Iron Gustav (14 page)

‘Why ever not? What do you mean?'

‘Oh, nothing, Father.'

For a while the two walked silently side by side. Down the Frankfurter Allee the horses clattered and people in the street stood still, pleased at the sight. That's something worth seeing, eh? Horses on their way to the war.

Under his arm Hackendahl carried a file of papers and the order to appear before the requisitioning authorities. With a measured dignity he strode along beside his troop, hurrying ahead at the crossings to see that the side streets were free, beckoning and admonishing. ‘Franz, don't lose that grey.' ‘Keep up with us, Hoffmann!' Bubi was even more occupied. He stopped at every advertisement pillar. He read the decrees. He rushed after Hackendahl. ‘Father, a state of war has been declared.' ‘Father, the Kaiser says there are no parties for him now, only Germans. Aren't the Reds any longer Reds?'

‘We shall have to see how they vote in the Reichstag. The Kaiser's too soft-hearted. He always thinks everyone is as decent as he is.'

‘Hey, Father, the population is warned to look out for spies. So how does one recognize spies, Father?'

‘We'll soon see. Just keep your eyes open, Bubi! A traitor quickly gives himself away through his bad conscience. He can't look straight.'

‘Come, Father, let's see who's coming. Perhaps they're trying to spy out how many horses are here. That's possible, isn't it?'

But then he forgot about it. ‘Father! Father!'

‘Now what, Bubi? I've got to look after the horses.'

‘Have you read about the golden motor cars, Father? The Russians are supposed to have three golden motor cars in Russia, and we are supposed to stop them.'

‘They won't get across the frontier,' said Hackendahl with satisfaction. ‘War's been declared on the Russians. The frontiers are closed.'

‘But supposing they cross over to the French? We haven't declared war on the French yet. Why haven't we, Father? The French are our sworn enemies.'

‘Everything in its turn. Just take it easy. The turn of the French will come and, what's more, the English. They want to take away our navy and our colonies; they're so jealous, that lot …'

The throng was becoming denser and denser. At first they had seen here and there a solitary butcher's or greengrocer's pony led by its owner to the requisitioning, but now they met troops of horses – the breweries were bringing along their heavy Flemish beasts, the riding schools their light Prussian ones. Lordly, bewhiskered coachmen led Hanoverian coach horses – not all the best people thought a car quite the thing in 1914 – and, amid noise and bustle, acquaintances were hailing one another; cabmen greeted their colleagues; butchers whose horses are the most spirited (according to legend they get ox blood to drink every day) were already making their arrangements. ‘If they take yours, I'll drive your meat. If they take mine, you drive for me.' (They had no notion how little meat there would be to drive very shortly.)

Hackendahl too saw many acquaintances – the small fry who had only one or two cabs in use, an undertaker whom he helped out with black horses when business was brisk, the furniture chap across the road whose ponies so quickly became footsore.

‘G'day, George. Things humming, eh?'

‘Lot of old crocks.'

‘Oh, they'll send us all back with them. What are they to do with us? They've got their horses.'

‘Have you heard? They say the French have bombed Stuttgart.'

‘I've got to join up tomorrow – my business will go phut.'

‘What d'you think they'll pay for the horses? They ought to give us a bit extra to make up for the loss of earnings.'

‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself, you old profiteer. There won't be any earnings in this war.'

‘And how's my mother to live?'

Yes, Hackendahl had a lot to do, he had to mind his horses and greet his friends. Highly respected in his district and in his business, he was a man to whom people listened. And they agreed with him when he said: ‘We'd better make a job of it and rap the English over the knuckles too. What's Tirpitz got a fleet for?'

They turned off the main road. Between the last tenements, in a big open space, at other times used for a small weekly market, posts had been erected with halter rings. Here were the military, the soldiers in overalls and the officers in full dress and – Look there! What's that? What's that supposed to be? D'you know the uniform?

‘Well, I never! What are they?'

‘What's the uniform?'

Hackendahl nodded, as an old non-commissioned officer, as one who knew: ‘Field-grey!'

