Chap

Chap. xxvii.: HOW THE PROVOST1 FARED IN THE BATTLE OF WITTSTOCK

The same evening, and when we had hardly as yet pitched our tents, I was brought to the Judge-Advocate-General,2 who had before him my deposition and also writing materials; and he began to examine me more closely. But I, on the other part, told my story even as it had happened to me, yet was not believed, not could the judge be sure whether he had a fool or a hard-bitten knave before him, so pat did question and answer fall and so strange was the whole history. He bade me take a pen and write, to see what I could do, and moreover to see if my handwriting was known, or if it had any marks in it that a man could recognise. I took pen and paper as handily as one that had been daily used to employ the same, and asked what I should write. The Judge-Advocate-General, who was perhaps vexed because my examination had prolonged itself far into the night, answered me thus: AWhat!@ says he, Awrite down >Thy mother the whore.=@

Those words I did write down, and when they were read out they did but make my case worse,* for the Advocate-General said he was now well assured that I was a rogue. Then he asked the provost, had they searched me and found any writings upon me? The provost answered him no; for how could they search a man that had been brought to them naked? But it availed nought! The provost must search me in the presence of all, and as he did that diligently (O ill-luck!) There he found my two asses= ears with the ducats in them bound round my arms. Then said they: AWhat need we any further witness? This traitor hath without doubt undertaken some great plot, for why else should any honest man disguise himself in a fool=s raiment, or a man conceal himself in women=s garments? And how could any suppose that a man would carry on him so great a quantity of money, unless it were that he intended to do some great deed therewith?@ For said they, did he not himself confess he had learned lute-playing under the cunningest soldier in the world, the commandant of Hanau? AGentlemen,@ says they, Awhat think you he did not learn among those sharp-witted Hessians? The shortest way is to have him to the torture and then to the stake: seeing he hath in any case been in the company of sorcerers and therefore deserveth no better.@

How I felt at that time any man can judge for himself; for I knew I was innocent and had strong trust in God: yet I could see my danger and lamented the loss of my fair ducats, which Judge-Advocate-General had put in his own pocket. But before they could proceed to extremities with me Baner=s3 folk fell upon ours: at the first the two armies fought for the best position, and then secondly for the heavy artillery, which our people lost forthwith. Our provost kept pretty far behind the line of battle with his helpers and his prisoners, yet were we so close to our brigade that we could tell each man by his clothing from behind; and when a Swedish squadron attacked ours we were in danger of our lives as much as the fighters, for in a moment the air was so full of singing bullets that it seemed a volley had been fired in our honour. At that the timid ducked their heads, as they would have crept into themselves: but hey that had courage and had been present at such sport before let the balls pass over their heads quite unconcerned. In the fighting itself every man sought to prevent his own death with the cutting down of the nearest that encountered him: and the terrible noise of the guns, the rattle of the harness, the crash of the pikes, and the cries both of the wounded and the attackers made up, together with the trumpets, drums and fifes, a horrible music. There could one see nought but thick smoke and dust, which seemed as it would conceal the fearful sight of the wounded and dead: in the midst of it could be heard the pitiful outcries of the dying and the cheers of them that were yet full of spirit: the very horses seemed as if they were more and more vigorous to defend their masters, so furious did they shew themselves in the performance of that duty which they were compelled to do. Some of them one could see falling dead under their masters, full of wounds which they had undeservedly received for the reward of their faithful services: others for the same cause fell upon their riders, and thus in their death had the honour of being borne by those they had in life been forced to bear: others, again, being rid of the valiant burden that had guided them, fled from mankind in their fury and madness, and sought again their first freedom in the open field. The earth, whose custom it is to cover the dead, was there itself covered with them, and those variously distinguished: for here lay heads that had lost their natural owners, and there bodies that lacked their heads: some had their bowels hanging out in most ghastly and pitiful fashion, and others had their heads cleft and their brains scattered: there one could see how lifeless bodies were deprived of their blood while the living were covered with the blood of others; here lay arms shot off, on which the fingers still moved, as if they would yet be fighting; and elsewhere rascals were in full flight that had shed no drop of blood: there lay severed legs, which though delivered from the burden of the body, yet were far heavier than they had been before: there could one see crippled soldiers begging for death, and on the contrary others beseeching quarter and the sparing of their lives. In a word, >twas naught but a miserable and pitiful sight. The Swedish conquerors drove our people from their position, which they had defended with such ill luck, and were scattered everywhere in pursuit. At which turn of things my provost, with us his prisoners, also took to flight, though we had deserved no enmity from the conquerors by reason of our resistance: but while the provost was threatening of us with death and so compelling us to go with him, young Herzbruder galloped up with five other horsemen and saluted him with a pistol and, ALookye, old dog,@ says he, Ais it the time now to breed young puppies? Now will I pay thee for thy pains.@

