The Ashtray

by Richard Lawrence Bennett

Battle of Königgrätz, Bohemia 1866

Amidst the confusion of defeat, Captain Rudolf Stadler was led into the tent of his commander Major-General Wilhelm Hinderhoff by two infantrymen from the 10th Army Corps. Hinderhoff was seated at his desk surrounded by his papers. He showed no emotion as the young officer was brought in. Rudolf was dressed absolutely at his best: his boots shone, the buckles shone, Hans had pressed his jacket. He stood straight, he felt fresh and awake.

“Is it true you deserted your men after the attack by the Prussian artillery yesterday afternoon?” Hinderhoff asked him.

“It is true, General.”

Hinderhoff sagged a little at this. He was fifty years old. It was common knowledge that Rudolf was his favorite amongst the junior officers and as far as permissible within the stultifying hierarchy of the Austrian army he treated him as a son. Rudolf in turn regarded him as a father; he would have done anything for him.

“Are there any extenuating circumstances?” Hinderhoff asked.

“There are none, sir.”

“You are aware that the penalty for desertion is death?”

“Yes, sir. I am aware.”

“Very well.”

Hinderhoff signalled to the men to lead him away. As Rudolf knew, executions happened at dawn, although Hinderhoff had not expressly said as much. He would be imprisoned until then. The two infantrymen turned him around and walked him to the edge of the tent.

“Ah, one thing—” Hinderhoff said, “—a present.”

One of the men went to fetch it and passed it to the young captain. It was an ashtray, which Rudolf had admired when he and Hinderhoff had sat for brandy and cigars after the Austrian victory at Trautenau, a victory in which Rudolf had played no small part and been awarded the Military Merit Cross for his bravery. 

The ashtray was flat, ceramic and beautifully colored with a scene of the Schönbrunn Palace in turquoise and pink. In its delicacy and femininity, it seemed out of place amidst the muddy reality of the campaign and Rudolf had remarked as much whilst commenting favorably on it. Hinderhoff had chuckled. “A memento from my wife,” he had said, “so that I would think of her every day.”

Now that Rudolf held it in his hand, he noted that it had a heavy iron base which clashed with the delicate scene on top. Such an exquisite picture. What he would want with this beautiful thing on his last night on earth was another matter. He was led out of the tent and taken to the army prison.

After his friend Franz Lothar had been eviscerated by a Prussian cannonball, Rudolf had collected the pieces of him as if it were a game of some sort—an arm here, another arm, his leg, his head and so on—and put them together in a pile. 

Then he had turned and walked out of the entrenchment and continued walking away in the opposite direction from the field of battle. He came to a small wood, sat down and stared at the roots of a tree for a long time, until the light began to fail. 

Two soldiers, Pacher and Wallner, from his platoon, came to collect him and, seeing no alternative, Rudolf agreed to return to the camp. He was informed that the battle was as good as lost after grave setbacks at the villages of Lipa and Chlum, in addition to the catastrophic loss of life in the Swiepwald, which he had already witnessed. Rudolf asked for further details of what had happened in the past few hours as he was led back. 

Then they heard the retreat sounded. As they hurried from the advancing Prussians, they saw the great mass of their troops heading for the Elbe River, and they made to cross it with them, towards their quarters at Königgrätz.

Now Rudolf sat quietly in the prison wagon, waiting for his own death, and toying with the ashtray that Hinderhoff had given him. Why had he done so? Perhaps to provide him with some pleasure in his final hours, although he had nothing left to smoke. He placed the ashtray over his heart, trying out its shape.

Perhaps Hinderhoff trusted him to his own common sense? The Austrian method of execution was for six shots to the upper body by six infantrymen and one killing shot to the head by the commanding officer with a pistol at close range; in this way only the commander would have the certain guilt of death. 

If Rudolf could bind the ashtray across his heart in some efficient way then there was a chance this most precious organ would not be pierced by the bullets of his executioners; and if Hinderhoff himself took the final execution, rather than that jackal Kaufmann, then there would also be a chance, however slight, of … a chance of what? That he would be freed in some way, with the illusion that he had been killed? A double gamble, a second life.

Hinderhoff would have known about Franz Lothar’s death. It was impossible that he wouldn’t have been informed of what had happened, although it would have made no difference whatsoever to his own predicament. 

