Читать книгу Officer Factory - Hans Hellmut Kirst - Страница 9

“I was told to report to the General at ten,” said Lieutenant Krafft to the girl who looked up to see what he wanted.

“Then I must ask you to wait until that time, Lieutenant.”

Krafft looked pointedly at his watch. It was five minutes to ten. He drew attention to the fact and even tapped his wristwatch.

“Quite correct,” said the girl with friendly aloofness. “You’re five minutes early.”

The name of the girl he was speaking to was Sybille Bachner. She worked in the General's ante-room under Bieringer, the A.D.C., who however wasn't there just then, being busy probably checking the bread ration for his commanding officer. Anyhow, Sybille Bachner seemed determined to apply the General's principles, and simply left Krafft standing there.

Krafft promptly sat down in the A.D.C.'s chair. He crossed his legs and eyed Sybille Bachner with interest.

After a while he said: “So you're the General's principal assistant, so to speak. You'll notice I choose my words with care.”

“I’m employed here as secretary, Lieutenant, and that's the full extent of my duties or obligations. Anything else you'd like to know?”

There was a certain tolerance about Sybille Bachner's smile. She seemed quite used to being eyed like this and having to submit to questions.

“How long have you been in this outfit actually, Fräulein Bachner?” inquired Krafft.

“Longer than the General,” said Sybille, giving him a cool, impersonal smile. “Isn’t that what you want to know, Lieutenant? The General neither brought me with him nor applied for me to be posted here. He simply took me over.”

“In every respect?”

“My duties weren't limited in any way.”

Sybille Bachner said this quite ingenuously, straightening a stack of paper on the little typing table beside her as she did so. She seemed anxious to get on with her work, which gave Krafft plenty of opportunity to observe her more closely.

This girl Sybille Bachner occupied a rather special position among the women in the barracks, for she worked in a proximity to the commanding officer that made discretion imperative. A room of her own was intended to help her preserve this quality but unlike most of the other women's rooms this did not lie in a separate corridor of the headquarters building but in the so-called guest house. Not so far away from where the General himself lived.

This prompted a good deal of speculation. With anyone else the inference would have been obvious. But with Modersohn things were different. Few people found themselves able to imagine that a general like him could be beset by ordinary human weaknesses, and those that did were influenced primarily by Sybille Bachner's looks, which seemed to make absolutely any sort of weakness understandable. For she was a dark, Latin type of beauty of about twenty-five, and her skin was soft and the color of apricots and her large eyes were black as night. Silky hair framed her face like a shawl, a face dominated by slightly prominent cheek-bones and a soft, sensual mouth.

Krafft stopped eyeing the Bachner girl as soon as it became clear that she was interested only in work. Secretaries in important posts in ante-rooms were usually only interested in work, and he hadn't noticed a single gesture of hers, or heard one word, which suggested that she wished to be treated as someone who had the commanding officer's ear. She was neither ostentatiously formal nor absurdly refined. And in any case for him she represented simply a brief encounter soon to be forgotten, for he felt sure that before many minutes were up, his short stay at the training school would be over.

“It’s ten o'clock, Lieutenant Krafft,” said Sybille Bachner pleasantly. “Go in, please.”

“Just like that?” asked Krafft in astonishment. For the Bachner girl had neither left the room nor made a telephone call. Neither had any little bell been rung, nor message been given to her. She had simply looked at the clock.

“It’s ten o'clock,” said Sybille Bachner, and her smile broadened slightly. “The General thinks punctuality very important and keeps to his daily schedule exactly. Go in please, Lieutenant, don't bother to knock.”

Sybille Bachner was left alone in the General's ante-room, looking at the walls, which were hung with nothing but training schedules. Documents, files, regulations lay all over the place—on the A.D.C.'s table, on her own table, on shelves, on the window-sills and even on the floor. She was literally surrounded by work. She pulled open one of the drawers. In it lay a mirror in which she looked at herself thoughtfully. She felt depressed by what she saw. She was gradually growing old, wasting her life here among papers and the rattle of typewriter keys, stuck in one of the culs-de-sac of the war.

She heard footsteps approaching and hurriedly closed her drawer again: The A.D.C. came in. Her looking-glass face vanished and she shifted a bundle of papers in front of her.

“Well,” asked Lieutenant Bieringer, the A.D.C., “is this fellow Krafft with the General?”

Sybille Bachner nodded. “He was only five minutes early,” she said, “and didn't seem particularly overawed. On the contrary, he was even rather fresh.”

This was really a compliment. Most people seemed to regard the ante-room as the antechamber to hell, and those who gathered here were either anxious and nervous or absurdly stiff. They usually arrived at least ten minutes early in order to make sure of being punctual. Krafft, then, at least was not one of this servile minority.

“Fresh, did you say, Fräulein Bachner? Do you like him?”

“I found the man extremely sure of himself.”

“Not a bad start,” said Bieringer.

“I wasn't thinking of starting anything,” said Sybille Bachner abruptly.

