The Man on Horseback/Chapter 30
CHAPTER XXX
STORM CLOUDS
The year drew to its close. Christmas came with snow thudding softly, with jingling sleigh bells, with motley gifts packing the shop windows, with glittering trees.
Came the New Year—Nineteen Hundred and Fourteen—and the Uhlans of the Guard celebrated it with a Liebesmahl, worthy of Lucullus, to which not only the officers of the other crack cavalry regiment came, but even the Emperor himself, Prince Ludwig Karl, and the Crown Prince.
The long table at the Hotel Adlon, where the feast was being given, was a mass of crystal and silver, broken here and there by banks of fern and violets, and by tall gold holders with miniature pennants—souvenir regimental pennants, each inscribed in gold letters with the name and date of some historic victory: "Rossbach," "Lützen," "Belle Alliance; "Metz," "Königsgratz" "Sedan" "Gravelotte," "Leipzig" … The list seemed endless.
Tom was at the far end of the table, with the younger officers, but he had sharp eyes and could see the length of the room. He studied the Emperor's face. Again, as at that other time when he had seen him, the man reminded him of an old, weary blood hound.
Tom shivered a little. He was not an imaginative man, but something unpleasant had touched his soul. He raised his glass of sparkling Moselle and drained it.
The next moment his neighbor, the little, rosy-cheeked Ensign Baron von Konigsmark, nudged him in the ribs.
"Graves! Graves!" he whispered.
Tom looked up from the depths of his wine glass.
All had risen to their feet. They stood at attention, facing the Emperor who, his face flushed with wine and excitement, had got up in his turn.
"Meine Herren Offiziere!" the Emperor boomed.
Then hushed, tense, dramatic silence through which the Emperor's words rattled and cracked and thudded like machine-gun bullets.
Tom had steadily improved his knowledge of the German language. But he could not understand everything the War Lord was saying.
Yet here and there a word, a whole sentence, stood out. And he understood—the words at least.
As always, when the Emperor had been drinking, the mysticism, the religious half-madness in his soul, rose to the surface. It blended with his soldier's soul and peaked to a very terrible, a very sinister apex:
"The world—the world outside of Germany—is Babylon!" cried Wilhelm. "Remember the words in the Bible—Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city! And again Babylon shall fall … To the touch of the German sword …"
Then, later on:
"I see the angels of the Euphrates let loose! Angels with breaths of flame, with eyes of flame, with hearts and souls and hands of flame! I see them, with their flaming swords of vengeance, rushing upon the weak, decadent, Western world … The world that preaches the ungodly, accursed sermon of freedom for the people and by the people! The angels—the angels of vengeance—the German angels descend and smite Europe and drown a third part of all her people in blood! They stifle and trample and kill with glowing feet the enemies of Him, our God, our old German God, which is, and which was, and which is to come! The sun is overcast with sable blackness! The stars fall from the firmament upon the earth! Upon the earth blazing in a most frightful conflagration! The sea is blood! The fish and all the creatures of the oceans choke with blood! The world, for its own salvation, must be absterged by a lotion of blood—and it is our duty, our shining privilege, our German privilege to obey the voice of our God, the German God! It is our right to smite the ivory towers of Babylon, to …"
"What the devil is he talking about?" Tom asked in an undertone.
"War! War!" The little Ensign's voice was hoarse with a great, unnatural emotion. His china-blue eyes blazed. His small, white hands opened and shut spasmodically.
"Stewed!" was Tom's silent comment. "Stewed to the gills, the whole darned lot of them, including the Emperor/ and he succeeded in taking French leave and returned to his apartment.
There was no more Liebesmahle, no more jolly mess gatherings, as the new year swung into line. The army, from Count Moltke down to the last recruit, passed into a stage of feverish work, and Tom was kept busy, often late into the night, judging the cavalry mounts that came in endless streams from Silesia, the Rhine Province, and East Prussia.
More horses came. Some from Russia, little shaggy brutes that reminded Tom of the Western cayuses; sleek-coated, unbroken ruffians from the South American plains; English thoroughbreds and handsome, long-tailed stallions from Turkish studs; squat, bowlegged Mongolian ponies; heavy-boned Belgian and French mares. All the world sent horses, and Tom was in his element. He had been made chief remount officer for the military district of Berlin, and he did not mind the extra work. He enjoyed it rather. It was his old job of the Killicott, magnified a thousand times.