‘Field-grey!' The words flew from mouth to mouth. It was something new, this field-grey. Yes, in this war they wouldn't be wearing the familiar brightly coloured uniforms, they would be wearing field-grey …

‘But why? What a pity! Nothing to look at in that.'

‘Stop jawing, man. D'you want our lads to be used as targets?'

‘Kaiser Bill will have discussed that with Moltke all right.'

‘And the Frenchies don't wear red trousers any more. That's a pity, because I always thought you could make a red waistcoat out of your first prisoner.'

The requisition had started. Names were being called.

‘Now let's see him trot … Gallop … That's all right. Legs are sound. Hi, lift up that leg; isn't the hoof split?' The veterinary surgeon looked at the horse's mouth, examined its teeth. ‘Eight years old.'

‘I bought it as a six-year-old, sir.'

‘Eight!'

‘Service Corps, wheeler, section two,' barked an officer.

A clerk made an entry, and a soldier took the reins from the owner. ‘No, man, we keep the headstall. Didn't you read the official notice? “With halter.” '

The owner held an order to pay. ‘Three hundred and fifty marks. Look, Gustav, three hundred and fifty for my chestnut. That's not bad. That's reasonable.'

‘Just right,' said Gustav. ‘Not too much and not too little. Just right – like everything in the army.'

Now it was his turn. Horse after horse was led forward … Hackendahl did not lead them himself. That wasn't necessary. He had his own men for that. He himself was a big man and he was aware of it. He was not only giving the Fatherland his sons, he was giving his horses, his property. And it pleased him to make a sacrifice in these times. He stood by the group of officers, Heinz behind him. Bubi could not have beamed more happily at the officers than did his father. Ah, here was the old curt tone, the bark or the drawl, and decisions made in a split second. No interminable women's gossip. No come along tomorrow if you can't come today.

An officer's monocle flashed. ‘Why are you hanging about, my man? What have you to listen to? You're behaving suspiciously.'

‘Those are my horses,' explained Hackendahl.

‘Yours? Oh, all right. As you were! What was the work?'

‘Drawing cabs, Herr Oberleutnant.'

‘Cabs? We'll be finding them something else to draw, ha, ha! But they're in good condition – understand horses, eh?'

‘Sergeant-major in the Pasewalk Cuirassiers, Herr Oberleutnant.'

‘Army man, understands horses, can see it. Bit light, bit on the small side, but in condition.'

Yes, the Hackendahl horses were in condition – anyone could see that. One after another was accepted. Hackendahl felt quite proud.

‘Father, they're taking them all,' whispered Heinz excitedly. ‘How are we to drive the cabs?'

‘Don't bother about that now. The main thing is the army gets what it wants.'

‘What's the matter with this grey, Sergeant-major?' asked the officer. ‘Young, but no spirit. Something wrong with the bones?'

‘No, sir. Her wind was broken five weeks ago. Frightened by a car. She's not been the same since. My best horse.'

‘Car? Bad business! I mean … Oh, well, a horse is more elegant. Quite unserviceable, your grey.'

Yes, the grey was unserviceable. They also rejected the castrated stallion and after a while three other horses. ‘Nice, but too old.'

‘Yes, sir!'

Hackendahl received his bank draft, one for a very great amount. Much money, and the horses which worked for the business from which they lived all turned into money. It was a lot, yet little – a high, five-figure number. But it was his life's work, what he had built up, what he'd really worked for – a number written on a sheet of paper.

He looked at the sheet and thought how he had tended the horses day after day, and how before deciding on each sale he ran hither and thither ten or twenty times doing the negotiations. And he remembered how he had had to keep on at the drivers to ensure that they didn't break a horse's wind, or had stood behind an advertisement pillar to see for himself that the beasts were fed and watered on their stands. All this had taken the place of the army in his life and given it meaning. Now there was a void …

‘Hoffmann, find your way home alone with the horses. I'm going a little further with Heinz.'

‘Yes, Herr Hackendahl.'

‘Harness up when you get home. There aren't many cabs nowadays, and we must see that we earn a bit.'

‘The old grey too, Herr Hackendahl?'

