The Burning of the World: A Memoir of 1914 (11 page)

I woke suddenly: we had stopped. The orderly was talking to a Ruthene.

“Does anyone here speak Slovak?”
[2]
I asked.

Jóska volunteered. “He says there are Cossacks moving in the woods over to the left there.”

“That’s all we need. What are we going to do now? We can’t turn back.”

“We’ll have to take our chances. It might just be a false rumor.”

“Let’s keep going. Anyone who can walk should get off. They can hold on to side of the cart if they need to.”

Four or five of us resigned ourselves and climbed down, including my neighbor with the broken arm.

The orderly peered intently at the face of the man with the stomach wound. He called Jóska over. “Come on, help me get him down!” They pulled the poor fellow off the cart somehow. His curled-up body had stiffened, and they tried to straighten it out, pressing down on his knees. Then they laid him down, face up, by the side of the track, and scattered a little earth over him. As an afterthought, the orderly removed his dog tags. All this was done hastily: we must hurry. We set off again.

I realized that I was running a temperature. My face was burning and my throat was parched.

We approached a wretched little village. The Ruthene had come with us and he was chattering away. No one understood what he said, but that didn’t seem to bother him.

“What’s he on about?” I asked Jóska.

“Ah! That soldiers have taken everything they had. He’s asking for all sorts of things. Cigarettes. I’ve stopped paying any attention.”

My entire wealth consisted of five cigarettes. I handed one to him. He showed his gratitude.

“
Vodu! Vodu!
” He resumed his chatter.

Jóska translated. “He says we shouldn’t drink anything here. This is a Jewish village.”
[3]
I’d never heard anything like this before. “They don’t have anything. And anything they have, they’ve hidden.”

We had entered a poverty-stricken village of a few mean little houses. The streets were deserted; the inhabitants had retreated indoors, out of sight, from where they stole the occasional curious glance in our direction. One solitary Jew, wearing a kaftan, had summoned up the courage to stand at the roadside, holding out a wine glass filled with a yellowish liquid. I took it to be lemonade. I beckoned to him. Eagerly, he ran up to the cart.

“
Limonade?
”

“
Ja, ja, sehr fein.
”

He reached it out to me with a skinny hand. I took it gratefully and, without much analysis of the fluid’s composition, gulped it down in one go. It felt good. Whatever it was, it was liquid.

“
Ich danke
,” I said, handing back the glass. He stared at me with an expression of surprise and disappointment. Suddenly it dawned on me: his motivation wasn’t compassion towards the wounded. He wanted paying.

Rage filled me. Damned bloodsucker! He has the gall to screw money out of a poor wounded soldier who has escaped death by a hair and lost everything he had. I shouted at him: “Off with you! I have nothing!”

He jumped back in mortal fear and ran off, side-locks flapping madly, to one of the little huts. I had to smile: here was someone I could scare even in my sorry state. I had no idea I could still have such an effect.

Leaving the little village in its hollow, we slowly climbed to the top of the rise. In the far distance, back in the direction from which we had come, smoke rose in tumbling, swelling clouds, spreading out in a layer that blanketed the forests and fields; occasional billows pushed further up before they, too, dissolved and dispersed.

“The castle’s burning,” said the orderly, who was pushing the cart beside me.

The end of the baronial castle of the princes of Horyniec, of the art treasures and vast wealth, of the gallery of ancestral portraits and of the canopied, silk-draped Empire bed.
Sic transit
.

We had to push the cart, as by now the two poor beasts could scarcely keep it moving. I took out a cigarette and hunted for matches. Reaching into my trouser pocket, I discovered my trusty companion, sharer of my fate, the comrade that connected me to my former life: my watch. I was so filled with joy that I could kiss it. I had something, after all. Not just an object, but a true and staunch friend. I held it in my left hand and marveled at it as it measured off the seconds. It was actually running. I had no idea when I had last wound it.

The orderly clicked his lighter, made from a Mannlicher cartridge case. “Sir!” I turned towards him and held out the cigarette with my right hand.

“That’s quite a tremor, sir. It’s the head wound that’s causing that.”

