The San Sebastian Chronicles, Part VII
Sebastiano Ethnology, the Nature of Oppression, a Failed Attempt, an Explication of the Various & Sundry Elite Units of the San Sebastian Army, and a Firm Demand.
When I saw Johnny I could see from his face that he’d already heard about the order, as I just had.
“Well, you should see how oppressive the Italians are!” I offered with a game smile.
I was trying to head him off, Johnny, the American volunteer. Replete with dudgeon as was his humor upon learning that we Sebastianos were in no need of liberation by him or his partiziani, he was in receipt of an outright surfeit of umbrage upon hearing that the nation he’d volunteered to rescue, San Sebastian, had switched sides in the Grand War. I hoped we could convince him to stay with us; his face made me doubtful.
(Continued from…)
“Most oppressive, the Italians. The worst!” my corporal, Desotto, agreed.
Johnny steamed.
At first we all were disbelieving. The order, now the “Order,” had, a bit before, been read aloud three times by the telegraphist, then by his superior. Not wishing to impose his own gloss on the Order — which we all agreed raised further questions at a minimum if it did not actually itself contain some clear vagaries — the on-duty commandant eventually decided to post the Order on the door for all to see. Questions regarding the Order were referred to our respective commanding officers. Questions regarding the Luterano gesture of the commandant’s in allowing the Order — nailed to the door no less! — to be interpreted by all passers by sola scriptura rather than having it duly transmitted by the magisterium of the officer corps of Die Gran Königliches Esercito des San Sebastian, were referred to Fr. Koblenza, S.J., regimental chaplain-in-residence.
“Yes, they make the Austro-Hungarians look like a clutch of Hospitallers! Fatebenefratelli!” I put forth as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Johnny was dubious to put it with delicacy.
After a decaminute or two, those assembled had agreed that we, the Vice-Margravial Regency of San Sebastian, would be switching sides in this war. Apparently the other combatants involved in this continental conflagration had already done so. What that meant and entailed exactly was tabled for later decision, the Order providing as it did for its implementation not until the end of the week, time thus being not of the essence for its being. But, as I mentioned, umbrage had already been delivered and accepted by Johnny and several of the other volunteers, who had gathered themselves nearby in what could only be described as a pre-mutinous scrabble, inchoate yet incipient in its potentially violent insubordination.
We had pulled Johnny aside to try to allay his concerns before he could even start. He would not have it for long.
“It’s a bad enough I get here and find out you Sebastianos don’t even need liberationfromanyone! But then now I find out you’ll are joining the Austro-Hungariansweallthoughtyouneededliberationfrom!” Johnny took a breath, “I’m going to have to think about all this. I don’t even have the money togetbackhome. Maybe my uncle can send me some ducats or marks or whatever you use here.”
“Koroni. That is our currency… for the most part.”
It was clear that in his focus on the changing of sides Johnny had perhaps skipped over the end of the Order, which provided that all international volunteers had now been conscripted into the San Sebastian army, by force if necessary. Johnny’s focus on only the first part of the order was understandable considering that the Order had been read aloud only in Sebastianese, which was Greek to Johnny (though it was more similar to Lithuanian, linguistically), and he only picked up bits of the chatter about it from the Sebastiano soldiers, some of whom spoke some English, and they of course were more concerned with the issue of sides than with the issue of the volunteers, of whom there were only a dozen or so, at least in our zone. We would let Johnny’s ignorance remain for now.
“You will see, though, about the Italians,” Desotto nodded helpfully.
“The Italians? Are you just a bunch of mountain Italians yourselves? Like Scottish highlanders or something?!”
Desotto snapped his head away in a grimace as if he had just come upon a nasty oxcart accident.
“Italians?!” I laughed and exclaimed. “Oh no, Johnny, not Italians. We are descended from the last great Etruscan tribe, unbowed even to the Romans! Fight them to a standstill we did, in these very Alpine valleys lo’ those eons ago. Since then we have kept to ourselves. So no, we are not Italians. Although you may find some among us who have some cause to think our people are of Germanic origin, or Helvetian — ”
“That is Swiss,” Desotto pointed out.
