Читать книгу Officer Factory - Hans Hellmut Kirst - Страница 4

“My dear Lieutenant Krafft," said Captain Kater, who was making his way through the barracks with his company officer towards the headquarters building, “a training school is a highly complex organization. And compared with our General the Sybil herself was little more than a slick fortune-teller."

“That’s why I can't understand how you of all people got here," said Lieutenant Krafft frankly.

“I didn't choose this post," said Captain Kater with a somewhat weary smile,” but since I'm here, this is where I intend to stay. Do you follow me? I wouldn't like you to build any false hopes in that respect. For that would make things too unpleasant for you and too exacting for me. If you're wise, then you'll try to get along with me."

“What else can one do?" said Lieutenant Krafft cheerfully. “I’m neither clever nor hard-working. I have no ambitions and I'm all for a quiet life."

“A bit of a one for the girls too, I dare say," the Captain suggested with a wink. He mistrusted Krafft, as he mistrusted everybody on principle. People were always trying to get things out of him. The General wanted discipline and a knowledge of the regulations, the officers wanted bottles of schnapps and extra rations, and this fellow Krafft, it seemed, wanted his job. It was difficult to hold younger, inexperienced officers back when they saw a chance of treading on their superiors' heels. And the officers of the military training school were an elite who were not only burning to make a career for themselves but also had it in them to do so. However, there were always girls.

“We shouldn't exaggerate," said Krafft. “'Girls' is going too far. One's quite enough for me. Every now and again."

“You will find me quite human about that," the Captain assured him. “And I always say: every man to his own tastes. But let's get one thing straight: I am in command of the headquarters company and you're allotted to me as company officer. We're clear about that, aren't we?"

Together they walked through the orderly room of the head-quarters company with Captain Kater leading, as was only right and proper. The clerks, a corporal and two lance-corporals, rose to their feet. The one member of the female staff, however, remained seated, and in a most provocative manner too. Kater pretended to take no notice of her.

Yet it did not escape him that this attractive girl—a certain Elfrida Rademacher—had eyes for no one but Lieutenant Krafft. She smiled at him with such direct intimacy that he and she might have been the only two people in the world. Kater looked away.

“A cup of coffee?" asked Elfrida. She said this in the direction of Captain Kater, but winked at the Lieutenant or she did so. Krafft winked back. Slowly the icy cold of the cemetery began to thaw from his limbs.

“Yes, fine, make some coffee," said Kater generously. “Put some cognac in mine, please."

In this way Captain Kater demonstrated his individuality of taste. He never let slip an opportunity of reminding his associates of his individualism—at least in respect of his choice of drinks.

“I’m badly in need of a cognac," he continued, collapsing noisily into the chair at his desk. He motioned Lieutenant Krafft to a chair beside him. “After that farce at the cemetery I need something to fortify me. Though I say so with the utmost respect, the General's becoming a bit of a nightmare. What is it he wants? If we were to make as much of a fuss as this over everyone who got killed we'd hardly be able to get on with the war. And without cognac, life would be utterly impossible."

“Yes," said Elfrida brightly, " the war gets harder and harder every day." She spread a cloth out on top of the desk and brought in two cups of coffee. “The best thing will be if I just put the bottle of brandy down as it is."

“What do you mean by that, exactly?" asked Kater, suspicious as ever. The eagerness with which Elfrida made the suggestion led him to fear the worst. “Has something else gone wrong?"

“Trebly wrong, you might say," said Elfrida frankly, arranging the glasses and beaming across at the Lieutenant.

The Captain managed to overlook this. His seat creaked beneath him. The air reeked of old cigarette smoke, and the foul smell of soap and water and rotten floor-boards was all about him. Somewhat nervously he adjusted his stomach and folded his fat little fingers over it. Then for the first time he looked straight at Elfrida Rademacher, his excellent, multi-purpose secretary, with an expression of weary exasperation.

This girl Elfrida Rademacher was certainly not uninteresting to look at, though she was a little full in the figure and her dress bulged prominently in a number of places. She was a little like a horse, though perhaps with a rather cow like temperament. In any case there was a full-blooded rustic quality about her, suggestive of haystacks and rustling woods —all things, admittedly, to which Captain Kater attached little importance, for he was a pretty cold fish. He was, alas, no longer in his first youth, though this sometimes lent him a spurious air of virtue.

