nvs1408: переводы

→“Well,” I said, “this is how it all ends. We have risked our lives for Old Austria, fighting a lost war for a fatherland that has crumbled away behind us. We offered everything; and on several occasions we nearly gave it. Yet at the end all we have to show for it is defeat. But always remember this: that we lived and fought together, sailors from eleven different nationalities, and that we can still say when we are old men that we fought together for … for the only fatherland worth fighting for; for one another, aboard this boat of ours. Nothing can ever take that away from us. Go now and take up your lives again. For my part I promise you that if I live to be a hundred I shall never forget any of you. That is all I have to say.” I turned to Grigorovic, standing behind me on the conning tower—and saw to my surprise that tears were in his eyes. “Grigorovic, lower the ensign.”

→“Between ourselves, though,” he confided, “I would advise you and your remaining men to get away from here while the going’s good. The French are preparing to land here, and since we’re now supposed to be their allies there isn’t a great deal that we can do to stop them. If they arrive I imagine that they’ll simply round up all remaining Austrian personnel as prisoners of war.” I thanked him for his advice, but requested that once we had packed our belongings I should be allowed to make a brief address to my ex-crew. He agreed, so a quarter of an hour later I was standing on the conning tower of U26 with the men gathered on the quayside below me, kitbags at their feet. There were thirteen of us in all, the five sick men having been transferred to a hospital ship with Feinstein, who had volunteered to remain behind and look after them. I intended to keep my remarks brief: I was never much of an orator, and anyway time was pressing.

→He smiled benignly. “I know of no such person. I am Captain Anté Brkovec of the Yugoslav Navy. But more to the point, Lieutenant, I have come to request the surrender of your submarine to the authority of the South Slav National Council in Agr … sorry, Zagreb. I assume that you have seen the notice.” I agreed that I had seen the notice, so in the end I consented to hand over U26 and its South Slav crew members—six in all—in return for a signed receipt made out on the back of a blank leave pass. As we walked down to the boat Brokwitz/Brkovec informed me that Admiral Horthy’s order to dissolve the Imperial and Royal Fleet had been given on 31 October, but had not reached Cattaro until two days later. The warship crews were now being landed at Zelenika to make their way home as best they could.

→The matter was resolved by the building’s door-keeper, who came out and evidently gave them a good telling-off. They milled about for a while, then merged, and dispersed with every sign of amity. Such was the Viennese “revolution” of November 1918. I thought grimly to myself that whatever else, Vienna remained Vienna: nothing ever done in earnest either for good or for bad. Then I turned back to the task in hand.

→Then something caught my eye. It was at the corner of the street, where it met the Franz Josefs Kai. There was a large government building there, with its entrance right at the angle where the two streets met. Two bands of armed men were making their way towards it from opposite streets—invisible to one another, but both visible to me. I saw that one group wore red armbands; both were obviously intent on capturing the building. I paused to watch as the two gangs bumped into one another on the corner, recoiled like two cats, then stood staring awkwardly at one another, wondering what to do next.

→A fine drizzle was falling, stippling the eddying, rat-coloured waters of the Danube Canal. The current was strong now from the autumn rains, and anyway, people would be too preoccupied with their own miseries to notice my departure. I had faced that last gulp of water too many times over the past four years for it to frighten me now. I prepared to clamber up on to the parapet.

→The Volkswehr guards had taken my pistol when they searched me, otherwise I would not be speaking to you now. There I was: a refugee from a lost war, homeless, bereft of my life’s career, a servant of a fallen dynasty—and now a widower as well. All I had left to live for was a baby son, whom I had seen only once. What did he need me for now? I knew that my cousin and her husband in Poland would bring him up as one of their own children. No, Prohaska, I thought; better make a clean end of it now, like some servant of an oriental despot drinking poison at his master’s funeral. I looked around. The road had been dug up in front of the Urania. I selected two granite paving blocks, placed one in each pocket of my tunic, then walked on to the bridge.

→I have no recollection whatever of how I came to be standing at the end of the Ringstrasse by the Aspern Bridge. It must have been about midday I suppose. My head felt as if it were being crushed in a steel tourniquet. It was like waking up from the most ghastly nightmare imaginable—and then realising that it is all true. I must have wandered through the streets like a sleep-walker, jostled by passers-by, until a lorry nearly ran me over. But however I had got here, here I was now, with the Danube Canal in front of me. The first thing that my faculties were able to grasp at as they emerged from the catalepsy of shock was a black-and-yellow poster, freshly pasted on the wall of a building. A small crowd had gathered in front of it. It bore the Imperial eagle and was headed INSTRUMENT OF ABDICATION. Beside it was another poster, red and white this time. It read PROCLAMATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF GERMAN-AUSTRIA.

