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Authors: Bela Zombory-Moldovan

Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Military, #Historical, #Personal Memoirs

The Burning of the World: A Memoir of 1914 (6 page)

BOOK: The Burning of the World: A Memoir of 1914
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I awoke the next day to rather more hustle and bustle. Crowds of men arriving to sign on started to flood in. The regimental cadre was forming three operational regiments: a field regiment, a march regiment, and a territorial regiment. Twelve thousand men in all. That was more than the entire population of Veszprém. Where would they all go? What about hygiene arrangements? Let others worry about that. I had done well, at any rate, to turn up early, as I had got excellent lodgings.

I went off shopping and wandered through the town’s maze of hilly streets. There were a few interesting old houses, picturesque ruins and old watermills, the splendid Séd valley, the Betekints inn and the deep, dark shade under its great trees, cliffs; a wealth of painterly subjects. Even the old people greeted me, and children followed me at a distance. But all of this—like all wonders—barely lasted three days; indeed, it ebbed by the hour in proportion to the torrent of men streaming into the town.

I was assigned to the march regiment: fourth battalion, fourth company. Our company commander was Captain József Kovács. Under him, four junior officers—Kovács, Földes, Osztermann, and me—as the platoon leaders. I was the most junior amongst them in rank, but third in age. The other three had done their year’s military service straight after secondary school, and so had overtaken me in rank. We soon got to know one another and I felt we would become good “mates.” The captain quizzed each of us and I told him what I did. I could see that he liked the look of me, and he confided that he was not really an infantryman, but a teacher of descriptive geometry and topography at a military academy.

Work began on the fourth of August. We took over our platoons and immediately started practicing drill, over and over. The drill instructor had been a guard sergeant at the Illava prison.
[7]
He treated the poor old squaddies accordingly.

Of the four of us, only Földes had served in the Royal Hungarian Army; the rest of us didn’t know the Hungarian commands.
[8]
By great good fortune, Földes owned a copy of the Service Regulations. We would lie in a circle on the parade-ground turf—at some risk, since the parade ground also served as pasture for some uncouth geese—and take turns swotting up the Regulations, whilst listening to the tramp of the units as they were drilled, and the drill instructor’s hoarse bellowing and cursing.

“Someone should have a word with Csambalik and tell him not to yell like that.”

“Let him yell. If he didn’t do it, we’d have to.” This was Kovács, who had seniority in rank.

“All right. I’ll grant you it has some intimidatory psychological effect, but most of these are family men of about thirty, thinking to themselves that just because they’re going to die for their country, there’s no need to treat them like animals.”

“Incorrigible idealist!”

“He’s yelling like that because the drill keeps going wrong. But it keeps going wrong because he can’t keep time properly, and so their movements are affected by arrhythmia.”

“Go on, tell him!”

“You outrank us, it’s your job to educate him.”

“If the bloody man wants to yell, he’ll yell. This lot aren’t exactly the Knights of Malta yet.
[9]
Come on, back to the Regulations.”

If it was good enough for them, it would be good enough for me. It was something else to get used to. Anyway, I had started, the first night I was there, while I was still alone, to realize that all sorts of fancy ideas had to be put aside and forgotten about. I was being hit by a landslide of events and, since I couldn’t run away from it, I had better work out how to dodge about well enough to avoid being flattened by it. One could get used to catastrophe, too; in fact, one had to get used to it. The past was gone. If I had the time for it, and if I was safe, I might daydream about it. But there was no point to it now. I had to summon all my imagination to grasp the situation and the circumstances that awaited me, and somehow to ensure my survival. Besides, now that Veszprém had more soldiers than inhabitants, there was a feeling of safety in numbers, and a sense of inner calm was starting to overtake me. From this enormous mass of men—even with so many long faces among them—surely some potent force would arise.

Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris
.
[10]
Just about every officer in the Army seemed to be camped out in the town’s main coffeehouse every evening, to the accompaniment of champagne and a gypsy band. For want of anything better to do, I joined them. An opera bass, Pogány,
[11]
and a tenor, Diskay,
[12]
sang this and that, and we indulged in a certain amount of revelry. Making our way home late at night, we certainly disturbed the quiet of the streets. Pogány’s rich voice rang out down the echoing lanes. Diskay kept wrapping his throat in scarves and was anxious to save his voice. If I got to my lodgings to lie down, I shut my eyes fitfully, occasionally hearing the giggling of the housemaids; but I was tired out, and tried my best to get some sleep.

