Poemas del río Wang: Pink postcards 3

Address: To the honored Miss Antónia Zajác
3rd district, Kis Korona Street 52.
Budapest

[27 Oct. 1914]

My dear Janka
I’m writing by candlelight these few lines, which I wish to find you in the best mood. It will be a bit strange to get used to this, but it will be pretty easy. There is a big mess-up here. My sergeant is a very fine man. And our company is all made up by boys from Pest. My bed is a bit hard, but it does not matter. Until Sunday I might come home, and now we have to line up. God bless you until seeing us again, and now bye-bye. Many kisses from your Jew.
Károly

Be good… you already know what I mean.
As to the rest, ask it at home!

Previous letters (indicated in grey on the map):

• Debrecen, 25 September 1914
• Szerencs, 28 August 1914

[The recovery was quick, the bullet wound in his right arm healed rapidly. The weeks-long break in letter writing, as well as the petting words gleaming behind the short text suggest that they probably managed to meet several times during this period. The letter, the exercise and the preparations take place in a somewhat chaotic and erratic mess-up, in the Franz Joseph infantry barracks at Üllői Street. Károly finds himself in the second wave to replenish the human stock of the front, enlisted in a company of “volunteers”.

The war constantly requires new supplies. The battles along the river San bring a lot of sacrifices and few success to either opposing side. Each pass in the Carpathian ridges is a potential threat of hostile invasion. The protection of the Dukla, Uzsok, Verecke, Toronya and Tatar/Jablonka passes, the keeping back of the Russian and Cossack soldiers breaking into Hungary around Maramureș requires the mobilization of increasingly more troops. Virtually every operational man is recruited. In this condition, the wound of the letter writer only means that after a quick declaration of health and a brief training period, he would be returned to the theater of war as soon as possible.

The letter is interwoven with the perpetual dream of the soldiers. A moment is enough to forget the continuous pestering, and the thoughts are already about getting and staying home.]