“Or possibly Romansch — ”
“Or Friulian.”
“Or even Ladin — ”
“But not gypsy.”
“No. Not them, no… Em, some others among us may believe we are related more closely to the Gauls, or the Celts — ”
“Or even the Basques!”
“A remote possibility, yes, even that we are a lost bastion of Basques — ”
“Possibly Slovenians.”
“Well, I suppose that is possible too, as it is possible that the Pope does his own laundry. But my point, Johnny, is that though you may find some among us who believe we may have descended from those other races, most of us — ”
“A plurality at any rate.”
“More of us than not! More of us than not understand and believe from the latest science and evidence, not to mention our own traditions and histories, that we are the last descendants of the Mother People, the Etruscans! And none of us — well, an exceedingly small minority at any rate, Desotto— would ever consider us to be Italians in any way shape or form.”
“Excepting some intermarriages now, between Sebastianos and Italians…in the lower valleys. Just in the most recent times.”
“Fair enough, Desotto. Historically then. But that is enough out of you nevertheless.”
I put my hand on Johnny’s shoulder. I did not want to lose this strong soldier, whether to his return to his home in America or to his death on the post by a volley from a squad of Arquebusiers, nor did I want to see him chased down like an old stag by a detachment of manhunters from the Javelin Korps, the Guardia Regent, or the Halberdiers.
I continued, “My point, Johnny, is that you volunteered to help San Sebastian and us Sebastianos, yes?”
“Well…well, yes, but — ”
“Though you found we were not oppressed, as you thought.”
“True.”
“And so you reasoned that least you would be fighting the Austro-Hungarians…the ‘bad guys,’ yes?”
“Well, exactly, yes — ”
“And now, perhaps you will fight the Italians.”
“But that’s just it! I don’t have any quarrel with the Italians!”
“Fine, but Austro-Hungarians or Italians, you will still fight with San Sebastian! Is that not so?”
“Maybe not. That’s what I’m sayin’.”
“But you could, Johnny. You could fight with us! And perhaps we’re not oppressed as you thought, but we are a small country. The Austro-Hungarians are a large country — though a poor polyglot lot of non-Etruscans — and they have killed us by the dozen with the mortars and balloon bombs and unsportsmanlike snipers. And with this new order, the Italians — the wealthy Lombards and Piedmontese and their Calabrian cannon fodder — will do the same from our now totally undefended underbelly in the south. In fact, once the Italians get word we have switched sides, they will no doubt march up here by their thousands and kill us all!”
Johnny was silent now.
“And then we will need liberation, Johnny. Then we will be oppressed!”
“Yeah — ”
“So what will it be, Johnny? Shall you join us, the proud Etruscan nation of San Sebastiano, fighting valiantly for the tiny freedom of our Blefuscudian state and the low taxes and banking-secrecy laws that she stands for? Or will you join the Austro-Hungarians out of spite for our having merely played the game of nations in this duplicitous meaningless war? Or will you join the Italians?! The opportunists! The liers-in-wait! The Italians who will come up here — through our beckoning, easily traversed, and spottily garrisoned southern border — and take advantage of our strong, herbal liqueurs and drink our splendid, hard-calved Etruscan mountain-women? Will you fight with them Johnny? Those drunken, garlic infused, Roman louts?!”
Johnny paused, “No, I mean, I’ll just go home iswhatIwasthinking.”
“Shall you think it over? Do that for me, at least. You came here to fight, yes? So the cause has changed; it has done so only nominally. You can still fight for San Sebastian! For us Sebastianos! For me! For Desotto!” I pulled him in, “Johnny, if you came to a party expecting beer and they had only champagne, would you flee at the fraud?”
“Well, no.”
“Good, Johnny!”
“I need to sleep on this, sergeant.”
“Yes, I think we all do. Good man. Sleep on it, and we will talk more in the morning.”
