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

that blows through our uniforms. Apparently, there are now difficulties with our supplies. The baggage column can’t keep up with us. Already, with Russia and our foes still so far away. An old sergeant, who has already fought both with and against Napoleon, blasphemes, “What’s it going to be like when we’re in enemy country, in the endless plains of Russia?”
    We have our first experience of hunger. A few men still have supplies.
    I don’t. And I continue to stumble and trudge along behind the seven-pound howitzer. My toenails have turned blue. I can barely walk. My bloody stumps of toes rub themselves raw with every step. Perhaps it’ll help if I stuff some old leaves in my boots. No, that doesn’t seem to make any difference. I need new boots. Desperately. Before my feet go to pot, and the rest of me along with them.
    I start to keep an eye out on the various carts that are accompanying us. Before long, I figure out which one carries what. An army of this size has to drag all sorts of things with it. Including shoes and boots. I make a report and show my toes. “If we issued you new boots, now, where would that get us? And besides, there aren’t any!” exclaims Sergeant Krauter. And because he’s my immediate superior, and I have no one else to report to, I continue to trudge along in these deadly boots.
    I am left with no alternative but to perpetrate a grave sin. At night, I steal. It’s not especially difficult. No one’s sleeping in the shoe cart. No one catches me. After all, I’m supposed to be the one apprehending any thieves. It’s to my own advantage that I’m set to watch over myself. Cautiously, I creep into the cart and help myself to a pair of well-made boots that fit. Here’s the odd thing — I don’t feel at all guilty. Even though I’ve robbed His Very Highness, the king.
    So that my new footwear won’t draw too much attention to itself, I rub and scratch the new leather and smear dirt onto the boots till they look run-down and awful. Like my old ones. Now I can keep up with the column. My toes and heels calm down, the bleeding stops, and they’re on the way to being cured by the time the horse artillery leaves the kingdom of Saxony behind. My two big toenails start to work loose. Later on, past Smolensk, they both drop off. But I’m young, so it’s no great matter. Under the purplish scales of the old nails, healthy new ones are already starting to grow.
    No one notices that I’ve got these brand-new boots in place of my old ones. For a while, I continue to hobble like a cripple behind the shiny howitzer, just so Sergeant Krauter doesn’t get any stupid ideas.

11
    In April, the Wurttemburg regiments are in the Leipzig area. There are no enemy Russians here, either. The enemy’s still at least a thousand miles off, so says Sergeant Krauter. Maybe he’s right, too, because a sergeant is bound to know more about maps and terrain than an ordinary transport soldier. If I hem and haw about it all in my mind, I don’t really know what to think. Why doesn’t Napoleon find himself an enemy who’s a little closer at hand? But they say he’s already used them all up.
    In any case, there’s still no sign of a real war. Except for the terrible Krauter. It’s just as well, too, as far as the Wurttemburg army is concerned, because we have our hands full with our own problems. Food and fodder are becoming scarce.
    Fortune and misfortune are still in the balance with me.
    One evening, my former lieutenant comes galloping along on his lovely Arab steed, into the little Saxon village where the gleaming seven-pound howitzers and horses and Krauter and a few transport soldiers and I are bivouacked. His other horse is cantering at his side. He is in a towering rage.
    The cause is the two noble servants sent by his father. The ones who caused me to tumble from heaven straight into the clutches of Sergeant Krauter only weeks ago. Now they help me get out of my pickle. Not directly, because