Dear Uncle Eugen;
This is in no sense a formal report; I made that at the Ministry,
when I turned the Englishman and his papers over to one of your
officers--a fellow with red hair and a face like a bulldog. But
there are a few things which you should be told, which wouldn't
look well in an official report, to let you know just what sort
of a rare fish has got into your net.
I had just come in from drilling my platoon, yesterday, when
Colonel Keitel's orderly told me that the colonel wanted to see
me in his quarters. I found the old fellow in undress in his
sitting room, smoking his big pipe.
"Come in, lieutenant; come in and sit down, my boy!" he greeted
me, in that bluff, hearty manner which he always adopts with his
junior officers when he has some particularly nasty job to be
done. "How would you like to take a little trip in to Berlin? I
have an errand, which won't take half an hour, and you can stay
as long as you like, just so you're back by Thursday, when your
turn comes up for road patrol."
Well, I thought, this is the bait. I waited to see what the hook
would look like, saying that it was entirely agreeable with me,
and asking what his errand was.
"Well, it isn't for myself, Tarlburg," he said. "It's for this
fellow Hartenstein, the _Staatspolizeikapitan_ here. He has
something he wants done at the Ministry of Police, and I thought
of you because I've heard you're related to the Baron von Krutz.
You are, aren't you?" he asked, just as though he didn't know all
about who all his officers are related to.
"That's right, colonel; the baron is my uncle," I said. "What
does Hartenstein want done?"
"Why, he has a prisoner whom he wants taken to Berlin and turned
over at the Ministry. All you have to do is to take him in, in a
coach, and see he doesn't escape on the way, and get a receipt
for him, and for some papers. This is a very important prisoner;
I don't think Hartenstein has anybody he can trust to handle him.
The prisoner claims to be some sort of a British diplomat, and
for all Hartenstein knows, maybe he is. Also, he is a madman."
"A madman?" I echoed.
"Yes, just so. At least, that's what Hartenstein told me. I wanted
to know what sort of a madman--there are various kinds of madmen,
all of whom must be handled differently--but all Hartenstein would
tell me was that he had unrealistic beliefs about the state of
affairs in Europe."
"Ha! What diplomat hasn't?" I asked.
Old Keitel gave a laugh, somewhere between the bark of a dog and
the croaking of a raven.
"Yes, exactly! The unrealistic beliefs of diplomats are what
soldiers die of," he said. "I said as much to Hartenstein, but he
wouldn't tell me anything more. He seemed to regret having said
even that much. He looked like a man who's seen a particularly
terrifying ghost." The old man puffed hard at his famous pipe for
a while, blowing smoke through his mustache. "Rudi, Hartenstein
has pulled a hot potato out of the ashes, this time, and he wants
to toss it to your uncle, before he burns his fingers. I think
that's one reason why he got me to furnish an escort for his
Englishman. Now, look; you must take this unrealistic diplomat,
or this undiplomatic madman, or whatever in blazes he is, in to
Berlin. And understand this." He pointed his pipe at me as though
it were a pistol. "Your orders are to take him there and turn him
over at the Ministry of Police. Nothing has been said about
whether you turn him over alive, or dead, or half one and half
the other. I know nothing about this business, and want to know
nothing; if Hartenstein wants us to play gaol warders for him,
then he must be satisfied with our way of doing it!"
Well, to cut short the story, I looked at the coach Hartenstein
had placed at my disposal, and I decided to chain the left door
shut on the outside, so that it couldn't be opened from within.
Then, I would put my prisoner on my left, so that the only way out
would be past me. I decided not to carry any weapons which he
might be able to snatch from me, so I took off my saber and locked
it in the seat box, along with the dispatch case containing the
Englishman's papers. It was cold enough to wear a greatcoat in
comfort, so I wore mine, and in the right side pocket, where my
prisoner couldn't reach, I put a little leaded bludgeon, and also
a brace of pocket pistols. Hartenstein was going to furnish me a
guard as well as a driver, but I said that I would take a servant,
who could act as guard. The servant, of course, was my orderly,
old Johann; I gave him my double hunting gun to carry, with a big
charge of boar shot in one barrel and an ounce ball in the other.
In addition, I armed myself with a big bottle of cognac. I thought
that if I could shoot my prisoner often enough with that, he would
give me no trouble.
As it happened, he didn't, and none of my precautions--except
the cognac--were needed. The man didn't look like a lunatic to
me. He was a rather stout gentleman, of past middle age, with a
ruddy complexion and an intelligent face. The only unusual thing
about him was his hat, which was a peculiar contraption, looking
like a pot. I put him in the carriage, and then offered him a
drink out of my bottle, taking one about half as big myself. He
smacked his lips over it and said, "Well, that's real brandy;
whatever we think of their detestable politics, we can't
criticize the French for their liquor." Then, he said, "I'm glad
they're sending me in the custody of a military gentleman,
instead of a confounded gendarme. Tell me the truth, lieutenant;
am I under arrest for anything?"
