FOR YEARS the Elector of Saxony had been at war with the King of Sweden for the Polish crown. Now if you must go to war, what you need most of all, after money and guns, is soldiers, and so he had drums beating busily all over the country, and officers at work enlisting men. There were plenty of young fellows ready to join the army, especially at the start of the war; there were others who needed a little persuasion from the recruiting officers, whether in the form of blows or brandy . . . but a man wouldn’t balk at that in the service of a glorious regiment, the more so as there was a special bonus payment for every man who could be induced to enlist!
A small party of men, consisting of a lieutenant of the Dresden Foot, a great bear of a corporal, two private soldiers and a drummer who carried his drum on his back like a pack, lost their way in the fen of Kosel one evening. Dusk was already gathering, the Master had been away for three or four days, and the miller’s men were in the servants’ hall, planning to take things easy for the rest of the day, when there came a knock at the door. Tonda went to answer it. There stood the lieutenant with his men. He was an officer of His Serene Highness the Elector, he barked at Tonda—he had lost his way, and so he had decided to spend the night in this wretched hole of a mill; was that quite clear?
“To be sure, your Worship! There’ll be plenty of room in the hayloft!”
“The hayloft?” spluttered the corporal. “The fellow must be off his head! The best bed in the mill for his Worship, by thunder, and devil take you if mine’s a bit worse! We’re hungry, too. So bring us whatever you have in the kitchen, and some beer or wine, never mind which, so long as there’s enough of it—and enough there must be, or I’ll break every bone in your body with my own hands! Quick, march, now, and get a move on, plague take you!”
Tonda whistled through his teeth, very briefly, very quietly, but the miller’s men in the servants’ hall all heard him. When the head journeyman came back into the room with the party of soldiers, it was quite empty.
“Will your lordships please be seated, and the food will come at once!” said Tonda.
While the uninvited guests made themselves at home, loosened their neckcloths and unbuttoned their gaiters, the miller’s men were putting their heads together in the kitchen.
“Those pigtailed apes!” cried Andrush. “Who do they think they are?”
He had a plan, and all the others, even Tonda, liked it. Andrush and Stashko quickly prepared a meal, with some help from Michal and Merten: three dishes full of bran and sawdust, mixed to a mush with rancid linseed oil and seasoned with crumbs of tobacco. Juro ran out to the pigsty and came back with two moldy loaves under his arm, and Krabat and Hanzo filled five tankards with brackish water from the rainwater butt in the yard.
When it was all ready Tonda went back to the soldiers and announced that dinner was ready, and if his Worship permitted, he would have it served up. Thereupon he snapped his fingers . . . and that was a special sort of finger-snapping, as was soon to be seen.
First the head journeyman had the three dishes brought in.
“Now here, if it please your lordships, we have noodle soup with beef, chicken and giblets, there’s a dish of tripe and kale, and that one is vegetables—white beans and fried onions, with pork crackling . . .”
The lieutenant sniffed the dishes; he was finding it hard to choose.
“This is good food you’ve brought us! I’ll take some of the soup, for a start.”
And there was ham and smoked meat too, Tonda told them, pointing to the mouldy bread Juro was bringing in on a plate.
“But there’s still something missing—something very important!” the corporal reminded him. “Smoked meat gives you a thirst, and a good thirst must be quenched while it’s young, by thunder and lightning and all the plagues of Egypt, it must!”
At a sign from Tonda, Hanzo, Krabat, Petar, Lyshko and Kubo came marching in, each carrying a tankard full of rainwater.
“By your leave, your Worship—your very good health!”
The corporal drank to the lieutenant, then wiped his moustache and hiccuped.
“Not bad, upon my soul! Not at all bad! Homebrewed?”
“No,” said Tonda, “it comes from the Rainwater brewery, if it please your Worship!”
It was a merry evening. The soldiers ate and drank enough for ten, and the miller’s men were in high spirits—they could see what their lordships were really eating, little as the soldiers guessed it themselves!
The water butt was a big one, and the gutters that ran into it provided plenty to drink, enough to fill the tankards time and time again. Gradually the soldiers’ faces became flushed. The drummer boy, a lad of Krabat’s own age, toppled forward like a sack of flour upon draining his fifth tankard, his head hit the table top with a noise like a kettledrum, and he began to snore. The others went on with the serious business of drinking, and in the midst of their carousing the lieutenant, happening to glance at the miller’s men, remembered the bonus payment he was to get for every man he brought to join the regiment.
“Now how would it be,” he cried, waving his tankard in the air, “how would it be if you gave up grinding grain and joined the army? A miller’s man is nothing, nobody, lower than dirt—but a soldier, now . . .”
