You've never done military service and you've not voted even once.
Off you go – that's the way to stop you going around spreading trouble."
and to the next...
"You, give me your enrolment papers, I'm going to keep them for you.
This stays in my possession, you'll collect it afterwards.
This way, if you're a deserter, anyone can turn you in."
and to the next...
"You think because you're exempted you can get above yourself.
You never came in for the voting when the elections were on...
Exemptions won't do you any good, I'll deal with you by the rules."
And so, one by this excuse, and the next for another reason,
the end of it was that the whole lot, without one going free,
one by one they went across to stand together in a corner.
And there were the poor sisters and the mothers and the wives,,
pouring down their tears of sorrow in their loving tenderness –
but there's no help for things like this in any tears shed by love.
It means nothing that there's a mother lamenting or in despair,
or that a man has to leave his wife completely destitute –
they have to keep quiet, or it's clear they'll be smashed once and for all.
Because they’ll start getting into debt to one neighbour or another,
and as it's true of the male sex that if they don't walk, they fly – *
I can imagine, poor women, they must have to go carefully.
A lot of them went to the Judge to help them out of this fix.
He gave them the slip - and just to show how innocent he was,
he told them, "You must be patient, because there's nothing that I can do."
So there they remained, imploring this figure of authority;
and, after a fair amount of talking, the Judge said,
"I'm washing my feet, like Pilate -- * this is the Commandant's affair."
Seeing people so helpless was enough to break your heart.
There was one mother who went away with two or three children or more,
riding behind and in front of her, and nothing in the saddle-bags.
Where will they go, I wondered, to die of poverty?
Poor things, if they complain about this set-up, they're right –
because there's quite enough evidence to justify their suffering.
NOTES to II.25
II.25.17] if they don't walk, they fly] i.e. they'll move one way or another.
II.25.19] washing my feet] the Judge is probably more cynical than ignorant.
When it came to my turn I said to myself, Now I'm for it --
and though I'd not done anything much I was scared, I don't know why:
I can tell you, I was standing there with a prayer for help in my mouth. *
He told me I was a vagrant a gambler, a hopeless case,
that ever since I'd come to that district I'd been lazing around chasing women,
and that I must be a bandit like my father had been before.
Now it may be a person has a fault that he doesn't cure himself of,
but nobody's pleased to be treated in that kind of way -
I could tell it was Flat-nose who'd given him the information.
But I started to get curious, seeing he was telling me
in such a positive manner that my father had been a bandit -
it followed he must have known him while I didn't know who he was.
I undertook to discover it -- I made vows to Jesus Christ –
finally, light dawned on me and I learned to my delight
that the man who had given life to me was the valiant Sergeant Cruz.
I knew all about his story, I had it fresh in my mind.*
I knew that once when Cruz had gone out with a troop of the police,
he'd gambled his life courageously in defence of a brave man.
And now I pray God in his mercy to keep him in his glory.
His story will be kept alive in the heart of his son --
when he died he gave me his blessing and I bless his memory.
I made a vow to mend my ways and I truly succeeded in it.
I can say in any company that even if I've had my faults
I've cured myself of all of them since I found out who I was.
If you know your duty as a son you'll take after your own kin.
Anyone who grows up at his father's side and has no respect for him
deserves to suffer the hardships of misfortune, as a punishment.
By making efforts constantly I learned how to mend my ways.
I managed to forget them all -- except that, for my sins,
I wasn't able to get rid of Picardia -- the name I'd been given.
A man who has a good name is spared from a lot of unpleasantness;
so out of all this meandering don't forget this warning I give –
it was by experience that I learned a bad name can't be rubbed out.
NOTES to II.26
II.26.1] a prayer for help] con Jesus en la boca.
II.26.10] Picardia] see II.21.4. "Tricky" or "wicked" could be the nearest translation.
II.26.6] I knew all about his story...] in The Return people already know the first part of the story (a device also used e.g. in Don Quixote). See II.11, when Martin Fierro meets his sons.
I've done service at the frontier in a militia force
and not for lawful reasons as anyone might do.