“But why not?” suggested Bieringer. “You know what a high opinion I have of you, Fräulein Bachner, and my wife loves you like a sister. We're worried about you, though. You work too hard and are alone too much. Don't you think it might be good for you to allow yourself a little relaxation?”

Sybille Bachner looked the A.D.C. straight in the eye. Bieringer's smooth, rather pale face wasn't much to write home about. He looked rather like someone who was hoping to be a teacher, and was certainly not what could be called a soldierly type. But he was a man with a sixth sense for everything that concerned the General, taking the place for him of a calculating machine and a whole bundle of notebooks and thus preserving him from a vast amount of unnecessary work.

“Herr Bieringer,” said Sybille Bachner, “I’m completely satisfied with my job here. I find no need of any relaxation.”

The A.D.C. pretended to be very busy with a file of documents.

“Well,” he said slowly and with certain wariness, “that is only as it should be. After all, the General is wholly dedicated to his work too. And he has no need of any relaxation either.”

“Kindly keep any unnecessary remarks of that sort to yourself, Herr Bieringer,” said Sybille Bachner indignantly.

“By all means,” said the A.D.C., “by all means that is in so far as they are unnecessary. Believe me, my dear Fräulein Bachner, I've known the General for a long time now; since long before you knew him. You can be quite sure of one thing: he neither has any private life nor ever will have any. And if you're clever you'll find yourself someone who will distract you in time from any false hopes you may be entertaining—someone like this fellow Lieutenant Krafft, for example. Always provided, of course, that this fellow Krafft stays with us. But that's for the General to decide.”

“Lieutenant Krafft, sir, reporting as ordered.”

Major-General Modersohn was sitting behind his desk, which was placed exactly opposite the door. The seven yards or so between him and the door was covered by a plain green hair-cord runner. In front of the desk stood a single hard chair.

The General was busy making extracts from a document and didn't seem to want to interrupt his work. He merely said without looking up: “Come in, please, Lieutenant Krafft. Sit down.”

Krafft obeyed. Modersohn seemed to be making quite a fuss of him. All he had expected was two or three annihilating sentences, a curt and brutal ejection in the unmistakable language of a pure-bred Prussian.

But the General seemed to be taking his time.

“Lieutenant Krafft,” began Modersohn, looking straight at his visitor for the first time, quite impersonally yet with the intensive scrutiny of someone who is a complete master of his subject. “Have you any idea why you were posted to this training school?”

“No, General,” said the Lieutenant truthfully enough. “Do you think your ability had anything to do with it?” “I don't suppose so, General.”

“You don't suppose so?” drawled Modersohn. He never liked this expression. An officer didn't “suppose “anything—he “knew,” he “assumed,” he “held it as his opinion.” “Well?”

“I assume, General, that my ability was not the decisive factor in my posting.”

“What was, then?”

“An officer was due to be posted from my unit and the choice fell on me.”

“There was no reason for this?”

“I don't know the reason, General.”

Lieutenant Krafft didn't feel entirely at ease. He had come prepared for a severe dressing down from the General, not for an interrogation. So he tried to fall back on the traditional technique of the old soldier and acted dumb, answering everything as shortly as possible, and appearing to agree with his superior officer at every opportunity. This was a technique which usually saved considerable time and trouble. Not with Modersohn, however.

The General pulled towards him a writing-pad that lay on his desk. “Have you seen your personal file, Lieutenant?” he asked.

“No, General,” said Krafft in some astonishment but also truthfully enough. Modersohn was slightly taken aback by this. (Not that anyone would have realized the fact. His hand, which was on the point of thrusting the writing-pad away, merely stopped for a second.) For the General knew the form. Personal files were theoretically “Secret,” but there were always ways and means of getting a look at them if only one were determined and smart enough. And this fellow Krafft was smart, the General could see that. So there was only one conclusion to be drawn, namely that he had had no wish to take a look; his personal file was a matter of indifference to him. Presumably he knew from experience how haphazardly these accumulations of paper were compiled.

“Why do you think you were made an officer of the headquarters company in this training school and not an officer among the cadets?”

This was a question that Krafft had often asked himself. He had been posted here nominally to train cadets, but had immediately found himself stuck with Captain Kater and all the other canteen heroes. Why this should be so he had absolutely no idea.

“I assume that there was just one officer too many for the course, General, and that one had to be transferred to the headquarters company, that it was just a coincidence that it happened to be me.”

“There are no coincidences of that sort in my command, Lieutenant Krafft.”

Krafft should of course have known this. But since the General seemed to be asking for frank answers to his questions, the Lieutenant didn't hesitate to give them to him after his fashion.

“Well, General,” he said, “I assume that I'm regarded as an awkward sort of fellow, and there's even a certain amount of truth in that. Wherever I go, I find myself posted again almost at once. I'm gradually getting used to the fact.”

The General was not impressed. “Lieutenant Krafft,” he said, “I gather from your personal file that certain differences arose between you and your former regimental commander, Colonel Holzapfel. I wonder if you would be so good as to enlighten me further about this.”

