'll let you have it back too. So you needn't start snivelling about it. You ought to be glad to have the chance of lending money to your superior officer. You're a close-fisted chap, you are. Here you are making all this fuss about a measly couple of gulden. I'd like to see what you'd do if you had to sacrifice your

life for your superior officer, if he was lying wounded in no-man's-land and you had to try and save him and carry him away, with them firing shrapnel and shells and God knows what all at you."

They were now approaching Vienna. Those who were not asleep looked through the window at the barbed-wire entanglements and fortifications round the city.

"That's the style," said Schweik, looking at the trenches; "that's just as it should be. The only thing is that the Viennese might tear their trousers when they go for an outing. They'll have to be careful."

The train passed through a station, where the strains of the Austrian hymn became audible behind them. Evidently the band had gone there by mistake, for some time elapsed before they reached the station where the train stopped, rations were distributed and the troops received a ceremonious welcome.

But things had changed since the beginning of the war, when the troops on their way to the front overate themselves at every railway station and where they were welcomed by young ladies with absurd white dresses and even more idiotic faces and utterly stupid bouquets and an even more stupid speech by a lady whose husband is now an out-and-out republican.

On this occasion those present to welcome the troops comprised three ladies who were members of the Austrian Red Cross, two ladies who were members of some Viennese female war league, one official representative of the Viennese magistracy and a military representative.

The faces of these people all showed signs of weariness. Troop trains were passing through day and night, ambulance trains with wounded were arriving every hour, every moment there were railway carriages full of prisoners being shunted from one line to another, and these members of all these various bodies and associations had to be present on all these occasions. It went on, day after day, and the people who had originally been enthusiastic, now began to yawn.

The soldiers peeped out of the cattle trucks with the hopeless expression of those who are being led to the gallows. Ladies came up to them and distributed gingerbread decorated with in-

scriptions in sugar :
"Sieg und Rache," "Gott strafe England,"
and so forth.

After that they received orders to go and fetch their rations by companies from the field kitchens, which were installed at the back of the railway station. There was also an officers' kitchen to which Schweik proceeded, in accordance with the Chaplain's instructions, while the volunteer officer waited behind to be fed, two men from the escort having gone to fetch rations for the whole of the prisoners' carriage.

Schweik duly carried out his orders, and as he was crossing the railway track, he caught sight of Lieutenant Lukash, who was strolling along the track and waiting for whatever might be left over for him in the way of rations. He was very awkwardly situated, because at the moment he was sharing an orderly with Lieutenant Kirschner. The orderly attended solely to the wants of Lieutenant Kirschner, and exercised complete sabotage as far as Lieutenant Lukash was concerned.

"Where are you taking that to, Schweik?" asked the unfortunate lieutenant, when Schweik had deposited on the ground a vast store of comestibles which he had managed to secure in the officers' mess and which he had wrapped up in a greatcoat.

"Beg to report, sir, that's for you. Only I don't know where your compartment is, and then I don't know whether the train commandant wouldn't cut up rough if I was to join you. He's a regular brute, he is."

Lieutenant Lukash gazed questioningly at Schweik, who, however, with complete good-humour continued :

"Oh, yes, he's a brute and no mistake. When he came round to inspect the train, I reported to him that it was past eleven o'clock and that I'd served my full three days and that I ought to be in the cattle truck or else with you. And he ticked me off properly and said I'd got to stop where I was so that I couldn't cause you any annoyance on the journey, sir."

Schweik assumed the air of a martyr.

"As if I'd ever caused you any annoyance, sir."

"No," continued Schweik, "you can take it from me, sir, I never caused you any annoyance. And if there's been any unpleasantness at any time, why, it was just a matter of chance,

an act of God, as old Vanicek said when he'd finished his thirty-sixth spell in quod. No, I've never done anything wrong on purpose, sir. I've always wanted to do something good and smart and it ain't my fault if neither of us got any advantage from it, but only a lot of bother and worry."

