Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 07 (81 page)

For De Richleau
everything had so far gone like clockwork; but he found himself unable to do
more than toy with the breakfast that one of the orderlies brought him. He
hoped that, by this time, some Heavenly General had detailed Major Tauber to a
long spell of cleaning out latrines; but Lanzi’s death lay heavily on his
conscience. He had no doubts at all that he had been justified in shooting the
Baron, but he admired the way in which he had stood up to death when he saw
there was no escape from it; and in spite of the fact that he had never
developed into more than a greedy schoolboy let loose in the tuck-shop of life,
there had been nothing petty, mean or cruel about him.

To distract his thoughts,
the Duke set about dealing with Tauber’s dispatch case. He had feared to leave
it with the Major’s other kit in case some zealous official sent it on to Main
Headquarters and it arrived there only a few hours after himself; so he had
said that he would deliver it, and taken it to his sleeping compartment when
the Major’s kit had been removed from the train. As he had expected, the case
was locked so, having pulled down all the blinds in the compartment, he slit
open one end of it with his razor. Then he removed the dispatches and read them
through.

All of them except one
from Ludendorff to von Moltke were on administrative matters and of no interest
to him. The latter reported on the inconclusive battle of Gumbinnen, inferring
it to have been a German defeat and painting the rout of Mackensen’s XVIIth
Corps as even worse than it had been in fact. Only a bare mention was made of
General von Francis, and his splendid performance was glossed over with a few
words of faint praise. The writer’s evident intention was to convey that on the
arrival of General von Hindenburg and himself, the German 8th Army had been in
a chaotic muddle and bordering on collapse. He then went on to give details of
the re-deployment that was taking place, without any reference to the fact that
General Hoffmann had been responsible for these brilliant moves and inferring
that he had ordered them himself. The dispatch ended on a note of quiet, if
rather smug, self-confidence, conveying that now the Command had been
transferred to competent hands His Imperial Majesty need no longer have any
fears for the safety of East Prussia.

De Richleau would have
given a great deal to have been able to deliver the first part of the dispatch
without the rest of it, but, that being impossible, he tore it into small pieces,
did the same with the others, and at intervals of a few minutes, threw the
pieces out of the window. The dispatch case carried no means of identification
except the Major’s initials, so when the train was passing through a tunnel he
threw the case after the torn papers.

For four hours the train
roared across the North German plain, reaching Hanover at ten-thirty. Then it
passed through more picturesque country until it came to the outskirts of Essen
at about half past one. There, it entered the black belt of Germany’s vast
munition works. For the next hour and a half, groups of tall, smoking chimneys,
slag heaps, factory sheds and squalid slums provided a grim and seemingly
endless panorama. But on the far side of Cologne it came to an end at last, and
for the final hour or so of its journey the train sped through pleasantly
wooded lands to Aix. After shunting in the station there, it ran out of the
town for a few miles and finally came to a halt at half past four at a siding
in a small wood, beyond the fringe of which could be glimpsed a big château.

The Duke sent one of the
orderlies to summon the whole of the train staff, including the engine-driver
and fireman. When they had collected in the pullman, he told them that the
authorities would be most adverse to anything leaking out about the tragedy
that had occurred the previous night. He took their names and gave them warning
that, should any rumour of the scandal become current at Main Headquarters,
they would be held jointly responsible for it. Having seen his baggage
deposited in a shed on the siding, he then took his dispatch case in one hand,
his courage, metaphorically, in the other, and walked through the wood until he
came to the first sentry post.

There, he was provided
with a guide, and a quarter of an hour later, an A.D.C. conducted him to a
youngish-looking, cleanshaven Colonel, named Bauer. When he had stated his
business, the Colonel said:

“Naturally, General von
Moltke will give the letter you bring from General von Hötzendorf his earliest
possible attention; but he has been out all day, accompanying His Majesty on a
tour of inspection, and they are not expected back until late to-night.
To-morrow morning will be the earliest he can see you. If the matter is urgent,
perhaps you would prefer to discuss it with his deputy, General von Stein.”

Anxious as De Richleau
now was to get out of Germany, he had killed two men for an opportunity to
influence the Chief of Staff, and an interview with his deputy would not amount
at all to the same thing; so he replied:

“I should be very happy
to have a preliminary talk with General von Stein; but I must, of course,
present my letter personally.”

After speaking over a
telephone, Bauer announced that the General would see the Duke at a quarter
past six. He then ordered the A.D.C. to have De Richleau’s baggage sent for and
allot him one of the visitors’ rooms at the top of the house.

At six-fifteen the Duke
was received by von Stein, a handsome, monocled Prussian, with a pleasant
smile; and the moment they came face to face, De Richleau realized that his
luck was in. Although he had forgotten it, he had met the General some years
before, when they had both been guests at a big shooting party in Hungary.

The ice having thus been
happily broken, they were soon talking with complete frankness about the
situation on the battle-fronts. German Main Headquarters were entirely
satisfied with the progress in the West. Although, as the General remarked, his
Chief had reduced the ninety-seven divisions prescribed in the original
Schlieffen Plan to seventy-eight, that had not made the least difference. The
line of the Meuse had been forced on the 19th—20th, the mighty wheel was
swinging inexorably through Belgium, and its all-important pivot, the great
fortress of Namur, had fallen on the 23rd. The quite unexpected appearance of a
British Army, under General Sir John French, on the extreme left of the allied
line had failed to hold the advance for more than a day, and hour by hour news
of fresh victories continued to come in.

