The Good Soldier Svejk (56 page)

"I'll tell you for the last time that you don't know me, you jackass. Have you got any brothers?"

"Beg to report, sir, I've got one."

Lieutenant Dub was infuriated by the sight of Schweik's calm, unruffled countenance and, unable to contain himself any longer, he bellowed :

"Then your brother must be the same sort of damned fool as you are. What's he do for a living?"

"He's a school master, sir. And now he's got his commission."

Lieutenant Dub looked daggers at Schweik. Schweik bore Lieutenant Dub's savage glance with dignified composure and the interview between them concluded with the order : "Dismiss !"

Each of them went his way thinking matters over from his own angle.

Lieutenant Dub, thinking of Schweik, decided that he would tell Captain Sagner to have him put under close arrest, while Schweik, for his part, reflected that he had come across some daft officers in his time, but Lieutenant Dub was the choicest specimen he had ever met.

Lieutenant Dub, who that day was particularly keen on training soldiers in the way they should go, found fresh victims behind

the railway station. They were two soldiers from the 91st regiment, but belonging to a different company, who under cover of darkness and in broken German were haggling with two of the street walkers who were swarming in the vicinity of the station.

As Schweik went his way he quite distinctly heard Lieutenant Dub's shrill voice :

"But I tell you, you don't know me."

"Do you know me?"

"But when you do know me -"

"I tell you, when you know me from the bad side."

"I'll make you wish you'd never been born, you jackasses."

"Have you got any brothers?"

"Then they must be the same sort of damned fools as you are. What are they? In the army service corps? Very well, then. Just remember that you're soldiers. Are you Czechs? Do you know that Palacky said that if Austria did not exist, it would have to be created? Dismiss."

Lieutenant Dub's little stroll round, however, produced no positive results. He stopped three more groups of soldiers, but his educational endeavours "to make them wish they'd never been born" failed completely. His pride was hurt and that was why, before the train started, he asked Captain Sagner to have Schweik placed under arrest. He emphasized the necessity of isolating the good soldier Schweik, by reason of Schweik's astoundingly impudent demeanour, and he described Schweik's frank replies to his last question as insulting remarks. If things were to go on like, that, said he, the officers would be completely discredited in the eyes of the rank-and-file. Surely, he argued, none of the officers present could doubt that. He himself before the war had told the district chief of police that every person holding a superior position must aim at maintaining authority over his subordinates. The district chief of police had been of the same opinion. Specially now in the army during wartime, the nearer they got to the enemy, the more urgent it was to put the fear of God into the troops. For that reason he demanded that Schweik should be summarily punished.

Captain Sagner, who, as a regular officer, loathed all reserve officers, reminded Lieutenant Dub that proceedings of the kind

which he was suggesting could be carried out only through the orderly room and not by any slapdash methods as if it were a case of haggling with a street hawker about the price of potatoes. As regards Schweik, the proper person to approach in the first instance was the person to whose jurisdiction Schweik was amenable, and that person was Lieutenant Lukash. Such things as these were done simply and solely through the orderly room. As perhaps Lieutenant Dub was aware, they passed from the company to the battalion. If Schweik had done anything he ought not to have done, he would be had up in the company orderly room and then, if he wished to appeal, the matter would be passed on to the battalion orderly room. If, however, Lieutenant Lukash was willing and if he regarded Lieutenant Dub's narrative as an official notification which should be followed by punitive measures, he had no objection to having Schweik brought up for cross-examination.

Lieutenant Lukash had no objection to this, but he pointed out that, as he was aware from what Schweik had told him on various occasions, Schweik's brother was actually a school master and he had a commission.

Lieutenant Dub wavered and said that he had asked for Schweik to be punished in the broader sense of the term and that perhaps Schweik was not capable of expressing himself properly and his answers only seemed to be impudent, insulting and lacking in respect toward his superiors. Moreover, judging from the general appearance of the said Schweik, it was obvious that he was feeble-minded.

Thus, the thunderstorm passed over Schweik's head without touching him.

Before the train started, the echelon was overtaken by a military train containing specimens of various units. They comprised stragglers or soldiers discharged from hospital and now sent to rejoin their regiments, and other suspicious characters returning from special stunts or spells in detention barracks.

Among the occupants of this train was volunteer officer Marek, who had been charged with mutiny for refusing to clean the latrines. The divisional court-martial, however, had discharged

him and he now made his appearance in the staff carriage to report himself to the battalion commander.

Captain Sagner, on seeing the volunteer officer and receiving from him his documents which contained the confidential remark : "A political suspect. Caution," was not altogether pleased.

"You're a regular slacker," he said to him. "You're a perfect pest. Instead of trying to distinguish yourself and attain the rank to which your education entitles you, you just loaf about from one detention barracks to another. You're a disgrace to the regiment. But there's a chance for you to make up for your past offences. Show that you're devoted heart and soul to the battalion. Now look here. I'll tell you what I'll do. You're an intelligent young fellow, and I've no doubt you've got a ready pen. Every battalion in the field needs a man to keep a proper record of what it achieves at the front. What he has to do is to note down all the successful operations, all the cases of distinguished conduct in which the battalion is concerned, and in that way he gradually does his bit toward producing a history of the army. Do you follow me?"

