GENERAL VON LICHTENSTEIN
That afternoon, Edestone took occasion to call at the American Embassy,
where he found that Ambassador Gerard, broken down by the strain of the
first few months of the war, during which he had accomplished such
wonderful work, had been forced to go to Wiesbaden for a rest.
The Ambassador had left in charge Mr. William Jones, First Secretary of
Legation, who with his wife was occupying the Embassy and representing
the United States. The doctors had warned the Secretary that the
Ambassador’s condition was such that he must have absolute quiet, and
that he should under no circumstances be troubled or even communicated
with in regard to affairs of state. Jones was, therefore, to all
intents and purposes the Ambassador.
This suited Edestone’s plans perfectly, for Jones was only a few years
older than himself and he had known him intimately since boyhood.
His friend received him with almost the delight of a man who has been
marooned on a desert island and was pining for the sight of a friendly
face.
“Well, well, Jack,” he said, “what foolish thing is this that you are
up to now? We have received the most extraordinary instructions from
the State Department--I gather that the Secretary of State has either
lost his mind or that you have got him under a spell, and then with
your hypnotic power have suggested that he order us to do things which
we could not do in peace times and which are simply out of the question
now. Don’t you people over home understand that these Germans, from the
Kaiser to the lowest peasant, are all in such an exalted state of
Anglophobia that they regard everyone with distrust, and are especially
suspicious of us. My advice to you, as Lawrence would say,”--referring
to one of his under-secretaries, a college mate and intimate friend of
Edestone’s,--“is to ‘can that high-brow stuff’ and come down to earth.”
“Now, speaking for myself as your friend, I advise you to go and see
General von Lichtenstein, whom you will find a delightful old gentleman
but as wise as Solomon’s aunt. Talk to him like a sweet little boy, and
then come back to the Legation and stop with us while you see something
of the war. I can take you to within one hundred and fifty miles of the
firing line and show you the crack regiments of Germany looking as
happy and sleek as if they were merely out for one of the yearly
manoeuvres. I would have difficulty, though, in showing you any of the
wounded, as they are very careful to see that we are not offended by
any of the horrors that one reads of in the American papers.”
“Berlin is being forced to fiddle, eh, while Germany is burning?”
“Yes, she suggests the hysterical condition of Paris just before the
Reign of Terror, while I, like Benjamin Franklin, in ‘undertaker’s
clothes’ in the midst of barbaric splendour, wait for the inevitable.”
“Is your face, like his, ‘as well known as that of the moon’?” asked
Edestone.
“Yes, but a thing to be insulted, not like his to be painted on the
lids of snuff-boxes, as souvenirs for kings.
“Or if that does not amuse you, Mrs. Jones can introduce you to some of
the prettiest girls you ever saw.”
“Big, strong, fat, and healthy, I suppose, with red faces looking as if
they had just been washed with soap and water.”
“Well, then we might have some golf, and if you will give me half a
stroke, I will play you $5 a hole and $50 on the game. Or if that is
too rich for your blood, I will play you dollar Nassau. In fact, Jack,
I will do anything to get this foolish idea out of your head. These
people can’t see a joke at any time, but to try one now might put you
into a very serious if not dangerous position. Now you go along and see
Lawrence, as I have to look after some American refugees who are
waiting in the outer office. You will dine with us tonight, of course.”
Lawrence Stuyvesant, to whom the Secretary had referred, appeared at
the door at that moment and beckoned to Edestone. He was one of those
irrepressible Americans, born with an absolute lack of respect for
anything that suggested convention, at home in any company and showing
absolutely no preference. He would be found joking with the stokers in
the engine room when he might be walking with the Admiral on the
quarter-deck, flirting with a deaf old Duchess when he might be supping
with the leader of the ballet. With a sense of humour that would have
made his fortune on the stage, he spoke half-a-dozen languages and a
dozen dialects. He could imitate the Kaiser or give a Yiddish dialect
to a Chinaman. Light-hearted to a fault, he would make a joke at
anyone’s expense, preferably his own. An entertaining chap, but a
rolling stone that could roll up hill or skip lightly over the surface
of a placid lake with equal facility. He had already run through two
considerable fortunes, and had been almost everything from a camel
driver to a yacht’s captain. Now he imagined himself to be a diplomat.
“Behold the dreamer cometh,” he said in Yiddish dialect as Edestone
approached, and grasping the inventor by both hands, dragged him into
the other room, and began to ask questions so fast that a Chicago
reporter, had he heard, would have died of sheer mortification.
After he had gotten all the information that he could pump, pull, and
squeeze out of Edestone, he shook his head discouragingly.
“I am darn glad to see you, old chap,” he said, “but I am sorry to hear
that you have come over to try and reason with this bunch of nuts.