“General,” Krafft replied almost light-heartedly, “I had occasion to lay certain information against Colonel Holzapfel regarding misappropriation of ration supplies. The Colonel used to move about with his own baggage train, and not only thought it proper to withhold rations from the front-line troops but also deprived them of military vehicles in order to transport his spoils to the rear. The Colonel was court-martialled, severely reprimanded, and posted elsewhere. It was his successor who transferred me to the training school.”

“You had no misgivings, Lieutenant Krafft, about laying information against a superior officer?”

“No, General. For it was not a superior officer against whom I was laying information but a swindler.”

The General did not indicate what he thought of this answer. Without further introduction he suddenly asked: “Have you concluded your investigations into this alleged rape of the day before yesterday?”

“Yes, General.”

“With what results?”

“A summary of evidence on a charge of rape would not be justified by the facts. The three girls maintain, plausibly enough, that at first they merely intended to play a joke. They couldn't foresee that it would get out of hand. Moreover, three empty bottles were found on the scene of the alleged crime. Corporal Krottenkopf admits to having drunk one of these all by himself in the course of the proceedings. A detail which effectually rules out rape. The whole affair should be dealt with on a disciplinary level.”

“All those involved in the incident will be posted within twenty-four hours,” said the General, as if talking of the weather. “All in opposite directions—each at least two hundred miles away from the training school. Inform Captain Kater of this. I shall expect to hear that the order has been carried out tomorrow morning.”

“Very good, General,” gulped the Lieutenant.

“Furthermore, Lieutenant Krafft, you will in the course of to-day relinquish your duties as officer of the headquarters company to Captain Kater, and take charge of Section H for Heinrich. I myself will announce your appointment as section officer at noon to-day. You will commence your new duties first thing to-morrow morning.”

“Very good, Herr General,” said the Lieutenant, quite unable to hide his astonishment.

Major-General Modersohn had lowered his eyes, a fact which Krafft registered with relief. The General made a few notes on a pad and pushed it away to his right. Then he reached for a new pad and began to make notes on that too.

Krafft now began to feel himself wholly superfluous. After this scare he felt badly in need of a brandy. What's more, Captain Kater would be only too glad to stand him a whole bottle, for one consequence of the order the General had just issued was that the commander of the headquarters company seemed temporarily to have escaped his threatened posting.

But still Lieutenant Krafft did not receive his dismissal.

The General completed his notes, and looked at a file which had been lying in front of him the whole time. He opened it with a certain 'solemnity, and eyed Lieutenant Krafft keenly.

“Lieutenant Krafft,” said the General, “you know that the last officer in charge of Section H for Heinrich was Lieutenant Barkow?”

“Yes, sir,” said Krafft.

“And you know that Lieutenant Barkow met his death accidentally in the course of pioneer training?”

Yes, sir.”

“Do you also know how this accident occurred?” No, General.”

Modersohn drew himself up and leaned back very stiffly in his chair. He placed his hands and his forearms flat on his desk and his fingertips touched the thin red file in front of him.

“What happened was this. At fourteen hundred hours on the twenty-sixth of January Lieutenant Barkow was down for pioneer work with Section H for Heinrich at the sound-locator post. A ten-pound charge was due to be exploded. Lieutenant Barkow was unable to reach cover before the charge was detonated. He was almost completely torn to shreds. What do you make of that, Lieutenant Krafft?”

“I hardly knew Lieutenant Barkow, General.”

I knew him better,” said the General with a slight huskiness in his voice. “He was an excellent officer, dedicated to his work, and, in spite of his youth, an extremely sensible man. He was an expert on all types of equipment, and particularly on explosives. He had already carried out a number of complicated bridge demolitions on the eastern front.”

“In that case, General, I don't understand how this accident could have happened.”

“It wasn't an accident,” said the General. “It was murder.” With a quiet gesture of finality the General had played his trump card.

“Murder, General?”

There seemed no place for such a word in the sober atmosphere of that room. It didn't go with the General's face. It simply didn't belong here.

“I wish it hadn't been necessary to use such a word,” said the General. “You’re the second person I've used it to. The only other person who knows what I think is Judge-Advocate Wirrmann. I had the Inspector of Training Units second him here to carry out a full investigation.”

“And does the Judge-Advocate agree with your theory, General? Does he think it's murder, too?”

“No,” said the General. “But that doesn't alter the fact that it was. Cold-blooded murder. I know this indirectly from Lieutenant Barkow himself, because before his death he was dropping unmistakable hints which I dismissed at the time as utterly impossible. But all his conjectures have been borne out by the facts. Right, then, you will concern yourself with this affair, Lieutenant Krafft. I will put all the relevant documents at your disposal, and you will examine all the evidence. You will be able to discuss anything you like with me. And of course I don't need to emphasize that the whole matter is entirely confidential.”

“Why are you telling me this, General?”

“So that you can search for and find the murderer,” said Modersohn. “He can only be in Section H for Heinrich, that's to say in your own section, Lieutenant Krafft. And I shall expect you to complete your task successfully. You can count on my support. That is all for to-day.”