Free Innocent Soldier (9780545355698) by Josef Holub Page A

chucking stones at sparrows.

14
    During another Cossack attack, I see him again: Sergeant Krauter. He’s fighting grimly, yanking the heavy seven-pound howitzers this way and that with his cannoneers, ramming their muzzles, and firing ball after ball at the Russians.
    My lieutenant leaves his platoon and rides up onto a little hill. Maybe he wants a better
view
of the enemy or just a chance to see what’s going on. Or he’s looking for a chance to intervene in the scrap, and he’s looking around for stray Russians. I stick to his side, because I don’t want to leave him, and anyway, that’s my place as his servant.
    We stand there on top of that hill like a couple of statues, the lieutenant and I. It’s not very clever of us.
    The sergeant must have seen us. He forgets hiscannons and the enemy, and for a while fixes us with a stare, and then it happens. Krauter shouts something to his gunners. They heave and jerk at the seven-pounder, and point it toward me and the lieutenant.
    Has Krauter lost his mind? He’s not about to fire at us, is he? Even now, he’s filling the cannon’s mouth with its death-bringing innards. The sergeant shouts and orders. The howitzer is aimed directly at us.
    I think he means it.
    Without any respect, I tug at the reins of the lieutenant’s horse and yank it down into the nearest hollow. The lieutenant is furious at the incredible disrespect shown him by me, his servant — he’s just drawing breath to tear me off a strip — when he hears the ball hit nearby and he sees the earth fly up and then the huge hole in the hillside where we were just standing together a moment ago.
    The lieutenant didn’t notice what the sergeant was doing. He just says to me: “You did well there! We could have been in trouble.” And: “Those Russians have good aim.” But I can tell from his eyes that my lieutenant feels something a little more than simple gratitude to me, he just can’t talk about it. After all, a count can’t get all familiar with his servant and talk a lot of rot.
    I’m going to have to be careful around Sergeant Krauter from now on. He is so crazed with hatred, he iscapable of anything. Even of using his pretty seven-pound brass howitzer to commit murder.
    Two days later, I make a further alarming discovery. No matter how big the army is, there are still truly strange coincidences.
    There he is again, the murderous sergeant. But that’s not all. He’s just overtaking a foot-weary infantry regiment with his howitzer and its team. They are fellow Wurttemburgers. Suddenly, the sergeant stops. An infantryman steps out of the line. The two men know each other, and they have a little chat. I am alarmed. One of them is certainly my mortal enemy, Sergeant Krauter. And, unless my eyes deceive me — and it is quite a distance away — the other is Hanselmann, the cobbler’s son from my native village. Now, what have those two got to discuss? Is it a conspiracy against me, or have I started seeing things already?

15
    Blasted war.
    My lieutenants caught one. It doesn’t look good at all. It isn’t an enemy bullet. Nor a whack with a saber or a jab with a lance. No. The war is rampaging in his innards. Overnight, he’s come down with something. Some treacherous disease is messing him up inside. He’s slumped in the saddle like an old man on his last legs. His face puffs up and looks greenish yellow, like the yolk of a bad egg. Every so often, he slithers off the back of his horse and drags himself tottering behind a bush. If there is one. What’s responsible for his creeping malady is the green stuff we eat and the water from lakes, ponds, creeks, and swamps. He can’t take it. The swill rumbles and dins in him so loud that you can hear him feet away, front and back. If the trouble in his belly goes on, he’s going to explode.
    There are a lot of soldiers in the same boat. Napoleons
Grand Armée
is not committing any acts of heroism just at the moment. It’s too busy stinking up