The way my unlucky number came up to send me off for a bad time there
was through the scheming of that Flat-nose who was after me for so long.
So I suffered the cruel punishment out there in that hell
all because of some bad feeling from a petty official.
I won't go repeating the complaints of what you suffer there --
they're things that have been said often before, even forgotten, they're so old.
Always the same hard labour and hardships for the men,
it's always the same kind of service and the same way of not getting paid.
Always dressed in tatters, with no clothes, always poor,
they never pay you a copper cent nor ever give you a rag to wear.
It may finish you, but you go through with it with no pay and no uniform;
you can make the best of scrag meat or else -- make the worst of it.
Because if you try taking a high line or don't act extremely willing,
they give you a penance of staking-out* enough to send you mad.
The men go around like beggars without a glimpse of a peso piece.
because they've adopted the custom of owing you whole years of pay.
They're always talking of how much it costs and they're spending a fortune out there –
well, I've not seen a coin of it in all that merry time.
It's a strange sort of service beneath the gun and the lash
without ever our learning what kind of a face God gave to the Pay‑master.
Because if he comes to inspect the troops he's off again like a bullet --
he's good as a will o' the wisp* at getting lost to sight.
And on top of that, when he does appear it's as if it had all been arranged –
he arrives with months of back-pay for men who aren't there any more.
They couldn't fix it better if they did it purposely –
when I arrived, it was with the pay of the contingent before.
Because they're sure as judgment at finding men who aren't there,
and as for the poor man who is there, he can die in poverty –
till, after putting up so long with the hard way they've treated him,
either he deserts, or they kill him -- or they send him off without pay.
And that's the way the pudding's cooked -- because it's a fact by now
that a gaucho has no rights of his own, and no one lifts a hand for him.
The men there live in such misery! you should see them, when there's a parade –
everyone's clothes all fluttering like a lot of little flags.
They burden you every way they can -- and at the end of this long trail
when they do let you go, it's dressed as if you were going for a swim in the sea.
If they've given you anything to wear they take it back again --
your poncho, your horse, your saddle-blankets, you have to leave them all behind.
And the poor unfortunate soldiers returning home to their fate
leave the place looking like Longinuses* without enough to cover themselves.
It made me truly sorrowful just to see them in that state -
the best equipped among them all was like a stick of hogweed without its leaves.
Just recently it happened with the winter rough as it was,
they sent them off to travel home without any clothes and on foot.
It's so harsh the way they're dealt with, even at a time like that
they don't allow them a broken-down horse so as to get back to their homes.
They treat him as if he was a heathen! and they complete the punishment
by not even giving him a paper to prove the service he's done.
So he's obliged to go back home poorer than he went away --
and of course, at the mercy of anyone who wants to conscript him again.
And then don't let him ask about the property he left behind –
his wife will have sold, out of hunger, for two what was worth ten.
And as they're in a conspiracy to block him at every turn,
don't let him start reclaiming it because that's a waste of time.
And then, if he goes up to a ranch‑house, to ask for meat,
they're down on him right away with the law against vagrancy.
And by now it's time, if you ask me, to stop sending any more contingents.
If the Government needs men let it pay for them, and that's that.
And the conclusion I come to for all my ignorance,
is that with us, to be born on the land is like a kind of curse.
And I'll say, though it's not my place to say what nobody else has said,
that our Province* is a mother who doesn't care for her own sons.
They can die out in the hills somewhere in service of the law –
or else live like oxen, ploughing so that others can eat.
And while I'm at it, I'll say also, because it springs from my heart –
that if you don't take care of your countrymen you're no true patriot.
NOTES to II.27
II.27.8] staking-out] see I.5.13-15. Martin Fierro's account of frontier experience is more personal than Picardia's.
II.27.12] will o' the wisp] luz mala ("evil light") as at I.7.33.
II.27.21] Longinuses] Longinus is the bare-legged Roman soldier in pictures of the Crucifixion.
II.27.32] our Province] i.e. of Buenos Aires
This devil of a tongue of mine is running away with me...