Rudolf removed his cummerbund and, wrapping it around his chest, he placed the ashtray over his heart with the base facing outwards and tightened the cummerbund across it. Then he sat and waited until dawn.

He thought of Frieda, his fiancée, nervously waiting, and her sweet letters. He thought of Peter, his younger brother, who would inherit the estate. At least someone would benefit from his execution, he smiled ruefully. Then he thought of his mother, who had always been torn between pride and worry at her eldest boy being an army officer. Mostly pride. But, oh, if she could have seen what had happened here—if anyone could—then it would have been worry, most definitely. 

Of course Rudolf would be bringing shame on his parents, on his father especially and his standing as the mayor in their town, he who had had a brief but distinguished military career fighting the Piedmontese at Custoza and Novara, one which Rudolf had so badly wanted for himself. 

And finally he thought of poor Franz Lothar and how he had met his end.

* * *

Rudolf awoke with a sudden start. It was still dark. Through the grille he heard the unmistakable and unpleasant sounds of a panicked military departure, as those soldiers who were able to move were gathering together equipment and supplies for the retreat further east.

He made himself ready. Two soldiers entered his cell and Rudolf was led out against a wall in a deserted yard. There he was tied to a post, a short walk from all the main tents and the early morning activity, and away from the eyes of other men.

He said a quick prayer to God. The cummerbund and the ashtray he had already checked and fixed in place again, but in the seriousness and indeed the swiftness of the morning’s move from prison to this miserable wall, he had forgotten any hopes of being kept alive. 

Nonetheless he noticed the distance was favorable, the guns were of the old sort and the light was still not yet clear. A cloth was placed over his eyes, but not before a short spring of hope welled up inside him.

“Take aim!” Hinderhoff called out and stood to one side. Rudolf could imagine him standing there, solid and impassive, while the six soldiers lined up their rifles. 

There was a brief, almost agonizing, pause. Rudolf could hear his heart beating, the sound of his breath entering and departing.

“Fire!”

Two shots struck his right side, one brushed his left arm, two missed—which didn’t say much for the marksmanship of their soldiers at this close a range—and one clinked on the ashtray covering his heart. 

Hinderhoff approached and untied him. Rudolf sank into the earth, as if mortally wounded. Having placed a hand on his neck and discerned that he was still alive, Hinderhoff spoke towards Rudolf’s prostrate form.

“You will be taken to the mortuary. You should leave from there in fifteen minutes’ time,” he said in a low and calm voice, as he pulled back the hammer on his revolver. “There is a farmhouse two miles west. Try your luck with the family there. Never return to the Empire. And God speed!”

Hinderhoff aimed a shot into the dirt. Then he leant forward as if to check on him and as he did so he smeared some blood from Rudolf’s right side onto his face. Rudolf lay still as though he were truly dead. Hinderhoff dismissed the soldiers and called for the cart. The young captain was placed on it and dumped at the mortuary with the corpses from the previous days’ fighting.

There Rudolf waited. When the bugle for assembly sounded nearby, he heard the mortuary attendants—presumably not the doctors inside—leave for their assembly and breakfast. So Hinderhoff had indeed saved him. Remarkably, Rudolf found there seemed to be nothing wrong with him, apart from the two wounds on his right side, which were indeed hurting and bleeding, and which he had to hope were only flesh wounds.

Like Lazarus he rose from the dead. He removed the cloth from his eyes and saw with relief that the morning light was still murky. He took a coat from one of the deceased next to him and picked up some filthy bandages left by the side of the mortuary and wrapped them around his head, so that he might appear to be one of the many walking wounded. Then he did as Hinderhoff had suggested and walked the length of the west side of the encampment past a sleeping guard and disappeared from sight. 

Once he was on his way, Rudolf made to dispense with the bandages but on second thoughts he reasoned they might encourage the sympathy of the farming family and explain his disappearance from the camp. So keeping himself bandaged, he knocked on the farmhouse door and pretended to be disoriented and lost to his platoon.

The farmer’s wife offered him a kind of dessert made of bread and milk with sugar. It had been more than two days since Rudolf had eaten and he wolfed down this miserable mush as if it were the finest Sachertorte. Afterwards the wife gave him a worried look and some dried meat and dark bread and said he was to trust in God. He said he certainly would and he thanked her for her kindness. Not wishing to inconvenience her any further, nor have the farmer himself come marching in and wonder who he was, Rudolf left the farmhouse.

