said after a time, not thinking that it was, particularly, or thinking anything at all but saying it was because that was simplest. There was silence for a moment. I looked up at the captain; he seemed to be waiting for me to say something more.
That’s good, I repeated. I suppose it’s the Germans, sir?
It’s the gas, he said, turning on his heels and leaving.
The next morning as we climbed through a dense belt of firs I broke off from the column and struck down into the trees. The company had thinned into loose clusters of men beating paths through the brush and my leaving went unnoticed. I felt indifferent to this, whether or not I had been seen, feeling that I was dead already. I’d been killed by the gas or the cold or the smell in the air or by the man I had killed; how I’d died made not the slightest difference. Where I was to drop, when eventually I did, made no difference either except that I knew it should not be in the snow in a trench like the taps sergeant, with the smell of gas and burnt powder all around me.
At the lower edge of the firs the slope steepened and the cover spread apart and I half slid, half stumbled downhill over the tamped snow, brushing tips of buried saplings as I went. One hour later I reached the old front and a few hours after that I was standing at the gate of the first farmstead leading down to Laibach. From where I stood I could see the empty plaza and the kapelle and the station behind it where we’d begun our march. It was just past midday, breezy and mild. I followed the fence to the back of the house.
The yard seemed deserted, empty of stock and people, and I approached the house cautiously and rapped on the door. After a while I pushed it open and stepped inside. Standing around the kitchen in various poses of laziness and disinterest were seven men carrying repeating rifles, dressed in tattered blue fatigues. I looked at them for a moment or two, then put up my hands.
The men looked me over for a time. We thought maybe you were the milkmaid with the milk, said one of them. He spoke with a slow, heavy accent I took at first to be Hungarian. He watched me a little while longer, then motioned to me to lower my arms. I let them fall, saying nothing. What are you doing here? asked the man. He was looking at my private’s coat and holster.
Looking for breakfast, I answered.
He snorted. Well, you won’t find any here, little man. Believe me, we should know already. Just an old whore strung up by her garters in the cow shed. One of the men made a sign of the cross behind him. The first man shrugged.
I don’t believe you, I said.
Do we look like we’ve eaten? he said tiredly.
I looked from one to another of them around the little room. One by one each of them returned my gaze out of droop-eyed, jaundiced faces. Not much, I said. The man smiled again and nodded.
There were nine of them in all, deserters from a Czech battery specializing in minelaying. A number of them had kept their wire-stripping and cutting tools and we used these to cut locks and chicken wire in a long chain of farms running north and east into Hungary. As the Czechs could no better return to Bohemia than I could to Kärnten we decided to continue east over the wide rolling plain to Budapest. We slept during the day in windbreaks or in little wooded depressions and traveled after dark, stealing here and there from farmers as we went. When anybody saw us we chased after them a little, waving our guns and yelling.
We kept due east, more or less, skirting the towns, our only idea to get as far from Austria as we could before the war ended. We were all convinced we would win the war with the new gas from Germany and that afterward deserters would be hunted down and murdered. The man who had first spoken to me, Jan Tobacz, a dentist from Prague, had a wife and child staying with relatives in Budweiss and was terrified they might be shot. This was the first time I’d thought about the Empire as something
That’s good, I repeated. I suppose it’s the Germans, sir?
It’s the gas, he said, turning on his heels and leaving.
The next morning as we climbed through a dense belt of firs I broke off from the column and struck down into the trees. The company had thinned into loose clusters of men beating paths through the brush and my leaving went unnoticed. I felt indifferent to this, whether or not I had been seen, feeling that I was dead already. I’d been killed by the gas or the cold or the smell in the air or by the man I had killed; how I’d died made not the slightest difference. Where I was to drop, when eventually I did, made no difference either except that I knew it should not be in the snow in a trench like the taps sergeant, with the smell of gas and burnt powder all around me.
At the lower edge of the firs the slope steepened and the cover spread apart and I half slid, half stumbled downhill over the tamped snow, brushing tips of buried saplings as I went. One hour later I reached the old front and a few hours after that I was standing at the gate of the first farmstead leading down to Laibach. From where I stood I could see the empty plaza and the kapelle and the station behind it where we’d begun our march. It was just past midday, breezy and mild. I followed the fence to the back of the house.
The yard seemed deserted, empty of stock and people, and I approached the house cautiously and rapped on the door. After a while I pushed it open and stepped inside. Standing around the kitchen in various poses of laziness and disinterest were seven men carrying repeating rifles, dressed in tattered blue fatigues. I looked at them for a moment or two, then put up my hands.
The men looked me over for a time. We thought maybe you were the milkmaid with the milk, said one of them. He spoke with a slow, heavy accent I took at first to be Hungarian. He watched me a little while longer, then motioned to me to lower my arms. I let them fall, saying nothing. What are you doing here? asked the man. He was looking at my private’s coat and holster.
Looking for breakfast, I answered.
He snorted. Well, you won’t find any here, little man. Believe me, we should know already. Just an old whore strung up by her garters in the cow shed. One of the men made a sign of the cross behind him. The first man shrugged.
I don’t believe you, I said.
Do we look like we’ve eaten? he said tiredly.
I looked from one to another of them around the little room. One by one each of them returned my gaze out of droop-eyed, jaundiced faces. Not much, I said. The man smiled again and nodded.
There were nine of them in all, deserters from a Czech battery specializing in minelaying. A number of them had kept their wire-stripping and cutting tools and we used these to cut locks and chicken wire in a long chain of farms running north and east into Hungary. As the Czechs could no better return to Bohemia than I could to Kärnten we decided to continue east over the wide rolling plain to Budapest. We slept during the day in windbreaks or in little wooded depressions and traveled after dark, stealing here and there from farmers as we went. When anybody saw us we chased after them a little, waving our guns and yelling.
We kept due east, more or less, skirting the towns, our only idea to get as far from Austria as we could before the war ended. We were all convinced we would win the war with the new gas from Germany and that afterward deserters would be hunted down and murdered. The man who had first spoken to me, Jan Tobacz, a dentist from Prague, had a wife and child staying with relatives in Budweiss and was terrified they might be shot. This was the first time I’d thought about the Empire as something
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