I'm giving you an eyewitness account of what I saw at the frontier.
I know the only thing to do if you want to make the best of things
is to say Amen to the lot of it and laugh at the whole affair.
If you've got no mattress to sleep on you'll lie down anywhere –
a cat finds its way to the fireside and he knows what's good for him.
And in spite of my manner of speaking it ought to be clear from this
that everyone always does his best to get as comfortable as he can.
This poor sinner here went through it like the rest -
but I ended up as Orderly and in some ways had a better time.
Because even though the hardships there are enough to drive you mad,
there's always a warmer fire near the one with the officer's badge.
From that time onwards I managed to look after myself a bit better,
because I got myself into a place next to the Adjutant.
He gave himself plenty of airs -- he used to spend all his time reading -
people said that he was studying to be received as a Friar.
Although they made such a fool of him, I never saw him get annoyed.
He had eyes that were turned upwards just like the eyes of a saint.
He was delicate, and he slept on a bed -- * and I don't know why it would be,
but everyone there detested him -- The Witch was what they called him.
The only duty he ever did, and the only orders he had
was taking in the rations of provisions and luxuries.*
I found my way to his fireside as soon as he sent for me,
and he took me with him right away to carry out his commission.
The soldiers, like the devils they are, don't let any chance go by –
and when they saw us together they started smacking their lips.
And they used to say around the fire as a nasty sort of joke,
What with Picardia and The Witch they'll see us right with the rations!"
And I didn't do badly, as my officer knew how to look after himself ...
I'll tell you what used to happen where this business was concerned.
People said there was an agreement between the wholesale dealer and The Witch,
and that he took the worst goods they had - very likely, he was no fool.
And that in the quantity, besides, he nibbled a bit more off,
and that for every ration they used to deliver him half.
And that his method of doing it was like a man of real common sense --
signing the receipt afterwards (you'll have guessed) for the full amount.
But in an army camp there's bound to be these sort of dissatisfactions....
Let me go on with my story -- or the History of the Rations.
The Witch used to receive them as I've said, in his own way –
we'd load them up, and everything gets handed in at the officers' mess.
And there without stinting they all take out the amount that's due to them,
keeping back, as it's reasonable, a bit extra for good measure.
Then off go the rations to the Headquarters and they're received by the Commandant,
and he too, without any stinting took as much as suited him.
Like this, something small to start with ends up smaller still, naturally.
Then what's left is handed over to the Officer for the week.
Spider, spider, who caught you?
-- Another spider just like me.
This one hands it on to the Sergeant -- the small amount that's left –
and he like a man of foresight always takes a bit over-weight.
I'll never end this story if I stick any more details in....
The Sergeant summons the Corporal to be in charge of the distribution.
He also takes first helping, with no scruples about that -
no one's going to check up on him if he takes less or more of it.
So with all these bites taken out of them, and all these stops on the way,
by the time they reach the soldiers there's hardly any rations left.
There's no more of it than holy bread! and it's a common thing
that you have to put several together even to make a little stew.
They tell you things are the way they are as the Stores are in charge of it.
Maybe -- but so little of it what they give's not enough to go round.
Sometimes, it seems to me and it's only fair to say it,
all that used to reach us were the crumbs that had got left in the sacks.
And they make excuses for that hell that sends you fairly mad,
by saying they give so little because the Government won't pay for it.
But I don't understand this and I won't try to work it out.
I'm nothing but ignorant... I don't learn, but I don't forget.
What we are made to endure is all the dirtiest treatment -
kept down by the whip in civil life and in the army by the sword.
Another hell is the clothing store -- if they do give it out, it reaches you
in winter, with the summer clothes, and in summer with the winter ones.
And I can't discover the reason nor the explanation in this -
but they say it comes already arranged from somewhere higher up.
And you're obliged to suffer the hardship of your fate –
a gaucho is only an Argentine when they want to have him killed.
This must be true, I don't doubt it, and that's why some joker said,
"If they're going to kill them soon enough, what do they want with clothes?"
And this wretchedness, that's gone on so long, never gets to be put right.