"You see," he said to Bertha one of the rare evenings when he was off duty, "it gives me an additional reason, this work, for sticking to Germany and the army."
"What's the other reason?" asked the girl.
"You. I won't go home without you."
"Why not?" she asked mischievously, well knowing what the answer would be.
And it came.
"Because life away from you isn't worth the living! Why, girl, I know you don't care for me …"
"But I do, Tom. I love you like a …"
"Stop it!" cried Tom. "Here's that 'brother' again. Cut it out. It makes me mad clear through. I want you to love me like I love you, the right way, the good way, the regular flesh-and-blood way. I don't give a rap for that brother and sister stuff. I want love! The sort that kisses and likes it, by Gosh!"
She laughed.
"I have always thought you were a dear, Tom, and you are. I almost wish I could kiss you."
"Right here's where your wish is going to be gratified," came his quick reply, and he took her in his arms and kissed her full on the mouth.
"Tom, Tom! You mustn't …" She tore herself away and ran out of the room, colliding on the threshold with her grandmother.
The old lady looked at Tom quizzically.
"Ah," she said in her gentle, malicious voice, "I see that you are becoming more Germanized every day. To the victor the spoils!"
"You bet your life!" replied Tom, noways abashed.
Meanwhile the gathering excitement that had struck such a dramatic note in the Emperor's New Year speech gained speed and strength and a certain threatening grimness.
And not only in the army.
A change, at first subtle, then more and more distinct, finally gross, crept into the public life of the cap ital, even into the manners of the individuals. All Germany seemed one gigantic masonic lodge, in which everybody knew the pass word, everybody understood the signs and portents, with the exception of the foreigners, including the diplomatic corps.
People still aped foreign fashions. There were still advertisements in the shops of "Latest Paris Mode," "Latest London," "Latest New York," but an ugly undercurrent began to be at work against the foreigners themselves.
Tom was witness at a scene in the street where a German student, and sober at that, publicly insulted a young English girl for speaking her native language. He was about to interfere, but was immediately stopped by Baron von Götz-Wrede, who was with him.
"Remember your uniform," said the latter.
And by the time the Westerner had torn himself loose from his brother officer's grip and had mumbled something succinct about "Damn my uniform!" the student had disappeared.
Another change came into the wording of the restaurant menus. French was barred from them, by unofficial, but forceful, imperial edict, and this edict, ridiculous, petty, was obeyed by the people with absolute, granite, Teutonic seriousness.
Tom laughed.
"Say," he confided to Bertha, "I've always been as fond of spaghetti as a Wop. But when it comes to calling them Hohlmehlnudeln, I pass. I wonder if they are going to Prussianize the word 'steak.'"
But it was not only in mean, small details that Berlin was changing. Almost it seemed as if beneath the clean pavement of the streets a gigantic, barbaric soul was beating against the fetters of the West, of civilization, of humanity, as if this soul was about to break the fetters, to push outwards into the world with a crackle of forged steel, to flash its sinister message to the far lands.
Strength! Efficiency! The Iron Fist!
These were the shibboleths of the hour; and ever, more and more, their passion, their challenge, their brutal, satanic leer, grew and bloated.
Months later, when the armed citizenry of France and Britain were battling heroically against the invader, certain of the scenes which at the time he had not understood, came back to Tom, like fragments of evil dream that trouble the sun peace of waking day.
He remembered, for instance, one definite picture.
A crisp winter day; the wind rustling the bare trees of Unter Den Linden; a crowd of students leaving the Pschorr Bräu Restaurant for the University; brokers hurrying on their way to 'Change; a file of Grenadiers of the Guard goosestepping down the street to relieve the watch on the Pariser Platz; a few late tourists looking into the shop windows or issuing from the swinging portals of Hamburg-America or North German Lloyd; a chilly, orange sun flaming poignantly.
Tom recalled it all vividly. Also the man he saw swinging around the corner of the Wilhelm Strasse: A certain Mr. Trumbull, an American newspaper correspondent, who had a rare knack for foreign political intrigues and who would have made supremely good but for a thirst that never left him.
Tom had met him several months earlier, before he had joined the army.
"Hullo, Trumbull!" he greeted him, hand outstretched.
Trumbull was the worse for drink, but he steadied himself.
"Tom," he said, picking his words with alcoholic precision, "I'd rather be damned than shake hands with you."
