The Night of the Generals Page 5

  “One of them being the extermination of the Jews, I suppose?” asked Ulrike aggressively.

  “Child, child!” Frau Wilhelmine raised her right hand in protest. “What a subject—and lunch not over yet!”

  “Life is a struggle,” said General Tanz, dissecting his cheese. “Anyone who proposes to build a world order must be capable of destroying anything that threatens it.”

  “Human beings are capable of the most incredible things,” commented Kahlenberge bitterly.

  “I merely try to do my duty,” said General Tanz.

  “Only your duty, nothing more?” Kahlenberge leant back in his chair as though evading an unseen blow. “To do nothing but one’s duty can be a demoralizing process.”

  Frau Wilhelmine said firmly: “General Tanz is a man!”

  “We’re all men,” declared the G.O.C. He raised his champagne glass as though it was a field-marshal’s baton. “We are fighting a war that was forced on us, but we wage it unflinchingly.”

  Coffee, brewed in the Turkish fashion, was served in the Blue Room. The carpet that covered the floor was a mixture of deep blue and subdued marine tones, heavy midnight blue hangings swathed the walls, and the pale crocus blue of the moulded ceiling shimmered like a clear sky in early spring.

  Into this extravagant symphony in blue stepped Major Grau. His lean, slightly saturnine face wore an ingratiating smile. “I have what I hope will be an entertaining item of news for you,” he said when introductions were complete. “That is, if you’re interested. It concerns a highly unusual corpse—a female corpse, to be precise.”

  “I think,” Wilhelmine von Seydlitz-Gabler said stiffly to her daughter, “that it would be better if we left the men alone.”

  Ulrike followed her mother out of the room. An uneasy silence reigned for a moment after the door had shut.

  “Our good ladies,” declared the G.O.C., “have a marked sense of tact where official matters are concerned.”

  Kahlenberge glanced keenly at Grau. “Is this official?”

  “It’s not beyond the bounds of possibility,” said Grau.

  “Are you still talking about a woman’s corpse?”

  “Why not? Does anyone mind?”

  General von Seydlitz-Gabler threw back his head and laughed. It was a melodious sound, the product of years of practice, and he was well aware of its effect. “What is all this about a corpse, my dear chap? Surely you can find a more entertaining subject. Perhaps you’d do better to concentrate on the Hartmann case.”

  “The Hartmann case doesn’t concern me, sir,” said Major Grau. “Officially, it’s the S.D.’s pigeon. Besides, the whole business seems to be little more than a comedy of errors. The man was declared dead. Let the matter take its course, I say.”

  “Are those patent leather shoes you’re wearing?” asked General Tanz abruptly.

  Major Grau raised his decorative head. “Are they forbidden?”

  “I find them ludicrous,” said General Tanz.

  “I don’t belong to your division.”

  “Unfortunately.”

  Kahlenberge shook his glistening skull as if trying to dislodge a fly. “What are we talking about, anyway, that poor devil Hartmann—or are we back on the subject of dead females?”

  “Are you wearing perfume, by any chance?” General Tanz asked with a face like granite.

  Major Grau retained his expression of unruffled serenity. “I occasionally use a strong after-shave lotion.”

  General von Seydlitz-Gabler kneaded his fingers until the joints cracked, but his rubicund features lost none of their disarming benevolence. He emitted a series of conciliatory sounds.

  The G.O.C. was a man who liked harmony to reign in his immediate circle. In an endeavour to change the subject he recalled an amusing incident from the days when he was a young officer in the first world war. It concerned some British prisoners and a bet which he, then adjutant of his regiment, had made with his commanding officer. Under the terms of the wager he, von Seydlitz-Gabler, had to induce his prisoners to sing the German national anthem within the space of three days. They ended by singing not only the Deutschland-Lied but also Ich bin ein Preusse, kennt ihr meine Farben? (he assured them on his word of honour) in four parts!

  This truly hilarious anecdote was greeted with general laughter, although it was a standard item in the General’s repertoire and everyone in the room knew it of old. Even Grau seemed amused. There was an improvement in the atmosphere, further enhanced by the appearance of a mess waiter with a bottle of Napoleon Brandy, guaranteed thirty years old. Even Tanz accepted a glass.

