The telegraph poles passed by, one after another, the train was breathing hard, the terrain became steeper and steeper and the Prut became narrower and narrower, its roar louder and louder. A beautiful night settled over the track after that day of torment and terror. Piotr was growing indifferent to it all. Nothing was of interest any longer, neither the night nor the Prut, not the waterfalls, the bridges or Hungary—all that and the whole railway could go to hell. What had become of the railway? It was a slave to the war, having only one task—the delivery of its human cargo. And it seemed to Piotr that the railway had never had a civil purpose and it would never do so ever again. The bridges were guarded by men in kaftans and he was travelling as an ordinary reserve militia man. This is what he had to thank the Emperor for! At that moment, Piotr was minded to break his oath to the Emperor. But how could it be done? By jumping from the train? He would only succeed in breaking his arms and legs.
So he took offence at the railway, vented his anger on the landscape, giving up his privileged place at the bar. With a feeling of relief he found his trunk, as if he had found himself. If it had been possible, he would have hidden in that box where his money was kept. No one needed to know that he kept it in the trunk. No one can be trusted in this world, not even your own brother. He carefully opened the trunk, took out the bread and pork fat and vented all his rage on the meal. Then he lay down in the back of the wagon like a kicked dog. He was angry, unapproachable and a stranger even to himself. With every passing kilometre, this journey was tearing him away from the part of the world where his life had been more or less acceptable. Piotr could not cope anywhere other than Topory-Czernielica. This seems to be the fate of all people who spend their lives in one place. When a higher power abruptly snatches them from their homeland, they become strangers to themselves. And so Piotr clung to his trunk, curled up against its hard but protective side and fell asleep as one falls asleep in the shade of one’s family cottage. He slept for a long time. He dreamt of swarms of black Jews with rifles and bayonets.
Meanwhile, the train reached the border station of Köresmözö. Here the camel from the Floridsdorf locomotive works lost the comrade that had been attached at Kołomyja to provide a push from the rear. The terrain had begun to decline. The shunting took quite a long time. But Piotr did not hear it. In a deep and unpleasant sleep he entered the lands of the Crown of St Stephen.
He woke up several times during the night, had a smoke and something to eat, relieved himself at the iron bar and spoke with his fellow Hutsuls, mostly about the military service that awaited them. Someone was arguing that in a few days they would elect a new Pope in Rome, and then the war would be over for sure. Another complained that they were transporting them like cattle, without even telling them where they were going. Everyone agreed it was scandalous and they all wondered how much longer it would take. Hardly any of these people had ever experienced such a long journey. Some of them were bored, but there were also some who wanted it to last as long as possible. They had presentiments about what awaited them, and feared the worst. There was no lack of optimists either. They were going to war as if they were going on holiday. But most of them were already afraid, not so much of being in the army as of being in a strange place.
There was no lamp in the wagon, there was no candle, just occasional ragged shafts of light cast by the moon through the open door. The train pressed into foreign lands, penetrating dense pine forests, poisoning the nocturnal balsam of the sleepy trees with its carbon fumes, trundling through serpentine bends, cutting though passes, disappearing into long dark tunnels, filling the wagons with acrid smoke, the railway’s ubiquitous companion. It was taking human fear, human anxiety and a good deal of self-love over the mountain by night.
By dawn, everyone was terribly thirsty. There was no water on the train. If only it would make a stop somewhere. But the engine-driver deliberately avoided both smaller and larger Hungarian stations where electric lights were still on despite the rising sun. It was not until about seven o’clock that he deigned to bring the wagons to a halt at Huszt station. There water—and the devil—awaited the sons of the Hutsul land.
They all thought they had reached the barracks, and they wanted to leave the wagons. The escort stopped them in time. It was the first time since they had set off that they had taken any interest in the recruits. The armed men lined up on the platform, ensuring that no one got out. Their compatriots became unruly. They immediately started grumbling, and then their protests became vociferous. Some even adopted a threatening attitude. The great god of all armies and all wars, Discipline, had not yet had taken these people under its wing. As long as they were still wearing their civilian trousers and were unfamiliar with the regulations, they could still yell, regardless of the oath. And they yelled. What right had the escort to deny them drinking-water after a night spent in that stifling wagon? Let us get to the water! But the senior members of the reserve militia making up the escort were unrelenting. No one was allowed to get out. The comrades must obey the escort’s orders; they were bound by their oath.
New wagons were attached. In the blink of an eye they were filled with Slovak peasants in colourful jackets. They too were joining the army. They were yelling in a language the Hutsuls did not understand, although many words sounded familiar. There were women weeping at the Hungarian station too. Evidently, tears were popular in the lands of the Crown of St Stephen too. The locals, especially those who were not going to war, stared with curiosity, and considerable mistrust, at the new arrivals. They considered themselves superior. It took some time before the escort condescended to allow the men off the wagons. The comrades swarmed onto the platform like a pack of hungry wolves. The more mistrustful of them took their trunks with them in case they got stolen. The escort was very concerned about that. If they were taking their baggage with them they might desert. And in the first instance it was the escort who would be held responsible for deserters; it was only afterwards that the deserter himself would be charged—if he could be caught, of course. So in each wagon someone was detailed to look after the baggage. He would get a drink later, when the others returned.
Piotr pushed his way with the rest of them towards the water. His cap got him through. All around he was bombarded by Slovak and Hungarian speech. He stood in bewilderment amid surging alien life that was completely strange to him. If it were not for the wailing of the women, that international language of pain comprehensible in every latitude, Piotr would never have believed that he was surrounded by mountain-dwellers from the Carpathians like himself.
Within a few minutes at Huszt station, an indifferent animosity was born in the souls of the Ruthenian peasants and of the Slovak and Hungarian peasants, stirred up by a shared helplessness regarding their fate. Unable to take their revenge on fate for having brutally torn them away from their fields, pastures and forests, they shoved each other about, exchanging hateful glances. Assailed by foreign words, resounding in their ears like insults, the Hutsuls struggled towards the well. That was where the devil stood. A giant devil. In the guise of a Hungarian gendarme. On his head, instead of a helmet, he wore a black hat decorated with a cock’s tail-feathers. Similar hats are worn on ceremonial occasions by the “hares”—the Landwehr and the Chasseurs. On his breast glinted the same medal as Corporal Durek’s. The only thing missing was the gold tooth. The Hungarian devil’s teeth were all sound. His perfect black moustache and side-whiskers and his dark gypsy complexion sharply contrasted with their predatory whiteness. No sooner had the Hutsuls fought their way through to the well than lava began spurting from behind those teeth. The devil greeted them at the well with a seething torrent of dreadful bellowing. For fire, that devilish element, has been at war with water through the ages.