All at the barracks understood this. But the regimental sergeant-major was sometimes troubled by doubt, though he realized that he was indispensable to the barracks. He was often haunted by the call to battle which is the lot of a soldier in wartime. A soldier who has not experienced battle is like a woman withering in virginity. Why should he be the only one to wither in the barracks, in the Farkas and Gjörmeky brewery, while thousands of less worthy men were undergoing the baptism of fire for which he himself had prepared them? Bachmatiuk was tempted by martyrdom, although he was a martyr in the barracks too, a martyr to duty, to discipline and to perfection. Perfection! Can anyone achieve it who has not tasted all the events described in D.2 (Service in the Field)? Is it possible to achieve perfection in the way of duty without even once having been exposed to “unnatural death by the fault of another” (case no. 6)?
Today, like a gentle reminder of the deity, like a call from the netherworld, the peace medals chimed on Bachmatiuk’s breast. It seemed to him that by comparison with the sound of gallantry medals they all had the ring of counterfeit coins.
At that moment he felt very old. He felt the weight of his whole life on his shoulders, bearing him down. It lasted only a second, but that second encapsulated dozens of years spent on the barracks square. Immediately Bachmatiuk called himself to order with the basic command to himself: “Attention!” He stood bolt upright, fastened the buttons on his tunic, one by one, pulled it straight and adjusted it. He sighed like an old man no longer battling against time and not dyeing his moustache. Simultaneously, he gestured with his hand as though waving temptation aside.
He donned his cap, stiffened his posture, glanced in the mirror, tweaked his moustache a little and went out, banging the door after him. In the long, dark corridor he never met anyone except the two shoe-shiners. The officers were still asleep, but the sergeants were already down below. Bachmatiuk descended the steps with the heavy, uneven tread of an old civilian. To start with, he even leant on the hand-rail.
There were already large numbers of people gathered on the first floor. A large group of civilians was waiting outside the sick-bay waiting to be examined. In the charge of the duty corporal, a dozen or so soldiers without cartridge belts or bayonets were standing around. These were men from the battalion who had reported sick. At the sight of the regimental sergeant-major the men reporting sick quickly stepped aside to make way for him. Bachmatiuk had rejuvenated his gait, putting a spring into his step. His eyes, which had been somewhat dull up on the second floor, now took on a cold glint. Signs of weariness in his face disappeared as the tension in his facial muscles smoothed out the wrinkles.
The appearance of the regimental sergeant-major had a healing effect on the men reporting sick. A blush came over the faces of the sufferers. But the malingerers turned pale. The mere sight of Bachmatiuk banished their hypochondria. He looked at no one and spoke to no one, scarcely acknowledging the salutes. Lieutenant Baron Hammerling, adjutant to the garrison commander, suddenly hastened by. As they saluted one another simultaneously, the Baron smiled. Bachmatiuk respectfully let him pass, but did not return the smile. He now proceeded down the steps in such a dignified and commanding manner as if he were marching at the head of an entire company. But there was not a single soldier following him; he was alone on the steps. At the moment he emerged through the gateway and stood in the full light of the sun he might almost have been a young man. Perhaps this is an exaggeration, but Regimental Sergeant-Major Bachmatiuk down there on duty was certainly a different man from the Bachmatiuk at home upstairs.
Chapter Ten
For a long time now, Piotr Niewiadomski had been unable to fathom how it could be that his regiment, the Imperial and Royal regiment, the Austro-Hungarian regiment, which swore allegiance to His Majesty Franz Joseph, belonged to a Balkan king. After all, was that king not at war with His Imperial Majesty? If that is so, why is the regiment not fighting on the side of its owner?
Piotr Niewiadomski was also an owner. He had half of a house, half of an orchard and a dog. A fine thing it would be if Bass bit him, Piotr, instead of attacking strangers and enemies! Unless he had rabies! This whole matter smacked powerfully of the devil. Another of the many mysterious tricks that he played on people in this war. Who knows, he might tell them to shoot themselves instead of shooting Serbs and Muscovites. Clever people like Hryć Łotocki or Semen Baran would probably have managed to unravel this mystery. But Hryć Łotocki had stayed behind in Topory, and Semen Baran had gone to Styria. And so, left to his own devices, Piotr Niewiadomski once again became caught up in a snare left by the devil. Everywhere the devil sowed fear and it was futile to take flight; the efforts of a poor soul expelled to Hungary were in vain. Fortunately, this war cared more for bodies than for souls. It prepared them for its own needs, changing their appearance to suit its requirements.
Since early morning, scissors had been chattering. Those with beards had to lay them on the altar of the homeland. Thanks to the resourcefulness of hospital orderly Lance Corporal Glück, that altar had been erected in one of the brewery sheds. Only the most pious Jews were permitted by the Emperor to retain a small Spanish goatee. Side-locks were mercilessly removed! The Chasidim were seeing themselves in a mirror for the first time in their lives. Lance Corporal Glück (a barber in civilian life) had bought it with his own money. Now he was cutting hair and shaving officially, so he was unpaid. Some orthodox Jews, horrified, closed their eyes so as not to see their reflection. To see your own face was a great sin, because God created it in his image and likeness.
Under the scissors, gloomy, enigmatic Asia disappeared; tragic antiquity perished, and the first outlines of Europe emerged on the pallid faces, revealed for the first time in many years, as if dredged up from the sea bed. But it was not only the Jews who had their hair cut; it was Christians as well. It fell from their heads, from their chins and from their faces onto their shoulders, their backs, onto the floor, into the dust, dark and fair, straight and curly, Catholic and Jewish all mixed together, though it is written, clearly written, that except by the will of God not one hair of your head shall fall.
Piotr Niewiadomski sat on a stool, stiff and solemn as a bishop. The clippers no. 0 travelled up and down, backwards and forwards across his head like a harvesting machine over a field of wheat. That was the first harvest of the war, from his own scalp. He was not sitting in front of the mirror and he did not see the devastation done to his head. But he was highly amused by the heads of his colleagues. Half of the head looked like a kneecap, while the other half was like a haystack. It was reminiscent of the sheep-shearing back home. But what did the Emperor want with all this human hair? Was it for stuffing mattresses, perhaps?
After they had had their haircuts, they were ordered to go to the barracks to stuff mattresses. No, not with their own hair but with fresh Hungarian straw. Piotr had been allocated a place to sleep on a bunk-bed in barracks hut no. 4. The day before, they had been issued with straw-filled pillows. Piotr deposited his trunk, all his possessions, on the bed. This was where he would be sleeping now, from lights-out till reveille. Until they got their marching orders to proceed to the front, this is where he would be spending the nights, between two companions. They were separated by a narrow gap of just a few inches. In fact, it was a matter of kilometres or miles, because on the left he had been given some Pole as a neighbour, a count’s butler, and on the right a Styrian, a Kraut.