I patted Johnny on the back. Desotto gave him a pack of Turkish cigarettes and squeezed both his shoulders. Desotto and I decided we had had enough of this war for the day and resolved to forgo dinner in the mess hall. Instead, I would walk to the village and hire a car to take me home for the evening, and Desotto would walk to his brother’s farm nearby. After a dinner with our families, we would return in the morning to talk things over with Johnny, and to reckon how exactly the war would go from here in terms of the issue of “sides” (not to mention the disciplinary ripples certain to follow in the wake of Nuzzo’s and Gabler’s unresolved embroilment regarding their gargantuan shadow-Wichser).
Just then a mortar exploded near the trench, sending us scattering and raining clumps of sod upon us, befouling anyone’s open tea or schnapps. Undercorporal’s Mate Brunendti, who had been stupidly sitting on top of the trench eating a pancebitstzhen, had his neck split down the middle by a piece of brass shrapnel which lodged itself just on the top of the berm on the antipodal side of the trench. He toppled over at once, dead, and divesting himself of a quite consequential amount of blood in the course of it.
“Unsportsmanlike Austrian cowshits!” I shouted as Desotto and I made our way.
Some on-duty soldati responded to this assault by investing some fire toward the Austrians with a machine gun and the hurling of some grenades in that same direction.
“Don’t aim for the Liechtensteiners, men!” I shouted.
Desotto remarked to me as we reached a wider, transverse trench that would take us back toward the village, “Don’t they know we’re soon to change sides?!”
“Not until the end of the week, though.”
“Yes, but I thought we were switching to their side once they switch sides.”
“So just back to their side?”
“Perhaps with a different name for the side, but yes.”
“A nominal switching, yes, I see. Perhaps tomorrow we can sort that out with the Captain.”
Another mortar shell fell nearby, turning yet another hay bale into some embers and smaller piles of hay. Relentless bastards, the Austrians. The cows would chew through it all in one night now, the gluttons. We shook our heads, and after signing out on the log book we consummated our skedaddlement.
The next morning was a fine one indeed. I could see the sun climbing behind the eastern peaks, and though the valley was still encased in deep shadow we could apprehend the bright azure sky of the coming late-May day. A hint of warmth was just starting to tint the morning breeze and only the faintest smell of metallic smoke tainted it. A yellow-billed chough had come down from the summits and was snacking on some grass seeds before me as I strolled down the neat gravel path toward the entrance to the trench lattice. Spittings of machine gun fire were being half-heartedly hurled over the Austrians’ heads from a pillbox in the trench ahead. I puffed my pipe contentedly.
I then encountered a structure new to me, erected over the night. It was little more than four wooden posts arranged in a quadrilateral fashion with about twenty longsteps between each of them. A crude gate decorated one side, chained and locked. Connecting the posts was a dense filigree of wire, much of it barbed. Inside this impregnable yard were several tents on the grass. A small guard’s hut had been thrown up next to it, outside the wire along my gravel path. There I saw an Obersergenti I recognized.
“Bincento! What is this then?”
“Prisoners.”
“Austrians?”
“No, the volunteers. Some of them at any rate. They were found near the train station, planning to make their escape to Venice. There was some shooting. Most of them were captured — a detachment of Les Arbalestiers had been stationed at the depot and caught them — some escaped, I’m afraid. Quite possibly in Venice by coffee or Milan by dinner and then gone. Unless the Javeliners catch them first.
“Well, that is quite a thing. Any killed?” I puffed my pipe. I looked over Bincento’s shoulder for Johnny. It would be a shame if Johnny had been shot by one of the Arbalestier detachment.
I should point out that this above-mentioned unit of the San Sebastian Army, Les Arbaslestiers, were not literally armed with arbalests. They had been. Up to only a few decades before, in fact. Now, though, the title was an honorary one for an elite company of Sebastiano riflemen. They were armed with the latest Mondragon self-loading rifles, but had many fine, ancient arbalests on display at their headquarters.