I rose at five in the morning and had breakfast at the coffeehouse. Parade was at seven. Our march to the parade ground took us up the steep road past my lodgings. I signaled to the drummer, Dráfi, who beat time splendidly. The two housemaids came running out of the gate. For the fun of it, I gave the order: “Eyes right!” The girls’ eyes shone with delight. If I was asked to explain myself over this, I would say that it was for practice. But I kept an absolutely straight face, and got away with it.

One day, as I was making my way to lunch, someone waved to me from a dilapidated cab. My father! Since I had left, he said, he had not slept a wink. Why had he come? He had wanted to see me one last time.

No more hardened resignation now: my wounds had been reopened. He could see that I was upset, and there were tears in his eyes as he set off back to Budapest.

I didn’t go to my usual place to dine that evening, or to the coffeehouse. I wandered about in the valley of the Séd, among the old watermills, until late in the evening. I was in very low spirits. The Betekints inn was still lit, and I ate some scrambled eggs.

I was still affected the next day, and the knowledge that my discomposure had caused my father pain weighed on my conscience.

The ceremonial giving of the oath of service was to take place the following Sunday on the square in front of the minster church, and on the Monday we would begin the seventy-five kilometer march to Keszthely.
[13]

The mass was celebrated by the bishop, with a full supporting cast. It has to be said that the entire regiment of four thousand men reciting the words of the oath together created a very solemn effect. I made a bit of a mess of things as we paraded away from the square in double ranks, when I couldn’t think of the Hungarian command for
Reien fällt ab
; on the spur of the moment, I translated this as “fall out in rows,” whereupon the members of the platoon headed off in a variety of directions. The battalion commander, Captain Gyenes, was ready to have me trampled underfoot. At least it gave my fellow officers something to snigger about.

That night we bade farewell to Veszprém in style. Even more champagne than usual got put away, and I had a poor night’s sleep. Early the next morning I wrote a few words of thanks to my kind and courteous hosts. I also said goodbye to the housemaids, pressing ten korona into the hands of each of them. One of them burst into tears, wiping her eyes and nose on her apron.

4. THE MARCH

A
NOTHER
farewell. A ceremonial parade accompanied by resounding marches from the band, interspersed alternately by trumpets and drums to keep time. Crowds had turned out to shower us with flowers. Beside me marched little Dráfi, the gypsy, who pattered away on his drum. I told him to stop it, but it was oddly catching. Just what I needed!

This idiotic seventy-five kilometer march had been ordered by the regimental commander, former staff officer Bél Sérsits, who was from Kissár. By the time we reached our destination, half the regiment had been rendered unfit for action from damage to their feet and general exhaustion.

As we left town, the band stood aside, and with them the flock of children and young people who had accompanied us the whole way. As we passed, they pressed into our hands the flowers they had brought with them. A little old lady wiped her eyes and made the sign of the cross at us. The band played the Radetzky March over and over, without a pause, until the entire column had passed.

Silence fell; then the drums struck up to keep step. A kind of numbness descended over the column, deadening the sense of foreboding and the stress of waiting. This march may be no bad thing: a little exercise for the heart! The word was passed down: sing! Private First Class Solti—a stocky, fresh-faced Magyar—began singing in a splendid, clear voice. I murmured the words along with him:

A mulberry tree stands in my yard

And a brown maid gathers its leaves

Gather them, maid, to rest my head

For I know that I die for my home.
[1]

Not exactly an optimistic song. Many put on a brave face and sang along with Solti, but most of the men were sunk in thought.

Silence once more. Only the rhythmical clump of two thousand heavy hobnailed boots caused the air, bathed in sparkling sunlight, to quiver.

Kovács, the company commander, rode up alongside. “We’re passing through Hungary’s loveliest landscape,” he called down to me.

“I’ve brought along a map, Captain. I find travel all the more enjoyable with a map.”

“Very good. I’ll borrow it from you.”

I took it at once from my bread bag. “Here you are, sir.”

