Tales by Polish Authors

'From Pognębin,' answered Bartek.

'Good. Your name?'

'Bartek Słowik.'

'Mensch,' explained the Major.

'Mens!' Bartek tried to repeat.

'Do you know why you are fighting the French?'

'I know, Your Excellency.'

'Tell me.'

Bartek began to stammer, 'Because, because – ' Then on a sudden Wojtek's words fortunately came into his mind, and he burst out with them quickly, so as not to get confused: 'Because they are Germans too, only worse villains!'

His Excellency's face began to twitch as if he felt inclined to burst out laughing. After a moment, however, His Excellency turned to the Major, and said:

'You are right, Sir.'

Our friend Bartek, satisfied with himself, remained standing as straight as a fiddle string.

'Who won the battle to-day?' the General asked again.

'I, Your Excellency,' Bartek answered without hesitation.

His Excellency's face again began to twitch.

'Right, very right, it was you! And here you have your reward.'

Here the old soldier unpinned the iron cross from his own breast, stooped and pinned it on to Bartek. The General's good humour was reflected in a perfectly natural way on the faces of the Colonel, the Majors, the Captains, down to the non-commissioned officers. After the General's departure the Colonel for his own part presented Bartek with ten thalers, the Major with five, and so on. Everyone repeated to him smilingly that he had won the battle, with the result that Bartek was in the seventh heaven.

It was a strange thing: the only person who was not really satisfied with our hero was Wojtek.

In the evening, when they were both sitting round the fire, and when Bartek's distinguished face was bulging as much with pea sausage as the sausage itself, Wojtek ejaculated in a tone of resignation:

'Oh Bartek, what a blockhead you are, because – '

'But why?' said Bartek, between his bites of sausage.

'Why, man, didn't you tell the General that the French are Germans?'

'You said so yourself.'

'And what of that? – '

Wojtek began to stammer a little – 'Well, though they may be Germans, you needn't have told him so, because it's always unpleasant – '

'But I said it about the French, not about them…'

'Ah, because when…'

Wojtek stopped short, though evidently wishing to say something further; he wished to explain to Bartek that it is not suitable when among Germans to speak evil of them, but somehow his tongue became entangled.

CHAPTER V

A little while later the Royal Prussian Mail brought the following letter to Pognębin:

May Jesus Christ and His Holy Mother be praised.

Dearest Magda! What news of you? It is all right for you to be able to rest quietly in bed at home, but I am fighting horribly hard here. We have been surrounding the great fort of Metz, and there was a battle, and I did for so many of the French that all the Infantry and Artillery were astonished. And the General himself was astonished, and said that I had won the battle, and gave me a cross. And the officers and non-commissioned officers respect me very much now, and rarely box my ears. Afterwards we marched on further, and there was a second battle, but I have forgotten what the town was called; there also I seized and carried off four flags, and knocked down one of the biggest Colonels in the Cuirassiers, and took him prisoner. And as our regiment is going to be sent home, the Sergeant has advised me to ask to be transferred and to stay on here, for in war it is only sleep you do not get, but you may eat as much as you can stand, and in this country there is wine everywhere, for they are a rich nation. We have also burnt a town and we did not spare even women or children, nor did I. The church was burnt on purpose, because they are Catholics, and very wicked people. We are now going on to the Emperor himself, and that will be the end of the war, but you take care of the cottage and Franek, for if you do not take care of it, then I will beat you till you have learnt what sort of a man I am. I commend you to God.

    Bartłomiej Słowik.

Bartek was evidently developing a taste for war, and beginning to regard it as his proper trade. He felt greater confidence in himself, and now went into battle as he might have gone to his work at Pognębin. Medals and crosses covered his breast, and although he did not become a non-commissioned officer, he was universally regarded as the foremost Private in the regiment. He was always well disciplined, as before, and possessed the blind courage of the man who simply takes no account of danger. The courage actuating him was no longer of the same kind as that which had filled him in his first moments of fury, for it now sprang from military experience and faith in himself. Added to this his giant strength could endure all kinds of fatigue, marches, and overstrain. Men fell at his side, he alone went on unharmed, only working all the harder and developing more and more into the stern Prussian soldier. He now not only fought the French, but hated them. Some of his other ideas also changed. He became a soldier-patriot, blindly extolling his leaders. In another letter to Magda he wrote:

Wojtek is divided in his opinion, and so there is a quarrel between us, do you understand? He is a scoundrel, too, because he says that the French are Germans, but they are French, and we are Germans.

Magda, in her reply to both letters, set about abusing him with the first words that came into her head.

Dearest Bartek (she wrote), married to me before the holy Altar! May God punish you! You yourself are a scoundrel, you heathen, going with those wretches to murder half a nation of Catholics. Do you not understand, then, that those wretches are Lutherans, and that you, a Catholic, are helping them? You like war, you ruffian, because you are able now to do nothing but fight, drink, and illtreat others, and to go without fasting; and you burn churches. But may you burn in Hell for that, because you are even proud of it, and have no thought for old people or children. Remember what has been written in golden letters in the Holy Scriptures about the Polish nation, from the beginning of the world to the Judgment Day, – when God most High will have no regard for sluggards, – and restrain yourself, you Turk, that I may not smash your head to pieces. I have sent you five thalers, although I have need of them here, for I do not know which way to turn, and the household savings are getting short. I embrace you, dearest Bartek.

    Magda.

The moral contained in these lines made little impression on Bartek. 'The wife does not remember her vows,' he thought to himself, 'and is meddling.' And he continued to make war on the aged. He distinguished himself in every battle so greatly, that finally he again came under the honoured notice of Steinmetz. Ultimately when the shattered Polish regiment was sent back into the depths of Germany, he took the sergeant's advice of applying for leave to be transferred, and stayed behind. The result of this was that he found himself outside Paris.

His letters were now full of contempt for the French. 'They run away like hares in every battle,' he wrote to Magda, and he wrote the truth. But the siege did not prove to his taste. He had to dig or to lie in the trenches round Paris for whole days, listening to the roar of the guns, and often getting soaked through. Besides, he missed his old regiment. In the one to which he had been transferred as a volunteer, he was surrounded by Germans. He knew some German, having already learnt a little at the factory, but only about five in ten words; now he quickly began to grow familiar with it. The regiment nicknamed him 'the Polish dog,' however, and it was only his decorations and his terrifying fists which shielded him from disagreeable jokes. Nevertheless, he earned the respect of his new comrades, and began little by little to make friends with them. Since he covered the whole regiment with glory, they ultimately came to look upon him as one of themselves. Bartek would always have considered himself insulted if anyone called him German, but in thinking of himself in distinction to the French he called himself 'ein Deutscher.' To himself he appeared entirely distinct, but at the same time he did not wish to pass for worse than others. An incident occurred, nevertheless, which might have given him plenty to reflect upon, had reflection come more easily to this hero's mind. Some Companies of his regiment had been sent out against some volunteer sharpshooters, and laid an ambush for them, into which they fell. But the detachment was composed of veteran soldiers, the remains of some of the foreign regiments, and this time Bartek did not see the dark caps running away after the first shots. They defended themselves stubbornly when surrounded, and rushed forward to force their way through the encircling Prussian soldiery. They fought so desperately that half of them cut their way through, and knowing the fate that awaited captured sharpshooters, few allowed themselves to be taken alive. The Company in which Bartek was serving therefore only took two prisoners. These were lodged overnight in a forester's house, and the next day they were to be shot. A small guard of soldiers stood outside the door, but Bartek was stationed in the room under the open window with the prisoners, who were bound.