Tomorrow, Tomas had said to himself, as he had climbed into the truck that had carried him and dozens of others beyond Sudetenland. Tomorrow, and he would be home. He had no dislike, no active hatred, for the Sudeten Germans. Why, they were not even really Germans. They had fled from Germany in the fourteenth century, seeking refuge from German religious persecution. They had settled in Bohemia, these refugees from Teutonic madness and brutality, in the beautiful blue Sudetes mountains, and there they had intermarried with the Bohemians, had bought land and farmed it, had built up the quaint Sudeten towns, had worshipped in freedom and peace for hundreds of years, safe from German fury and German hatred. To be sure, many of them these silly days were agitating for “anschluss” with the reich, but these were only fanatics, moron children not responsible for their acts and not to be expected to exercise mature judgment. Why, Tomas himself knew two fine young German democrats at the University, young Germans who hated and derided Hitler!
To surrender these Sudetens to Hitler would be monstrous, would be delivering children up to Moloch. Some of them declared they were being mistreated. Perhaps they had some grounds for complaint. It was strange, however for only the Nazi-Sudetens made these complaints. The other “Germans” were content and satisfied, working patiently and industriously, and asking nothing but that they be left to their peace and their freedom, their homes and their loyalty to Czechoslovakia.
It was all so very silly, this marching, this trouble, this absence from school. What an expense the government at Prague must be being put to! And times so hard these days. Hitler would never dare attack, in spite of Heinlein, who was half a Czech, anyway — in spite of vicious fools. Were there no England, and France, and Russia? These nations knew now that Hitler must be stopped once and for all. Long live England! Long live France! Long live Russia (in spite of the Communists)!
And yet, now he, Tomas Slivak, stood here in the hot dimness of a strange disordered little schoolhouse, staring through a crack in a shutter down a long white empty road that led into the mountains. England, France, Russia – they had all betrayed the helpless little republic whom they had sworn to keep inviolate. They had craftily, like England, or cravenly, like France, or contemptuously, like Russia, deserted Czechoslovakia, had not only abandoned her to her beast-enemies, but were probably licking their lips in anticipation over morsels to be tossed them by the insane Teuton dog. Yet Tomas could not feel too bitterly against France and Russia. The filthy betrayer had really been England, who was an eternally false friend and fawning enemy, and had been so through all her bleak and disgusting history. Only two weeks ago, he, Tomas, had cheered the Union Jack in Prague. Now, for him, for millions like him, it meant only the symbol of the Yellow Jackal of Europe.
He realized, as did all his countrymen, that Chamberlain had not been frantic to save English lives. He had merely wished to prevent Englishmen from fighting Hitler. His cry of “Peace! Peace!” had been only in behalf of Germany. It was the greeting of Judas.
It was only yesterday morning when he, Tomas, and his comrades had marched through Carlsbad, then deeper into the mountains. They had been cursed in the towns, spat at in the countryside, as they rolled west in trucks and tanks. But they had also been hailed by the German democrats, who came running to them when they stopped with cries of “Heil! Heil!”. Then things had begun to look ominous. They met streams of pale-faced refugees on the road, Prague-bound. Women and children, and old men, with bundles, pushing carts, or riding in automobiles. It looked a little ludicrous, these tiny black swarms, hurrying eastwards, with set eyes and terror in their faces, like ants, scurrying, and behind them the calm immense chaos of the blue light-crowned mountains Yes, it had been ludicrous,this reasonless fleeing, this unnecessary and panicked flight. Hitler would never dare — !