Likewise, the Halberdiers did not carry halberds (except during certain state ceremonies) but Carcanos, the Arquebusiers did not shoot arquebuses (they used Mannlichers), and none of the San Sebastian soldiery lugged around gastrapheteses. However, that ancient crossbow-like weapon, the gastraphetes, played a large part in the victory by the Sebastianos’ progenitors, the mountain-dwelling remnants of the Etruscans, over the Romans at the Battle of Canacèii Pass in primeval times. So for that reason, the weapon was remembered in the name of the elite artillery company in the San Sebastian army, Il Gastrephetesos, who manned not only regular artillery pieces but also specialized cliff guns that hung over the precipizia using massive counterweights and could shoot straight down if necessary (on their persons, the Gastrephetesos were armed with Berthiers, for the most part).
On the other hand, the members of the Javelin Korps (the Javeliners or, to some, the Javelini) did carry javelins (though also Mauser pistols as a close-quarters backup). Perhaps surprisingly, given adequate training by its thrower the javelin remained quite an effective weapon in modern mountain-warfare. This was largely for the simple reason that no one expected to be hit with a javelin anymore (as is made obvious by the abandonment of personal armor in European armies several hundred years ago). As for the little armor that remained on soldiers in the Grand War, javelins would go straight through any helmet, such momentum as they carried when thrown by a strong Sebastiano, especially when weighted with lead and thrown down from much height.
So they were worth keeping around, javelins, especially for the cliff-based warfare which was common on the San Sebastian front. Nothing is as quick to demoralize a modern infantry unit as half their comrades being impaled by dozens of six-foot javelins raining down from the cliffs above them. For even when one is facing down machine guns, howitzers, balloon bombs, mustard gas, and all the mad, myriad and most modern methods and manner of mass murder and multitudinous mayhem, to see one’s comrades in arms be killed by the indignity of a simple sharp stick carries with it an amaranthine effect of dispiritment, as San Sebastian’s early-medieval adversaries, the Ostrogoths and the Lombards, had attested to in their timeworn medical illustrations.
Now, to return to the prisoners.
“No. None killed,” Bincento continued, “those that didn’t get away into the night surrendered once they were surrounded.”
“Surrendered?! Well maybe we don’t want them after all!” I chuckled.
“We won’t have them. They’re all due to be shot by the end of the week for desertion and mutiny.”
“Oh, I see,” I winced. “Was, em, that American among the captured? You know the one,” I squinted.
At this, a lumbering body emerged from a tent inside the fenced yard that seemed far too small for it. My eyes widened at the sight.
“Johnny! Good man! Hello!”
I waved. He did not reciprocate.
“Sergente,” he stormed over to the fence, stamping his boots. “Just what in the damn fool hell is this?! First, Gus back here,” he thumbed toward a tent behind him, “says we’re all damn drafted intoyerguys’damnarmy! Which I damn sure as hell didn’tsignupferonebit. So we decide to get the damn shit hell out of this place. Then we get damn ambushed and shanghai’d by a bunch of damn fool hell lookin’ fellas in balloon-looking clown pants and fool hell keehotay armor and rifles atthetrainstation. We try to leave and we end up in a damn gunfight! And they finally take us only ’cause we didn’t bring just a whole hell o’a lotta munitions plannin’ as we were to be the hell out ofthistinycountryinaboutanhourandahalftops. So now we’re here in this this here brig! And now I hear we’s about to get shot fordesertionandsoforth?! Well that just ain’t right! We ain’t in this damn army, and so we damn sure didn’t desert from it. And we ain’t even had a trial ornothin’else!
“Now what the hell, sergente?! I thought we were makin’ friends even and now this? You better get me outta here or I got half a mind to wring somebody’s damn neck. And also, while we’re at it, one of the fellas that gotta away is headin’ straight to the United States embassy er consulate or whatever you’ll got in your capital and if not there in Venice or wherever he has to go. So we’re about to have ourselves a diplomatic incident into the bargain ’cause we damn sure aren’t in this war, us Yankees.”
With that, he stamped his boot and crossed his arms and stared at me most crossly. I hadn’t seen the American’s temper before. I was sure were it not for the barbed wire between us he might very well have kicked me across a pasture, ass first.
This was a real cowshit. And on top of it, I was late to confession. But first, of course, some coffee.
Continued…