The morning light was up, and he walked for a short while and hid and slept in a wood until it grew dark again. Then he set off along the road. If he had his bearings right, he would be heading northwest. He had in mind that he would go to Amsterdam. From there he would board a ship for the New World, as one of the Slovaks serving with them had called it. America, the new continent, he had said, ripe with prospects.

And so began his great trek: sleeping by day, walking by night, and eating almost nothing beyond the fruit he was able to scavenge from the woods. On his person he carried a compass, the ashtray, now placed in the pocket of his coat, and furthermore six gold ducats, sewn into his army boots, as advised by his father in the event of a disaster, which, Rudolf had to confess, he believed had now befallen him. The ducats he hoped would cover at least some of the fare to America; and the beautiful ashtray, too, if he had to part with it.

Just before dawn on the fifth day, he was greeted by two jovial Czech farmhands who took him up on their wagon. They were heading for the border into Saxony. They spoke German and shared some of their food with him, and in return Rudolf oiled and repaired several pistols which they told him they had found dumped in a nearby wood.

They travelled the whole day together. As they came closer to the border the thought grew in Rudolf that he might be uncertain as to his reception with any officious border guards. Although Saxony was a friendly state to Austria, he himself was a runaway from the Empire, and therefore no longer on friendly terms with Austria.

Before they crossed the border, therefore, growing nervous as to what might meet him in plain sight, Rudolf wished the farm boys God’s grace and jumped from the wagon, leaving them scratching their heads as he ran off into the forest to wait for nightfall once again.

The Elbe was his ally. Having rediscovered the great river he followed it along to the north for an hour until he found a small rowing boat. He untied this and took it upstream in the quietest part of the night, picturing in the darkness sleeping enemy camps to his left and right.

After two nights, he was, by his reckoning, somewhere near Dresden. At dawn he sought refuge at a farmhouse, still in his military uniform, telling the unsuspecting and indeed incurious farmer and his young family that he was an Austrian soldier returning home. He worked for three days on the farm collecting wood and milking cows. He did this in exchange for food and shelter—meagre on both counts—and he might inadvertently have stayed longer, had not a passing tradesman said that he was heading for Dresden and if Rudolf were interested, he would provide him with a free ride in return for some assistance.

By the evening Rudolf was in the city of Dresden, where he pilfered an entire set of civilian clothes from a drunk passed out by a tavern, and slept overnight outside the railway station. He jumped on a goods train going to Leipzig in the morning, in a cheerful mood and draped in a blanket. He then spent several happy hours wandering about in Leipzig, slept under a bridge, and at first light on the following day he caught a second train going north-west, while hidden amongst some sacks of grain. Throughout all this time, he had only one goal in mind: to reach Amsterdam.

* * *

In the busy city of Hanover, weak from hunger again, Rudolf walked the streets, avoiding the large number of soldiers moving through the place and wondering at what point he would be compelled to use the six gold ducats he had stored on him, not to mention the beautiful ashtray, still with him, which he pressed tight against his chest from the inside pocket of his coat.

Instead he quelled his hunger and returned to the railway station, sitting on a bench and noting the supply trains. By now he imagined he cut a woebegone figure, humbly dressed and weary, someone who looked as if he would be prepared to beg for a few coins. He sat down and prayed.

At this low point, Rudolf struck up a conversation with a Flemish tramp, a practised layabout by the sound of things, who approached him and told him that the best train for Amsterdam was the livestock wagon, since the guards never bothered to check it once the train was en route. The only drawback was the intense smell and noise of the bleating animals. 

In the meantime, the tramp took Rudolf round the station and showed him an easy trick to get bread: to wait for the end of the day when the bakeries and cafés would throw out their old stuff. Provided he wasn’t seen waiting beforehand, no one would mind if he took food out of the bins round the back. The Flemish tramp said he had even been caught doing so to no ill effect. Rudolf asked him if he knew a similar trick for getting a glass of beer. The tramp said he hadn’t perfected that one, but if Rudolf was willing, he had a ruse they could try out at the station bar. 