‘Yes, the grey too. You can take him yourself, Hoffmann.'

‘Will do, Herr Hackendahl.'

‘Come, Bubi, we'll go on a bit. I feel like it.'

‘Yes, Father.'

‘That soldier shouldn't hold that brown horse so short on the reins – its mouth is a bit sensitive.'

But it didn't make any difference. They weren't his horses any more. They belonged to the Fatherland.

They went a little way farther along the Frankfurter Allee. The houses became more infrequent. Then came gardens and small fields – and then the first really big cornfield lay before them – rye.

‘Look, Bubi, rye, corn – half harvested, but not finished. It's ripe, all right. The war's interrupted them. I wonder who will harvest it.'

He looked over the wide fields; all was quiet and abandoned. No one was to be seen at work. People could only be seen walking and going about their business on the streets.

‘It will happen, Bubi, just as I said earlier today to Rabause. Women will have to do men's work.'

‘Mother too?'

‘Of course, Mother too.'

‘Oh, Father …'

‘What's wrong with Mother? If she has to, she'll be able to. I must see that I register as a volunteer this afternoon.'

‘But aren't you too old, Father? And you have trouble with your heart.'

‘There's nothing wrong with my heart!'

‘Yes there is, Father, sometimes you go quite blue.'

‘Well, I'm going to register and they'll take me. You'll see!'

‘But …'

‘They'll take me! And now you hold your tongue, Bubi.'

‘Then they'll take me too, Father!'

‘You hold your tongue, Bubi!'

For a while they continued, silent. They turned onto a pathway and came upon a raised railway embankment.

‘Where does the railway go, Father?'

‘To Strausberg, Bubi. Then further to the east, till Posen or to Russia …'

‘There's a train, Father!'

‘Yes, I can see it too.'

Behind two puffing engines, from the direction of Berlin, came a train with numerous cattle trucks with open doors. Horses' heads looked out of the trucks, and soldiers in field-grey uniforms stood in the doorways. On the open trucks were artillery cannon. Bubi was jubilant. This was the first train going to the war they had ever seen, and father and son were equally excited.

‘Father, Father! They're going to war. They're going against the Russians! Bravo!' shouted Bubi. ‘Hit 'em where it hurts!'

The soldiers waved back, laughing. The father cried ‘bravo' too and waved. Carriage after carriage …

‘Forty-one, forty-two …' counted Bubi. And then: ‘Father, what's
that – that black thing with a chimney? It looks funny. Does it shoot too?'

‘That's a field kitchen, Heinz. They're called goulash cannon too,' explained the father. ‘They only fire food, not shells.'

‘Forty-four, forty-five …' counted Heinz enthusiastically. ‘Father, there are forty-seven wagons, not counting the coal tender …'

‘Bubi!' whispered Hackendahl.

‘Yes, Father?'

‘Not so loud! Bubi, look over there, to the right of the bush … but not so that you're noticed, unobtrusively … Do you see the man in the willow clump?'

‘Yes.'

‘Look away. Now he's looking towards us. Pretend to do your shoelace up. What's that man doing all alone in that clump? It looks as though he's hiding.'

Bubi adjusted his shoelace, squinting as he did so.

‘Father, he just put something white in his pocket. Looked like a piece of paper. Do you think he wrote down the train number?'

‘What do you mean, wrote down the train number?' growled Hackendahl.

‘Soldiers, horses, artillery? Could it be a spy, Father?'

‘Quiet, Bubi, not so loud! He's looking this way again. Why does he always look at us? We're nothing to do with him …'

‘He's got a bad conscience, Father. It's a spy!'

‘We've got to consider it in cold blood. What can he be looking for in this lonely spot? If we hadn't turned up by accident …'

‘Father! Father! Now he's whistling … perhaps there are others here?'

‘Everything is possible.'

‘Come, Father. We'll go to him and ask him what he's looking for here. And if he refuses to have anything to do with us, we'll arrest him.'

‘But we can't just capture him. He'd merely run away.'

‘I can run faster.'

‘But you can't capture him on your own – and I can't keep up, because of my heart.'