But the shot harmed the provost little as if it had struck an anvil. So ABeest thou of that kidney,= said Herzbruder, Ayet I will not have come to do thee a courtesy in vain: die thou must even if thy soul were grown into thy body.@ And with that he compelled a musqueteer of the provost=s own guard, if he would himself have quarter, to cut him down with an axe. And so that provost got his reward: but I being known by Herzbruder, he bade them free me from my fetters and bonds, set me on a horse, and charged his servant to bring me to a place of safety.

Chap. xxviii.: OF A GREAT BATTLE WHEREIN THE

CONQUEROR IS CAPTURED IN THE HOUR OF TRIUMPH

But even then, while my rescuer=s servant conveyed me out of danger, his own master was, by reason of his greed of honour and of gain, carried so far afield that he in his turn was taken prisoner. So when the conquerors were dividing of the spoil and burying their dead, and Herzbruder was a-missing, his captain received as his inheritance me with his servant and his horses: whereby I must submit to be ranked as a horse-boy, and in exchange for that received nought, save only these promises: namely, that if carried myself well and could grow a little older, he would mount me: that is, make a trooper of me: and with that I must be content.

But presently thereafter my captain was appointed lieutenant-colonel, and I discharged the same office for him that David did for Saul, for when we were in quarters I played the lute for him, and when we were on the march I must wear his cuirass after him, which was a sore burden to me; and although these arms were devised to protect their wearers against the buffets of the enemy, I found it the contrary, for mine own young which I hatched pursued me with the more security under the protection of those same arms: under the breastplate they had their free quarters, pastime, and playground, so that it seemed I wore the harness not for my protection but for theirs, for I could not reach them with my arms and could do no harm among them.** I busied myself with the planning of all manner of campaigns against them, to destroy this invincible Armada: yet had I neither the time nor opportunity to drive them out by fire, (as is done in ovens) nor by water, nor by poison B less had I the opportunity to drive them by a change of raiment or a clean shirt, but must carry them with me, and give them my body and blood to feed upon. And when they so tormented and bit me under the harness, I whipped out a pistol as if I would exchange shots with them: yet did only take out the ramrod and therewith drive them from their banquet. At last I discovered a plan, to wind a bit of fur round the ramrod and so make a pretty bird-lime for them: and when I could be at them under the harness with this louse-angler, I fished them out in dozens from their dens, and murdered them: but it availed me little.

Now it happened that my lieutenant-colonel was ordered to make an expedition into Westphalia with a strong detachment; and if he had been as strong in cavalry as I was in my private garrison he would have terrified the whole world: but as >twas not so he must needs go warily, and for that reason also hide in the Gemmer Mark (a wood so called between Soest and Ham). Now even then I had come to a crisis with my friends: for they tormented me so with their excavations that I feared they might effect a lodgment between flesh and skin. Let no man wonder that the Brasilians do devour their lice, for mere rage and revenge, because they so torment them. At last I could bear my torment no longer, but when the troopers were busy B some feeding, some sleeping, and some keeping guard B I crept a little aside under a tree to wage war with mine enemies: to that end I took off mine armour (though others be wont to put it on when they fight) and began such a killing and murdering that my two swords, which were my thumbnails, dripped with blood and hung full of dead bodies, or rather empty skins: and all such as I could not slay I banished forthwith, and suffered them to take their walks under that same tree.

Now whenever this encounter comes into my remembrance forthwith my skin doth prick me everywhere, as if I were but now in the midst of the battle. >Tis true I doubted for a while whether I should so revenge myself on mine own blood, and specially against such true servants that would suffer themselves to be hanged with me B yea, and broken on the wheel with me, and on whom, by reason of their numbers, I had often lain softly in the open air on the hardest of earth. But I went on so furiously in my tyrannical ways that I did not even mark how the Imperialists were at blows with my lieutenant-colonel, till at last they came to me, terrified my poor lice, and took me myself prisoner. Nor had they any respect for my manhood, by the power of which I had just before slain my thousands, and even surpassed the fame of the tailor that killed Aseven at a blow.@ I fell to the share of a dragoon,4 and the best booty he got from me was my lieutenant-colonel=s cuirass, and that he sold at a fair price to the commandant as Soest, where he was quartered. So he was in the course of this war my sixth master: for I must serve him as his foot-boy.

