Innocent Soldier (9780545355698) Read Online Free PDF Page B

their smelly pipes like Croats and talk all sorts of nonsense. At first, it sounded very clever to me, but before long I realized that it was all empty talk. It’s just as well if I forget it as soon as I’ve heard it.
    Sometimes the gentlemen speak in French. That sounds better behaved and cleverer because I really haven’t the foggiest what they’re talking about. And they laugh as wildly as the head stable boy used to do when he patted the maid on the behind or pushed his hand up her skirts. The more wine the officers drink, the more stupid stuff they talk. Almost every time, I have to clear away someone’s puke. Most of the lieutenants, it seems, can’t judge how much wine they can pour into themselves before they start to overflow.
    After these parties, my lieutenant usually lies in bed pretty wrecked and as pale and white as his nightshirt. He’s as whipped as a little doggie. It’s not a good time forhim or me. He is in such a bad way, he has trouble keeping up his aristocratic manners. In the end, he even starts whimpering and sobbing to break your heart and calling for his mama. It’s as if his usual common sense is blotted out by weeds or dung heaps, and his soul has a lot of mess to deal with. When he’s at that stage, I can’t leave him on his own. I have to sit by his bed, hold the bucket ready, and talk to him about anything, just to try and calm him down. Tell him stories I heard from the hands and maids of my farmer, or others that happened to me. Or else I mix up all sorts of possible and impossible things. The way the old people do with their fairy tales. I expect the lieutenant is used to that from his mother or his nurse or some governess or other. Usually, he falls asleep while I’m talking to him. Sleep purifies body and soul and brings them back into balance somehow. Till the next time, anyway.

8
    It’s a warmish evening, one of the last days in February. The first coltsfoot flower is blooming on the sunniest spot in the barracks yard. Of course, one coltsfoot doesn’t mean it’s spring. But it’s the first hint that it’s on its way.
    There’s a feeling of unrest in the reception depot. The officers’ building is like a chicken coop. Doors swinging, the gentlemen dashing in and out.
    My lieutenant’s cheeks are flushed with excitement too.
    “At last we’re going to see some action,” he says, like some first-grader who can’t wait to get to school. “Pack everything ready as for field march!” he orders me. “Tomorrow morning we’re moving out.”
    War? Even so, I’m pleased. At last I’m going to get out and see a bit of the world. I have no idea what war islike. I’ve never been in one, and I only know from hearsay that it’s when soldiers hack and stab and shoot at one another. And if you happen to be there yourself you have to try and make sure that the bullets fly past you, and that the sabers and lances miss when they hack and stab. War makes heroes. Who are generally dead by the time it’s over. Except for the generals. They can become heroes without dying first.
    The lieutenant’s squire suddenly comes down with something. The prospect of war probably gave him the runs. He’s no soldier after all, he’s just a squire. Why should he go to war? So I get his riding horse. And because a lieutenant count takes care of mounting and dismounting and riding, but quite naturally not feeding and currycombing, I suddenly find myself in charge of three horses, instead of just one.
    “Look after them carefully,” the lieutenant says anxiously. And then he adds, in a funny squeaky voice, “I swear by the sun, the moon, and the stars, I’ll chop you up into little tiny pieces if anything happens to the horses.”
    But he doesn’t have to worry. I like horses best of all living creatures anyway.
    The mounted Jager regiment leaves the barracks in the morning at the prescribed time, and crosses the Neckar about an hour later. On the other side is a little village with a