The Good Soldier Svejk (47 page)

Quartermaster-sergeant Vanek was sitting at his ease in the canteen, and telling a staff sergeant-major how much he was able to make before the war by selling enamel and varnish. But the staff sergeant-major was no longer his usual self. That afternoon an estate owner from Pardubice, whose son was in camp, had

been there and had tipped him handsomely, besides standing treat in the town the whole afternoon. He was now very listless and woebegone, because he had lost his appetite. He was not even aware what they were talking about and did not take the slightest notice of the quartermaster-sergeant's remarks on the subject of enamel and varnish. He was engrossed in his own meditations and was mumbling something about a local train which went from Trebon to Pelhrimov and back.

When Schweik entered, Quartermaster-sergeant Vanek was making another attempt to explain to the staff sergeant-major by means of statistics what profit could be made on one pound of varnish for building operations, whereupon the staff sergeant-major, entirely bemused, replied :

"He died on the way back, and all we found on him was some letters."

When he saw Schweik, he mixed him up with someone else, of whom he evidently did not approve, for he called him a bloody ventriloquist. Schweik, however, approached Quartermaster-sergeant Vanek, who was also somewhat fuddled, but very cheerful and friendly about it.

"You've got to go at once to the regimental stores, sir," announced Schweik. "Sergeant Fuchs is waiting there with ten men, and they're going to draw tinned rations. You've got to go at the double. The lieutenant's telephoned twice."

Quartermaster-sergeant Vanek burst out laughing :

"Not if I know it, old chap. Do you think I'm barmy, or what? There's plenty of time, lad, plenty of time. The regimental stores won't run away. When Lieutenant Lukash has handled as many drafts as what I have, then he'll be able to talk, but he'll drop all that stuff about doing things at the double. A lot of useless worry, that's what it is. Why, many's the time I've received orders in the regimental office that we was off the next day and I was to go and draw rations there and then. And what I did was to come here and have a quiet drink and just take things easy. The tinned rations won't run away. I know more about regimental stores than what the lieutenant does, and when the officers have one of these here confabs with the colonel, I know the sort of stuff they talk. Why, for one thing, there ain't any tinned rations in our regimen-

tal stores, and there never was. All the tinned rations we've got is inside the colonel's noddle. Whenever we want tinned rations, we just get it in driblets from the brigade, or we borrow it from other regiments if we happen to be in touch with them. Why, there's one regiment alone we owe more than 300 tins of rations to. Yes, sir! They can say what they like at their confab, but they're not going to bounce me. And the store keeper himself'll tell 'em they're barmy when they go there for the doings. Why, there ain't a single draft yet as had any tinned rations issued to it when it left for the front."

"That's so, ain't it, you old pie-face?" he added, turning to the staff sergeant-major, who, however, was either dropping off to sleep, or else was on the verge of a slight attack of delirium, for he replied :

"When she went for a walk, she always kept her umbrella open."

"The best thing you can do," continued Quartermaster-sergeant Vanek, "is not to worry about anything. Let 'em do what they damn well please. If they said in the regimental office that we're leaving to-morrow, they don't know what they're talking about. How can we leave, if there ain't any railway trucks? I was there when they was telephoning to the railway station. There ain't a single spare truck. It's just the same as it was with the last draft. We was hanging about in the railway station for two days, waiting for somebody to have pity on us and send us a train. And then we didn't know where we was going to. The colonel himself didn't know. After that, we had a ride all over Hungary and nobody ever knew whether we was going to Serbia or Russia. At every station they talked to the staff division direct. We was just a sort of flying squad, as you might say. No, take it easy, lad. Everything'll come right in time, but there's no need for any hurry. That's the ticket."

"They've got some first-rate drink here to-day," continued Quartermaster-sergeant Vanek, ignoring the staff sergeant-major, who was stuttering to himself in German :

"You take it from me, I've had a pretty thin time so far. I can't make it out."

"It ain't likely I'm going to worry my head about the draft

leaving. Why, the first draft I was on, got everything ready without a hitch, in a couple of hours. Then the other drafts after that started getting ready two whole days beforehand. But Lieutenant Prenosil, he was our company commander and a regular sport, he said : 'Don't you hurry yourselves, lads,' and we got everything done like clockwork. We didn't start packing till two hours before the train started. And if you take my advice you'll just sit down -"

"It can't be done," said the good soldier Schweik with a considerable effort. "I've got to get back to the office. Suppose someone was to telephone."

"All right, go if you want to, old chap, but it ain't sporting of you and that's a fact. A proper orderly has never got to be where he's wanted. You're too keen on rushing back to work. There's nothing gets my goat more than an orderly with the wind up who wants to chuck his weight all over the bloody army."

But Schweik was already outside the door and was hurrying in the direction of his draft.

Quartermaster-sergeant Vanek was left by himself, for it could scarcely be said that the staff sergeant-major was a sociable companion. He was now entirely isolated from the rest of mankind and toying with his glass, he was stammering a great jumble of incoherent remarks in Czech and German :

"Many a time I have passed through that village and never even realized her existence. In six months my examinations will be over and I'll have my degree. I've become a thorough wreck, thanks to you, Lucy. They've been published in volume form, and very attractive the bindings are, too—some of you may remember what I mean."

Thoroughly bored, the quartermaster-sergeant was drumming a tune with his fingers on the table, but his boredom did not last long, for the door opened and in came Jurajda, the cook from the officers' mess. He glued himself to a chair.

"We've had orders to-day," he babbled, "to draw our rations of brandy for travelling. All the bottles wrapped in wickerwork were filled with rum, so we had to empty one of them. That was a treat for us. The men in the cook house did themselves well, and the colonel turned up too late to get" any. So now they've

cooked him an omelette. I tell you, we're having a fine old time of it."

