None of these hordes of travellers, who for the first time in their lives were allowed to travel free, knew where they were going. Everyone knew only one thing: they were going to Hungary, where people gobble paprika and where His Imperial Majesty is merely a king.
But Hungary, the land of the Crown of St Stephen, is a big country.
The wagon was overcrowded, and the train had long since left Piotr’s homeland. Despite this, Piotr still occupied his privileged place. This was thanks to his railwayman’s cap and his railwayman’s manner of speech. One of the new passengers insisted on knowing when the train would reach Kołomyja. It was as though his concern involved some urgent business in Kołomyja, not that he was on his way to Hungary in the interests of the Emperor.
“Should be there at twenty-one sixteen!” Piotr declared in the tones of a timetable compiler. To say “nine sixteen” would be beneath the dignity of a railwayman, for whom there are neither mornings nor evenings, and day and night are one body like a husband and wife, the twenty-four-hour body. A true railwayman knows only one nine o’clock—the one in the morning.
So Piotr was regarded with a certain deference right from the beginning of the journey. Some men in the wagon, including of course those who knew him, were almost certain that he was travelling with them in his official capacity, not joining the army like everyone else. He was himself also imbued with the magic of his cap. Seeing how people looked up to him, he began to regret his stupidity, his fear and his shame—goodness knows why he didn’t mention his civilian occupation when he was called up. He might have been posted to some railway division. But when he was at the recruiting station he had no idea that such divisions even existed.
The army is the army, he thought, and the railway is the railway. Who would have thought that there might be such a thing as a railway army? Too late now. Now he was going to war as an ordinary member of the reserve militia. He was taking with him to Hungary an oath which he could not revoke in the slightest. It bound him hand and foot. Carrying burdens on his back was better than this. He had only himself to blame. He could have said he was a railwayman. He would have sworn an oath to serve the railway.
Piotr had often sworn oaths in his life. Twice even in court. But these oaths applied only to the duration of the case. When he left the courtroom, he was free. And how many times had he sworn at the station, to the stationmaster, of his own volition, for his own benefit, and not under duress? That he had not stolen, had not seen, had not heard, that he would never do it again, that it was someone else… In his younger days he had also sworn in church that not a drop of vodka would pass his lips all year. That was a hard year, but it shortened with each passing day and he could count the days that remained before he would again be allowed to visit the tavern.
An oath sworn to His Majesty the Emperor was something else. That meant pledging your own life away. On credit. But you only have one life. How good it would be to have two lives, one for the Emperor, for your homeland, and the other for yourself. After giving your life for the Emperor on land, on water or in the air, you could still always go home with your second life. As it is, though, you can please neither yourself nor the Emperor. If you want to live you become a deserter, cheating the Emperor, and the Emperor rewards you with a bullet in the head. That would be his right, because you swore the oath. And you rot in the ground. Or you press on to the front line and expose yourself to the heaviest firing and you end up lying in the ground anyway. Either way, it’s dreadful.
Piotr Niewiadomski dearly loved the Emperor. However, he was not completely indifferent to his own fate. We even have a good deal of evidence that he liked life. This is why he was greatly troubled by his oath, especially since God alone knew how long it would be in force. And how it would end. In promotion to lance corporal or in death for the sake of the Emperor? Neither one nor the other, perhaps. Piotr could not become a lance corporal. An NCO has to be able to read and write. He could become a corpse, though. You didn’t have to attend school for that, but he hoped that the war would end in six weeks. The training would just about account for the six weeks. The war might drag on till Christmas. Between mid-October and Christmas you could die for the Emperor a hundred times over… But does every soldier have to die? If that was the case, the Emperor would not win the war. And, as is well known, he must win. After all, an entire train-load of Hutsuls is rushing to his aid.
The whole train was bound by the oath just as those horses in the meadows were tethered by ropes. The soldiers escorting the convoy were casually playing rummy in the only “human”, i.e. passenger, carriage, immediately behind the tender. They were unconcerned about the troop transport. The oath took care of them. If necessary, it would invoke the dreaded Articles of War and a court-martial. It already gave the corporals the right to punch recruits in the face. The escort could play cards at their leisure; there would be no deserters.
Constrained by an oath more powerful than chains, the men proceeded towards their appointment with fate. At that moment, all other emotions were subordinate to their curiosity about their new life and new conditions in Hungary. This curiosity overshadowed any fear of foreign surroundings or any suggestion of homesickness. Any day now, however, perhaps in a week or a month, the homesickness would kick in and in the railway wagons, the barracks and the camps they would be retrieving those faded photographs from shabby bags, greasy notebooks and envelopes. They would be showing off the crumpled charms of their wives, children and lovers, seeking in the indifferent eyes of their comrades a flash of recognition, admiration, or even jealousy. Today, it’s too soon for that. The deadly germ of longing has not begun to have an effect. Besides, everyone in the wagon believed in an early return to those beings whose lifeless portraits—thanks to the incredible wizardry of the Frenchmen Niépce and Daguerre—they could take with them to war. Piotr Niewiadomski had only one photograph—of his mother. It was at the bottom of his trunk, in a prayer-book, among the unread litanies.
It was still light when they stopped at Kołomyja. Piotr was mistaken; it would not be twenty-one hours for another thirteen minutes. The sun had long since set, but, desiring to compensate the earth for the two and a half hours of darkness, it had hesitated for a long time before depriving it of its setting rays. In Kołomyja the last of the reserve militia came aboard. A second locomotive was put on at the rear. After that the train stopped only occasionally, and then only to pick up coal and water for its own needs—but no soldiers.
At the first bridges beyond Delyatyn, Piotr’s dignity as a railwayman was dealt a painful blow. He ceased to believe there was any justice in the world. Although the night was drawing in, a sight met his eyes that the others merely found amusing. Down below, just beyond the bridge, stood some bizarre armed figures. As the wagon approached the bridge and these figures became clearly recognizable, Piotr saw two bearded Jews wearing long kaftans girded with a military cartridge belt in place of the ritual cord which during prayers separates the clean upper half of the body from the unclean lower half. On their heads they wore standard army forage caps. Shouldering rifles, with bayonets fixed, they were guarding the bridge. Guarding a bridge over the Prut! Well, is there any justice in this world?! Is the Emperor not ashamed to have such dopes guarding his bridges? As if he did not have proper railwaymen. What sort of an army is this anyway? Why aren’t the Jews in uniform? The railway suddenly became alien to Piotr; it was shamelessly mocking a man who had faithfully served it for so many years and who knew many of its secrets. Again there was a bridge and again a Jew in a kaftan. Accompanied by a Hutsul, it’s true. In other words, they had not yet had time to get all the reserve militia men into uniform. Piotr was up in arms now. He would gladly have got rid of that railwayman’s cap, if he had another. He could now think of only the bad aspects of his career.