Don’t you know they are so damn conceited that if you were to tell them
that every time you look at a German you see two men, they would
believe you; and then as if they hated to lie to themselves, they would
say perhaps it was an optical illusion. Tell them that God did not
create anyone but the Germans and that he left the rest of the world to
the students in his office, and they will give you a smile of assent.”
Edestone smiled indulgently. “Tell them that when the Kaiser frowns
every wheel in the United States stops and refuses to move until
reassured by the German papers that it is but the frown of an indulgent
father and not the thunder of their future War Lord, and they will give
a knowing look. Tell them that only German is taught in our public
schools, and that any child who does not double-cross himself at the
mention of the name of any of the North German Lloyd steamers is taken
out and shot, and they will say, ‘Ach so?’
“But just you pull something about what a hit Brother Henry made in the
United States, especially with the navy, and what a swell chance he
would have of being elected Admiral when Dewey resigns, then look out!
Get under your umbrella and sit perfectly still until the storm passes.
Keep well down in the trenches and don’t expose anything that you do
not want sent to the cleaners. For when one of these Dutchmen begins to
splutter, there is nothing short of the U-29 that can stand the tidal
wave of beer and sauerkraut which has been lying in wait for some
unsuspecting neutral in their flabby jowls like nuts in a squirrel’s
cheek. They back-fire, skip, short-circuit, and finally blow up, and if
you don’t throw on a bucket or two of flattery quick, you’ve got a duel
on your hands, which for an American in this country means that you get
it going and coming.”
Edestone, knowing Lawrence well, took what he said largely as a joke;
but from his own observations and from what Jones had told him he felt
convinced that there did not exist the kindest feeling for Americans in
Berlin. Brushing all this aside, he turned to Lawrence with a
businesslike air:
“Where are the trunks that I sent to the Embassy?” he asked. “Have they
got here yet?”
“Down in the basement,” Lawrence nodded.
“I’d like to get something out of them.”
“Well, why look at me?” inquired Lawrence. “I’m no baggage smasher.”
“It’s a pity you’re not,” rejoined Edestone. “You would be better at
that than you are at diplomacy. However, all I want is for you to have
someone show me where they are.”
“Fred, show the King of America where his royal impedimenta await his
royal pleasure,” Lawrence directed a young man with the manners of a
Bowery boy, who appeared in answer to his summons.
With him Edestone went down to the trunks and took from one of them a
small receiving instrument with a dial attachment similar to the one on
top of the Deionizer, which he had dropped into the Channel. Then after
a few words with his other friends in the Embassy, he went back to the
hotel.
The next morning Count von Hemelstein called, and it was quite like
meeting an old friend. Edestone was really sorry when, the Count
leaving him at the door of General Headquarters said: “This is where I
turn you over to my superiors. These are times that try men’s souls,
and you are now dealing with men who must win.”
They had arrived on the stroke of the hour, and Edestone was quickly
taken in charge and shown without a moment’s delay into the presence of
General von Lichtenstein. The General was a man whose age was
impossible to tell. He was over sixty, but how much over one found it
hard to estimate. He was erect and rather thin, and he wore his uniform
with the care of a much younger man. The lines about his mouth and
chin, which are such a sure index, were hidden by a full beard, white
as snow and rather long. His high forehead was half covered by a huge
shock of hair, also perfectly white, which was parted neatly on the
side. His steel-blue eyes, looking out through a pair of gold-rimmed
spectacles, were bright, but were set so far back under his heavy brows
that they looked very old, very wise, and almost mysterious.
When Edestone was brought into the room without any form of
introduction, the General rose and greeted him in the most kind and
fatherly manner.
“Good-morning, Mr. Edestone,” he said in English with a marked accent.
“I am very glad to see you,” and, putting out his hand with an air of
simple kindness as if to lead him to a chair, he said: “Won’t you sit
down, sir?
“You must not mind if I treat you like a boy,” he went on with a gentle
smile; “you are about the age of my own son who was killed at Ypres. I
am too old to fight any more, so they keep me here to entertain
distinguished strangers like yourself,” and he laughed quietly to
himself, looking at Edestone as he might at a little boy whom he had
just told that he had on a very pretty suit of clothes.
He picked up from his desk, a box of very large cigars, selected two,
and, after looking very carefully at one to see that it was absolutely
perfect, handed it without a word to Edestone. After he had watched
with great interest to see that Edestone had lighted his cigar
properly, he lighted his own.
“I see by the way you smoke that you are a good judge of tobacco. I
have always understood that you Americans like very fresh cigars and
smoke them immediately after they are made. I like them old myself.”
“You are thinking of Cuba, perhaps,” suggested Edestone.
