Innocent Soldier (9780545355698) by Josef Holub Read Free Book Online

secretly sells off the harness of one of the draft horses. Afterward, he gives me the blame for its disappearance. I was asleep on sentry duty, and the next day the stuff was gone, the harness. Everyone believes the sergeant, no one believes me. After all, he carries a saber and I don’t. Krauter doesn’t seem to be bothered by any sort of conscience. If I had my way, I’d shoot him at the moon with one of the seven-pound howitzers. Now I won’t get a red cent in wages, for months. Until the harness has been paid for.
    What a dog’s life! If only the war with the Russians would start soon. So there’s an end to this marching, and Sergeant Krauter has something else to think about other than tormenting me.
    Our regiment continues to advance through the beautiful land of Franconia. Such rich country. No little handkerchief fields and stony ground, like we have at home. Everything rich and bountiful. I wish I could take a little pleasure in it myself.
    There’s something else I wish for. The sergeant. That bastard. I wish I was shot of him. It should be like the fairy tale my father told me long ago, when I was very little. In it, there was a farmer who had three wishes. I wouldn’t even need three wishes. Just one would be enough for me. What would I use it for? I wouldn’t evenneed time to think. Sergeant Krauter to fall off his horse. Drunk, as he always is. He wouldn’t have to break his neck. His arms and legs would be fine by me. I just want him to be invalided out, unfit for service.
    These sort of un-Christian thoughts mob my head. I spend the whole day latched on to one of these fantasies. It’s all I think about. Just the busted sergeant. When I’m anywhere near him, I stare at him very hard. My head feels as though it might burst, that’s how hard I’m concentrating on him.
    “Knock Sergeant Krauter off his horse!” I beseech some dark powers.
    But the sergeant sits firmly in his saddle and continues to tyrannize me.
    In the afternoon, though, I almost succeed. In the distance lies the fortress of Coburg. A wonderful, fairytale castle. How beautiful the world is, after all! Or rather, would be, I think. If the sergeant left me in peace. Which he has no notion of doing. I can’t stand it much longer. Before long, I’ll have lost my personal war against him.
    A terrible rage takes me. I make an enormous effort, and suddenly it happens.
    “Sergeant!” I order him silently, but with supernatural force. “Slip out of your stirrup and fall off! I want a good fall, so you break your collarbone, or a couple ofribs at least.” I wish so fervently that I feel the veins swell in my temples and start to hurt.
    Maybe I happen to blink, or else the sergeant is too drunk — drunkards have a special guardian angel watching over them — or else it’s a strange accident. Anyway, it isn’t Sergeant Krauter who slips out of his stirrups, but the man beside him. He lurches to the side, and off he goes. And then the horse following goes and steps on him, too, which horses usually avoid doing. Nothing at all happens to the sergeant.
    I made my supreme effort in vain. I’m only grateful no one realizes that I might be responsible for the accident. It doesn’t even occur to Krauter. He doesn’t suspect that I, transport soldier Bayh, may have such powers.
    At any rate, I go on being tyrannized day and night. My curses on him get more and more vicious. But nothing happens anymore. I have no access to my devilish magic powers. Or they don’t exist. I hope the war in Russia will be fairer, and Sergeant Krauter catches a cannonball in the bum.
    There’s still no war, though. Russia is so far away, it seems incredible that we could walk there. Perhaps the country doesn’t really exist, and the whole army is just tramping about on some cooked-up whim of Napoleon’s.
    The army crawls into the Thuringian Forest. That marks the end of paradise. There is no more wine.Instead, there’s snow again, and an icy north wind