Jurajda lapsed into philosophic ponderings, as befitted his civilian occupation. Until the war broke out he was editing an occultist periodical and a series of books entitled
Secrets of Life and Death.
The colonel took a fancy to him as a kind of regimental freak, for there weren't many officers' messes that could boast of having as a cook a full-blown occultist, who, while scrutinizing the secrets of life and death, could dish up a first-rate roast sirloin or a tasty stew.

Jurajda, who could scarcely sit upright on the chair and reeked of a dozen or so tots of rum, now went on babbling at random :

"Yes," he said, "when there wasn't enough to go round and the colonel only saw some fried potatoes, he fell into what we call the gaki state. Do you know what that is? It means the state of hungry spirits. So I said to him : 'Well, sir, have you got enough power to overcome the dispensation of fate that you didn't get any fried kidneys? It has been predestined by karma, sir, that you are to get a chopped calves' liver omelette for supper to-night.' "

"My friend," he presently remarked to the quartermaster-sergeant, with an inadvertent gesture of the hand which upset all the glasses within reach of him on the table, "all phenomena, all shapes, all objects possess disembodied qualities. Shape is disembodiment and disembodiment is shape. There is no distinction between disembodiment and shape ; there is no distinction between shape and disembodiment. What is disembodiment, is shape, and what is shape, is disembodiment."

He then lapsed into silence, propping his head in his hand and contemplating the splashes and stains on the table. The staff sergeant-major went babbling on. Nobody could make head or tail of what he was saying :

"The corn vanished from the fields. Vanished. Such was his mood when he received her invitation and went to call on her. The Whitsun holidays come in the spring."

Quartermaster-sergeant Vanek was still drumming on the table. From time to time he took a pull at his glass and remembered that ten men with a sergeant were waiting for him at the

regimental stores. When he thought of this he smiled to himself and waved his hand airily.

When, at a late hour, he returned to the office of draft No. 11, he found Schweik at the telephone.

"Shape is disembodiment, and disembodiment is shape," he murmured, and crawled, fully dressed, on to his mattress, where he immediately fell fast asleep.

But Schweik continued to sit by the telephone, because two hours previously Lieutenant Lukash had telephoned that he was still conferring with the colonel, but he had forgotten to tell him that he need not wait at the telephone any longer. Then Sergeant Fuchs telephoned to say that he had been waiting with ten men for hours and hours, but the quartermaster-sergeant hadn't turned up. Not only that, but the regimental stores were locked. At last he'd given it up as a lost job and the ten men, one by one, had gone back to their huts.

From time to time Schweik amused himself by taking the receiver and listening-in. The telephone was a new patent which had just been introduced into the army, and the advantage of it was that other people's conversations could be heard quite distinctly all along the line.

The army service corps was slanging the artillery, the engineers were breathing fire and slaughter upon the postal department, the school of musketry was snarling at the machine-gun section.

And Schweik still sat at the telephone.

The deliberations with the colonel were prolonged still further. Colonel Schroder was expounding the latest theories of field service, with special reference to trench mortars. He talked on and on, about how two months earlier the front had been lower down and more to the east, about the importance of precise communication between the various units, about poison-gases, about anti-aircraft, about the rationing of troops in the trenches; and then he went on to discuss the conditions inside the army. He let himself go on the subject of the relationship between officers' and rank-and-file, between rank-and-file and N. C. O.'s, and desertion to the enemy at the front, which led him to point out that fifty per cent, of the Czech troops were of doubtful loyalty. The ma-

jority of the officers were wondering when the silly old buffer was going to stop his chatter, but Colonel Schroder prated on and on and on about the new duties of the new drafts, about the regimental officers who had fallen, about zeppelins, about barbed wire entanglements, about the military oath.

While he was on the latter subject, Lieutenant Lukash remembered that the whole draft had taken the oath except Schweik, who had been absent from divisional headquarters. And suddenly he burst out laughing. It was a kind of hysterical laughter which had an infectious influence among several of the officers sitting near him, and as a result it attracted the attention of the colonel, who was just about to discuss the experience gained during the retreat of the German troops in the Ardennes. He got the whole subject mixed up and then remarked :

"Gentlemen, this is no laughing matter."

They then all proceeded to the officers' club, because Colonel Schroder had rung up brigade headquarters on the telephone.

Schweik was dozing by the telephone when it started ringing and woke him up.

"Hallo," he heard, "regimental office speaking."

"Hallo," he answered, "this is draft No. 11."

"Don't hang up," he heard a voice saying. "Take a pencil and take this message down."

"Draft No. 11."

This was followed by a number of sentences in a queer muddle, because drafts Nos. 12 and 13 chimed in and the message got completely lost in the medley of sounds. Schweik could not understand a word of it. But at last there was a slight lull and Schweik heard :

"Hallo, hallo ! Now read it over and don't hang up."

"Read what over?"

"The message, of course, you jackass."

"What message?"

"Ye gods, are you deaf, or what? The message I just dictated to you, you bloody fool !"

"I couldn't hear it. Somebody kept interrupting."

"You blithering idiot, do you think I've got nothing else to do but to listen to your drivel? Are you going to take the message

down or not? Have you got pencil and paper? What's that? You haven't, you thickheaded lout, you ! I've got to wait till you find some? Christ, what an army ! Now then, how much longer are you going to be? Oh, you've got everything ready, have you? So you've managed to pull yourself together at last. I suppose you had to change your uni form for this job. Now listen to me : Draft No. 11. Got that? Repeat it."

'"Draft No. 11."'

"Company commander. Got that? Repeat it."