  Major Grau exploited the appreciative silence that followed by interjecting: “I do hope you’ll permit me to return to the corpse I mentioned earlier. I’m sure you’ll agree it’s a unique case.”

  Kahlenberge shook his head indulgently. “You must be joking, my dear Grau. We live in an age in which bodies lie around in the streets like cobble-stones. What’s so unique about this one.”

  “Ah, General, there are corpses and corpses. This one was literally perforated like a block of postage stamps—by hand, too.”

  The G.O.C. raised a well-manicured hand. “How ghastly,” he murmured.

  Tanz said coolly: “We all have to die some time.”

  “And even death has its funny side.” Kahlenberge refilled his glass to the brim with cognac. “Even gentle Juliet and sweet Desdemona finished up as cold as wet flannels on a winter’s night.”

  Major Grau regarded General Kahlenberge with bright, inquisitive eyes. “You sound preoccupied with death, sir.”

  “I occasionally do some reading,” replied Kahlenberge sardonically, “Shakespeare included.”

  Grau smiled faintly. “This is a case which appears to fall outside the usual run of murders.”

  “Let’s abandon the subject,” suggested General von Seydlitz-Gabler. “In my opinion, the dead only die once and should be buried as quickly as possible.”

  “But every death has a cause.”

  “And every victim has a murderer,” Kahlenberge put in. “The dead already number millions in this absurd age of ours, Grau. What about their murderers—perhaps millions of murderers?”

  Von Seydlitz-Gabler shook his head disapprovingly. General Tanz gazed into the distance with apparent indifference.

  “The dead woman worked for us,” said Grau. “She was useful to us. The question is, should I let someone murder one of our agents and get away with it?”

  “Splendid!” cried Kahlenberge, reaching for his glass of brandy. “How comforting to know that even in this day and age there are people who don’t bite the dust unavenged.”

  “In this particular case,” Grau continued, “something quite extraordinary and entirely untoward has come to light. I can assure you that our findings are accurate and based on inquiries conducted by men of professional integrity. In brief, these experts have unearthed a credible witness who informs us that the murderer may be… Gentlemen, I am reluctantly compelled to inform you that the only possible suspect is a general. A German general.”

  Von Seydlitz-Gabler again raised a protesting hand, his fleshy face pale as ashes. Kahlenberge ventured a laugh, but it was more like the yelp of a dog in pain. Tanz seemed turned to stone. One of the brandy glasses fell over and its contents spread across the table-cloth like blood.

  The G.O.C. was the first to speak. “A joke in poor taste,” he said with an effort.

  Kahlenberge mustered up a half-hearted smile. “All things are possible.”

  “An outrage,” declared General Tanz in glacial tones. “An outrage such as only a cretin could devise.”

  Major Grau looked the generals over like a row of dustbins, savouring his triumph. A moment like this seldom came twice in a lifetime.

  “A most entertaining story, Major,” said von Seydlitz-Gabler. “We appreciate your telling us, but we mustn’t detain you any longer.”

  Major Grau rose gracefully to his feet, bowed and left the room, confident
that he had left behind a time-bomb of mammoth dimensions.

  Back in the Blue Room, the three generals eyed each other in silence for a moment.

  Kahlenberge screwed up his eyes and peered through an imaginary pall of smoke.

  Von Seydlitz-Gabler muttered: “It can’t be true!”

  And Tanz snapped: “That’s the end of Grau as far as I’m concerned.”

  “God Almighty!” Major-General Kahlenberge said mildly. “Who do you think you are—a knight in shining bloody armour? I’ve never heard such concentrated tripe all my life.”

  “I can only tell you what I know, sir.” Lance-Corporal Hartmann sounded eager to please. “And I really don’t know any more than I’ve told you already.”

  Rainer Hartmann was a fresh-complexioned young man whose head sat a trifle crooked on his shoulders. This was not a congenital defect but the result of a neck wound received some weeks earlier. For a long time he had been unable to do more than croak—a circumstance which had saved his life—but the danger of his position had increased with every step he took on the road to recovery.