Five miles, now, from the border, and immense encampments, astounding Tomas, who smilingly had refused to believe. Czechs like himself, Bohemians, loyal German “democrats”, loyal Poles, loyal brown-faced Hungarians. Hundreds of thousands of them, set-jawed and resolute, cleaning their bayonets, setting up the great terrible guns facing westward; hundreds of thousands of tents. Lines of trenches. Feverish activity. Whispers. Murmurs of hatred. Murmur of hope. Hasty marchings, hasty last-minute training. Men, couriers, arriving on motorcycles. Tanks arriving. Loaded trucks. The smell of open campfires, the smell of boiling beef and potatoes. Comradeships newly formed. Then marchings again, in detachments, this time, to the very edge of the border. Tomas was there. Across the border he could see the terrible encampment of German troops. They did not look in the direction of Czechoslovakia. They were like robots, moving in dun-colored companies, digging trenches, setting up guns. Once Tomas shouted to them in German, laughingly. They did not answer. There was something appalling in their remorseless silence, their machine-like activity. Swine, thought Tomas good-naturedly, not hating them at all, and quite convinced that he would never have to kill them.
He talked to the Czech custom officers. To his indulgent surprise, he found that they had no aversion at all to killing Germans. One of them pleaded for “just one chance!” Tomas laughed. One of the detachments, his own, was ordered back, and he laughed again. Of course, they were calling it all off.
They were, but not in the way Tomas thought. He reached his former station five miles from the border. There was ominous radio news. Prague was “blacked-out” at night. London (God Bless London!) was preparing for air raids. Paris was filling with troops. Thousands of refugees were leaving Sudetenland. Russia was mobilizing. Italy was mobilizing. Mussolini, the cleverest man in Europe, declared the Rome-Berlin axis stronger than ever. It was War!
When he could, Tomas sat down and thought about it soberly. He was no real soldier. He had no desire to kill or be killed. Life was very good. There was his school, his studies. He hated military life, even that little of what he had seen. He hated nobody. Wars were ridiculous when they weren’t tragic. They solved nothing. There were some that said that the question: “Why should men kill each other?” was childish, yet they never explained why, with any logic.
Yet here he, Tomas Slivak, was faced with war. He supposed he ought to hate. But he did not. He cared for nothing but his father, his studies, and simple honor. He would have to kill. But perhaps that was necessary. He loved his country, at the last, and he would have to defend her. (But Hitler would not dare!)
Then all at once a whisper began to be circulated through the camp. England was preparing to betray little Czechoslovakia. There was something about a conference at Munich, at the last awful moment. Chamberlain had gone there, and Daladier and Mussolini. Tomas shook his head. He smiled at his grim comrades. A conference! Good! Now they would tell Hitler just where he stood. Now they would deliver him their last ultimatum. Now they would bring peace! A fringe of the riotous Sudetenland, perhaps, but who really cared for that. Just a fringe of the malcontents. It was bad, of course, but not too bad. Then home again!
The sickening whispers became stronger. Czechoslovakia, England had eagerly agreed, was to be dismembered. England, and France, too, were presenting their little ally on a silver tray to the despicable monster. The hound of Britain, Chamberlain, had flushed out not Germany, but the Slovak republic, and was baying at her heels, driving her right in to the Teutonic ambush. British hypocrisy. The stench of it, the mortal, loathsome, pious stench of it!
Tomas did not believe until his company were given the actual and terrible summons to go back. Then, when he did believe, his mental upheaval was frightful. He went sick with hatred and rage. He knew what it was to want to kill, not quickly and without malice, but with delight and soul-satisfaction. His school! His silly foolish school! His petty insignificant school! Nothing mattered now but that Czechoslovakia had been given up.
All his logic, his reason, was gone. There was only tumultuous madness in him. When he thought of tragic Benes, he wept. Everywhere about him his c
omrades were weeping. It was a retreat of anguish. Even old Hardheel, his sergeant, wept, the tears tumbling down his brown peasant face. There was no sound but the rolling of trucks, the marching of men, the murmur of the weeping. Peace! Ah, God, but it was a peace bought with death.
