In the Café Niederegger in Lübeck I sat and drank my glass of beer, a
trifle self-conscious. I had registered in Professor Schultze's
School for Navigation, and felt that as a navigation student it was
required of me to affect better ways than I had followed when I was a
common sailor. I bought a decent wardrobe. I wore linen collars
now, and neckties that you tie, and a scarf pin that you thrust into
the necktie, instead of the eternally enduring celluloid collar which
you share on board with a friend who wants to go ashore, and the
indestructible tin necktie, made in America, with the scarfpin, a
tiny revolver, riveted to it. I was conscious likewise that I must
frequent better cafés than the saloons I had frolicked in as a
sailor. That was what had brought me to the Café Niederegger, famous
for its almond paste. The tables were covered with spotless white
cloths, the waiters wore frock coats, and on a table, as a final mark
of elegance, lay a handsomely bound book, the Almanach de Gotha.
Overcome with curiosity, I took up the volume and turned to the L's.
Yes, there were the Von Luckners, and there was Count Felix von
Luckner with the note attached--"missing." That was as I had
thought. At home they had given me up for lost, dead.
"Phelax," I thought, "perhaps it is you who will be missing before
long. Perhaps before many months are gone Count Felix von Luckner
will go home--as a naval officer in the Imperial Service."
For the present, I ordered another glass of Pilsener and drank to my
demise.
At Professor Schultze's school, I was faced with that old and almost
forgotten enemy of mine--study. I was past twenty now and more
ignorant than the average ten-year-old child. The professor was
tolerant and wise enough to expect almost anything, but I astounded
him. When he examined me in fractional arithmetic I did not know
what a fifth was. A half and a quarter I understood from the clock,
but a fifth was a quantity unknown to me. And I was to acquire
grammatical German, something of a general education, and the large
amount of higher mathematics and astronomy necessary in the science
of navigation. I should not have blamed the professor if he had
despaired and turned me away. I told him my history, begging him to
keep my identity secret, and he vowed, by Joe, that he would make a
learned navigator of me.
I lived quietly. My face lost its tan and roughness. Month after
month I had to buy smaller collars. I tried especially to keep my
hands clean. By and by they lost their tarry wrinkles and calluses.
I studied from morning till night. To reduce something to a common
denominator is no joke. The whole Schultze family helped me and
shared in my worries.
Examination day came, with all the professors in full dress. My
handwriting was still clumsy. With my hard, big hands I used the
bulkiest penholder I could find. It was as thick as a cane, an
instrument designed for victims of apoplectic stroke who would have
to grasp it with both hands.
Early one morning, a good citizen of Lübeck went out to water his
garden and saw a navigation student lying among his tomatoes.
"What are you doing there?"
The wretch, not knowing what to answer, merely asked in turn:
"What are you watering?"
For two days I had been celebrating the fact that I had passed the
examination.
Again I was tempted to rush straightway to my parents. Professor
Schultze had investigated quietly on his own account and found that
my father and mother were alive and well and that my brother, like
myself, had turned his mind to the sea. He was an ensign in the
navy. Once more I denied myself, and remembered my vow not to go
home save as a naval officer.
I got a post as petty officer aboard the Hamburg-South American liner
_Petropolis_. I bought white kid gloves and white shoes, and can
still see myself buying my first pair of cuff links. As I promenaded
the deck of the _Petropolis_ in my new uniform, I felt myself a god,
only my cuffs kept bothering me and saluting seemed queer. I read
all the learned books I could find, but there was much I could not
understand.
After three quarters of a year aboard the _Petropolis_, I was
eligible to enter the navy as a one-year service volunteer, for naval
training and study. That was a method of training mercantile marine
officers for naval service in case of war, of creating a class of
reserve officers. After I had served my year as a volunteer and had
mastered my studies, I would be entitled to wear a lieutenant's
uniform. I would walk out a naval officer in the Imperial Service.
A comrade and I took the railroad from Hamburg to Kiel to be mustered
in for volunteer service. It was the first time I had ever been in
an expensive railroad compartment. Opposite us sat a gentleman with
a pointed beard whom we took to be a naval officer. That made us
behave in very dignified fashion.