Chap. xxix.: HOW A NOTABLY PIOUS SOLDIER FARED

IN PARADISE, AND HOW THE HUNTSMAN FILLED HIS PLACE

Now unless our hostess had been content to have herself and her whole house possessed by my army, >twas certain she must be rid of them. And that she did, short and sharp, for she put my rags into the oven and burned them out as clean as an old tobacco-pipe, so that I lived again as >twere in a rose-garden freed from my vermin: yea, and none can believe how good it was for me to be free from that torment wherein I had sat for months as in an ant=s nest. But in recompense for that I had a new plague to encounter: namely, that my new master was one of those strange soldiers that do think to get to heaven: he was contented with his pay and never harmed a child. His whole fortune consisted in what he could earn by standing sentry and what he could save from his weekly pay; and that, poor as it was, he valued above all the pearls of the Orient: each sixpence he got he sewed into his breeches, and that he might have more of such sixpences I and his horse must starve: I must break my teeth upon dry Pumpernickel, and nourish myself with water, or at best with small beer, and that was a poor affair for me B inasmuch as my throat was raw from the dry black bread and my whole body wasted away. If I would eat I must needs steal, and even that of means be brought to book. As for him, gallows and torture, headsmen and their helpers B yea, and surgeons too B were but superfluous. Settlers and hawkers too must soon have beat a retreat from him: for his thoughts were far from eating and drinking, gaming and quarrelling: but when he was ordered out for a convoy or an expedition of any sort where pay was, there he would loiter and dawdle away his time. Yea, I believe truly if this good old dragoon had not possessed these soldierly virtues of loitering, he would never have got me: for in that case he would have followed my lieutenant-colonel at the double. I could count on no cast clothes from him: for he himself went in such rags as did beforetime my hermit in the woods. His whole harness and saddle were scarce worth three-halfpence, and his horse so staggering for hunger that neither Swede nor Hessian needed to fear his attack.

All these fair qualities did move his captain to send him to Paradise B which was a monastery so called B on protection-duty: not indeed as if he were of much avail for that purpose, but that he might grow fat and buy himself a new nag: and most of all because the nuns had asked for a pious and conscientious and peaceable fellow for their guard. And so he rode thither and I behind him: for he had but one horse: and AZounds;@ says he, ASimbrecht; (for he could never frame to pronounce my name aright) when we come to Paradise we will take our fill.@ And I answered him: AYes,@ said I, Athe name is a good omen: God grant it that the place be like its name!@ AYes, yes,@ says he, for he understood me not, Aif we can get two ohms of the good Westphalian beer every day we shall not fare ill. Look to thyself: for I will now have a fine new cloak made, and thou canst have the old one: >twill make a brave new coat for thee.@

Well might he call it the old one: for I believe it could well remember the Battle of Pavia,*** so weather-beaten and shabby was it: and with the giving of it he did me but little kindness.

Paradise we found as we would have it and still better: in place of angels we found fair maidens, who so entertained us with food and drink that presently I came again to my former fatness: the strongest beer we had, the best Westphalian hams and smoked sausages and savoury and delicate meat, boiled in salt water and eaten cold. There too I learned to spread black bread a finger thick with salt butter, and put cheese on that so that it might slip down better: and when I could have a knuckle of mutton garnished with garlic and a good tankard of beer beside it, then would I refresh body and soul and forget all my past sufferings. In a word, this Paradise pleased me as much as if it had been the true Paradise: no other care had I except that I knew >twould not always last, and I must fare forth again in my rags.

