VIII
How Simplicissimus Endured a Cheerless Bath in the Rhine
Yet must I tell you of a couple of adventures before I say how I was again freed from my musket, and one in truth of great danger to life and limb, the other only of danger to the soul, wherein I did obstinately persist: for I will conceal my vices no more than my virtues, in order that not only may my story be complete, but also that the untravelled reader may learn what strange blades there be in this world.
As I said at the end of the last chapter, I might now go out with foraging-parties, which in garrison towns is not granted to every loose customer, but only to good soldiers. So once on a time nineteen of us together went up to the Rhine to lie in wait for a ship of Basel that was given out to carry secretly officers and goods of the Duke of Weimar’s army. So above Ottenheim we got us a fishing-boat wherein to cross over and post ourselves on an eyot that lay handy to compel all ships that drew near to come to land, to which end ten of us were safely ferried over by the fisherman. But when one of us that could at other times row well was fetching over the remaining nine, of whom I was one, the skiff suddenly capsized and in a twinkling we lay together in the Rhine. I cared not much for the others, but thought of myself. But though I strained to the utmost and used all the arts of a good swimmer, yet the stream played with me as with a ball, tossing me about, sometimes over, sometimes under. I fought so manfully that I often came up to get breath: but had it been colder, I had never been able to hold out so long and to escape with my life. Often did I try to win to the bank, but the eddies hindered me, tossing me from one side to another: and though ’twas but a short time before I came opposite Goldscheur, it seemed to me so long that I despaired of my life. But when I had passed that village and had made sure I must pass under the Strasbourg Rhine-bridge dead or alive, I was ware of a great tree whose branches stretched into the river not far from me. To this the stream flowed straight and strong: for which cause I put forth all the strength I had left to get to the tree, wherein I was most lucky, so that by the help both of the water and my own pains I found myself astride upon the biggest branch, which at first I had taken for a tree: which same was yet so beaten by waves and whirlpools that it kept bobbing up and down without ceasing, and so shook up my belly that I well-nigh spewed up lungs and liver. Hardly could I keep my hold, for all things danced strangely before my eyes. And fain would I have slipped into the water again, yet found I was not man enough to endure even the hundredth part of such labour as I had so far accomplished. So must I stick there and hope for an uncertain deliverance, which God must send me if I was to get off alive. But in this respect my conscience gave me but cold comfort, bidding me remember that I had so wantonly rejected such gracious help a year or two before; yet did I hope for the best, and began to pray as piously as I had been reared in a cloister, determining to live more cleanly in future; yea, and made divers vows. Thus did I renounce the soldier’s life and forswore plundering forever, did throw my cartridge-box and knapsack from me, and naught would suffice me but to become a hermit again and do penance for my sins, and be thankful to God’s mercy for my hoped-for deliverance till the end of my days, and when I had spent two or three hours upon the branch between hope and fear there came down the Rhine that very ship for which I was to help lie in wait. So I lifted up my voice piteously and screamed for help in the name of God and the last Judgment, and because they must needs pass close to me, and therefore the more clearly see my wretched plight, all in the ship were moved to pity, so that they put to land to devise how best to help me. And because, by reason of the many eddies that were all round me (being caused by the roots and branches of the tree), it was not possible to swim out to me without risk of life nor to come to me with any vessel, small or great, my helping needed much thought: and how I fared in mind meanwhile is easy to guess. At last they sent two fellows into the river above me with a boat, that let a rope float down to me and kept one end of it themselves. The other end I with great trouble did secure, and bound it round my body as well as I could, so that I was drawn up by it into the boat like a fish on a line and so brought into the ship.
So now when I had in this fashion escaped death, I had done well to fall on my knees on the bank and thank God’s goodness for my deliverance, and moreover then begin to amend my life as I had vowed and promised in my deadly need. But far from it. For when they asked me who I was and how I had come into this peril I began so to lie to the people that it might have made the heavens turn black: for I thought, if thou sayst thou wast minded
