CHAPTER XIThe German Soldier
“The enemies of our military system,” said an examining officer, “say that a standing army is a great misfortune. Can you tell me of a still greater one?”
“One that is running away,” was the quick rejoinder.
A soldier who was supposed to stand guard at the entrance of a public building, had sat down on a large stone in front of it. An officer, in passing, asked him angrily: “What are you doing?”
“I am sitting here standing guard.”
Lieutenant:—“What should every true soldier have?”
Recruit:—“Three sweethearts—a cook, a barmaid, and a laundress.”
Colonel:—“I do not see, Lieutenant, what there is to laugh at, in the serious words I am addressing to you.”
Lieutenant (who has noticed that all the other officers present are watching him):—“If the Colonel will pardon me I will tell him. If I make a sober face, my comrades present will think I am being hauled over the coals; but seeing me smile, they will think you are inviting me to your dinner-party to-night.”
“You, fellow!” called a Sergeant to a recruit, “you are not paying attention! What is your head for?”
“That my necktie can’t slip off.”
Colonel:—“I am sorry to have to tell you, but the Sergeant has lodged a complaint against you. You called him an ass.”
Captain of the Horse:—“Pardon me, Colonel; I am sometimes a little rough. I am really sorry to have used the expression, but I should never have thought that the man was such an ass as to be offended.”
Corporal:—“Captain, I have to report that three men are missing.”
Captain:—“Why, how is that?”
Corporal:—“There are three sausages too many.”
“Will you not sit down by me, Lieutenant?”
“Thank you very much, madam, but I belong to the standing army.”
“Why John, what a stupid action this is,” said a Captain of the Horse, to his servant. “You have brought me a pair of boots that do not match. One has a high top and the other a low one.”
“I have been wondering about that myself, and I don’t understand it,” said the man, “but the most curious part of it is, that on the shoe-box stands another pair just like this one.”
An officer fell from his horse in a public square. A Jew standing near said: “This would never have happened to me, sir!”
“What, Jew, are you a better rider than I?”
“Not that,” replied the Jew, “but I should never have mounted the horse.”
Sergeant (to a recruit):—“You idiot, you are so stupid that Schwarz could not have invented the gunpowder, if you had been within forty miles of him.”
An intoxicated soldier, who was quarreling with his Corporal finally said:
“You just keep quiet; you are no man.”
“I’ll show you,” retorted the Corporal, drawing his sabre.
“You can’t do it,” returned the other; “does not the Captain always say, when he orders out the guard: ‘for this post, six men and a corporal’? Do you see now that a Corporal isn’t called a man?”
Captain:—“To-day is Sunday, so I won’t swear; but to-morrow, you may all go to thunder!”
A recruit stood sentry for the first time. At first he walked quietly up and down before the sentry-box. After a while he grew tired, stood still before it, looked it all over and shaking his head exclaimed: “I wonder what they see in this old box that I must stand here and guard it!”
A squadron of cavalry was drilling for a review, which was to be held shortly. The Prince, riding past, looked on. An attack was executed which closed with a jump across a ditch. One rider fell with his horse and rolled into the ditch. The Prince rode up, asked the man if he was hurt, gave him a ten mark piece, and rode slowly away.
“Sergeant,” called the Captain, “give that fellow three days in the guard-house!”
Hearing this, the Prince rode up to the Captain and said:
“Could not you let the poor devil off for once?”
“Your Highness,” returned the Captain frankly, “if you give to every soldier who falls, a ten mark piece, my whole squadron will be in the ditch to-morrow.”
Officer’s servant:—“Excuse me, sir; have you an advertisement in the paper, that on account of sickness a horse will be sold?”
Gentleman:—“I have.”
Servant:—“Then my Captain wishes to know whether the gentleman is sick or the horse?”
Captain (noticing that after his command “stand still” two soldiers are whispering):—“When I, your Captain, command, ‘stand still,’ the angels in heaven listen; but you, you lobsters, can’t keep your tongues still.”
Captain of the horse (discovering two straws on the race-track):—“Lieutenant A., who ordered a hurdle-race for to-day?”
1st Lieutenant:—“Comrade, I am a happy mortal. Engaged to be married. Loveliest girl,—an angel I tell you. Marry for love—upon honor!”
2d Lieutenant:—“Has she money?”
1st Lieutenant:—“What a stupid question!”
