Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 07 (85 page)

Over tea at the Legation
he met the British Minister, Sir Alan Johnstone, a courtly diplomat of the old
school, who congratulated him on his escape but showed a tactful restraint
about inquiring into his activities while in Germany. They naturally discussed
the general situation and, Holland being a neutral country into which first
hand news was coming from all quarters, Sir Alan was in a position to give a
very full and up-to-date picture of the whole vast conflict. It was just over a
week since De Richleau had left Wartenburg and during it, although he had been
aware that the most gigantic battles were raging on every front, he had been in
no situation to gather anything but a rough idea how things were going. Now, to
his distress, he learned that the Allies were in a far worse plight than he had
thought.

The only bright spots
were on the most distant Austrian fronts; and both, as the Duke’s special
knowledge enabled him to realize at once, were mainly due to the original
blunder over the dispatch of the Austrian 2nd Army to the Danube. On its
withdrawal, General Potiorek had proved quite incapable of standing up to the
Voyvode Putnik and his hardy Serbians. The Austrians had been thrown back
across the Drina with heavy losses, and not one of them now remained on Serbian
soil. But the 2nd Army had failed to reach its proper station at the southern
end of the Russian front in time to avert an Austrian disaster there. When von
Hötzendorf’s 3rd Army had struck eastward from Lemberg, unsupported by the 2nd,
it had come up against two Russian Armies and, overwhelmed by numbers, suffered
a severe defeat. The front of one Corps had completely given way, and the whole
3rd Army was now reported to be in full retreat on Lemberg.

As an offset in von
Hötzendorf’s favour, his 1st and 4th Armies, attacking to the north and
north-east, had, respectively, captured Krasnik and Zamosc, and both had dealt
heavy blows at the two remaining Russian Armies in General Ivanov’s group.

But this success of von
Hötzendorf’s two northern Armies was of small significance compared with that
of his German allies on the far side of the Polish salient. The battle of
Tannenberg had been fought and won; and the Germans were so cock-a-hoop with
their victory that they made no secret of the manner in which it had been
achieved— except that Ludendorff had suppressed the fact that it was General
Hoffmann, and not himself, who had planned it.

The battle had opened on
the 26th with General Samsonov believing that he was opposed only by General
Schlotz’s XXth Corps, which had been in that neighbourhood from the opening of
hostilities. But Below’s 1st Reserve Corps was moving down to join up with it,
farther east von Mackensen’s XVIIth Corps was descending on his right flank
and, after its long circuitous railway journey, von François’ 1st Corps was
just assembling on his left. For three days the battle raged. The German centre
held, von Mackensen pressed in from the north and von François from the south,
so that the German 8th Army took the form of a horse-shoe, almost encircling
the Russians. General Samsonov attempted to pull out. But it was too late.
General von François—against Ludendorff’s orders as it afterwards
transpired—drove his crack 1st Corps on due cast to Willenberg, thus greatly
lengthening the right wing of the encircling movement. On the 29th von
Mackensen’s troops, thrusting south, met him there and closed the circle.
Two-thirds of Samsonov’s Army were caught within it, and the remaining third
escaped only with great losses. The following day, the bulk of the Russians,
compressed into a small, thickly wooded area, which prevented them from massing
for a co-ordinated break-out,

were shot down in droves and surrendered by the
thousand. That Sunday afternoon, as Sir Alan Johnstone and the Duke sat over
their tea cups, the latest German report stated that General Samsonov’s Army
had ceased to exist as a fighting force.

In France a similar
disaster, on a far greater scale, now threatened. During the past week the
right wing of the German Army had been swinging inexorably forward.
Valenciennes, Cambrai, Avesnes, Hirson, Mezieres, St. Quentin, Laon, Rethel—all
were gone. Only the great fortress line of Verdun-Toul-Belfort on the eastern
half of the front still held. Paris was now directly menaced. The French troops
had fought well but were reported to be exhausted. Under Sir Horace Smith
Dorrien, the IInd Corps of the small British Army had made a splendid stand at
Le Cateau, but it had then been compelled to conform to the general retirement.
It was now feared that nothing short of a miracle could save the French and
British from annihilation.

Greatly depressed by
these awful portents of things to come, the Duke took such solace as he could
from a welcome hot bath in luxurious surroundings, and later joined Sir Alan in
an equally luxurious dinner. His Britannic Majesty’s representative in the
Netherlands held the belief that his duty lay in keeping a good and hospitable
table in the country where he was stationed, and arranging for its notables to
engage in golf tournaments with their British equivalents; and that if he did
that, the negotiation of rather dreary affairs, such as trade pacts, would
prove a simple matter for people who understood them better than he did. The
success of his missions proved that there was much to be said for this policy;
and it was to it that De Richleau owed the best dinner that he had eaten for a
considerable time. At its end the old brandy was so superlatively good that he
took occasion to compliment his host upon it. Sir Alan gracefully acknowledged
his remarks, but refrained from mentioning one of his own idiosyncrasies. As
his friends rarely gave him brandy half as good when he dined out, it was his
habit to take some of his own with him in his overcoat pocket in a medicine
bottle. Then, when coffee was served, he asked the footman who was waiting on
him to fetch his ‘Medicine’.