  “Must you shoot off your mouth, Hartmann?” asked General Kahlenberge. “Or are you absolutely hell-bent on self-destruction? There are people like that, I know. But what’s the point of it?”

  Hartmann blinked as though the sun was shining straight into his eyes, but he preserved the immobility of a statue in a city park. His youthful face was handsome but lacking in animation, his brown, gently waving hair fell appealingly on to a high forehead and his body looked well-proportioned even in its graceless sack of a uniform.

  Hartmann’s trouble was that he had survived what he regarded as an epic ordeal with flying colours and could not understand why no one seemed ready to take an equally uncomplicated view of the matter.

  “He doesn’t get the drift, sir,” asserted Otto the Fat, who was standing in the background. “He’s a good-hearted lad, that’s why he behaves like a clot sometimes.”

  “A valid enough excuse, Otto, but I’m afraid your views aren’t going to do Corporal Hartmann much good.” General Kahlenberge tapped the document lying before him on the desk with distaste. “This piece of bumf is as good as a death warrant. It’s all very well for you to believe in Corporal Hartmann’s innocence, but there’s no getting away from the fact that he’s got to prove it.”

  Otto hung his pink and porcine head in apparent dejection, but knowing his General he felt that all was not lost. Hartmann opened his mouth as an aid to breathing, rather like a fish caught in a swirling torrent of muddy water.

  “If I’m forced to pass on what I have here unaltered, Hartmann will be handed over to the S.D. Once they get their claws on him it’ll mean curtains.” Kahlenberge’s left shoulder twitched a little. Almost inaudibly, he went on: “And I don’t want that. Why should I do their dirty work?”

  Hartmann’s head drooped. It was a weary but graceful gesture. “I really don’t know what they could accuse me of. I’m not aware of having committed any crime.”

  “As though it mattered two hoots what you think, man!” Kahlenberge leant back in his chair. “All I know about you, Hartmann, is that you seem to have had a lot of bad luck. For some peculiar reason you’re still alive. That’s neither to your credit nor the reverse. You’re obviously a wide-eyed innocent, but what’s to be done with a curiosity like you?” He smiled grimly. “Well, you’re lucky in one respect. We don’t propose to hand you over—not because of your big blue eyes but because it doesn’t suit our book. Do you follow me? No, of course you don’t. Never mind, it’s just your good luck. Remember one thing, though. There can’t be many people as dumb as you still in the land of the living.”

  Kahlenberge once more bent over the transcript of Lance-Corporal Rainer Hartmann’s statement. He saw no reason to concentrate on details but merely absorbed what seemed important. The gist of the story was as follows:

  “… I was assigned to a unit which had the job of transporting supplies to the forward troops. We were a party of six under a sergeant whose name I don’t know. The convoy consisted of three medium-sized trucks—four-tonners. When we reached a place whose name I don’t remember we were suddenly fired on by Soviet troops. All the vehicles went up in flames and all the members of my unit were killed except me. I crawled off somewhere half-conscious and eventually fainted…

  “… Finally—I don’t know how long afterwards—I came to in a barn which was being used as an emergency hospital. I was surrounded by Russian soldiers. My uniform had gone and I was bandaged to the neck and wrapped in blankets. I couldn’t speak, so the Russians treated me as though I was one of theirs…

  “… Some days or weeks later the hospital fell into the hands of our troops. I wasn’t able to keep track of time. I had a high temperature and was always drifting off into unconsciousness, but I know I regained my voice almost as soon as our chaps arrived. I was released and managed to find my way back to my unit.”

  Kahlenberge slowly shook his gleaming pate. “What unadulterated idiocy,” he said. He spoke like a man who was shouldering a burden which no one else cared to take on. The fact that he did so willingly was beside the point.

  “It’s the truth, sir, every word of it,” protested Lance-Corporal Hartmann.

  “No doubt,” said Kahlenberge wearily. “The truth as seen by one Lance-Corporal Hartmann, but not the whole truth as we are compelled to see it. All this happened on December 5th, 1941. On December 10th it was announced that one of our units, to wit yours, comprising six men and a sergeant, had fallen into Russian hands. According to official reports you were brutally murdered—eyes gouged out, balls cut off, bellies slit open, etcetera, etcetera. None of you escaped. The Propaganda Ministry gave the case the full treatment and played it for all it was worth.”