"All right, Schweik, don't take it so much to heart," said Lieutenant Lukash gently, as they drew near to the staff carriage. "I'll see to it that you can be with me again."

"Beg to report, sir, I ain't taking it to heart. But I was sort of sorry that we're both having such a bad time of it in the war and it's not our fault. It's rough luck when you come to think of it. I've always tried to keep out of harm's way."

"Now then, Schweik, don't upset yourself."

"Beg to report, sir, that if it wasn't against subordination, I'd say I'm upset and always will be upset and there's an end of it. But as it is, I suppose I'll have to fall in with your orders and say I'm not a bit upset now."

"All right, Schweik. Now hop into this carriage."

"Beg to report, sir, I am hopping in."

The camp at Bruck was wrapped in the silence of night. In the huts for the rank-and-file the men were shivering with cold and the officers' huts were so overheated that the windows had to be opened.

Down in Bruck-on-the-Leitha lights were burning in the imperial, royal tinned meat factory, where they were busy day and night modifying various forms of offal. As the wind was blowing from that direction toward the camp, the avenues around the huts were filled with the stench of putrefying sinews, hoofs, trotters and bones which were being boiled as ingredients for tinned soup.

Bruck-on-the-Leitha was resplendent, and on the other side of the bridge Kiraly-Hida was equally radiant. Cisleithania and Transleithania. In both towns, the Austrian and the Hungarian gipsy orchestras were playing, the windows of cafés and restaurants shone brightly, there was singing and revelling. The local big-wigs and jacks-in-office had brought their ladies and their

grown-up daughters to the cafés and restaurants, and Bruck-on-the-Leitha and Kiraly-Hida formed one vast Liberty Hall.

In one of the officers' hutments in the camp, Schweik was waiting that night for Lieutenant Lukash, who had gone to the theatre and had not yet returned. Schweik was sitting on the lieutenant's bed, and opposite him, on the table, sat Major Wenzl's orderly.

The major had returned to the regiment when his complete incompetence had been demonstrated on the Drina. It was said that he had been responsible for the removal and destruction of a pontoon, while half his battalion were still on the other side of the river. Now he had been put in charge of the rifle range at Kiraly-Hida and he also had a finger or two in the camp commissariat. It was common talk among the officers that Major Wenzl was now setting himself up.

Mikulashek, who was Major Wenzl's orderly, an undersized, pock-marked fellow, sat there dangling his legs and grousing. "Why the deuce isn't that old blighter of mine back yet? I'd like to know where the old codger goes gadding about all night. If he'd only let me have the key of the room I could lie down and have a good binge. I've got plenty of booze in there."

"I've heard he pinches things," remarked Schweik, placidly puffing away at a cigarette belonging to the lieutenant, as the latter had forbidden him to smoke a pipe in the room. "You must know something about it. Where does the booze come from?"

"I just go where he tells me to," said Mikulashek in a ready voice. "I get the chit from him and go to the hospital to fetch the doings and I bring them home."

"And if he ordered you to sneak the regimental funds, would you do it?" asked Schweik. "You call him names now, but when he's here you shiver in your shoes."

Mikulashek's little eyes twinkled.

"I'd have to think it over a bit."

"It's no use thinking it over, you silly young chump," shouted Schweik, but then he stopped, because the door opened and Lieutenant Lukash entered. It was at once obvious that he was in a good temper, as his cap was on the wrong way round.

Mikulashek was so scared that he forgot to jump down from

the table, but saluted in a sitting posture, quite overlooking the fact that he had no cap on his head.

"Beg to report, sir, everything's all right," announced Schweik, assuming a stern military demeanour according to regulations, but omitting to remove the cigarette from his mouth.

Lieutenant Lukash did not even notice this, and made straight for Mikulashek, who with startled eyes watched his every movement, continuing to salute and remaining seated on the table.