"Why?" laughed Tom. "What's the matter? Isn't my hand clean enough for you?"
"It is not!" hiccoughed the other. "It is spotted with blood. I know—even if those silly fools of diplomats are as blind as new-born puppies;" and he staggered down the street while the Westerner looked after him, shaking his head, and muttering something about D.T.'s.
Then there was another memory. A Sunday dinner at the house of the little professor with the tiny red ears whom he had met at the Colonel's and whose name was Kuno Sachs.
Dinner was over. Tom had been talking to Bertha. She had excused herself to say a few words to her hostess. Tom saw a group of the younger officers gathered about the professor in the latter's smoking-room.
Sachs was holding forth, in a high, shrill voice, his little, wrinkled fists shooting up and down emphasizing his points.
"Nietzsche has said it," he shrieked. "It is the business of the very few to be independent; it is a privilege of the strong. And whoever attempts it, strong beyond measure, daring beyond measure, must see it through to the end. He must not weaken. He must not listen to the cries and threats and accusations of the others, the weak, the useless, the impotent. Strength! Rücksichtslosigkeit! That is it. Women and children? They, too, are potentially dangerous! They, too, must be hurled to the oblivion of death …"
"Say," laughed Tom, who had joined the group, "aren't you the blood-thirsty little wretch?"
And, at once, there was silence. At once the conversation was changed. Sachs commenced talking feverishly about the palaeolithic relics of ancient Egypt; Colonel Wedekind about a horse which he had bought the other day; the little Ensign von Königsmark told a joke which he should have been too young to understand; and Baron von Götz-Wrede mentioned the new ballet at the Opera,
Tom was an interloper. But at the time he did not exactly realize it.
Then there were the new lectures at War School.
"Know anything about French?" Tom was asked one day by Major von Tronchin of the General Staff.
"No! Not a word, except Oui!"
"Not enough. You will attend French lessons every afternoon from three to six."
"All right," sighed Tom, who had found out that it was useless to argue when superior officers adopted that tone, "I'll make a try at the parley-voo."
He did.
But it puzzled him that he was not put through a regular course in grammar. All his instructors expected of him was to memorize, like a parrot, certain lengthy French paragraphs and their German equivalent. These paragraphs were on printed forms, several dozen of them, and the lot was collected in a book, printed by the General Staff and marked "Very Confidential," and Tom learned to the best of his ability.
Here are two or three of the French paragraphs, with their German translations, which he was taught:
"A fine of 600,000 marks, in consequence of an attempt made by to assassinate a German soldier, is imposed on the town of O. By order of .
"Efforts have been made, without result, to obtain the withdrawal of the fine. The term fixed for payment expires to-morrow, Saturday, December 17, at noon. Bank-notes, cash, or silver plate will be accepted."
"I have to acknowledge receipt of your letter dated the 7th of this month, in which you bring to my notice the great difficulty which you expect to meet in levying the contributions. I can but regret the explanations which you have thought proper to give me on the subject; the order in question, which emanates from my government, is so clear and precise, and the instructions which I have received in the matter are, so categorical, that if the sum due by the town of R is not paid the town will be burned down without pity."
"On account of the destruction of the bridge of F, I order: The district shall pay a special contribution of 10,000,000 francs by way of amends. This is brought to the notice of the public, who are informed that the method of assessment will be announced later and that the payment of the said sum will be enforced with the utmost severity. The village of F will be destroyed immediately by fire, with the exception of certain buildings occupied for the use of the troops." [1]
"Say," asked Tom of Baron von Götz-Wrede one night in January, showing him one of the above blanks, "what's it all about? Are you fellows preparing a Pancho Villa raid on a gigantic scale?"
"No, no. But you know the Kaiser's maxim: 'In time of peace prepare for war.' By the way"—the Baron added suddenly—"if you are tired of the German army, I fancy I can …"
"Me? Tired? Not on your life. I'll stick right with you."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive."
"You know what it means?" went on the Baron.
"You bet your life. I'm going to stay with you until …" He was going to say until Bertha returned to America, but checked himself. "Yep," he went on, "I'm going to stick all right."
The Baron did not reply.
And, a few days later, tragedy stalked into the even path of Tom's life.
- ↑ See "MILITARY INSTRUCTOR FOR USE IN THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY," printed by the German General Staff in 1906. With thanks to Mr. Bruce Barton, editor of Every Week.