  “It’s true,” Otto interposed. “Thanks to some first-class public relations work by various propaganda units and the S.D., the so-called neutral press flocked to the scene of the crime in droves. You should have seen the ink flow! They really went to town when they saw the bodies. There was nothing but mincemeat left.”

  “As the details suggest,” Kahlenberge went on, “the Propaganda Ministry got weeks of material out of this piece of butchery. They even published a ‘Red Book’ on the subject, full of the most blood-curdling details. What’s more, our historian Captain Kahlert has collected a whole filing cabinet of data on the case.”

  Otto the Fat nodded. “There’s no doubt about it, Hartmann. Officially, you’re dead.”

  Kahlenberge excavated his right ear with his index finger. “And now you’ve turned up again. You’re alive, and that’s your personal bad luck. Unfortunately for you, you’re living proof that our Propaganda Ministry published a pack of lies.”

  “How can I help it?” Hartmann asked helplessly. “I only did what anyone would have done. I don’t see how anyone can blame me for that.”

  “What a dangerous attitude to take, Hartmann.” Kahlenberge eased himself back into his chair and raised his chin as though surrendering himself to the attentions of an invisible barber. “Are you seriously asking me how you can help being still alive? How can a man help being born a Jew or a Pole or a Prussian? Why does a human being happen to be on the receiving end of a bomb? Why do some people die in bed while others end their lives in a ditch or on the field of honour? The only valid question at this moment is: how can we decently save your neck?”

  Lance-Corporal Rainer Hartmann looked bewildered. Otto the Fat regarded this demonstration of resentful incomprehension with growing disillusionment. “Heavens alive, man,” he exclaimed. “Can’t you get it through your thick head? You’re in the shit up to your neck.”

  Kahlenberge massaged his hairless skull until it shone like a billiard ball. “Listen, my lad,” he said kindly. “You’ve escaped death by the skin of your teeth and it’s obviously proved too much for you. The very fact that you’re still alive is enough to hang you. You’re alive contrary to official instructions and in defiance of widely
published reports. People will be wondering how you managed to survive. Don’t you get it? According to official information you’re dead—mutilated past recognition. A couple of dozen newspapers say so. But since you still exist, Hartmann, that makes you perfect material for every conceivable kind of enemy counter-propaganda. Don’t you see that?”

  “I shall be happy to follow any advice I’m given, sir,” said Hartmann, trying unsuccessfully to brush a leaf of hair off his forehead. “But I’m still not clear what’s expected of me.”

  “In the view of the S.D.,” said Kahlenberge, “there can be only one explanation for your survival. These people are convinced that only a man who had sold himself to the Russians could have survived. Therefore, you betrayed your companions and let them be slaughtered. Your fellow-soldiers’ appalling death was the price you paid to save your own miserable neck. Q.E.D.”

  “But that’s not so!” exclaimed Hartmann, visibly shattered. “Really not, I swear it!”

  “For the present, Hartmann, I’m only interested in useful facts, nothing more. That being so, you’ll have to make some fundamental changes in this statement of yours. Otto will help you—he knows the ropes. If you’re to convince them, your only possible line is that you purposely misled the Russians. Purposely, do you hear! No twaddle about fainting-fits or temporary loss of memory and voices or other doubtful jokes of that sort. Make a note of that, Otto. People only believe what they want to believe. Hartmann fought for his life methodically. He outwitted the Russians and waged a dangerous and determined battle for continued existence. He was a hero, not a victim. There’s no other way of explaining things. Are we agreed?”

  “All clear, sir,” declared Otto vigorously. “Isn’t that right, Hartmann?”

  “Why not?” Hartmann’s voice was resigned. “I want to live, after all.”

  “That’s the ticket!” Kahlenberge pushed the papers back decisively and dealt them a playful slap with his hand. There was something final about the gesture. “We all want to live—as long as we can, that is. Ours is a heroic age.”