"Beg to report, sir, yes, sir. It'll be a labour of love for me to place on record the gallant deeds of our battalion, especially now that the offensive is in full blast and the battalion is going into the thick of it."

"You will be attached to the battalion staff," continued Captain Sagner, "and you will keep an account of who is proposed for decorations, and then we will supply you with particulars which will enable you to record the marches testifying to the dauntless spirit and rigid discipline of the battalion. It's not an easy task, but I hope you've got enough powers of observation to give our battalion a better show than any other unit can put up, if I supply you with the proper hints. I'll send a telegram to regimental headquarters to say that I've appointed you keeper of the battalion records. Now report yourself to Quartermaster-sergeant Vanek of the nth company, so that he can make room for you in the carriage, and tell him to come to me."

Captain Sagner then had a brief talk to Quartermaster-sergeant Vanek. He merely reminded him that the keeper of the

battalion records, volunteer officer Marek, would be in the same truck with Schweik.

"I may as well tell you that this fellow Marek is a political suspect. Of course, that doesn't mean much to-day. Lots of people are supposed to be that. But if he should start any talk of that kind, you know what I mean, just jump on him at once so that I shan't have the unpleasant job of inquiring into it. Just tell him to drop all that sort of talk and that'll be all right. But I don't want you to come running to me. Tell him off, but do it in a friendly way. A little coaxing like that is always better than a lot of idiotic speechifying. Anyhow, I don't want to hear anything

about it, because -You see what I mean. That's the sort of

thing that spreads all over a battalion."

When Quartermaster-sergeant Vanek got back, he took Marek on one side and said to him :

"Look here, old chap, you're a suspicious character. Not that I care. But be careful what you say in front of Chodounsky, the chap at the telephone."

Scarcely had he said this than Chodounsky came staggering in and threw his arms round the quartermaster-sergeant's neck. In a drunken voice he yelled :

"We'll always stick together. Anything I hear in the telephone I'll come and tell you right away. A fat lot I care about their damned secrets."

Shortly afterward the order came that they were leaving in a quarter of an hour. As nobody would believe this, it came about that, in spite of all precautions, a certain number strayed away somewhere or other. When the train did start, eighteen men were missing, among them Sergeant Nasakl of the 12th draft, who, long after the train had vanished beyond Isatarcsa, was squabbling in a small shrubbery behind the station with a street walker who was demanding five crowns for services rendered.

3.

From Hatvan to the Frontiers of Galicia.

While the battalion, which was to reap military glory, was being transported by railway as far as Lahore in Eastern Galicia, whence it was to proceed on foot to the front, the truck containing Schweik and the volunteer officer was again the scene of more or less treasonable conversations, and on a smaller scale the same sort of thing was happening in the other trucks. Indeed, even in the staff carriage there was a certain amount of discontent because at Fuzes-Abony an army order had been received, by which the wine rations served out to the officers were to be reduced by a quarter of a pint. Of course, the rank-and-file had not been for-

gotten and their sago rations had been reduced by one third of an ounce per man, which was all the more mysterious because nobody had ever seen any sago in the army.

At Fuzes-Abony also, where it was intended to cook some stew, the discovery was made that one company had lost its field kitchen. Inquiries showed that the luckless field kitchen had never left Bruck and that it was still probably standing, chill and deserted, somewhere behind hut No. 186. The fact was that the cook house staff belonging to this field kitchen had been locked up in the main guardroom for disorderly conduct in the town, on the day before departure and they had so arranged it that they were still under lock and key when their draft was travelling through Hungary.

The company minus its field kitchen was accordingly assigned to another field kitchen, and this caused a slight disagreement, because among the men from both companies who were put on to potato-scraping fatigue duties arose a controversy when one lot declared that they were not such damned fools as to work their guts out for the others. In the end, however, it turned out that the cooking of this stew was really only a sort of manœuvre, so that by the time the troops were cooking stew in the field face to face with the enemy, they could get used to receiving the sudden order: "As you were," whereupon the stew would be thrown away and nobody would even get a taste of it.

So when the stew was about to be served out, the order came for the troops to return to their trucks, and off they went to Miskolcz. No stew was served out there, because a train with Russian trucks was standing in the station and the men were therefore not allowed out. Fantastic rumours now began to spread among the troops that the stew would not be served out until they left the train in Galicia once and for all, when it would be decided that the stew was rancid and unfit for consumption, whereupon it would be thrown away.

They then took the stew with them to Tisza-Lôk and Zambov, and when nobody expected that the stew would be served out, the train stopped at Ujvaros near Satoral Ujhely, where a fire was lit, the stew was warmed up and, at last, duly distributed.

The station was crammed with people. Two munition trains

were to be sent off first, and after them two echelons of artillery, as well as a train with pontoon divisions.

Behind the station some Hungarian hussars were amusing themselves at the expense of two Polish Jews from whom they had filched a hamper of brandy, and now, instead of paying them, they were affably smacking their faces. This was evidently regarded as quite the thing to do, because their captain was standing close by and looking on with a broad smile, while behind the station depot a few other Hungarian hussars were putting their hands up the petticoats of the dark-eyed daughters of the Jews who were being castigated.