“Oh, that is true,” admitted the old gentleman. “The Americans live in
the United States and you do not allow the other inhabitants of the
hemisphere to the north or to the south of you to use that name. You
are perfectly right; you are--what do you call it?--the boss,” and
again he smiled his gentle smile.
“I get all my cigars from England,” he continued. “The English and I
have very similar tastes--in cigars. I have a very old friend,
Professor Weibezhal, who lives in England, and he sends them over to
me. I just received these a few days ago. He is not having a very good
time over there now, he writes me. He can’t get what he wants to eat,
and he says he misses his German beer.”
Edestone could scarcely realize that he was sitting in General
Headquarters, the very heart of German militarism, talking to General
von Lichtenstein, the most powerful and astute man in all Europe. But
for the German accent and magnificent uniform it might have been in the
Union Club in New York, and he himself talking to a very nice, rather
simple-minded old gentleman, who was flattered by the attention of a
younger man.
After the General had inquired about a friend of his who lived in
America--he said he did not know exactly where, not in New York, but
some town near there, Cincinnati or perhaps St. Louis. This struck
Edestone as strange when he thought of the springs on his father’s old
place which were marked on a German map that he had seen, although he
himself did not know of their existence, and he had spent his entire
childhood roaming all over it.
Finally, when he had told him one or two stories about an American
woman whom he had been quite fond of when he was a young man, the
General said in a most apologetic manner:
“Now I must not keep you. I suppose you would like to go out with some
of the younger officers and see something of this war, now that you are
over here. Or, by the way, it was about some discovery or invention you
have made that you called to see me, was it not? What is this
invention, tell me, and exactly what is it that you want the German
Government to do? If you will explain to me and I can understand, I
will be glad to help you in any way I can. Of course you know that I am
a very small part of the German Empire. I am, however, in a position to
bring your wishes to those who are above me and are all-powerful.”
Then, while Edestone explained to him everything in regard to his
mission except the actual construction of the Deionizer, the old
General sat quietly smoking, smiling occasionally and listening with
the attention that a man might show who was being told of an
improvement in some machine in which he had no personal interest but
was glad to be enlightened, although up to that time the matter had
been something he had never thought much about.
He would now and then say, “How very interesting!” “Can that be
possible?” “Is that so?” Not even when Edestone described the pictures
shown to the King of England did he manifest any feeling except that of
kindly interest in a most charming young man, who was taking a great
deal of trouble to explain his youthful hopes to a rather slow-thinking
old one.
He allowed Edestone to talk on, not even interrupting him, to ask a
single question, and when the visitor had finished by expressing the
hope that he might be instrumental in bringing the war to a close,
General von Lichtenstein replied with apparent sincerity:
“I really see no reason why you should not. You are a brilliant
inventor, apparently a hard worker, and above all you seem willing to
give your talents to the world for the benefit of your fellow-men. The
only thing that you lack is age and experience. I am not an inventor, I
cannot work hard any more, and I am not known as a philanthropist, but
I have age and I have experience, so I think that you and I might make
a good combination. Leave this to me, and I think I can show you how
all that you wish to accomplish can be accomplished, if not exactly in
your way, in a way which I think you will agree with me is a better
way. Whereas I should not dare to speak for His Imperial Majesty, the
Kaiser, I believe I am perfectly safe in saying that he will see you
and inspect your photographs, drawings, and anything else that you may
wish to show him. I will see him and let you know when and where.”
He laid his hand on Edestone’s shoulder and walked with him as far as
the door.
“You are a fine young fellow,” he said with a hearty grasp of the hand
as he bade him goodbye, “and all you want is an old head on your broad
young shoulders. Let the old man help you, and everything will be all
right.”
When Edestone was on the outside and thought over all that the General
had said, he would have been delighted with the turn things had taken
had he not been warned by Jones and did he not recall what Count von
Hemelstein had said.
Being so straightforward himself, he could not understand deceit in
others, and when he recalled the almost inspired expression on the kind
old gentleman’s face when he spoke of his son so recently killed in
battle, he could not bring himself to believe that this was the trained
diplomat of iron who covered with that gentle exterior a determination
to crush and kill anything that came between him and the accomplishment
of the great purpose, the great cause to which he had gladly sacrificed
his first-born and the heir to his name and title.
It was nearly noon, Greenwich time, now, so Edestone hurried back to
his hotel to receive from “Specs” the daily signal: “Awaiting orders.
All is well.”
With the forethought of a good general he wished to be prepared for any
emergency, and when the needle of the receiver, which he had taken from
the trunk at the Embassy, recorded the reassuring message, Edestone
thoroughly satisfied with the work of the morning returned to the
Embassy to keep his appointment with Lawrence.