This crowded small bar was manned by one server and one waiter. The servers changed shifts promptly at six o’clock; the tramp said that if they walked in at that exact moment he would distract the incoming server while Rudolf reached across the bar and grabbed what he could.

Rudolf went along gladly with this foolish idea and when his Flemish friend, pretending to be a mad and crazed drunk—not beyond his capabilities—began arguing with the new server, Rudolf reached over and took two bottles of wine that were waiting on the table top and walked out with them. Having carried on arguing long enough for him to have departed safely, the Flemish tramp went docile and meek and walked off, joining Rudolf at their base behind the bakery. 

There they feasted on perfectly good rye bread and dark red wine and passed an enjoyable couple of hours waiting for the train to Amsterdam, eventually climbing through a side window into one of the livestock carriages, where they bedded down for the night with a large number of sheep.

On arrival, his Flemish friend asked him if he wanted to spend a few days “on the take” with him in Amsterdam, but Rudolf declined and wishing him well he took his leave of the tramp, of the station, and of that way of life, he hoped, and somewhat redolent of the countryside he strode the streets of the Dutch capital, one step closer to his goal, in search of a jeweller’s shop.

Despite his immediate and varied struggles, Rudolf had kept a cool head and more importantly his six gold ducats. Would they cover his fare for America? He soon found out that they would not. 

He had gone into a jeweller’s to negotiate, but the new gold coins, embossed with the emperor’s head, would apparently cover only half the cost. He changed them anyway, since he desperately wanted something decent to eat and a place to sleep and bathe. 

His temptation then was to produce the ashtray and see if the jeweller would buy that, too, but out of loyalty to the fine object which had saved his life, he decided against it. Besides, he wondered if it might arouse some curiosity or suspicion in the jeweller. 

The following morning Rudolf went to the docks and enquired about working to cover the cost of the passage. He was told that a half fare was available, but the work was tough. As luck would have it, one of the men already booked on board the ship had been stabbed in a barroom brawl the previous night and there would be room for him. 

Rudolf counted out the last of his coins and was waved on board. The ship was leaving in half an hour. His only possession now was a beautiful ashtray with a picture of the Schönbrunn Palace on it. He had no money, no food, no clothes other than those he was wearing, and as the people waving off their relatives on the dock reminded him, he had no family any more. He had nothing.

On board the ship Rudolf was able at last to realise his good fortune: he had got away with it. No one was looking for him. He had survived. The mind-numbing and back-breaking work he did on board to cover his fare helped to calm him. He lost weight, what little he had, and he stole food, here and there, to cover the excess work. He also found some money. Little bits of good luck kept falling to him.

His main luck was meeting a man on the boat who said he was looking for young men to work the land in Montana. He introduced himself as Petersson, from Sweden. Rudolf gave himself as Rudolf Schönbrunn, the same name he had scrawled in the ship’s log. 

“But it is a long way from New York for you,” Petersson said, assuming that this was where he would want to stay. 

“That is fine with me,” Rudolf said, thinking of the new start this would provide. “Anyway, I am a farmer’s son.”

“Ah, good.”

Mr. Petersson arranged for a quiet doctor to come and have a look at the wounds on Rudolf’s right side without asking too many questions. He told him they had healed and that he had no need to worry.

On arrival in New York it seemed as though he were employed straight away by this Mr. Petersson. They met a relative of his on the dock and after an evening in that strange and growing city they were off with wagons and supplies into the north of the country.

* * *

For five years Rudolf worked for Mr. Petersson and learned all he could about what he was already supposed to know. Also he learned about Montana and the people who had made their homes there. 

A good number of Swedish people lived in the community and through church he got to know young Gertrud, who was to become his wife, and her family, too, good people who took to him. When the time was right, they made arrangements for Rudolf to take over the farm next to theirs. Rudolf married Gertrud in the spring and in time they were to have four beautiful children together.

He feared a knock, but it never came. He had achieved what had seemed impossible on leaving the camp in Bohemia: a completely new life where no one would ever know him or find out about his past. 

He kept Hinderhoff’s ashtray propped up on his desk in his study in the farmhouse as a reminder of the man who had saved his life. He used another more basic one for his cheroots and cigars. There in his study Rudolf would write down ideas and make plans for the farm, do the accounts, keep a journal, dream of the past and read books.