“A soldier,” put in the corporal, bringing his fist down on the table so hard that the drummer boy let out a squeak, “a soldier has the time of his life, with regular pay and good company too! And you cut a fine figure in front of the townsfolk, especially the girls and young widows, in your uniform, with shiny buttons on your coat and gaiters above the knee!”
“How about war, though?” asked Tonda.
“War?” cried the lieutenant. “Why, a soldier asks for nothing better! If his heart’s in the right place and he has a bit of luck, he can win both fame and fortune. He’ll get a medal, he’ll be made corporal or even sergeant for his brave deeds . . .”
“And there’s many a man has risen from the ranks in wartime to become an officer, why, even a general!” proclaimed the corporal. “May I be made into mincemeat if I’m not telling you the pure truth!”
“So don’t delay!” cried the lieutenant. “Follow us to join the regiment, like the good fellows you are. I’ll take you on here and now—done!”
“Done!” The head journeyman shook hands with the lieutenant, and Michal, Merten and all the rest followed suit.
The lieutenant was beaming, while the corporal, none too steady on his feet by now, staggered from man to man feeling their front teeth.
“We have to see if this lot are firm, by thunder! A soldier must have good strong teeth, you know, or he can’t bite the ends off his cartridges in battle to shoot the enemies of His Most Serene Highness the Elector, as is his duty to the regiment!”
There was nothing the matter with anyone’s front teeth until the corporal came to Andrush, and then he was in some doubt. He gave Andrush’s teeth a push and a yank with his thumb, and then it happened.
“By the Grand Turk!” The corporal had pulled two of Andrush’s teeth right out. “What’s all this, young man? You be a soldier, with a mouthful of teeth like an old woman’s? Get away, you and your rotten teeth, or I might forget myself!”
Andrush stayed calm and friendly. “If you don’t mind, those are my teeth!” said he. “I’d just like to have them back.”
“There you are—you can stick them in your hat!” growled the corporal.
“In my hat?” queried Andrush, in mild surprise. “Dear me, no!” And taking back his teeth, he spat on them and put them back in their proper place.
“They’ll be better than ever now. Would you like to convince yourself, sir?”
The miller’s men were grinning. The veins on the corporal’s temples were swelling with rage, but the lieutenant, thinking of his bonus payment, was unwilling to let Andrush go.
“Go on, take a pull at them!” he encouraged the corporal.
The corporal obeyed orders, although reluctantly, and grabbed hold of Andrush’s front teeth. Strange to say, however, hard as he pulled and tugged at them, they wouldn’t give the fraction of an inch this time—not even when he tried to knock them out with the stem of his pipe.
“There’s something queer going on!” he gasped. “There must be something queer going on! Never mind, it’s all one to me! It’s not for me to decide if this pockmarked fellow is fit to be a soldier, that’s your business, sir!”
The lieutenant scratched his ear; he also had had a lot to drink, and Andrush’s performance struck him as odd too. “Let’s sleep on it,” said he. “We’ll have another look at this young man before we march away.” Then he demanded his bed.
“Very good,” said Tonda. “I’ve made up our master’s own bed for your Worship, and there’s a place in the guestroom for his Worship the corporal. But where are we to put their Worships the private soldiers and his Worship the drummer boy?”
“N-never mind that!” said the corporal thickly. “Let ’em sleep in the hay, th-that’s good enough for th-them!”
The next morning the lieutenant woke up in a crate of beet root out behind the house, while the corporal found himself in the pigs’ trough. They both began to curse and swear violently. The miller’s men, all twelve of them, came running up, pretending to be perfectly innocent.
Well, well—why, their Worships had been shown to such comfortable beds yesterday evening! Had they been walking in their sleep? It certainly looked like it, what with all the beer they’d had, if one might venture to say so! What luck their Worships hadn’t come by any scratches and bruises, if not worse, as they stumbled about the mill! But of course it was well known that a special providence watches over children, fools and drunkards.
“Shut your mouths!” snapped the corporal. “Get out of here—get ready to march away! As for you, you with the pocked face, let’s have a feel of those teeth of yours.”
Since Andrush’s teeth passed the test, the lieutenant had no more scruples about deciding that he was fit for the army, and after breakfast the party of soldiers set off with their new recruits. They marched to Kamenz, where their regiment was stationed, with the lieutenant at the head, followed by the drummer boy, then the miller’s men in rank and file, then the two privates, and finally the corporal bringing up the rear. The miller’s men were in good spirits, but their companions seemed less cheerful. The farther they went, the paler their faces grew, and the more frequently did one or the other of them have to disappear into the bushes by the roadside. Krabat, marching at the back with Stashko, heard one of the two privates complain to the other, “By heaven, comrade, I feel as if I’d swallowed ten pounds of glue, there’s something lying so heavy on my stomach!”