“Out with it, then, Fräulein Rademacher," he said, lighting a cigar—an especially mild Havana. “You know I'm a very understanding sort of person."

“Well, you'll need to be, this time," Elfrida assured him, winking at Krafft again, and running her tongue quickly over her lips.

“Come on, Fräulein Rademacher," said Captain Kater impatiently, “fire away."

And quite casually, if she were talking about the most natural thing in the world, she said: “Someone was raped last night."

Captain Kater winced. Even Lieutenant Krafft pricked up his ears, though he had long ago resolved never to be surprised by anything that this war for the glory of Greater Germany might have in store for him.

“It’s disgraceful!" cried Captain Kater. “Utterly disgraceful the way these cadets behave!"

“It wasn't one of the cadets," Elfrida Rademacher informed him amiably.

“Not someone from Headquarters Company, I hope?" asked the Captain, even more perturbed. Rape committed by one of the cadets would have been just tolerable, inasmuch as these were not directly under his command. Presumably the girl would concern him, for all civilian employees were his responsibility.

But if the incident should turn out to involve a member of the headquarters company, it would be disastrous. In fact it might seal his fate altogether. Coning on top of the events at the cemetery it might even get him a posting to the front.

Kater therefore glanced straight at Krafft, automatically preparing to implicate him in his troubles. The situation was grave indeed. First a man of God who sprained his ankle at the crucial moment; then a defender of the Fatherland who was foolish enough to be caught in the act of rape!

“What’s the name of the fellow who's done this to me?" he demanded.

“Corporal Krottenkopf. He's the one who was raped," announced Elfrida Rademacher, smiling with genuine pleasure.

“I’m always hearing about this Corporal Krottenkopf!" cried Kater desperately. “But really it's absurd! It's just not possible."

“It’s the truth," said Elfrida. She was obviously thoroughly enjoying herself. “The rape of Corporal Krottenkopf took place sometime in the early hours of this morning between one and three a.m. In the basement of the headquarters building too, in the communications center, by three of the signal girls on duty there."

“But it simply can't be true!" cried Captain Kater. “What do you say, Lieutenant Krafft?"

“I’m trying to envisage it from a practical point of view, Sir," declared Krafft, shaking his large bucolic head in amazement. “But I'm afraid my imagination doesn't seem to run to it."

“Disgusting!" cried Kater, meaning not so much the incident itself as its possible consequences. “What was this Krottenkopf fellow doing at night in the communications center anyway, even though he is the signals corporal? And how is it that three of these women were all in the communications center at the same time? There are never more than two on duty at once at night. And why did they have to pick on Krottenkopf? Aren't there enough cadets in the barracks who would be only too glad to satisfy their demands? Quite apart from which, why did it have to happen in duty hours!"

Captain Kater refilled his glass to the brim, and his hands were trembling so much that the cognac spilled on to a document on his desk, forming a tiny aromatic lake there. But Kater couldn't have cared less about the document or the lake of cognac. All he could think of was this appalling affair of the rape and the complications it was likely to lead to. He knocked back his glass, but its contents might have been water. There was nothing he would have liked better than to get drunk on the spot. But he had to take a decision first, and it had to be the best possible one in the circumstances. In other words it had to be a decision which would save him work and worry, and enable him to shift the responsibility from himself on to someone else's shoulders.

“Krafft," he said, “I hand the investigation of this affair over to you. The whole thing seems to me utterly incredible, but we've got to try and get to the bottom of it. I hope you follow me. I simply cannot believe that anything like this could possibly take place in my headquarters company. Biologically speaking its improbable enough, but militarily it's unthinkable. It must be a mistake."

Having said which, Kater prepared to leave, confident that officially he hadn't put a foot wrong so far. He had taken the requisite steps for an occasion of this sort, handing the matter on to someone else and seeing that it was properly investigated. If mistakes were made now, the responsibility would no longer be his. And if Krafft were by any chance to come a cropper in the process, so much the better.

Yet before Kater finally left he turned to Krafft and said: “There’s one point you oughtn't to overlook, my dear fellow—and that's this: why does Krottenkopf wait until this afternoon, before reporting this filthy business? Regulations say he should have done so first thing this morning at the latest. What does the fellow think he's doing? Who does he think he's dealing with? See that he's severely reprimanded! A man who breaks regulations like this is always a suspect."