Lieutenant (to his orderly):—“You idiot, what are you thinking of, to clean my drinking cup with a handkerchief?”
Servant:—“Beg your pardon, sir, but it is my own.”
“Pray, tell me, Captain, why you are staring so hard at my plate?”
“I am admiring that ice, Fräulein, that can keep so cold in view of your charms.”
“Have not seen you for a long time, Count. Been on leave?”
“Oh, yes,—been two weeks in Potsdam. Aunt died suddenly.”
“Well, well,—congratulations. Inherit anything?”
“Not I; the old aunt left everything to charitable institutions. Stupid idea! As if a German Officer of the Guard was not a charitable institution, too!”
Sergeant (instructing):—“Who commands a battalion?”
(Soldier is silent. Behind him some one whispering.)
Sergeant:—“What blockhead is whispering to you?”
Soldier:—“The Major.”
“Where is the sausage that you were to bring every evening?”
“Excuse me, Lieutenant; I ate it myself.”
“What! how dare you?”
“Well, you see, sir, coming back with it, I met a comrade, and he asked me to whom the sausage belonged, and I said, of course, ‘To my master.’
“‘What,’ said he, sneeringly, ‘does your master eat only a sausage for supper? What a shame!’ So I told him you bought it for me, and ate it up right before him and so took the shame upon myself.”
Lieutenant (to recruit):—“How should a soldier act before the enemy?”
Recruit:—“That depends entirely upon how the enemy acts!”
Major’s Wife (stout and elderly):—“Lieutenant von Schwenker is a charming man. At every ball he comes to me and begs for the first dance.”
Colonel:—“He is all right; he is a brave fellow, that Lieutenant; he always does the disagreeable duties first.”
A general who had the misfortune to lose several battles, received as a New Year’s present a box containing a drum on which was written: “Not good for anything but to be beaten.”
Lieutenant:—“You idiot; you have brought me a single ticket instead of a return ticket!”
Servant:—“But sir, there was such a crowd at the ticket-office, that I was glad to get this one.”
Youthful Prince (as guest at a drill, sees the Colonel lead his regiment in a poorly executed attack):—“General, that regiment I suppose is lost?”
General:—“The regiment is not, your Highness, but the Colonel is!”
“George, you must always knock at the door before you enter a room, and then wait until some one calls ‘come in,’” said the Major’s wife to a new servant. While the Major and his wife are at dinner, George puts his head through a crack in the door, but draws it back quickly, closes the door, and knocks. His astonished mistress calls: “Come in!... George, did you not understand? I told you to knock first, and then wait until some one calls ‘come in.’ Instead of doing that, you looked first into the room. What did you mean by that?”
“I understood you all right, but I had to look in first to see if any one was in the room to call ‘come in.’”
Corporal:—“Recruit Neier, how many more times must I tell you to hold your head up! What makes you look at the grass all the time; haven’t you had your breakfast yet?”
Major (narrating):—“But when, on the thirteenth of October, the battle of Leipzig was fought——”
Lieutenant:—“Excuse me, Major; that was on the eighteenth.”
Major:—“Young man, do you think you know it better than I? I tell you it was on the thirteenth.”
Lieutenant:—“I do know it was not, for only lately I read the history of the battle by a famous historian.”
Major:—“Don’t talk to me about any of your scribblers. I—your Major—tell you it was on the thirteenth.”
Lieutenant:—“Pardon me, Major, if I doubt it in spite of that.”
Major (boiling with rage):—“Very well, Lieutenant, then I tell youofficially, that it was on the thirteenth.”
Lieutenant:—“Very well, Major, then itwason the thirteenth.”
The Lieutenant wishes to give to a reporting soldier a cigar, and opens a fresh box.
Soldier:—“Oh don’t trouble about opening the box, sir; I can do that at home.”
Captain:—“John, go up-stairs and ask my wife to give you my field-flask; but don’t you drink out of it. I believe there is poison in it.”
John (in the Captain’s rooms):—“Will the gracious Frau kindly give me the Captain’s field-flask?”
Captain’s Wife:—“Which is the one he wants? There are several hanging here.”
John:—“The one which the Captain believes has poison in it.”
Sergeant:—“A sentry may not leave his post under any circumstances. Recruit Huber, what would you do if you stood guard at the powder magazine, and there should be an explosion and the whole thing flew into the air?”
Huber:—“Fly with it.”