"Luckner," said my comrade, "is it not a fine view?"
"It is, indeed," I replied.
The gentleman with the pointed beard looked at me several times.
The daily drill at slow step on the parade ground at Kiel gave me a
great deal of pain in the places where my legs had been broken
before. An orderly came looking for a volunteer private named
Luckner. I was required to go to the station. My officer asked me
whether I had a relative at the station. I said, "No," and wondered
whether it was a police station. Which one of my sins had been
discovered?
I went to a red building and waited in an anteroom. A corporal bade
me enter an inner office. Admiral Count Baudissin wanted to see me.
How was I to behave in the presence of such a high dignitary? I
supposed the principal thing was to stand at attention. The admiral
was seated. He had gold braid on his sleeves. He was the same
gentleman with the pointed beard who had looked at me on the train.
I stood there at attention, elbows and hands held tight against me.
"Tell me, which Luckner are you?"
"The son of Heinrich Luckner."
"What is your first name?"
"Felix."
"He is missing."
"I am that Felix, sir."
"How did you get here?"
"I have passed my examination as mate, which entitles me to volunteer
service, I hope to become a reserve officer through good behaviour."
"How do you expect to pay your way?"
"I have 3,400 marks."
"You have earned that much?"
"Yes, sir."
"Why did you not write to your parents?"
"I want to go home an officer in the Emperor's service. I did not
write because I did not want my parents to know I was a common
sailor. I don't want them to know until I return home an officer."
Then the admiral said:
"I am your uncle Fritz."
"Eh," I thought, "what a noble uncle!"
I had never heard of this relationship. I rolled my eyes right and
left, not knowing whether to address the admiral as Uncle then and
there.
"Your Excellency," I said, "I wish it could be arranged that my
parents do not learn of my being here until I have qualified as a
reserve officer."
"Very well," he answered, "but you must not expect any help from me."
Not being able to say "Uncle," I replied:
"No, sir."
"Do not in any sense think that you are under my protection."
"No, sir."
"By the way, Felix, you may come to my house twice a week. My
daughter will teach you a little, my lad. You speak a dreadful
German."
I had considered myself, after all my studies, a tolerably educated
man, but lapses in grammar have been my bane, more than storms at sea
or shell fire during the war.
In the admiral's family, as a side line to my grammatical studies, I
was required to write out a history of my adventures, which I did
with judicious omissions, such as service in the Salvation Army and
stealing a horse from a lighthouse-keeper. Such details would have
spoiled my career at the outset.
I soon felt at home in the navy. There was a tremendous amount of
studying to be done in mechanics, engineering, and the mathematics of
gunnery. I was beginning to get used to study, as a slave gets used
to the treadmill.
One day I tried to prevent a boat collision, and was too confident of
my strength, alas. I was forced against an iron support, which
pierced my abdomen and tore my intestines twice. That sent me to the
hospital for a long spell. I was convalescing. A visitor brought
some plums to a ward mate. I was starving. I begged some of the
plums from him, and ate them. The next day, when the surgeon changed
my bandage, he was dumbfounded to find the plums in the bandage. My
imprudent act had caused a breaking of the intestines where they had
been sewn. It was necessary to sew them again. I was threatened
with arrest when I got well again, and a guard was placed over my bed
to see that I ate no more plums.
Instead of arrest, however, and possible trouble about getting my
commission, the naval authorities were kind enough to credit me with
the time I passed in the hospital. In due time, I was mustered in as
a reserve naval lieutenant. I called on my Uncle Fritz once more,
and started out for home. I wore my uniform, a cocked hat,
epaulettes, and a sword sash.
In Halle, the quiet home on the "Old Promenade" had changed not at
all in those eight years. I climbed the steps to the door, quite a
figure in my brilliant uniform. To the maid, whom I did not know, I
handed my visiting card, which she took inside. I heard the well
remembered voice of the old gentleman questioning:
"Naval Lieutenant Felix Luckner? There is no such man of our name.
But show him in."