Krafft felt a certain respect for Kater as he watched him go. He was certainly a cunning creature—though there was really nothing so surprising about this, for how otherwise would he have managed to hold his job at the training school?

Kater's suggestion that Corporal Krottenkopf, the plaintiff, had broken the regulations was as low as it was cunning, for it put Krottenkopf at a disadvantage from the start.

“I really feel like throwing the whole thing back in Kater's face!" said Lieutenant Krafft.

“Is that all you feel like doing?" said Elfrida, sidling up to him.

“Perhaps we ought to close the door!" suggested Lieutenant Krafft. He was standing very close to Elfrida.

“What’s the use?" she said with a slight huskiness in her voice. “It hasn't a lock."

“How do you know?" he asked quickly. “Have you tried it before?"

She laughed softly and snuggled up close to him as if to stop him from asking any more questions.

He put his strong arms around her and her body yielded willingly. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the C.O.'s desk, at the same time pushing the coffee cups to one side with an unfaltering hand to prevent them falling to the floor.

“No one will come in without knocking," she said. “And Kater's in the officers' mess by now."

Lieutenant Krafft looked down past her to the desk, where there was a writing-pad with a note scrawled on it: “Call RO 25/33." Presumably this meant: Call Rotunda, the land-lord of The Gay God, and get him to deliver twenty-five bottles of the '33 vintage. But Krafft closed his eyes as if to forget the letters and figures, as if to forget everything except the strength of the life within him.

They were soon panting desperately, while outside a group of cadets could be heard singing: “There is no finer country in the world." With its sturdy ground bass of tramping boots, this song made a good deal of noise, and this was helpful, for barrack walls, not being built for eternity, are usually pretty thin.

"I can't wait for to-night!" said Elfrida.

But all Karl Krafft could do was nod.

Corporal Krottenkopf, the alleged victim of the rape, was waiting for Lieutenant Krafft in the corridor. He gazed up at his superior officer with a tortured expression, and then, stooping slightly, bowed his head in shame.

Yet this Corporal Krottenkopf was no sensitive plant, no delicate youth or mother's darling. He was a man with a protuberant nose, full fleshy lips, apelike hands, and the powerful hindquarters of a stag.

“They called me up in the middle of the night," he related mournfully and with a great show of indignation. “They called me up and told me that the external exchange was out of order. I told them they could go and get—well, you know. . . . They said: Well, not down the telephone. That should have put me on my guard. But I was thinking solely of my duty, of the fact that the exchange was out of order, and of what the General might say if he wanted to telephone. It just didn't bear thinking of. It's the sort of thing that can get a man sent to the front. Well, anyway, along I went, for duty is duty, after all. No sooner had I reached the basement, though, than they set upon me. All three of them, like wild animals. They simply tore the clothes off me, boots and all. And that had them panting a bit, because my boots are damned tight—anyone who hasn't the knack has to pull like hell to get them off. But these women stopped at nothing!"

“All right, all right," said Krafft, who had no wish to go into any further details. “But why are you only coming to me now? It must have occurred to you first thing this morning that you'd been the victim of a brutal rape?"

“Yes, well," said Krottenkopf, grinning to show that he was speaking as man to man, “I’m not inhuman. I'm not a petty-minded sort of fellow, you know; never have been. I enjoy a visit to a decent brothel like the next man, and when these women set upon me like this I thought to myself: Now then you're not going to have any hard feelings about this. When someone's had more to drink than is good for them, it works on the brain and makes them randy as a rattlesnake. Right, then, I said to myself, forget all about it. It's a hard war, and casualties are inevitable in war. I'm an understanding sort of fellow, you see. The unpleasant part of the business only developed later. Now these beauties won't address me by anything but my Christian name: Waldemar they call me! And that's going too far. They've lost all sense of discipline. They spend their whole time giggling and making personal remarks and actually laughing at my orders. They call me darling! Would you believe it? They call me darling in front of the rank and file. And not just the three who were involved yesterday evening either, but all the rest of them as well! The entire communications section! And as a corporal, even as a man, I'm not prepared to stand for that."

“Right," said Lieutenant Krafft, " look into it, that is if you really insist on pressing the charge, Krottenkopf."