Krabat exchanged a glance of amusement with Stashko. “That’s what comes of swallowing sawdust instead of noodles!” he thought. “And moldy bread instead of meat and crumbs of tobacco instead of herbs and seasoning!”
In the afternoon the lieutenant called another halt at the edge of a little birch wood.
“It’s only a quarter of a mile to Kamenz now,” said he. “Anyone who wants to disappear, disappear now—it’s your last chance. Corporal!”
“Sir?”
“Have the men get their things in order, and keep them from breaking out of rank when we enter the town—and mind they keep in step, in time to the beat of the drum!”
After a short rest, the little troop marched on again, this time to the sound of drum and trumpet . . . trumpet?
Andrush had put his cupped right hand to his lips, puffed out his cheeks, and now he was blowing the Swedish Grenadiers’ March. Not the best trumpeter in the world with the finest of all trumpets could have put on a better performance!
His notion caught the fancy of the others, and they too began to play music as loud as they could. Tonda, Stashko and Krabat were performing on the trombone, Michal, Merten and Hanzo played the bugle, and the rest chose trumpets, either large or small, while Juro played the bombardon. Though they were really only blowing through their cupped hands, like Andrush, it sounded as if the entire Royal Swedish Military Band were marching along the road.
The lieutenant tried to shout, “Stop that!” and the corporal opened his mouth to bellow, “Stop it! Stop it this minute, you young scoundrels, you!” But they could not utter a sound, nor could they strike out at the miller’s men as they wanted to do. They found they were obliged to stay in their places and march along with the others, the lieutenant at the front, the corporal in the rear, and nothing they could do or say made the least difference.
They entered Kamenz to the sound of bugles and trumpets, much to the amusement of all the soldiers and townsfolk they met in the street. Children came running up and cheered them, the windows of the houses were thrown open, and the girls of Kamenz waved and blew them kisses.
With drums beating, Tonda and his companions, along with their escort, marched several times around the Town Hall Square. It was soon full of onlookers, and finally, alarmed by the sound of the hated Swedish march, Colonel Sir Christian Leberecht Furchtegott von Landtschaden-Pummerstorff, commanding His Most Serene Highness the Elector of Saxony’s Dresden Foot, arrived on the scene.
Sir Christian, a veteran grown fat during his years of army service, was followed by three staff officers and several orderlies as he came striding into the market place. He was about to give vent to his indignation in no uncertain terms, on seeing the ridiculous spectacle offered to him, when his breath was taken clean away.
For the moment Andrush spotted the Colonel, he and his companions struck up the March Past of the Swedish Cavalry, which naturally put the old man, as a stalwart commander of infantry in the service of the Elector of Saxony, into a white-hot rage. And since it was a tune that really called for a trot rather than a march, the miller’s men and their escort at once started trotting, which looked very funny, except to the Colonel.
Speechless with fury, and gasping for air like a landed fish, Colonel von Landtschaden-Pummerstorff was forced to watch a dozen recruits playing horses in the market place of Kamenz, to the sound of a cavalry march—an enemy cavalry march at that! And what in heaven’s name had come over the lieutenant escorting them? He was actually prancing at the rascals’ head, with his sword stuck between his knees like a hobbyhorse! In view of such undignified conduct on the part of a Saxon officer, it was hardly surprising to see that his men, drummer boy and corporal included, were not ashamed to join in the capers!
“Squad—halt!” shouted Tonda, when they came to the end of the march. Then the miller’s men turned to face the Colonel, waved their caps in the air and grinned at him.
Colonel Sir Christian von Landtschaden-Pummerstorff strode toward them and began to bawl them out like twelve corporals rolled into one.
“You pack of blackguards—who in the devil’s name put all this into your heads? The impudence of it! Acting such a farce in public, in broad daylight! Who are you, you young scoundrels? How dare you grin at me! Just let me tell you—me, the Colonel of this great regiment, which has covered itself with glory in thirty-seven battles and a hundred and fifty-nine skirmishes—let me tell you I’ve a good mind to have these silly capers beaten out of you! I’ll hand you over to the military police! I’ll have you hauled over the coals! I’ll . . .”
“That’ll do!” said Tonda, cutting him short. “No need for the military police! Such fine young fellows as my eleven friends here and me aren’t cut out for a soldier’s life. Fools like him,” and he pointed to the lieutenant, “and thick-skinned dolts like that one,” (pointing to the corporal), “they may be quite at home in the army, so long as there’s no one shooting at them. As for my friends and me, we’re made of different stuff! We don’t care a bit for you or your regiment, or His Most Serene Highness the Elector either, and you can tell him so if you like!”
Then the miller’s men turned into ravens and rose into the air. They circled above the Town Hall Square, croaking, and as a parting gesture they covered Colonel Sir Christian’s hat and shoulders—but not with glory.