→“Oh God—where have they taken her? Which hospital? How bad is she?” Then it was my turn to stare in amazement. My aunt had appeared in the hallway: pale and haggard, with her grey hair hanging down in strands, but indubitably my aunt, and seemingly in good health. She looked at me for some seconds, then fell to sobbing hysterically on Franzi’s shoulders. Slowly, slowly, I heard a ringing hiss in my ears; felt an awful sensation of an ice-cold skewer being run through my heart …

→It was the Spanish Influenza, which had made its first appearance in the spring, but which was now scything down the exhausted, starving inhabitants of the Central Empires with a ferocity which made the efforts of mere men look halfhearted. I believe that in four months it killed more people in Europe than the entire four years of fighting. The hospital ships floating in Teodo Bay were packed with the sick, while as for the warships, they were now frequently hard-pressed even to muster anchor-handling parties. The atmosphere in those still, warm days of early October was that of a deathbed: Old Austria so far gone now that only a mirror held to her lips could detect any sign of life. We went through the daily rituals like clockwork toys: hoisting the flag at 8 a.m., lowering the flag and blowing the Last Post at sunset, holding Divisions and Captain’s Report, detailing sentries and so forth, but the life and purpose was fast trickling away from it all.

→WAITING, WAITING FOR SOMETHING TO HAPPEN. It was a curious time, those last weeks of thousand-year Austria. Rather like waiting outside a sick-room for an elderly relative to die. Or perhaps like waiting in the condemned cell, drumming one’s fingers on the table and wondering whether the hangman has missed his train. Despite our escape from Haifa and the torpedoing of the British cruiser there was little enough to celebrate once U26 returned to the Bocche, for in our absence a new actor had come on stage to help bring down the curtain on this play which had run on too long.

→I considered intervening, but the Turks were still nominally Austria’s allies, beside which there were eleven or twelve armed soldiers with the hangmen, quite capable of starting a brawl which might prevent our sailing. Anyway, our own army had not behaved a lot better in Serbia in 1914 if reports were to be believed. We got on with our work and tried not to look; that is, until another victim was led out to have a noose placed around his neck. It was a boy of about ten. This was too much. I was on the conning tower, where Grigorovic was standing sentry.

→We continued loading the boat. The diesels were thundering away now, charging the batteries. Soon columns of black smoke were seen rising from the direction of the airfield. But another diversion was to be provided for us before we sailed, one that we would infinitely rather not have seen. It appeared that the Turks were holding a last-minute jail clearance. There was a railway signal gantry about three hundred metres down the quayside. One by one, civilians with their wrists bound were led out beneath it and hoisted into the air to kick and struggle their lives away. Feinstein said that they were nationalists—Jewish and Arab alike—whom the Turks had rounded up a few months before. Most of them had died in jail from typhus and cholera, and now the Turkish Army was applying more direct means to the ones who had survived. Soon eight or nine bodies were dangling from the gantry.

→He thought for a while. “Between ourselves, old fellow, I wouldn’t much mind if I didn’t get home. There’s not going to be a lot for an ex-pilot back in Germany if we’ve lost this war. This blasted leg of mine gives me a lot of trouble—trapped nerve or something. And anyway, you know what they say: ‘Born in the war, died in the war.’ After the past four years anything else in life would be a let-down.” He looked at his watch. “Well, can’t stand here jawing all day: the English gentlemen will be here before nightfall. Auf wiedersehen.” He limped away in the direction of the airfield.

→“Well, cheer up,” I said. “At least you’ll be back in Germany before long.”

→“Yes, it’s a Handley-Page. The British have got two of them down at Beersheba. We’ve been trying to get them for weeks, but they’re very big and well armed. I tried it myself on a couple of occasions, but an artillery-spotter’s not really designed for that sort of thing.”

→“It’s a pity about the lack of fighters,” I observed. “That big English twin-engined bomber nearly hit my boat yesterday.”

→“Actually,” he drawled, “I was a fighter pilot in France with von Richthofen—until last year. Crashed an Albatross near Douai and broke my leg in about eight places, hence the walking-stick. The doctors patched me up and then they sent me out here to Palestine. But it looks as if it’s nearly over. The fighters have gone, and they’ve left me behind to set fire to the planes in the repair sheds before the English get here. Then I’m supposed to fly the old artillery bus up to Beirut.”

→As Heller left I became aware of a figure standing over me. I looked up. It was a tall, lean man in German uniform, wearing a leather flying helmet and leaning on a stick as he smoked a cigarette. He introduced himself as Hauptmann Uchatius of the Imperial German Flying Service. It seemed that he had been with the German squadron up at the airfield, flying an Aviatik artillery-spotter.

→The last I saw of Heller he was making his way along to the Uckermarck to join the other would-be fulfillers of prophecy. He would indeed have done better to have stayed with U26. I worked briefly in the War Graves section of the Austrian War Ministry early in 1919, just before I was discharged, and I found out what became of Major Höflinger and his force. They had made their way up the road towards Galilee that night, under the moon, until they bumped up against an Australian cavalry unit. Taking them to be the advance guard of a Turkish counter-attack, the Australians had levelled their lances and charged before the Germans could so much as unsling their rifles. Those who stood were skewered and those who ran were sabred down to the last man.