I’d noticed myself that, especially when I turned in a certain way, the trembling in my lower arm turned into a positive shaking. If that was the worst of it . . . It would go away eventually. All that mattered for now was that, with each step, I was getting further and further from mortal danger, and for a few weeks, at least, I would return to life. After that, what would be, would be.

We crossed a bridge over some little stream. A rickety structure: I was surprised that it took our weight. The sound of clean running water made me so thirsty that I yearned to lie down in it. I had no interest in eating, but oh, to drink, and drink, and keep drinking!

“We’ll get to a larger settlement soon,” said the orderly. “There are troops stationed there, and we can get something to eat and drink. There’s a proper road from there that will take us to Lubaczow, if these nags can keep going. If not, we’ll get other horses.”

The Ruthene carter watered the little horses from a pail. Each of them drank almost a full pail. Where they put it all is a mystery.

With the cart stopped, my ears rang dully in the sudden silence, as if I were hearing everything from under water. My throat was so dry I could barely swallow.

“I think I have a bit of fever,” I told the orderly.

“That’s very likely, but please try to hold out until we get to Lubaczow. I have no drugs or dressings here. Try to sleep.”

Sleep would be a fine thing, but I had to treat my head as if it were made of glass. Whatever I tried to rest my head on would shake about, and the pain made my eyes practically jump out my head. I tried resting my elbows on my knees and propping my chin on the palms of my hands, as we trundled down the hill. Ahead, and to our right, a larger settlement gradually came into view. The orderly said it was called Basznia.
[4]

A little further on, we did indeed join a relatively good, metaled road, and the cart no longer pitched about so much. There were woods to one side of the road as we got nearer the settlement. At the edge of the woods stood a guard post—the first troops we had seen on our journey so far.

The commanding officer appeared, and there was some discussion. The cart waited. Those who had been on foot sat down; they were exhausted by now. We could take a rest. They brought us food and drink, and checked my bandages at the aid point. But we could not spend much time here: the front was heading this way, and the last train from Lubaczow would leave at sunset.

We were directed to the kitchen to wait. A cow was just being slaughtered, five or six paces away from me: a small, dun-colored, peasant’s milch cow. It was the first time I had seen this done. One man twisted a rope around its horns, passed it through a pulley fixed to the ground, and hauled the animal’s head right down to its forelegs. Another man took an axe and, with all his strength, struck the cow’s forehead. There was a crunching of bone, guttural grunting, the legs quivered, and the unfortunate creature slumped to the ground. It was all done with the indifference of someone swatting a fly. It was really just a matter of scale.

A medic examined us quickly; he tightened a bandage here and there and gave me three aspirins. He shook his head a little at the man shot in the lung.

After a short wait, Jóska brought a full mess tin of soup with some beef and marrowbone in it. Presented like this, these ingredients no longer seemed like the remains of a living creature, but merely sustenance. Jóska had shrewdly asked for this serving in my name, knowing that he would end up eating three-quarters of it himself, as indeed he did, in addition to his own ration. I told him to find a bottle and fill it with water.

A medical adjutant—from a battalion of the Twentieth Nagykanisza Regiment—came over.

“There are no more horses. For two days now, there’s been a torrent of wounded, retreating troops, and Russian prisoners heading for Lubaczow. The horses are all being used to transport the wounded. Any other livestock is needed for provisioning.”

We were the last, which was why we hadn’t been picked up. Lubaczow was the last stop now, but that was packed; people were being moved on from there by train. There was an abandoned station at Basznia; that was full too, of those who couldn’t go any further. We should go there: they were expecting some old rolling stock to be shunted up from Lubaczow, and we might get to Lubaczow on that.

So we set off with the two exhausted jades. We just needed to make it as far as Basznia! The man who had been shot in the lung had been taken off the cart. He was dead. They draped his cape over him. They would bury him later.

The little horses were reluctant to get moving again. Their noses hung down almost to ground. Everyone felt a burning anxiety, because if we didn’t make it to Lubaczow, our fates would be sealed: we would be taken prisoner, or worse.