So, thought the Duke,
Churchill was right about the Germans getting across the Meuse by the 20th day,
and everything now hung on whether he would prove equally right about the 40th.
It was good news that the Germans were employing many fewer divisions than
required by the original plan. That would give the French a better chance when
the attempt was made to stem the tide. But it was bad news about Namur—very
bad, as that shoulder of the wheel should have been the point at which the
counter-attack was launched, with the object of lopping off the extended right
arm of the German armies, and the loss of the fortress would make such an
operation far more difficult to launch. It was the first he had heard of the
British having landed an Expeditionary Force, and he asked with much interest
how it was showing.

“We came up against them
at Mons yesterday at dawn,” replied the General, “and they fought there very
stubbornly all day; but last night they were compelled to retire. Many of their
officers and men saw active service in South Africa, so if their numbers were
greater they might prove quite formidable. But they have only two corps in the
field. As His Majesty remarked, it is a contemptible little army. Its defeat
will prove no more than a side show.”

“What of the French?”
inquired the Duke.

“They have been fighting
with great bravery. Since the 20th they have done their utmost to turn the tide
of battle, but without avail. Of course, everything was against them from the
start. Their staff-work is not to be compared with ours, and most of their
equipment is pitiful. They have not even field-service uniforms. The red
trousers and blue coats of their infantry make them an easy mark, and the tin
breast-plates of their Cuirassiers, shining in the sun, invite a bullet from a
mile away. But, that apart, including the four British divisions, they have
only fifty-five all told operating against our seventy-eight, so their defeat
is inevitable. But tell me about the Eastern front? I fear that presents a very
different picture, and we are acutely worried about it.”

De Richleau gave a résumé
of the situation, which might have been taken almost word for word from the
first part of Ludendorff’s dispatch.

As he listened, the
General’s face was grave, and at length he said: “It would be a great blow to
our prestige if East Prussia were overrun. That might even put new heart into
the French, and it is of the first importance that we should overcome their
resistance quickly, so that we can about face before the bulk of the Russian
hordes descends upon us. What do you think of the new Command’s chances of
re-forming a solid front?”

The Duke shrugged. “They
were doing their utmost when I left; but, unfortunately, General von Prittwitz
scattered the 8th Army over such a wide area that there is a great risk of its
being defeated piecemeal.”

Feeling that he had said
enough for the moment, he turned the conversation to his mission from von
Hötzendorf, and expressed the Austrian
C. in C.
’s
disappointment that his allies had, so far, failed to give him the co-operation
they had promised.

Von Stein smiled bleakly.
“You know even better than I do how we are placed up there. And the fact is
that the Russian attack came before we expected it. We have good reason to
believe that the French begged the Russians to take the weight off them, and
that the Grand Duke responded by launching his first offensive several days in
advance of his original schedule. Anyhow, you can see for yourself that we are
in no position to assist your army at the moment; but, of course, we’ll talk
the matter over with General von Moltke in the morning.”

That ended their formal
talk. But De Richleau met von Stein again later that evening, at dinner in the
senior officers’ mess. There, he had excellent opportunity of sowing further
alarm and despondency about the Eastern front, both in the mind of the General
and those of several other officers, to all of whom it was already a dark cloud
in Germany’s otherwise sunny sky.

When he went to bed, he
felt he had made an excellent beginning, but he fervently hoped that he would
be out of Germany within another twenty-four hours. He thought it very unlikely
that anyone at Wartenburg would learn his whereabouts, or that he would be
called upon to give further evidence about the tragedy on the train, for a day
or two yet. But one could never tell, and it needed only one little piece of
bad luck for his life not to be worth six hours’ purchase.

Next morning, the 25th,
at eleven o’clock, he was summoned to the presence. General Count Helmath von
Moltke was the nephew of the great Field Marshal of that name, who, ably
supported by the ‘Iron’ Chancellor Bismarck, and the extremely capable War
Minister, von Roon, had directed the victorious German armies in their classic
campaigns against the Danes, Austrians, and French in the late ’sixties and ’seventies.
The present holder of the title was a charming elderly gentleman of sixty-six,
who owed his position to a combination of the facts that his uncle’s mantle had
descended on him and that he was a courtier-soldier with the ability to present
all army matters in a light calculated to please his difficult Monarch. His
experience of military affairs was wide, but his brain only mediocre. With him
were General von Stein, and Colonel Tappen, his operations expert.

Von Hötzendorf’s letter
consisted of only a few lines, introducing its bearer, and a strongly worded
appeal that, even at this belated date, the original plan for combined
Austro-German operations against the Russians should be adhered to. When the
Chief of Staff had read it, he said to De Richleau:

“Believe me, all of us
here feel the deepest regret that it was not possible to carry out our original
intentions with regard to the Eastern Front. But the destruction of the French
army as the first move in the war was, for us, a paramount necessity. However,
that is well on its way to accomplishment.”

“My congratulations,
Excellency,” said the Duke. “May I, then, carry the good news back to General
von Hötzendorf that you will shortly be in a position to assist him?”

“We may be able to do so
indirectly, but I do not wish to guarantee anything for the moment; and I am
much comforted by the thought that his situation does not urgently demand it.
His offensive is meeting with considerable success without our help. This
morning the news came in that General Dankl’s 1st Austrian Army inflicted a
heavy defeat yesterday on the Russians, and took Krasnik.”

“I am delighted to hear
that, Excellency. But what of the future? Your 8th Army in East Prussia is
seriously disorganized and in a most precarious position. Should it be defeated
by General Samsonov, he will then be able to turn round and add his weight to the
forces already opposing the Austro-Hungarian armies. How can they be expected
to stand alone against the whole might of Russia?”