“I will make men of you!”
That is how the garrison’s iron-fisted Regimental Sergeant-Major Bachmatiuk had greeted each new cohort of recruits for the past sixteen years. It was no idle boast. In a few weeks, he produced truly excellent specimens of humanity. But today Bachmatiuk was absent. He was enjoying a privilege that no one else in the regiment shared, not even platoon commanders, and of which no superior dared to deprive him. Contrary to regulation, on Sundays he was allowed to vanish unannounced for the whole day. No one knew where Bachmatiuk went. According to some, he wore mufti. But it is easier to imagine the devil getting baptized than Bachmatiuk wearing mufti. At any rate, no one had yet seen him dressed like that.
He returned from his secret expeditions well after midnight, dead drunk—he whose sobriety was supposed to set an example to all ranks. On his return, he was incredibly aloof, not recognizing anyone, not responding to the smart salutes of the night sentries, and not saluting anyone in return either, not even the garrison commander. The officers he met on the steps when leaving the mess pretended not see him, averting their gaze. The entire camp could go up in flames and the whole Imperial and Royal Army could desert without disturbing the RSM’s Sunday indifference, which ceased at dawn with the first notes of the reveille. After several hours of deep sleep Bachmatiuk sobered up. It was unknown for him to be as much as one minute late on a Monday. And during the sixteen years Bachmatiuk had never been off sick on a Monday. In general, he was rarely taken ill. And if his body had to part with his uniform for a few days as he was confined to bed, the RSM’s mind would never sympathize with his body, remaining on duty, fully conscious, alert and all-seeing. If garrisons have souls, Regimental Sergeant-Major Bachmatiuk was the soul of this one. And the garrison had to come to terms with the fact that its soul deserted it every Sunday.
When Bachmatiuk disappeared, the pulse of life at the barracks weakened and all ranks, even including the officers, fell into a stupor. Duties were carried out aimlessly and carelessly, and blunders occurred.
Today everyone had a grievance against Bachmatiuk, for not making preparations for the arrival of the new draft, such a numerous one at that. He had not even arranged for the warehouse to issue mess kits. What is more, he had taken with him the keys to the “supplementary” stores. In vain the garrison commander Lieutenant-Colonel Leithuber and his aide Lieutenant Baron Hammerling tried to conceal their impotent fury. They did not have the courage to grumble out loud about Bachmatiuk. Both of them felt dependent on him. And, in the absence of the regimental sergeant-major, the NCOs could not be bothered. They did not even read out the list of names, merely accepting the escort’s general report and passing it on to the duty officer—transport arrived, consisting of 567 men. None of these men yet existed as far as the military were concerned, either as a person or as a surname. Today the only statistic was 567 stomachs.
It was the responsibility of the duty officer to ensure that the kitchen issued 567 servings. This obligation was carried out. By what means those servings were to reach the stomachs of the new arrivals was another matter, and its solution was not the responsibility of the duty officer. Let the men sort that out themselves.
At about twelve o’clock the battalion returned from church. They were a good three quarters of an hour late for dinner, because on this Sunday Lieutenant Smekal was in command.
Reserve Lieutenant Smekal, a removals contractor in civilian life, enjoyed inspecting the parade on the town square after the service. During the week, he was just a company commander, but on a Sunday he sometimes led the whole battalion to church. Andrásfalva market square is very broad and is ideal for this kind of display. Especially on Sundays, when many of the civilian population of the female species gather on the footpaths shaded by double rows of chestnut trees. Lieutenant Smekal’s dream would actually be a parade on the market square of quite another town, namely the one where he was born, where he went to school and where his furniture removal vans often passed by. Well, unfortunately war cannot make all dreams come true. Having duly gathered his laurels on the Hungarian market square (for this purpose he adopted a picturesque pose beneath the small statue of the great Hungarian statesman Ferenc Deák), and after momentarily slaking his thirst for power, Smekal felt the pangs of mundane physical hunger. It was purely thanks to this circumstance that the exhausted battalion was finally allowed to return for dinner. To the thunderous tramping of rhythmically moving feet, the battalion entered the garrison quadrangle in a cloud of dust. Fortunately, they were marching on that occasion without full kit and without rifles. Now, had it not been for Piotr Niewiadomski and his 566 comrades, the lieutenant would undoubtedly have dismissed them.
At the sight of such a large crowd of civilians, the removals contractor could not resist temptation and although there was not a single woman among the new arrivals he decided to hold a minor parade. Once again he set in motion the living, two-hundred-metre-long strip of grey-blue cloth, bordered by two bright rows of sunburnt faces and hands. Once again the steady tread of hobnailed boots was heard, trampling, trampling the foreign soil, as if wanting to trample to death every last blade of grass. For several minutes, this entire resounding wall of uniforms passed before the dumbfounded Hutsuls. Everyone began to realize that behind this rhythmic display of hobnailed boots lay a deep hidden meaning, something inhuman, even though it was produced by human feet. The beauty of the march was out of this world. Some invisible forces were at work here, probably the same ones that generate electric light and the power that drives distilling machines. People were marching, but they were not people. And it seemed that even the magician himself, Lieutenant Smekal with his short legs, was nothing but a tool of these invisible forces, obediently carrying out their will.
Suddenly the lieutenant cast a new magic spell on the wall of electrified cloth and the entire wall made an about-turn on the march, without changing its rhythm or pace. Then at one point, suddenly prompted to make a decision, Smekal took about ten rapid steps backwards. In a changed voice that rose two octaves, he let out a fearful bark. In response to this bark, four nimble figures wrested themselves from the depths of cloth, springing to one side with sabres drawn. All four barked in unison, whereupon in an instant the monolithic wall split open, forming four walls marching in sequence, separated by a few paces. Each company now formed two ranks, marching one behind the other, facing the commander. The trained kilograms of human bodies struck the ground heavily. The sleeves swung rhythmically, left, right, left, right, as if mowing either some invisible meadows or simply the air, accompanied by the metallic clanking of bayonets held to the left hip. A prolonged, harsh cry came from the lieutenant’s throat. The squad took one more step and froze. Silence fell on the square, as though not a single living soul was present. The only interruption was a hoarse singing coming from a gramophone record in the officers’ mess:
The bewitchment lasted only a few seconds. Casting a new spell into the sweltering midday silence, the lieutenant broke up the entire rectangular structure. But he did not destroy it. He barked in monosyllables and the walls swayed and shook slightly as all left legs were extended. Then the tension was relaxed. All the heads and arms swayed individually, out of rhythm. But the cloth walls stayed rooted to the spot. At that moment, the respective components of the structure revealed themselves so that you could distinguish the faces imprisoned in the grey-blue cloth, the sweaty faces, human faces. And it turned out that the battalion’s grand title referred mainly to residents of Śniatyn, Kołomyja, Nadwórna and several Bukovina districts who had joined up at the beginning of the war as reservists. Our people found it strange to see that their fellow men looked so different, and that they were capable of performing such difficult routines. They took fright at the invisible powers which would probably succeed in making moving walls of them too.