We managed to struggle on as far as the station at Basznia. Wounded men lay crowded on the platform; plenty of malingerers, too. There were goods wagons of every description standing on the tracks—but no engine.

As we clambered down from the cart, my right knee buckled under me like a worn-out folding rule, and I would have collapsed like a sack if Jóska hadn’t caught me. We shuffled our way onto the crowded platform where, in a corner, I slumped back against a wall. After a day of being shaken and jolted, it was a heavenly respite.

The awareness of my own helplessness bore down on me like a terrible weight, alongside my impatient longing to get away. For a moment, I was gripped by a subject: a writhing mass of wounded men, sustained by the hope of escape, awaiting their salvation. In this case, the savior would be some worn-out engine and a few shovelfuls of coal.
[5]

Every minute, some new rumor or counter-rumor—many of them born of wishful thinking—went round.

A railwayman came running down the platform, shouting out: “Everyone into the wagons on track four, quick as you can! Let the seriously wounded on first!”

A terrible stampede began. Human wrecks, the bloodstained, the helpless, the broken pushing each other aside to save themselves. Jóska wrenched me to my feet and I threw my right arm around his neck. He dragged me off towards an empty wagon and practically threw me up onto it. I crawled on all fours into a corner. Out of breath, he grinned at me. We’re all seriously wounded in here, aren’t we? Of course we are! Just try leaving us off! Outside the wagon men were shouting, crying out, and cursing in a variety of languages.

A shout of joy went up: the engine’s here! An ancient contraption, coughing and wheezing, rushed past us, great clouds of smoke pouring up from its tall chimney, on its way to the rear to be turned round. Its proportions were rather like those of the little horses that had drawn our cart. Never mind! It has wheels, and it moves!

At last, a jolt, and the whole sorry procession began slowly to move, clattering over the points and snaking out onto the line towards Lubaczow. No one knew whether we would have to change there, or whether this train would take us on towards Jaroslav; but we were filled with hope.

A bit of straw under me, and my joy would have been complete; but I did my best to stretch out my legs, lie back on my cape, and fold my arms to support my throbbing head. An immeasurable sense of calm came over me, undisturbed by the moaning, coughing, and talking of the others in the wagon.

I’m on my way home!

Jóska was shaking me. “We’re in Lubaczow. We’re being told to wait here until we can find out whether we’re going on, or whether we have to get onto a different train. They say the local nurses are distributing charity for the wounded men. I’ll get out and see what I can bring.”

I had a sudden thought that he might want to run off; but that would make no sense, because he would be fine as long as he was with me, whereas if he were caught doing a bunk, he’d be in trouble. He was gone for quite a while, though, and I began to feel uneasy; but finally he reappeared with a smile on his face, pockets bulging and a bundle of straw under his arm. God bless him!

He stuffed the straw under me and laid out ham, sausage, fresh bread, a small bottle of
pálinka
, cigarettes, and goodness knows what else, upon which we positively threw ourselves. The greatest gift for me, though, was the straw. I stretched myself out and even pulled off my boots for the first time in three days. Then I fell headlong into the oblivion of sleep.

Now and again, I awoke, and at Jaroslav I even looked out of the open door of the wagon. There must have been an army provisioning base here. On the way to the front, I had seen sacks of flour in vast quantities piled up into stacks, like cordwood, on land next to the station. Now, a couple of skinny horses were chewing on sacking, their whole faces, up to the ears, white with flour.

Sleep.

Rzesow. A large station. Jóska shaking me back to life. “We have to change here.” To make movement easier, we took with us only what we had on us. We left the food. We could get more.

I was somewhat unsteady getting off the train. Jóska propped me up from the right. A guard on the platform directed me to the station command post. I reported there and was examined by the doctor. He removed the dried-on dressing and said something about infection.

“If you get to Budapest, go to the garrison hospital. You need to be X-rayed to see if there’s any damage to the motor centers.”

“My right hand shakes when I move a certain way. My right leg buckles under me sometimes.”

“Yes, that’s related to the impact injury from the shot, but it’s not serious. From what I can see, you should recover from that.”