But even as misfortune ever came to me in abundance when it once began to pursue me, so now it seemed to me that good fortune would run it hard: for when my master would send me to Soest to fetch his baggage thence, I found on the road a pack, and in the same some ells of scarlet cloth cut for a cloak, and red silk also for the lining. That I took with me, and at Soest I exchanged it with a clothier for common green woollen cloth fit for a coat and trappings, with the condition he should make such a coat and provide me also with a new hat: and inasmuch as I grievously needed also a new pair of shoes and a shirt, I gave the huckster the silver buttons and the lace that belonged to the cloak, for which he procured for me all that I wanted, and turned me out brand-new. So I returned to Paradise to my master, who was mightily incensed that I had not brought my findings to him: yea, he talked of trouncings, and for a trifle, an he had not been shamed and had the coat fitted him, would have stript it off me for to wear it himself. But to my thinking I had done a good piece of trading.

But now must the miserly fellow be ashamed that his lad went better clothed than he: therefore, he rides to Soest, borrows money from his captain and equips himself in the finest style, with the promise to repay all out of his weekly protection-pay: and that he carefully did. He had indeed himself means to pay that and more also, but was too sly to touch his stores: for had he done that his malingering was at an end, wherein he hoped to abide softly that winter through, and some other naked fellow had been put in his place: but now the captain must perforce leave him where he lay, or he would not recover his money he had lent. Thenceforward we lived the laziest life in the world, wherein skittles was our chief exercise: when I had groomed my dragoon=s horse, fed and given him to drink, then I played the gentleman and went a-walking.

The convent was safeguarded also by our opponents the Hessians with a musqueteer from Lippstadt: the same was by trade a furrier, and for that reason not only a master-singer but also a first-rate fencer, and lest he should forget his art he daily exercised himself with me in all weapons, in which I became so expert that I was not afraid to challenge him whenever he would. My old dragoon, in place of fencing with him, would play at skittles, and that for no other wager but who should drink most beer at dinner: and so whoever lost the convent paid.

This convent had its own game-preserves and therefore its own huntsman, and inasmuch as I also was clad in green I joined myself to him, and from him in that autumn and winter I learned all his arts, and especially all that concerns catching of small game. For that cause, and because also the name Simplicissimus was somewhat uncommon and for the common folk easily forgotten or hard to pronounce, every one called me the Alittle huntsman@: and meanwhile I learned to know every way and path, and that knowledge I made good use of thereafter. But when by reason of ill weather I could not take my walks abroad in the wood, then I read all manner of books which the bailiff of the convent lent me. And so soon as the good nuns knew that, besides my good voice, I could also play a little on the lute and the harpsichord, then did they give more heed to me, and because there was added to these qualities a prettily proportioned body and a handsome face enough, therefore they deemed all my manners and customs, my doings and my ways, to be the ways of nobility: and so became I all unexpectedly a much-loved gentleman, of whom one could but wonder that he should serve so scurvy a dragoon.

But when I had spent the winter in the midst of such pleasures, my master was discharged: which vexed him so much (by reason of the good living he was to lose) that he fell sick, and inasmuch as that was aggravated by a violent fever (and likewise the old wounds that he had got in the wars in his lifetime helped the mischief), he had but short shrift, for in three weeks I had somewhat to bury, but this epitaph I wrote for him:

AOld Miserly lies here, a soldier brave and good,

Who all his lifetime through shed ne=er a drop of blood.@

1 Provost - the keeper of a prison. (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3^rd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1996.)

2 Judge-Advocate-General (JAG) - the chief legal officer of a branch of the U.S. armed forces. (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3^rd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1996.)

* He wrote the words down as he was told as if they meant the judge's mother. (Goodrick=s note)

3 Banér, Johan , 1596–1641, Swedish field marshal in the Thirty Years War. He served (1626–29) in Poland and Russia and accompanied (1630) Gustavus II of Sweden to Germany. At Gustavus's death (1632) and the major Swedish defeat at Nördlingen, he became the chief Swedish general in Germany. Banér reestablished Sweden's military prestige at Wittstock (1636), where he defeated the Saxon and imperial forces. After recovering (1638) Pomerania and Mecklenburg and winning (1639) a victory over the Saxons at Chemnitz, he penetrated (1639) into Bohemia but was forced to retreat. ("Banér, Johan." The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. © 1994, 2000, 2001, 2002 on Infoplease.com.© 2002 Learning Network. [15 Feb. 2002 http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/people/A0806031.html.])

** The cuirass would be well lined to prevent chafing. (Goodrick=s note)

4 dragoon - a heavily armed trooper in some European armies in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3^rd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1996.)

*** Some 120 years before. (Goodrick=s note)