Csardas (22 page)

“No, Colonel, sir. They were closed when we took the engine up. We were ordered not to open them and not to take notice if anyone called out.” His voice faded into a whisper. “We were told there were soldiers inside who would look after the wounded. We thought they were wounded. What is wrong with them? Why are they dead?”

Terror in his eyes, he stared at the colonel. He was a middle-aged man with a bald head. He had a plump wife and six children and in peacetime he shuttled to and fro on the passenger line between Miskolc and Lillafured.

“It is the new weapon imported from the Western Front,” the colonel lied, suddenly calm. “Gas, poison gas.” No one in the east knew anything of the gas attacks, and the colonel had only just heard of their being used in France. But he was safe. Poison gas was a new, unknown horror and the twisted, rigor-set bodies could not be explained by anything other than a new and incredibly evil weapon.

“Poison gas,” repeated the driver. “Poison gas.”

“Get back to your engine. Stay there until you are told to move off the siding.”

The driver withdrew into the train. His pale face looked out once; then at a snarl from the colonel he turned his head. The colonel shouted at one of his requisitioned assistants—a captain of artillery—and they began to take the bars off the doors.

Karoly was trying to watch the alley, but as he heard the metal doors being slid open he turned. He was in time to see the artillery captain jump clear of an avalanche of stick-like forms spilling out onto the ground. He had almost grown accustomed to the stink, but now a fresh wave of it hit him from across the yard: excreta, urine, blood, the sickly sweet smell of death.

Helpless, like automatons, the few officers, orderlies, and ambulance men stood scattered and still among the unburied dead. They were no longer capable of dealing with the situation.

There was a scurry of fresh horses as a major led in a selection of commissioned officers and one middle-aged sergeant of infantry. Karoly, already in this short time feeling old and experienced in how to keep stomach and sanity under control, watched the new “volunteers” gag, vomit, giggle, and turn white. The colonel, having at last found something he could handle, came across and began to shout at the new assistants.

“We have not enough doctors or orderlies. All single men step forward.”

The sergeant stayed back; so did a major and two captains of hussars. All the other officers, the young ones, were unmarried.

“Married men to keep the civilians away—shoot if necessary. The rest of you must help sort the living from the dead. Not enough orderlies.” He began to mumble and move away. The sergeant stepped forward.

“Sir, respectfully suggest that the dead bodies should be carried straight into the drying sheds. We can dispose of them later.”

“Yes, good,” said the colonel dreamily. “Splendid idea.”

They moved over to the track and began working from the near end.

Karoly began by counting, merely to keep his mind from thinking about the death grins on the shrivelled faces. But after a while he stopped counting and the bodies became no more to him than things that had to be moved.

There was a fire on the outskirts of the city that night. The civilian population, used to burning buildings and night skies lit by shells, took no notice at first. Then the smell began to seep into parts of the city and there were questions and uneasy glances at neighbours, everyone hoping for comforting words that would explain the things they did not want to know. In the morning it was all right as the news spread rapidly through the streets and cafés. The old tannery had caught fire and some rotting hides had gone up in the blaze. Nothing had happened and the army had been present all the time to see the flames did not spread beyond the vicinity of the yard.

Until now he had not considered the possibility that he would die. He had known fear and blood lust and shame, but some prevailing confidence had assured him that he would not be killed. He had faith, even now, in the power of the Imperial machine. It was creaking and old-fashioned, but it had always worked before and in the final conflict it would survive. In his youthful conceit he knew that he, and men like him, were to be the saviours of the old army—modern, intelligent men who could adapt and reorganize once it was seen that they were needed. He was needed, and therefore he would not die. This was the faith that burnt in him and sustained him through cavalry charges, machine-gun fire, shelling, and fighting on foot when his horse was killed.

Now it was different. Now he knew he was going to die.

At the end of the night of the cholera trains they had all been taken by ambulances to the military hospital. Their clothes had been removed, baked, cleaned, and baked again, and then they were shown to a stone-floored room full of steam where silently, not looking at one another, they immersed themselves in tubs of hot water and carbolic disinfectant.