"Why," I said, "Captain Hartenstein should have told you about
that. All I know is that I have orders to take you to the Ministry
of Police, in Berlin, and not to let you escape on the way. These
orders I will carry out; I hope you don't hold that against me."
He assured me that he did not, and we had another drink on
it--I made sure, again, that he got twice as much as I did--and
then the coachman cracked his whip and we were off for Berlin.
Now, I thought, I am going to see just what sort of a madman this
is, and why Hartenstein is making a State affair out of a squabble
at an inn. So I decided to explore his unrealistic beliefs about
the state of affairs in Europe.
After guiding the conversation to where I wanted it, I asked him:
"What, _Herr_ Bathurst, in your belief, is the real, underlying
cause of the present tragic situation in Europe?"
That, I thought, was safe enough. Name me one year, since the
days of Julius Caesar, when the situation in Europe hasn't been
tragic! And it worked, to perfection.
"In my belief," says this Englishman, "the whole mess is the
result of the victory of the rebellious colonists in North
America, and their blasted republic."
Well, you can imagine, that gave me a start. All the world knows
that the American Patriots lost their war for independence from
England; that their army was shattered, that their leaders were
either killed or driven into exile. How many times, when I was a
little boy, did I not sit up long past my bedtime, when old
Baron von Steuben was a guest at Tarlburg-Schloss, listening
open-mouthed and wide-eyed to his stories of that gallant lost
struggle! How I used to shiver at his tales of the terrible
winter camp, or thrill at the battles, or weep as he told how he
held the dying Washington in his arms, and listened to his noble
last words, at the Battle of Doylestown! And here, this man was
telling me that the Patriots had really won, and set up the
republic for which they had fought! I had been prepared for some
of what Hartenstein had called unrealistic beliefs, but nothing
as fantastic as this.
"I can cut it even finer than that," Bathurst continued. "It was
the defeat of Burgoyne at Saratoga. We made a good bargain when
we got Benedict Arnold to turn his coat, but we didn't do it soon
enough. If he hadn't been on the field that day, Burgoyne would
have gone through Gates' army like a hot knife through butter."
But Arnold hadn't been at Saratoga. I know; I have read much of
the American War. Arnold was shot dead on New Year's Day of 1776,
during the storming of Quebec. And Burgoyne had done just as
Bathurst had said; he had gone through Gates like a knife, and
down the Hudson to join Howe.
"But, _Herr_ Bathurst," I asked, "how could that affect the
situation in Europe? America is thousands of miles away, across
the ocean."
"Ideas can cross oceans quicker than armies. When Louis XVI
decided to come to the aid of the Americans, he doomed himself
and his regime. A successful resistance to royal authority in
America was all the French Republicans needed to inspire them. Of
course, we have Louis's own weakness to blame, too. If he'd given
those rascals a whiff of grapeshot, when the mob tried to storm
Versailles in 1790, there'd have been no French Revolution."
But he had. When Louis XVI ordered the howitzers turned on the
mob at Versailles, and then sent the dragoons to ride down the
survivors, the Republican movement had been broken. That had been
when Cardinal Talleyrand, who was then merely Bishop of Autun,
had came to the fore and become the power that he is today in
France; the greatest King's Minister since Richelieu.
"And, after that, Louis's death followed as surely as night after
day," Bathurst was saying. "And because the French had no experience
in self-government, their republic was foredoomed. If Bonaparte
hadn't seized power, somebody else would have; when the French
murdered their king, they delivered themselves to dictatorship.
And a dictator, unsupported by the prestige of royalty, has no
choice but to lead his people into foreign war, to keep them from
turning upon him."
It was like that all the way to Berlin. All these things seem
foolish, by daylight, but as I sat in the darkness of that
swaying coach, I was almost convinced of the reality of what he
told me. I tell you, Uncle Eugen, it was frightening, as though
he were giving me a view of Hell. _Gott im Himmel_, the things
that man talked of! Armies swarming over Europe; sack and
massacre, and cities burning; blockades, and starvation; kings
deposed, and thrones tumbling like tenpins; battles in which the
soldiers of every nation fought, and in which tens of thousands
were mowed down like ripe grain; and, over all, the Satanic
figure of a little man in a gray coat, who dictated peace to the
Austrian Emperor in Schoenbrunn, and carried the Pope away a
prisoner to Savona.
Madman, eh? Unrealistic beliefs, says Hartenstein? Well, give
me madmen who drool spittle, and foam at the mouth, and shriek
obscene blasphemies. But not this pleasant-seeming gentleman who
sat beside me and talked of horrors in a quiet, cultured voice,
while he drank my cognac.
But not all my cognac! If your man at the Ministry--the one
with red hair and the bulldog face--tells you that I was drunk
when I brought in that Englishman, you had better believe him!
Rudi.
(From Count von Berchtenwald, to the British Minister.)