He accepted it with thanks and rode on to the front of the company. From there I heard the command as it rippled back from the head of the regiment: “Halt! Ten minutes’ rest! Fall out to the right!”

Ten minutes. If only someone would order right-about-turn. I undid the straps of my knapsack. Under it, I was already sweating. I lay back on the bank of the roadside ditch. The others gathered round and lay down. Sérsits conferred with the battalion and company commanders. I stripped grass stalks and nibbled the tender ends, just as I used to do in peacetime.

Osztermann sat silently, his legs crossed. Földes sat down. “It’s all right so far. If it goes on like this, it won’t be too bad.”

“You can get used to any shit,” growled Kovács. “And we may have to.”

“My old life seems so far away now, it could as well have been in another world.”

“Anyone know a good joke?”

“Come on, Földes!”

“Cohen lives opposites the Weisses. One day he looks out of the window with his opera glasses and sees Mrs. Weiss in a state of intimate undress cavorting with a man. Next day, he bumps into Weiss. ‘Look here, Weiss. If the two of you want to fool around, at least pull the blind down! I could see everything again yesterday.’ Weiss replies. ‘Haha! Do you know what? I wasn’t even at home yesterday.’”

Osztermann didn’t laugh, but stared off into the distance.

“Kit on! Fall in!” The order rang out. We assembled into units and the column set off towards Nagyvászony. We were passing through a wood. The beauty of nature in August reigned everywhere. The boughs were a deep green, but the sprigs of barberry, the wild rose hips and the leaves of the sumac were already glowing in flaming colors of carmine, cinnabar, minium, and orange. Beauty before death, for autumn and decay were coming. In the meadows and fields, nothing but stubble and fine ploughed soil, the stalks of maize left tied into bundles. Subjects for landscapes: the colors from burnt sienna and ochre to gray umber. Marvelous colors in the shadows.

We had been marching for three hours. Monotony was setting in. Gradually, one was starting to put one leg in front of the other without thinking, without the exercise of will. The brain rested, as if some foreign body had been inserted into the cavity of the skull. External stimuli find their way infrequently to momentary snatches of awareness. An old peasant by the roadside, leaning against a tree at the edge of his field, watches us pass. Now there was something I hadn’t seen before. Peasants don’t usually cry.

Shouting and swearing from up ahead. A cow was determined to push its way through the column. A terrified boy, the cowherd, was whacking it. Its bones resounded under the blows.

Then on again. Nothing. No one was singing now.

“Rest break! Lunch! Boots off! Straighten out your foot bindings and socks!”

All those dusty, sweaty feet: a pretty sight, and a treat for the nose. A peasant spends all day on his feet; he stuffs his boots well with straw and rags, and he’s fine. Military boots and creased foot bindings chafe feet raw. Already, many feet were blistered.

By my calculation, we had covered about twelve kilometers: half the allotted distance for the day. I too removed my boots—the waterproof pair I had bought in Pest—and located, then shook out, a tiny piece of grit. How had the wretched thing managed to get in? It was the merest crumb, yet already it had raised a blister on my sole. I fished out the lard and rubbed it all over my feet. A definite improvement.

I appointed a good-looking Slovak lad called Jóska from my unit as my batman. He was glad to do it. Straight away, he went off to the field kitchen and fetched me a mess tin full of thick beef soup with marrowbone, and a piece of toast. I told Miklósik, the corporal, to find out from the team leaders if anyone was unwell. He reported back promptly: no one. Just in time, too, because Győri, the battalion’s medical officer, appeared. In peacetime, he was a dentist on the Ring, and this was the first time I had seen him riding a horse. He sat on it like a well-risen ball of dough. His voice sounded different, too, from the way it did in the coffeehouse. He seemed bored by the news that all was in order.

“So I should jolly well think.”

“Földes! Give us a joke.” We lit up and stretched out.

“Cohen goes to see the rabbi. ‘O wise rabbi, I need advice. Weiss is the same age as me, but he’s always boasting about how youthful he still is, and what a great lover, and how, and how often . . .’ The rabbi strokes his beard for a bit, and then he says: ‘Well, Cohen, just say the same thing!’”

BOOK: The Burning of the World: A Memoir of 1914
11.71Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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