“Well? Nice bath? Not a single louse left on you! Word of honour! Fine flesh! Dry yourselves and get dressed! Next lot!”
You couldn’t tell whether he was joking or whether he was angry. He was the devil, wasn’t he?
This way, the men’s bodies were cleansed, and not only of bodily uncleanliness. Beneath the artificial rain, all the impurity of their former civilian life was removed from these people. The bath restored lost innocence to bodies and souls. But their feet kneaded the thick mud. The black pastry of the devil.
Although he had been given a haircut and a bath, Piotr Niewiadomski still hoped he would not be going to war, because they seemed to be in no hurry with the uniforms. That same morning they had received their first pay. For ten days. In addition, each man received six crowns for the purchase of necessary supplies—thread, soap, brushes, boot polish, flax and grease for their weapons. Regimental Sergeant-Major Bachmatiuk was present at the pay-out by barracks hut no. 1. He sat at the table with the NCO paymaster and another NCO. He was checking the payroll. One of the NCOs called out the names. Another’s deft fingers felt in the little canvas bags and arranged the coins in piles, occasionally reaching into a green wire basket for the paper money. It was hard to work out why he gave one soldier the amount he was due straight away, while he gave another one a large banknote to be shared among two or three of them. The Hutsuls stepped aside and counted their money out loud, as they would do at market, passing it from hand to hand, making mistakes and arguing. These calculations were not easy.
Here was the Emperor giving himself away, in greater and lesser denominations, to those who were to give their lives for him.
“This is bad!” thought Piotr Niewiadomski, taking the money.
“They’re paying us, so they won’t be letting us go.” The clinking of silver and nickel coins drowned out the last hopes of a speedy return home. Piotr was surprised that the Emperor, whom he considered a good player, was still trying his luck instead of calling it a day after the great victory of Kraśnik.
“What are you waiting for?” snapped the sergeant at the table, when Piotr, instead of moving away, stood there lost in thought.
The sergeant did not know that Piotr Niewiadomski was waiting for the war to end.
Bachmatiuk suddenly leapt to his feet, knocking over a chair, and briskly walked in the direction of the regimental headquarters. He had heard a familiar clatter on the main road. In a cloud of dust, a carriage drawn by two graceful bays was arriving at the main building. Adjutant Baron Hammerling dashed out through the gateway, but Bachmatiuk beat him to it. Saluting almost simultaneously, they stood before the carriage, from which an impressive-looking, well-built officer was just stepping out in a tall peaked cap. Despite the heat, he wore a long black cape, picturesquely folded. It covered his arms. He quickly freed one arm from under the cloak—the left, and returned the salute. The adjutant wanted to help him down.
“No thank you, I am not that old.”
He really did not look old, despite his grey hair. He had the fresh, shapely, clean-shaven features of an actor, with grey sideburns, one of those Austrian faces that so effectively combine features of the Latin, Germanic and Slav races. Thick black eyebrows. Something of the Roman and a hint of “old Vienna” in Colonel Leithuber’s general appearance created the type much sought after in later years by film studios.
The regimental commanding officer resided in Andrásfalva, at the Hotel Hungaria on the market square. He came to visit the regiment in a carriage belonging to the battalion, sometimes earlier in the day, sometimes later, depending on how soon he managed to read all the Viennese daily newspapers in the Café Budapest.
On stepping out of the carriage, he exchanged a few words with the adjutant, then with Bachmatiuk, who spoke perfect German, after which he made straight for his office, his spurs jingling. Bachmatiuk did not return to the paymaster’s table. He looked in on the sick-bay to check how many of those reporting sick had been confirmed by the doctor as indeed being ill, and he went upstairs to his office. Without removing his cap, he sat down on the bed and looked through the papers, preparing material for his daily conference with the lieutenant-colonel.
The lieutenant-colonel’s conversations with Bachmatiuk would have been on a perfectly sincere basis if Alois Leithuber had had it in him to be honest with himself. The discussions with the RSM were held mostly face-to-face, which of itself indicated a need for sincerity. Actually, they were not conversations but monologues for two voices. Leithuber expressed out loud all the doubts that troubled him, and he resolved them with Bachmatiuk’s help. When he had something to reproach himself with or when he was dissatisfied with himself, he shouted at Bachmatiuk. The latter put up with it all, obediently and calmly, but he often had objections. He knew that he was the only man at the barracks who had not only the right but indeed the duty to disagree with the commanding officer. The officers, who were all uninitiated newcomers, always shared the views of their commandant. But Leithuber did not consider himself the infallible oracle by any means. To be able to give orders with a clear conscience, he needed someone who would raise doubts. Whenever Bachmatiuk suggested something that was contrary to his—Leithuber’s—wishes, the lieutenant-colonel looked away, but actually he pricked up his ears at the same time.
There he sat, behind his desk, gazing at a photograph of a lady with an elegant coiffure. The desk-top concealed his massive torso, and his arms were hidden.
“That’s impossible,” Bachmatiuk was insisting in his calm, hoarse voice, which sounded as though it was scorched. “The battalion will not be able to set off at the beginning of September. The machine-gun crews are not yet ready… Lieutenant Lewicki…”
Leithuber suddenly slammed his left hand down on the table so hard that the lady with the elegant coiffure fell on her back. He picked her up and carefully put her back where she belonged, appearing to give her an apologetic look. But he could not control his rage. What angered him was that he trusted Bachmatiuk’s judgement better than his own. Whenever he felt that he had to concede, he flew into a rage and pounded the table with his left hand.
He had no control over the right arm. It had long since been withered. On account of this he never removed his black leather gloves in front of anyone. The colonel found this disability no less humiliating than his dependence on the RSM. He never appeared before his men without the cape. He also avoided situations where he would be obliged to turn up with his sabre unsheathed. The disabled right arm was wonderfully compensated for by his left. Not only did it take over all the functions of his right arm, but it did so with a kind of super-efficiency. Leithuber used his left arm for saluting, eating and writing. His handwriting was very elegant and legible. The orders issued daily by the barracks command in ten cyclostyled copies, bore his clearly written signature:
With his left hand he could fire a pistol and he could probably manage to handle his sabre, but somehow it did not seem appropriate to wear it on his right side. What made the greatest impression, however, was his left-handed slaps. To get a right-handed slap in the face was something to be expected. But when Leithuber struck you with his left hand, while his right hand was dead as the dodo, dangling under his cloak, this was something incredible, something contrary to nature. Actually, the lieutenant-colonel was a kindly man, benign in the way some tumours are. But he often got carried away and lost his self-control.