Later, called together by the colonel, they had received a further warning on the question of secrecy and a pass explaining to whatever authorities would be interested that they had been commandeered for special duties. Then they were sent away, back to their units. But the baked uniforms and the carbolic baths made no difference to the feelings they shared. They all knew they were going to die.

The fear of becoming one of those rigid, twisted bodies haunted him. At night he was pleased to be placed on patrols so that he did not have to try and sleep, for sleep brought with it an imagined stiffening of the limbs, a crawling irritation of every inch of skin, and then he wondered what would happen in the morning. Would he be thrown into a cattle train without food or water for two and a half days to be disgorged and burnt in some disused brickyard or factory building? He was careless during the few skirmishes that followed the retreating Russians. He knew he was going to die and he hoped that a Russian machine-gun would cheat the insidious disease that even now must be germinating in his body. He felt unclean, loathsome, sick, and nauseous. He looked into the face of Stefan Tilsky, and they neither of them spoke of the thing that was uppermost in their hearts.

A week, two weeks, passed, and there were no signs of impending death. The advance was surging over Galicia. “Soon we shall be in Kiev!” they shouted to one another, but it seemed unimportant to Karoly. He knew he would never get to Kiev. With apathy he watched and shared in the vast rolling forward across the Polish plains.

One morning, when the artillery were coming through, he saw a unit belonging to Adam Kaldy’s regiment, and a longing to see that stocky figure seized him. Vainly he searched the columns of men and guns for a sign of the man who was not his friend but whom he needed at this hour. Once he asked if they knew where Kaldy was, but the confused and varying answers gave him no hope.

When, finally, the first symptoms of illness appeared—real symptoms that were not products of his fevered brain—there was almost a sense of triumph. “There!” he cried to himself. “I knew the baths and the precautions were useless. Now I am going to die of cholera.” And as he said the words, terror smote him, real anguished terror that made him want to scream. He swallowed brandy and fought the violent shudders that rocked his body. For three days he remained upright on horse and foot. The brandy helped, but finally his coated tongue and unquenchable need for water made the brandy abhorrent to him. On the fourth night he removed himself from his men and went to the ruins of a hut on the outskirts of a village. He told Tilsky before he left that something was wrong, and his friend stared and then looked away.

“What can I do?” Stefan asked, and Karoly, shivering and fighting a blinding pain in his head, stepped back a pace from his friend, feeling already that he was one of the dead. He wanted to fall on his knees and beg Stefan to see that he was not lifted into a cattle train with several other bodies. Please shoot me, he wanted to say. Shoot me now—no, not now, for I am still able to think and feel and be afraid of dying. But when I have turned into an insensible creature of dirt and smell, then shoot me. Adam Kaldy would shoot me; he would not leave me to rot to death. If Adam were here he would help.

“Do? Why there is nothing to do, my friend. I am sure it is a minor ailment, of no importance. I must take every precaution, that is all.”

He stumbled across rutted earth, sobbing quietly, shaking, holding his bursting head between his hands. By the time he reached the hut he could hardly walk and he slumped onto the cold ground, too ill even to unroll his ground sheet. Later he woke from a hazy feverish daze and took from his pack a soiled white lace shawl. Hands clenched in misery, he clutched the shawl and cried quietly into it, longing for the comfort and love of another human being. The shawl reminded him of sunshine and streams, and Malie laughing and crying, and two small boys afraid of an old coachman. The shawl was innocence, and he no longer believed in innocence, but he cried for Malie and after a while the sadness wore away and numb comfort came from the contact with the lace.

The following morning he felt no better. He was still shivering in spite of being so hot. He looked out from the hut and saw several more artillery units moving along the village street. In their rear came Stefan Tilsky, riding slowly, looking over walls and into trenches and dugouts.

“Keep back,” Karoly cried faintly, but Stefan, when he saw him, spurred his horse and galloped over. As he drew near Karoly noticed the growing consternation in Tilsky’s face and knew he must already be looking like the men who spilled from the train in the leather yard.

“You cannot stay here alone! We shall be moving on tomorrow. Can you ride or stand?”