Tomas knew eight of his comrades quite well by now. The little queer Jew with his white face and big black eyes, a dancer, whom the others teased yet pitied and liked, for he was quiet and harmless, yet full of a twisted and acrid wit when aroused. An ignorant little Jew, with an accent, who could sing popular songs, or sentimental songs, with artistry, and who knew the most agile steps. A meek little man, with a pale and secret smile. Then there was Boehn, a German democrat, a big young man with a flushed face and angry blue eyes, with the gentlest of voices and the kindest of manners. He was a butler, and an excellent one, too, according to himself. He had a “frau” at home, and two fat twin babies, of whom he spoke with sheepish grins, the angry blue eyes softening. There was Spitalny, of an old and aristocratic Magyar family, who now operated a Hungarian cafe in Prague. This cafe was noted for its miraculous cuisine, its distinguished guests. Spitalny sang there, weird and plaintive Magyar songs, full of soft savagery and mystic love and languid melancholy He was a young man with a profile like a clean sword, gray eyes like hoarfrost, and a smile full of exquisite charm. He spoke constantly of his mistress, who he thought it would be a desecration to marry.
Spitalny had a gay and ribald word for patriotism. He thought it enormously funny. He had laughed with Tomas at the war rumors of their comrades. And then, when the evil news had come of Czechoslovakia’s betrayal he had not laughed again. He had not even smiled faintly. As they marched together, Tomas heard him weeping in the darkness. When he spoke again, it was not of his mistress, whom he loved beyond himself, but of honor and death and killing. His voice was charming and light as always, and the bloody words sounded strange when spoken with that voice.
Then there was Sczwerski, who was of Polish descent, a massager in the baths at Karlsbad. His talk, in his uncouth and arrogant voice, had been of indecent scandals among his wealthy patrons. He said the most lascivious things calmly, and with dull brutality. He declared that a noble German countess had been in love with him, a dainty woman of great pedigree. He related the lewd details minutely, to the delight of his comrades. Repeatedly, she called him to appear in her room at night, for massagings. According to Sczwerski, the lady did most of the massaging herself. It was all such a scandal that he had been discharged. But the lady had truly loved him; she had given him a small fortune, as well as her kisses, when they had parted.
But according to the Pole, he had hesitated to take the fortune. However she had insisted. He was just intending to set up a small establishment of his own, Turkish baths and such, in Prague, when this damned war-scare had broken out. It was a nuisance.
He was an enormous young man with shoulders and biceps. He had the head of a bull, and the body of a Roman statue. His face was thick and pursy, his eyes very small and sharp. But he was good-tempered and generous. When the little Jew had found it hard going on the march, the Pole had slyly carried the other’s gun for him, and he always managed to see that his weak comrade got his share of the food and the least uncomfortable place to sleep. But he was not very intelligent, and Tomas and Spitalny despised him.
The Pole had a fondness for the Germans, because of the great lady. And his own small bath establishment which he intended to open was the dear topic of his conversation. He described it to the minutest detail, with the gestures of love. It would be a real establishment! He, Sczwerski, knew how a bath should be. He would soon have the most elegant clients in all Prague. Foreigners would hear of him, and come flocking. When he spoke of this establishment his tiny eyes glowed, and his porcine face would take on the luminous quality of a lover’s.
Yes, he had a fondness for the Germans. He did not want to kill them. But there was Czechoslovakia. His section of his native Poland had been made a part of that country after the war. He had been only a baby at the time, but he remembered what his parents had told him of Poland. They had shuddered in the telling. His mother had a large hump on her back, caused by a kick delivered by a Polish landowner and gentleman, when she had been a very young child. His father had deep lash scars all over his body, and a thick scar over one eye. They had told their children that they had not known what it was to be thoroughly repleted with food until after their section of Poland had been made part of Czechoslovakia. They had not known what it was not to be afraid. Sczwerski’s father prayed nightly for the prosperity and the peace of his new country, and his mother made the sign of the cross. When their children came from school, able to read and write, they had cried with rapture, had embraced each other.