“I’m not insisting on anything," the corporal reassured him. “But what else am I to do? The whole barracks is laughing at me, and calling me Waldemar! . . . And my real name's Alfred! Please do something about it, Lieutenant."

“You don't think you might possibly have made a mistake?"

“You’d better ask the three harpies themselves about that. They know best, after all."

Captain Kater had retired to the officers' mess in search of strength and succor. The mess was his own undisputed territory: kitchen, cellar, and all the personnel here, were his direct responsibility in his capacity as the officer commanding the headquarters company. Apart from him, the only other person who had the right to give orders here was the General—though there was little danger of his putting in an appearance during the afternoon.

“Well, now, gentlemen," said Captain Kater briskly,” what can I offer you? Don't be shy; just tell me what you'd like. A funeral like that takes it out of you—you need something to pull you round afterwards. Personally I'd suggest an Armagnac, straight from the cask—twenty years at least in the wood."

The officers took his advice, for at least Kater knew something about drink, having spent a good deal of time in France.

Kater insisted on paying for the round. It didn't cost him much, for there weren't many officers in the mess at the time, only a handful of tactics instructors and a few company commanders. And, in addition to them, the training school's guest of the moment: a certain Wirrmann, judge-advocate by profession, temporarily seconded to the Inspector of Training Schools and posted to Wildlingen-am-Main to investigate the death of Lieutenant Barkow.

This pillar of military justice was a spry little fellow who seemed more interested in the contents of the officers'-mess cellar than anything else. Thus he and Kater got along famously, and Wirrmann found himself with a glass that was full to the brim.

"Well, gentlemen," said Kater, joining the officers,” what a funeral this afternoon! I don't know who one would prefer to find oneself up before—one's Maker or the General."

“I must say you'd make a splendid corpse," said Captain Feders cheerfully. “No question of it—the funeral would make a most happy affair. One's only got to think of all those supplies of yours that would be automatically released."

“Captain Feders," said Kater icily, " I'm surprised to find you in the mess at this time of day. Besides, you're a married man and your wife may be waiting for you."

At this, Feders seemed on the point of losing self-control altogether. All trace of humor vanished from his face. The officers eyed him warily, for everyone knew his Achilles heel though few would have risked wounding him there. Kater had acted carelessly, to say the least.

Feders began to laugh, but there was a raw, dangerous edge to the sound.

“Kater," he said, “if you're surprised to find me in the mess at this time of day, all I can say is that I'm even more surprised to find you here. Normally you should be in that pig-sty of yours by now, trying to keep some sort of order there, to put it mildly. But presumably you've delegated the job to someone else—this fellow Krafft, I suppose. He's got a broad back certainly, so broad in fact, Kater, that he could quite easily carry you off altogether if he felt like it. This fellow Krafft's no fool, I should say, and if I were in your shoes, Kater, I wouldn't be feeling too happy at the moment."

This remark went home all right, and the Captain rose to his feet. “What an irrepressible fellow you are, Feders!" he said condescendingly in an attempt to laugh, but it didn't sound very convincing. Kater left, saying that he wanted to go and inspect some stores that were arriving.

No sooner had Captain Kater arrived in the officers'-mess kitchen and taken a shot of something to boost his morale with, than Judge-Advocate Wirrmann appeared on the scene.

"Anything worrying you, my dear Herr Kater?" he asked sympathetically.

"Nothing important," Kater assured him.

"Then," said Wirrmann, “you should find it all the easier to confide in someone who is well disposed towards you. You can rest assured, my dear fellow, that if it's justice you're after you've come to the right address."

“Now, ladies," said Lieutenant Krafft, beginning his interrogation, " I'd like you to try and forget both that I'm a man and that I'm an officer."

“That won't be easy," said one of the three girls.

“Do your best, all the same," Krafft advised them. “Imagine I'm a sort of neuter, a personification of the law, if you like. You can talk to me freely, without any false modesty."

“We don't have such a thing anyway," said another of the girls.

Lieutenant Krafft now found himself at what might be called the scene of the crime, that's to say in the communications center in the basement of the H.Q. building. Chairs stood in front of a row of switchboards, above which were circuit diagrams with the inevitable poster, “Beware! The enemy is listening!" There was a table in one corner on which stood coffee cups, a jug and an electric kettle. The latter was officially forbidden throughout the barracks, but since it was Captain Kater and not General Modersohn who was responsible for the ban, no one paid any attention to it. In another corner stood a camp bed—the corpus delicate, so to speak—a shabby, battered, rusty iron bedstead, with a mattress and some blankets on it.