Karoly put his hands against the wall and dragged himself upright. The landscape swayed and a burning agony in his back and limbs felled him to the ground again.

“I shall be well tomorrow. A little rest and I will be cured.”

“Back in the last village they have a field station. I shall have you taken back there and then to hospital—”

“No!”

Stefan understood, because he had seen it too. Through a haze of images and shapes, Karoly realized it was not death he feared, it was death in a confined space with thirty bodies beside him.

“Please, old friend,” he croaked. “Let me stay here until we know. If I am to die, let it be here.”

Stefan nodded. “I will bring you water and a further blanket. Your orderly—”

“No. Keep the men away. If they know there will be more desertions.”

“Is there nothing you want?”

Stefan was receding and advancing, like the war across Galicia. Now he was close, now he was a tiny figure a long way away.

“Kaldy, Adam Kaldy,” he muttered. “Artillery... regiment passing through now. If you see him—you know the Kaldys... remember the parties....”

“Adam Kaldy? Yes, I remember the Kaldys.”

He made one last effort. “Lieutenant Kaldy... to come here... he will... no fear... has not seen the leather yard....” He could still see Stefan but it was too much effort to speak, and he waved him away and closed his eyes.

Blurred figures danced in the darkness. Zsigmond Ferenc stood by a coach watching Malie stumbling out, then Zsigmond Ferenc reached up and pulled out a body, shrunk and twisted and clothed in a field grey uniform. “Keep away from my daughter,” he shouted, and threw the body at Karoly.

He woke sweating, trying to push the body away from him, then descended again into a world of thirst and pain. Stefan was there; he opened his eyes once and saw Stefan dropping a blanket over him. He heard the name Adam Kaldy, but he no longer cared or understood what Stefan was saying and again he closed his eyes.

That night he had a moment’s lucidity, and loneliness and despair engulfed him. He felt abandoned, unwanted, even though it was by his own wish that he lay hidden in the burnt-out hut. He longed for kindness, for the warm touch of someone who cared about him. Malie was a dream now—he was filthy and knew he would never be able to touch Malie again—but someone would come surely: his mother, or Adam Kaldy. If only Adam would come he could die in peace.

It was daylight again, and Stefan was there with two other men. They were lifting him and he began to scream; Stefan had betrayed him. Every movement of his body brought pain but still he tried to struggle. He was terrified of the pressure of the other bodies, the dirty, unclean bodies that would soon be stacked up all around him. “Stefan!” he screamed, and Stefan’s face faded guiltily away and was replaced by a square solid one.

“I have found your friend,” he heard Stefan say distantly, and then the miracle burned its way through all the pain and fear. He clung to the sight of the burly face, the face that signified strength and sanity, the face that was his lifeline. He felt Adam opening the fastenings of his tunic and the contact with his square, rough farmer’s hands brought comfort.

“Into the cart,” he heard Adam’s voice saying, but he knew that it would be all right now. Adam would not let him suffocate in a sea of dead. Then the green eyes came close and stared into his face.

“Listen, my friend, try to understand what I am saying. I cannot stay with you—we are advancing—but I have seen that you will be taken to the field hospital. You will be cared for, nursed; you are an officer. They do not let officers die as easily as troops. If you are to die it will be in a bed with someone to bring you water.”

He reached up with his hand and felt it clasped. Adam was not afraid of catching cholera. Adam was afraid of nothing.

“Into the cart.”

He screamed once more when he was in the cart; it was because he opened his eyes and saw a body next to him, two bodies, two faces covered in a dark erupting rash, two faces with mad eyes, two mouths that sang and muttered and shouted. He thought the nightmare had come true, but then he remembered Adam Kaldy and felt safe again. Adam and the jolting of the cart were the last things he remembered....

Ten days later, when he opened his eyes, he found he was in a ward of what appeared to be a makeshift military hospital. There were shelves—empty—stretching from floor to ceiling, and a gallery ran round the upper part of the room. In times of peace it must be a library or museum. A medical orderly was filling a pitcher of water by his bed and all round him were the noises of sickness: men shouting, muttering, breathing painfully, and the clink of bedpans and china.