So Sczwerski loved Czechoslovakia and Tomas also heard his weeping in the dark marches. Poor Sczwerski knew nothing of politics; he could not understand that he was to hate England and France for their betrayal. He only knew that his country was to die, and he wanted to kill before he died too, in her death. When he thought of belonging to Poland again, he cursed aloud.
Then, there were the two simple brothers, Casimer and Boleslav Gowarski, Slovaks, illiterate in spite of teaching, good-tempered and innocent young men who farmed a communal farm together near the Polish border. They had married young Polish sisters, and had small families. They were happy and good and bewildered. But they had the peasant savagery and fierce patriotism. They clung together and wept when they heard the news.
Then, for the last, there was Jan Morvisz, Old Hardheel, who had the soldier’s love for country, and his ferocity. He never mentioned his children, but he carried soiled and tiny snapshots of them in his pack.
Last night they had pitched camp in the darkness and in one of the lower forests. The fires burned dimly. The vast company was silent. There were no songs tonight, no chaffing, no laughter. But for some reason Boehn, Schachner, Spitalny, Sczwerski, Slivak, and the Gowarskis stayed together in an incomprehensible comradeship.
Old Hardheel had been brooding, standing near a tree, biting the edge of his mustache. At times he clenched his fists, muttered to himself. Then he would shake his head and groan. So violent and strange were these manifestations that he attracted the weary attention of his fellow sergeants and corporals. They chaffed him without spirit; one even laughed a little. But he did not look at them.
The vast company finally fell asleep from exhaustion and depression. But Old Hardheel did not sleep, and neither did the seven others. They sat about not speaking, but thinking. They wiped their tears furtively in the darkness.
Old Hardheel suddenly appeared among them. They got up, sluggishly saluting heavily, looking at him with bleared eyes. Then when they saw his excitement, his fierce disordered gestures, the glinting of his eyes in the first light, they forgot their weariness and their grief. He bent towards them. He whispered:
“Comrades! Are you with me? Are you willing to die for our country?”
They stared. They murmured. They exchanged confused glances. Then they fixed their eyes on him eagerly, hardly breathing, drawing closely about him in order not to be heard.
He breathed heavily, looked from one to the other intently and fiercely in the dull red glow of the fire. There was a little madness about him.
“Yes, I mean die!” he whispered. “We will go somewhere; we will stay behind. We will hide in ambush. And then when the Germans come into the Sudetenland, we will kill many before we, too, shall die!”
This is insane, thought Tomas and Spitalny. But they listened, and as they did so, their hearts beat furiously. This is death, thought the little Jew, but he felt no fear. I’ll be blown to bits, thought the Pole; but he also thought of Czechoslovakia. I’ll never see my babies again, thought Boehn, but he lifted his head and gazed at Old Hardheel with his proud and angry blue eyes. No one will harvest the crops, thought the brothers Gowars
ki, but they saluted.
Old Hardheel saw their faces, and he nodded shortly and with ecstatic ferocity. He walked away, and they sat down again. But they did not sleep, and they did not speak. They did not even look at each other.
The dawn came, and the Army prepared to march eastward once more, heavy with their grief, their shame, the bitterness of their betrayal. There was a great deal of activity and confusion before they were under way. But eight of them stayed behind, hiding themselves in the forest. It was not until the company were miles away that they were missed. Then it was too late.
The sun was well up when the eight gathered together again beside the cold campfires. Old Hardheel permitted himself no sentimentalities, no elaborations. In his harsh reluctant peasant voice he brought them to attention. They went through the forest, keeping from the sight of any chance passers on the roads. But the countryside was curiously silent. Thousands of refugees had fled from it. Even when they went deeper and deeper into the Sudetes mountains they met few people, and these barely gave them a glance. A small group of Czech soldiers, keeping together, marching briskly. The people had seen thousands of these in the past few days.
They struck the road now, and marched westwards. They did not speak. They marched with pale set faces and eyes straight ahead, following Old Hardheel, carrying their guns, their packs on their backs. Then in the distance, in the exact center of the road, a very strange place indeed, was the schoolhouse.