Krafft confronted the three girls behind the switchboards. Their figures were well-developed and their faces pretty and innocent-looking. Their honest, friendly eyes regarded him with curiosity. Though the eldest of these girls was barely more than twenty, they were neither particularly embarrassed nor excited, seeming to have no sense of guilt at all.

“What can you have been thinking of, ladies?" asked Lieutenant Krafft warily.

“Absolutely nothing," said one of the girls, which sounded convincing enough.

“Right," said Krafft. “I admit the business demands no particularly strenuous intellectual effort, but some sort of thought-process is unavoidable. For example: why exactly did you have to pick on Corporal Krottenkopf?"

“Oh, anyone would have done," said one of the girls, managing to smile at Krafft, ”and this Krottenkopf just happened to be handy."

Lieutenant Krafft found he had to sit down. The whole affair seemed to him either fearfully complex or else amazingly simple, which sometimes amounted to the same thing.

“At any rate," said Krafft finally, “you did lay hands on him, didn't you?"

The girls looked at each other. They seemed to have come to a pretty careful agreement about what they were to say. Krafft couldn't really take objection to this. He had no particular wish to start a major judicial process. So he simply smiled encouragement at the astonishing creatures.

" It's true," said one of them, a pretty little thing, with a wide baby smile and frank honest eyes, and a sort of roguishness about her reminiscent of her grandmother's era in the First World War, " it's true we took his clothes off, but we then meant simply to throw him out as a sort of demonstration. The trouble was he wouldn't budge."

“You mean," said Krafft in amazement, “this was simply a sort of demonstration!"

“Exactly!" said the unbelievably innocent-looking girl. “Because it's time something was done about the situation in these barracks. There are nearly a thousand cadets and fifty girls here, and no one's allowed to take any notice of us at all. Wherever you go there's supervision and closed doors and we're surrounded by sentries. All we're asking for is a certain amount of social life. We just don't want to vegetate! But human beings mean nothing to this General, he doesn't take the slightest notice of us. And all this had to be said! That was why we picked on Krottenkopf—not because we wanted to start anything with him but because we wanted to draw attention to the situation. Now do you understand?"

Lieutenant Krafft was beginning to see the funny side of all this, though he was determined to tread warily.

“Listen a moment," he said, “I want to tell you a story. When I was a boy and still lived in the country, some of our geese one day waddled across some relatively clean washing put out to dry by our neighbor, who immediately lodged a complaint. Now there were a number of possibilities. First, the geese themselves were wicked. Secondly, they had been deliberately driven over the washing. Or thirdly, they had simply strayed there. The last explanation was the simplest and the best and it wasn't difficult to make it sound plausible. After all, wicked geese or geese that had been maliciously inspired could lead to all sorts of trouble. Trouble of the sort that geese don't usually survive. Now is the moral clear? Or do I have to make myself still clearer?"

The girls eyed Krafft carefully, and then exchanged glances among themselves. Finally the innocent-looking one, who was probably the sharpest of the three, said: " You mean we should simply say it was some sort of mistake?"

" Well, not a mistake exactly," advised Krafft, " but you might perhaps have been playing a trivial if daring practical joke, an innocent sort of tease to get your own back on your tyrant Krottenkopf. Only unfortunately the tease rather got out of hand in a way you couldn't have foreseen. In this way you shift the blame from yourselves without actually putting it on to anyone else. If it was a sort of joke, well, perhaps a few long faces will be pulled about it, but no one's going to lose his head. If, however, it were a serious matter, if there were any question of assault, or something as perverted as rape—then good night, sweet ladies! That could end in jail. Which in certain circumstances can be even more unpleasant than life in barracks."

“How nice you are," said one of the girls gratefully, while the others nodded vigorously. They realized at once that they were lucky to have been allowed to jump back from the fire into the frying pan. “One could really get along with someone like you."

“Maybe," said Lieutenant Krafft. “But don't get it into your heads to pursue the matter further next time you find yourselves bored with night duty and in search of a little diversion."