“Marie, why did you make the potato dumplings so dreadfully large?”
“Well, you know, madam, that my sweetheart is in the Artillery, and he is used to this size.”
Captain of the Cavalry (playing a duet):—“But my dear lady, you are again a nose-length ahead of me!”
Lady:—“Please, Captain, play my accompaniment on the piano.”
Captain:—“With great pleasure! I’ll follow you through thick and thin on that piano.”
Sergeant (at instruction):—“Muller, what is horizontal?”
Soldier:—“If from the centre of the earth——”
Sergeant:—“Never you mind the centre of the earth; I asked you what horizontal is.”
Soldier:—“Every plain——”
Sergeant:—“Oh pshaw! Now listen! four equally high feet, a couple of boards across them—that’s horizontal.”
“May I offer you some dessert, Lieutenant?”
“Thank you—but a Lieutenant never deserts!”
Corporal (to his men, with whose drilling the Colonel has just found fault):—“I tell you this much, you fellows, if you don’t do any better, we shall drill the whole day, have field practice at night, bivouac afterwards, without fire, without straw, without cooking, and with the thermometer ten degrees below zero.”
A voice from the ranks:—“Why don’t you let it rain too!”
Ten minutes after taps:—“Oh say! don’t run so hard. We’ll get there early enough to be—too late.”
Lieutenant:—“I saw you running after a girl last night. It was after ten o’clock, and she was a homely, old piece at that. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
Soldier:—“Your pardon, Lieutenant, but—I was ordered to take—the Colonel’s wife home from the theatre.”
Sergeant (to a recruit):—“You big num-skull, you are more stupid than a piece of wood!That, at any rate can swim, and that is a good deal more than you can do!”
In the barrack yard of a garrison stood a lot of pear trees. The pears were ripe and a squad of soldiers under the supervision of Sergeant Schulze, is ordered to gather them. Punctually at the appointed hour the men arrive, and, shortly after, have disappeared among the branches of the trees to begin their task. Sergeant Schulze soon notices that more pears go into the men’s pockets than into the baskets. However he says nothing and looks on smilingly. As soon as all the fruit is gathered, he orders the men to the horizontal bars standing in the yard, whereupon there is a great shower of pears from the men’s pockets.
Captain:—“What were the results of your target-practice?”
Sergeant:—“Good, Captain; my men would have shot better if the target had stood a little more to the right.”
Corporal:—“Goodness me! that fellow wabbles around on his horse, like a poet on Pegasus!”
“There is that fellow fallen off again! That is about the tenth time to-day!”
“Corporal, I believe that horse has a grudge against me.”
Recruit (lying on the ground):—“Captain, I won’t sit that horse again; he is too uppish. Just see him look down on me!”
Captain:—“What in the name of common sense, is the matter with this punch? It tastes abominable! Schaffer, what kind of water did you use when you made it?”
Schaffer:—“It was quite fresh from the village, sir, but as you said you did not need it for an hour and it was boiling, I cooked the sausages in it.”
Lieutenant:—“Mayer, suppose you are standingsentry, and an officer, wearing his cloak comes along, you cannot tell whether it is a General or a Captain; what salute would you make?”
Mayer:—“If he looks pleasant I would ‘shoulder arms,’ but if he looks gruff, I had better ‘present arms.’”
Sergeant:—“Recruit Berger, you were ten minutes late again last night; where were you?”
Berger:—“I—I—was with my sweetheart, and she lives so far away—that——”
Sergeant:—“How many times must you fellows be told that discipline does not bother with love affairs! If you must fall in love, do it near the barracks.”
Sergeant:—“Why must a soldier never lose his head?”
Recruit:—“Because—because—he could never put his helmet on again.”
A recruit, who was standing guard one night near an observatory, was staring thoughtlessly at the sky and up at the tower. Suddenly somebodyappeared on the observatory, and, as the recruit thought, pointed with a long gun into the night. “Now I should just like to know what that man up there wants to shoot in the dark,” he said to himself, while his eyes followed the direction of the telescope. All at once a star fell. The gun dropped from the astonished recruit’s hand as he cried: “Well, I’ll be jiggered; he hit it!”
General:—“Were you at my house?”
Adjutant:—“Yes, sir; your gracious wife is at home, and Lieutenant von Schneidewitz is there.”
General:—“Again? Have an alarm sounded at once.”