'I've bartered you, my friend, I've shamefully bartered you.
Curse me, beat me, I'll take it.
I let you down.
I can't look you in the eyes.
Tear me, bite me, destroy me.
I don't deserve anything better.
Do you know what I am?'
And the chaplain pressing his tear-stained face into the pillow said gently in a soft tender voice:
'I'm a bastard without any character at all,' and fell asleep like a log.
The next day, shunning Svejk's gaze, the chaplain went out early and returned late at night with a fat infantryman.
'Show him, Svejk, where everything is so that he can get his bearings,' he said, again avoiding his gaze. 'And show him how to make grog.
Tomorrow you are to report to Lieutenant Lukas.'
Svejk spent the night agreeably with the new man making grog.
By the morning the fat infantryman could hardly stand on his legs and was humming a strange pot-pourri of various national songs, which he mixed up together:
'Around Chodov there runs a stream, My love serves red beer there, Mountain, mountain, thou art high, Maidens went along the path, On the White Mountain a peasant is ploughing.'
'I'm not worried about you,' said Svejk.
'With a talent like that you'll keep your job with the chaplain.'
And so it happened that in the morning Lieutenant Luk:is saw for the first time the decent and honest countenance of the good soldier Svejk, who announced to him:
'Humbly report, sir, I am Svejk whom the chaplain gambled away at cards.'
II
The institution of officers' orderlies is of very ancient origin.
It seems that even Alexander the Great had his batman.
What is certain, however, is that in the period of feudalism the knights' hirelings performed this role.
What else was Don Q!iixote's Sancho Panza?
I am surprised that no one has yet written up the history of army orderlies.
If anyone had, we should read in it how at the siege of Toledo the Duke of Almavira was so hungry that he ate his orderly without salt, which the duke himself mentions in his memoirs, relating that his orderly had fine, tender, succulent meat tasting like something between chicken and donkey.
In an old German book about the art of war we find directions for orderlies.
The batman of the old days had to be pious, virtuous, truthful, modest, brave, courageous, honest and industrious. In short he had to be a model man.
Modern times have changed this type considerably.
The modern batman is usually not pious or virtuous or truthful.
He tells lies, cheats his master and very often turns his superior's life into sheer hell.
He is a cunning slave, who thinks out the most varied forms of treacherous ploys to embitter his master's life.
In this new generation of batmen you will not find such self-sacrificing creatures as would let themselves be eaten by their masters without salt, like the noble Fernando, batman of the Duke of Almavira.
On the other hand we find that commanders who wage a life and death struggle with their orderlies of modern times adopt the most varied methods to preserve their authority.
It is a certain kind of terror.
In 1912 there was a trial in Graz in which the leading figure was a captain who had kicked his batman to death.
He was acquitted then because it was only the second time he had done it.
In the eyes of gentlemen like this the life of a batman has no value at all.
He is only an object, often an Aunt Sally, a slave, a maid of all work.
It is not surprising that such a position requires of the slave that he should be crafty and cunning.
His position on this planet can be compared only with the sufferings of the potboys of old days, who were trained to be conscientious by means of blows and torture.
There are however cases where a batman rises to the position of a favourite, and then he becomes the terror of the company or the battalion.
All the N.C.O.s try to bribe him.
He decides questions ofleave and can use his influence and see that it goes well with those who are sent on report.
These favourites were usually rewarded in wartime with the large and small silver medals for bravery and valour.
In the 91st regiment I knew several of them.
One batman received the large silver medal because he was an adept in roasting the geese he had stolen.
Another got the small silver medal because he used to get from his home wonderful food hampers so that in the time of the most acute famine his master stuffed himself up so much that he could hardly walk.
And his master formulated the citation for his decoration as follows:
'For displaying unusual bravery and courage in battle, despising death and not abandoning his superior officer for a moment under the powerful fire of the advancing enemy.'