World War 2 Thriller Collection: Winter, The Eagle Has Flown, South by Java Head. Jack Higgins
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Members of the Officer Corps were gods. I loved all that, Alex, the bowing and scraping that I got from civilians. I loved being saluted, and the way that people stood aside to let me pass in the street and let me be served first in shops.’
‘I suppose we all did. And yet here we are: me skulking in civilian clothes and you masquerading as a private soldier.’ Pauli looked at his friend. Alex was wearing a grey bowler hat and an old-fashioned Inverness – a loose-fitting grey overcoat with attached shoulder cape. It wasn’t a particularly odd costume amid the curiously garbed people to be seen on the city’s streets, but it was hardly appropriate for a Prussian officer.
Pauli nodded. ‘And I even loved the Kaiser. I loved the idea that someone knew what was best for Germany and what was best for the army and the Officers Corps and what was best for me. And when the war went on and all sorts of riffraff like Brand managed to get commissions, I still didn’t care, because those people weren’t real officers: the Prussian Officer Corps was still a small elite that outsiders couldn’t enter.’ They walked in silence for a few moments while Pauli collected and ordered his thoughts. ‘And then came the Sturmbataillon. It was a world I’d never known. It let me be myself. I wish you’d been with me, Alex.’
‘You said that in one of your letters.’
‘We spoke using “du”, officers and men alike. I called my men by their first names, and often we’d be sitting around talking together with no rank deferentials. Arguing politics, or talking about what kind of Germany we’d have after the war.’
‘And did any of you guess it would be like this?’ Alex whipped his walking stick through the heaped snow.
Pauli snorted. ‘Who could have guessed it would end like this? No one! Who would have guessed that the Kaiser would run away so that Fritz Esser and his friend Liebknecht would be sitting in the Imperial Palace? Who’d guess that a collection of half-baked intellectuals and socialist draft dodgers would be running Germany as a ramshackle republic, and that the Imperial Horse Guards would be answering their call for help?’
‘I thought you were about to tell me that your time with the common man had provided you with a new understanding of the socialists, Pauli.’
‘Socialists are dreamers. The time for dreaming is long past. Our Fatherland is dying, and no one goes to help.’ He kicked the top from a mountain of snow, so that it shattered into a white cloud.
When they got to Friedrichstrasse they had to wait for the traffic before they could cross the road. It was astounding how life went on, seemingly unaffected by the fact that the city was in the throes of revolution. Even while shooting could be heard, the Christmas shoppers crowded the pavements and the motor buses kept going. There was the smoky smell of roasted chestnuts and the sound of American jazz music from one of the nearby clubs. A shop assistant and a chauffeur were loading dozens of coloured parcels into a large car while a fur-coated matron counted them. It was hard to believe that the dull thuds heard earlier that day had been mortar shells exploding, and that right now artillery was on its way to assault the Imperial Palace.
‘Civilians have their own affairs to attend to,’ commented Alex as they crossed the road, dodging a taxicab.
‘Making money, do you mean?’ said Pauli scornfully.
‘You can’t live without it.’
‘There are other, more important things than money, Alex. That’s what I learned with the storm troops, and that’s what many of our Freikorps volunteers believe.’
‘Are they men from your old storm troops?’
‘In my battalion a dozen or so are old comrades. That’s what made me join. If recruiting continues as at present, I’ll have my own company next month.’
Alex Horner chuckled. ‘And all this time I’ve been thinking that you’d become old and cynical, Pauli, While really you are the same fervent optimist and dreamer that I’ve always known.’
‘You can mock me, but…’
‘I’m not mocking you, Pauli. We all feel the same way. Everyone I know and respects feels more or less the way that you do. They all feel frustrated watching this damned government being treated with contempt by every rascal at home, and spat upon by Paris, London and Washington.’
‘But you remain aloof? Or are you just fatalistic?’
‘If the mob wants to be ruled by the Spartacists, then so be it. I’m a professional soldier; I’ll obey lawful commands from the army, just as the Russian army do under Lenin.’
Pauli shook his head. ‘You are too naïve, Alex. Do you really think that Lenin represents the Russian worker? Lenin’s party is a tiny, noisy, violent group that seized power and then slaughtered all the opposition. Now, here in Germany, Ebert’s socialists are in the majority but the Spartacists are already trying some of Lenin’s tricks to get power in Germany. And then heaven help Liebknecht’s opponents. They’ll be put against the wall and shot without trial.’
Behind them they heard the sound of marching men coming down the Linden from the direction of the Tiergarten. In the darkness the soldier’s hobnailed boots were striking sparks from the paving. They were Uhlan Guards. The two young officers watched approvingly as the soldiers wheeled into the entrance to the university. There were few such trained and disciplined units left in the whole of Germany.
As the two men got closer to the Imperial Palace, Unter den Linden became more crowded. There were the usual streetcorner groups of men in makeshift uniforms. Most of them had their rifles slung over the shoulder muzzle-down in what had become the style of all the revolutionaries. But these armed men were outnumbered by sightseers who’d arrived in response to the rumours that were now being spread across the city. They wanted to see how the army was going to tackle the bellicose sailors. Or, as another rumour had it, they wanted to watch the army’s monarchists staging a counter-revolution.
When Alex and Pauli reached the main entrance of the palace, three sentries were there, pale-faced youngsters with soft, sailor hats, and bandoliers crossing their chest. They were warming their hands at a bonfire on the pavement. In the fire could be seen bits of antique furniture, its polish and gilt bubbling and blistering in the flames. They asked the guards for Esser. It took a long time to find him. Alex and Pauli stood by the fire and tried to see into the courtyard. Even from their limited view of the interior it was clear that the sailors were excited and frightened by the prospect of a pitched battle with the army units that were marching from Potsdam.
After about fifteen minutes an armed sailor took them inside and upstairs. Esser, typically, had bivouacked in the Empress’s private apartments, and that is where they were taken. Although the whole place had been ransacked, many of the personal possessions of the royal occupants were in evidence. Lace jackets and long ball dresses were still hanging in the Empress’s dressing rooms. Her writing desk had been broken into, and sheets of stationery and envelopes were scattered round, presumably by those people who’d been hawking examples of the royal correspondence round the streets. On the floor were powder boxes, some hairbrushes, combs and silver frames from which photos had been wrenched.
And yet the overall impression of this sanctum was of charmless vulgarity, an ostentatious collection of frivolous knick-knacks that might be expected in the house of some nouveau-riche tradesman.
‘The chairman of the sailors’ and workers’ emergency committee will come in five minutes,’ announced a bearded sailor.
‘Is that Fritz Esser?’ Pauli asked.
‘Yes, Comrade Esser,’ said the sailor. ‘You are not permitted to touch anything or to leave the room on pain of death; do you understand?’
‘Yes, we understand,’ said Leutnant Horner. He had by now grown used to the extravagant rhetoric of the revolution.
For ‘Chairman’ Fritz Esser of the People’s Naval Division it had been an eventful day, even when compared with the other crowded days of the past few weeks. But, as had