The children liked to ask about his former life. He told them the story he had already honed with Gertrud and her family—that he had been a farmer’s son, whose parents had died. When creditors had seized the farm, he had gone off looking for adventure. He had eventually boarded a ship for America where he had met a man from Montana. This story always impressed the children. They liked the idea that he could go off somewhere, all the way across the sea, just because he felt like it.

With Gertrud he had had to include a few other details, such as two years in the military, which was where he had learnt a few soldierly tricks and flourishes, and received his wounds. His love of books—a little unusual in a peasant boy—was attributed to the excellent and benign Austrian education system for the rural classes, and the tutorship of the local pastor, neither of which were true. 

How he had wanted to send a letter home! Especially in those early days. A letter without giving his address, just to let his family know he was alive. But Rudolf thought that in doing so he would implicate Hinderhoff in his escape, and so he could never do it. 

Whenever further changes and events occurred, Rudolf thought of his family and of writing home: to tell them that he had married; that he had his own farm and land; and that his wife was expecting a child. Then that they had several children, and that he had bought a second farm and was planning the purchase of yet another.

Rudolf hoped that in the passing of all these years his fiancée Frieda had forgotten about him, perhaps because of the shame she would have wanted to. It would have been much the worse if she had still carried a flame for him. But she was a funny girl, very loyal and romantic. In his mind she had met someone else and was married and happy; that was what he had dreamed up for her.

He hoped that his brother was working the estate, that he had kept it going in the proper style, and that he had the managers and farmers busy and improving things. He hoped, too, that Hinderhoff, his savior, was alive and well, although he would be getting old now, perhaps retired to his own country estate.

Finally he felt an icy panic when he thought of his parents getting older and dying, and that he would never even know. 

USA, 1998

The telephone rang on the desk of Professor Mark Schönbrunn at the University of Montana.

“Professor Schönbrunn?”

“Speaking.”

“This is Jonathan Higham from the auction house. I am calling about the ashtray you left with us. Now, as you know, we had it valued at $20,000, but I am pleased to say it went at auction today for $32,000.”

“My goodness.”

“Yes, there was some competitive bidding!”

Professor Schönbrunn sat back in his chair. “It was a family heirloom, you know, Mr. Higham. I didn’t want to sell it, but because of my children’s education, you understand …”

“I understand.”

“I hope it goes to a good home. I enjoyed having it around, though I don’t smoke myself, of course. You don’t know who purchased it? I’d be most grateful to know.”

“Yes, it was an overseas bidder, by telephone.”

“Overseas, you say?”

“Yes, now, let’s see. It was bought by a Colonel Matthias Hinderhoff of the Austrian Armed Forces. He’s based in Salzburg.”

“Is that so? That’s a long way for it to travel.”

“I think he considers it a return.”

“How do you mean?”

“He’s an amateur genealogist, and has been investigating his family tree in his spare time. He told me that it is an old family heirloom of his, lost long ago.”

“Oh?” The professor frowned. “That can’t be the case. It’s been with us for more than a hundred years!”

“Well, that’s what he claims, and he was most excited about it. And they go back even further over there!”

“Yes, they do. Well, good day, Mr. Higham. Thanks for your work.”

“Good day, Professor.”

Ah, why had he sold the ashtray? What a fool. For his kids, he knew. As it happened, he and Melissa had been writing their will this past week. They had included a wish list with a few things they wanted the children to do for them after they had gone—what they wanted done with the house, for example, where they wanted to be buried, a few things about his papers and so on. 

The professor added one more note to the file:

Dear Julie and Richie,

Whichever one of you gets richest first: buy back the Schönbrunn Palace ashtray from the Hinderhoff family in Salzburg, Austria. It’s ours! 

Love, Dad

About the author

Richard Lawrence Bennett is a writer from Arundel, England. He has written three collections of short stories, for which he is seeking representation from a literary agent. His individual short stories have been published in Ambit Magazine, Best British Short Stories 2020, Dawntreader Magazine and Every Day Fiction. You can find out more about him at www.richardlawrencebennett.com.

About the illustration

The illustration is The Imperial Summer Palace, Schönbrunn, Courtyard Side, by Bernardo Bellotto, oil on canvas, 1758-1761, via Wikimedia Commons. The color has been adjusted and the image has been superimposed on a modern photograph of an ashtray.