When Lieutenant Krafft got back to his desk in the headquarters company he found someone waiting for him. This was a slight little figure of a man with the quick agile movements of a squirrel, a pointed nose and the darting eyes of some bird of prey.

“Allow me to introduce myself," the little man said. “My name's Wirrmann—Judge-Advocate. I am interested in the Krottenkopf case."

“Who told you about that?" asked Krafft cautiously.

“Your superior officer Captain Kater," explained the little man quietly but firmly. “Besides, it's all over the mess by now, and being discussed in a rather unsavory manner, which is hardly surprising. All the more reason for getting it dealt with and out of the way as quickly as possible. Your superior officer at any rate sought my advice and I was prepared to give him my fullest support. The case interests me, from both the legal and the human point of view. Perhaps you will let me know how your inquiries have been getting on."

Krafft had had just a little more human interest than he could take in such a short space of time, and now felt the urge to be human himself. Furthermore he found this man Wirrmann unsympathetic, and even though there was this squirrel-like quality about him, the man's sanctimonious courtroom voice jarred on his nerves. Krafft therefore turned on him straight out and said: “I don't regard you as having any authority to act in this case, Herr Judge-Advocate."

“My dear fellow," said the latter, and his eyes narrowed, “whether or not I have any authority to act in this case is hardly for you to determine. Apart from which I am acting with the consent of your superior officer."

“Captain Kater hasn't told me of this—neither verbally nor in writing. And until he does so I must act according to my own judgment. Which means that I'm working on this case alone until I receive further instructions—perhaps from Major-General Modersohn himself."

“Then you shall certainly have them, my dear fellow," replied Wirrmann promptly. And his voice now sounded like a rusty scythe being whisked experimentally through the air. “That is, if you insist."

Krafft looked at the wiry little man with a certain amount of apprehension. Not even the threat of Major-General Modersohn, the terror of Wildlingen, seemed to make much impression on him. These court-martial fellows were gluttons for punishment.

“Well what about it?" urged Wirrmann. “Are you going to let me in on your inquiries voluntarily, or do I have to bring the General into it?"

“Bring anyone you like into it!" said Krafft, losing his temper. “The Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht, for all I care."

“Let’s start with the General," said the Judge-Advocate quietly, whipping round suddenly like a weathercock in a powerful gust of wind, and vanishing from the scene.

“I suppose I can pack my bags now," said Lieutenant Krafft to Elfrida Rademacher. “My brief stay at the training school seems to be over."

“Did someone see us?" asked Elfrida anxiously.

“If that were all," said Lieutenant Krafft, " at least it would be something worth being slung out for."

“In any case I could always say I tried to rape you. That seems the latest dodge."

“Too true," said Krafft. “A dodge, what's more, that's going to give the General a nasty shock."

“Nothing’s capable of giving him a nasty shock," declared Elfrida emphatically. “He wouldn't turn a hair whatever happened. On one of his rounds recently he went into a room where a couple was making love. And what did he do? He walked straight through the room without batting an eyelid."

“He didn't say a word?"

“Not a word. It wasn't necessary. He recognized them both at a glance."

“And had them slung out?"

“Made them get married."

“Even worse," said Krafft apprehensively.

“They’re said to be very happy," said Elfrida, looking out of the window with a smile.

By this stage in his career, Lieutenant Krafft himself was incapable of being shaken. Yet his quarrel with the Judge-Advocate could have only one result if it went against him, namely expulsion in the direction of the eastern front, though just at the moment, any direction would be a welcome relief from the circus in which he found himself. The General could roar at him to his heart's content. The Lieutenant had already been roared at quite a bit without suffering anything worse than a slight strain on the eardrums.

After just half an hour, most of which he spent smoking in the lavatory, Krafft received the anticipated summons to the General. Surprisingly enough, Modersohn didn't insist on the Lieutenant reporting to him in the usual way in full dress uniform. The Major-General merely wished to speak to Krafft on the telephone, and it was to be a telephone conversation of bewildering brevity.

“I understand," said Modersohn without further ado,” that you have refused to allow Judge-Advocate Wirrmann to take part in an investigation you're engaged on."

“Yes, General."

“Why?"

“Because I didn't think the Judge-Advocate had the authority to act in this particular case, General."

“Good," said Modersohn. And that was all, for the present at least.