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What on earth could these frightful sounds mean? Was it German or Magyar, or some other quite unknown tongue? Was it human speech at all? No, I decided at last: the words were approximations to German; it was just that they seemed to have been chosen at random by sticking a pin into the pages of a dictionary.
In theory, the language of command throughout the old Imperial and Royal Army was German. Even if less than a fifth of its men in fact spoke German as their native language, and even if most regiments conducted their internal business in the language of the majority of their men, every soldier of the Austro-Hungarian Army, no matter how illiterate or plain stupid, was supposed to learn at least a basic German military vocabulary: the famous Eighty Commands of the Habsburg Army. But in the purely Hungarian part of the Army—the Honved regiments from which Toth had transferred to the k.u.k. Fliegertruppe—the merest lip service was paid to German, and sometimes not that much. Even in the last years of the war there were cases of Hungarian full colonels who could barely understand German, let alone speak it. The Flying Service had been hurriedly put together from volunteers gathered from all nationalities of the Empire, so it was only to be expected that the standard of written and spoken German should often be very shaky. But even so, Toth’s German there that morning was in a class of its own for sheer incomprehensibility. In the end we had to exchange our formal courtesies through a young mechanic who came from the Burgenland, east of Vie
That evening in the mess I had my first real opportunity to talk with my brother-officers in Flik 19F; all, that is, except for Hauptma
The other old greybeard in the mess was Oberleutnant Schraffl, my tent-mate. He had been a professional officer before the war, in one of the crack Kaiserjager regiments, and his route into the Fliegertruppe had been that followed by a great many other flying officers in those years: that is to say, he had been too severely wounded to be able to serve any longer in the infantry, but was still able to hobble out to an aeroplane and climb into it. In his case he had been shot through the knee at Przemysl in 1914, and then bayoneted for good measure by a passing Russian as he lay in a shell hole. An aluminium kneecap allowed his leg to bend (more or less), but he had to walk everywhere with a stick and needed a mechanic to help him into his seat. I must say that I got to know him very little. He was a rather reserved man; and in any case, there would not be the time.
The other three officers—Leutnants Barinkai and Szuborits and Fahnrich Teltzel—were extremely young: none of them more than twenty and straight out of gymnasium into the Army. I must say that I found them rather tiresome; not least because only Barinkai (who was a Hungarian) knew any language other than German. Relations were cordial enough I suppose, but these young men lacked tact, I felt, and had a disturbing tendency to admire everything German while disdaining the empire whose badge they wore. I had been a Habsburg career officer for sixteen years, but never in all that time until now had I ever heard it suggested in any gathering of officers at which I had been present that a Czech or a Pole or an Italian was any less loyal a soldier of the House of Austria than an ethnic German or a Magyar. Now I heard it all the time: allusions to the Czech regiments which had gone over to the Russians on the Eastern Front and the stories that the Heir-Apparent’s Italian wife Zita was in secret contact with the Allies. On occasions I even suspected that these young sprigs were mimicking my Czech accent. But I supposed that perhaps I was growing sensitive on the point.
I made all my preparations that afternoon for the next morning’s photographic mission to Palmanova: checked my maps, compass, pistol and so forth and drew my suit of leather flying overalls from stores—noting with some dismay as I did so that the breast of the jacket bore three none too discreetly patched bullet holes and that the lining was still stained profusely with blood. Then I had set off for a conference with my pilot, to discuss the route and our plans for tomorrow, even though I might have to use the young ground crewman as an interpreter. I was met on the way by Hauptma
“Ah, Prohaska, where are you going if I might enquire?”
I was tempted to tell him to mind his own business—he and I were after all equivalent in rank, while I had several years’ seniority. But he was the commanding officer, so I remained courteous.
“To speak with Feldpilot Toth, Herr Kommandant.”
“With Toth? About what, might I ask?”
I was becoming rather irritated by this obtuseness, but I managed to contain myself. “About the flight tomorrow, Herr Kommandant.”
“The flight, Herr Leutnant?” He looked puzzled. Was the man deliberately trying to a
“The flight, Herr Kommandant: the flight over Palmanova tomorrow morning to take photographs for Army HQ. Surely you remember.”
“Oh yes, of course, that flight. But why should you wish to discuss it with Toth, for goodness’ sake?”
“I obediently report, Herr Kommandant, that Zugsfuhrer Toth is to fly me there and back tomorrow. I wished to outline to him the purpose of the mission, to show him the route we might take and to ask for his views on it.”
He paused for some time and looked at me in bewilderment. “Herr Leutnant,” he said at last, “Herr Leutnant, do my ears deceive me or are you seriously suggesting that you, an Austrian officer, should discuss your plans with a ranker? ”
“Why of course, Herr Kommandant: it seemed to me the merest common sense to tell the man what we are setting out to do and work out with him the best way of doing it. After all, I am not just a newcomer to the Fliegertruppe but to the South-West Front as well. Toth has been here several months I believe and has crossed the Italian lines on numerous occasions, so he should know better than most people what the hazards are and the best way around them.”
“Herr Linienschiffsleutnant” (he always used the cumbersome full form of my rank when he wished to a