At a quarter to eleven De
Richleau took leave of his admirable host and was driven by young Mr. McEwan
the ten miles that separated the Hague from the Hook of Holland. With them came
his wife, a lovely green-eyed girl of eighteen, to whom he had been married
only a few months. She had been present at dinner and had volunteered to give
her assistance should any trouble arise about the Duke leaving the country.

That morning the German
Consul at Maastricht had made no protest at De Richleau’s release, but, all the
same, the Duke knew that he would not be really safe until he was on the ship
and it had actually sailed. By this time it was certain that the Germans would
be hunting high and low for him. If, during the day, he had been linked up with
the deserter who had crossed into Holland six nights earlier, the German
Minister in the Hague would have been instructed to apply for his extradition
on a charge of murder. As neutrals, the Dutch could not ignore such a demand;
so it was possible that, knowing him to be British, the police might be waiting
to arrest him if he attempted to leave by the ship that was sailing for England
at midnight.

Their plan was to drive
the car up as close to the ship as possible. De Richleau and Jack McEwan would
then get out, leaving Mrs. McEwan in it. If she saw that the police were
preventing the Duke from boarding the ship, she was to scream, and later say
that a wharf-rat had sneaked up to the car and tried to snatch her pearls. Her
screams would provide an excuse for the two men to run back to the car. McEwan
was to get in the way of anyone who attempted pursuit while De Richleau dashed
straight for it. The car was technically a part of the Legation, so British
soil; and, once in it, the Duke could not be arrested. They would then drive
him back to the Hague and he could remain unmolested at the Legation until a new
plan had been worked out for him to cross to England in disguise.

The thought that there is
‘many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip’ made De Richleau rather silent during
the drive, but when they reached the dock nothing occurred to alarm them. The
Duke had been furnished with a diplomatic
laissez-passer,
and the officials let him through
with a polite greeting. At the foot of the gangway he thanked Jack McEwan again
for his help and said good-bye to him; then went on board and claimed a cabin
that had been booked for him in the name of ‘Rogers’. Returning to the rail, he
stood there anxiously for a quarter of an hour, while his friends in the car a
hundred yards away kept watch on him.

At last the mooring ropes
were cast off and the ship slowly eased out from the dockside. Calls of
‘bon voyage
’ came from the car. In reply he
waved, and blew kisses to the beautiful Mrs. McEwan. Eight hours later he
landed at Harwich.

At eleven-thirty on
Tuesday morning, 1st September, he was shown into the library at Ninety-nine
Carlton House Terrace.

Whatever resentment he may
have felt against Sir Pellinore, as the original cause of his becoming involved
in so many repugnant acts, faded away at the sight of him. The tall, blue-eyed
baronet received him, literally, with open arms. Clasping De Richleau’s
shoulders with his leg-of-mutton hands, he gave him an affectionate shake,
grinned down into his face, and bellowed to his butler to bring a magnum of
champagne and tankards. Then he pushed his visitor into a chair and cried:

“Gad! but I’m glad to see
you again. You’ve no idea how the thought of you has been weighin’ on my
conscience. Now tell me everything.”

It took the Duke an hour
to cover the ground since they had last met in Vienna, and when he had done Sir
Pellinore exclaimed:

“Stap me! The very moment
I saw you, I knew you were a feller in a million. Six Corps eh! Six Corps! And
a photograph of the little Archduchess into the bargain—not to mention an
Austrian decoration.”

He then fell silent for
quite a minute.

At length De Richleau
glanced out of the tall windows, across the Mall and the Horse Guards Parade to
the stately buildings of Whitehall, and said:

“Well! Oughtn’t this
information to be passed on to Hankey, or the War Office, as soon as possible?”

Sir Pellinore sighed. “Yes.
We’ll do that. But I’m afraid—I’m afraid it won’t be of much use to us. It
comes too late.”

“Too late”. Those are the
most tragic words in the English language. After all the Duke had gone through,
he heard them with peculiar bitterness. For a moment he stared at Sir
Pellinore; then he exclaimed:

“It can’t be true! I
heard from Sir Alan Johnstone yesterday that the French Army was in a bad way,
and that Paris is threatened. Surely you don’t mean that they’ve surrendered
overnight?”

“No; but they’re pretty
well all in. Too far gone to launch a counter-offensive. Over a week ago Sir
John French telegraphed that we ought to fortify our main base at Le Havre.
Winston, with his usual flair, declared that the way things were going we’d be
crazy to waste armaments and troops on such a half-measure; and that we’d
better shift at once to St. Nazaire. Two days later the War Office agreed. The
French have taken an even gloomier view. They’ve moved their Government to
Bordeaux. There’s darned little fight left in ’em.”

De Richleau groaned. “But
what is the reason for this catastrophe? Even the Germans admit that the French
troops have been fighting magnificently.”

“True. But they’ve been
fighting in the wrong place. Those idiots at
Grand Quartier G
é
n
é
ral
are to blame. D’you know anything about the French High Command?”

“Not much. It is a long
time since I was in the French Army.”

“Well, this is the form.
Three years ago—time of Agadir—General Michel was their top boy. Very sound
feller. He believed the Germans would adopt the Schlieffen Plan. To counter it,
he proposed to place his great mass—half a million strong—between Lille and
Avesnes; another mass of 300,000 men between Hirson and Rethel; and to hold a
further 200,000 in Paris as a general reserve. He considered the fortress line,
Verdun-Toul-Belfort, strong enough to look after itself. That’s what we were
told the French meant to do, and we’ve never been notified of any change in
their intentions.”