The Generals (11 page)

Colonel Orbal
: Hellish cold in here.

Colonel Pigafetta
: The heating isn’t working.

Colonel Orbal
: Why don’t you try getting it repaired?

Colonel Pigafetta
: We are. Please note, I said
we
. I’ve got our own technicians on to it this time. As long as the whole system isn’t wholly useless or too hopelessly installed, we should have it functioning within an hour. My men know their job.

Major von Peters
: That remains to be seen.

Colonel Pigafetta
: What do you mean by that?

Major von Peters
: I was just sitting here thinking about the accident statistics in the Air Force.

Colonel Pigafetta
: In relation to the size of the country, our Air Force is one of the strongest in the world. If you compare the accident rates in the best equipped of the great powers, then our figures are in no way remarkable. You know that perfectly well, Major von Peters. I take your remarks as malicious and insulting.

Tadeusz Haller
: Gentlemen, gentlemen …

Colonel Orbal
: Yes, calm down now, Pigafetta. You too, Carl. Return to order.

Lieutenant Brown
: Captain Schmidt is unable to be present. He has had an urgent and important posting. The prosecution will be presented by Prosecuting Officer, Lieutenant Mihail Bratianu.

Major von Peters
: Good.

Commander Kampenmann
: You don’t sound very surprised, Major von Peters. Is this a manoeuvre to enrich the court martial with yet another representative of the Army?

Colonel Orbal
: You’re all hellish bad-tempered today. And it’s as cold as an Eskimo cunt in here, as General Winckelman used to say when we opened the mess windows. Now we must get going. Call in the parties, Brown.

Lieutenant Bratianu
: Colonel Orbal, Major von Peters, Colonel Pigafetta, Commander Kampenmann, Justice Haller, I request to be allowed to continue the case from the point where Captain Schmidt found it necessary to interrupt it.

Major von Peters
: Excellent demeanour.

Colonel Orbal
: What are you whispering about, Carl?

Major von Peters
: I said: Damned fine demeanour. Bratianu’s, I mean.

Colonel Orbal
: Good bearing, that lad, what?

Colonel Pigafetta
: What are you gentlemen mumbling about? Granted, Bratianu.

Colonel Orbal
: Of course. Granted.

Lieutenant Bratianu
: Charge forty-five. Insubordination and dereliction of duty combined with want of common sense and carelessness on duty. Corporal Velder.

Velder
: Yes, sir.

Lieutenant Bratianu
: Stand to attention, Velder. I’m sure you can do better than that. That’s right. On the third of May seven years ago, Corporal Velder, in his capacity of chauffeur and bodyguard, accompanied General Oswald on an official journey to what was then Ludolfsport. The General visited a building in the old part of the town. This occurred at fifteen thirty hours. Corporal Velder was posted as guard by the jeep. Forty-five minutes later the General returned and found that Corporal Velder had left his post. The General had to search for over ten minutes before he found Corporal Velder three blocks away. On their return to militia headquarters, it appeared that Corporal Velder’s map-holder was missing. The accused’s own motivation for his action is so astonishing that the honoured presidium should hear it with their own ears. I request that Corporal Erwin Velder be called as witness.

Major von Peters
: Granted.

Lieutenant Brown
: Erwin Velder, do you swear by Almighty God to keep strictly to the truth?

Velder
: I do, sir.

Lieutenant Bratianu
: Why did you leave your post?

Velder
: I knew that Oswal …

Lieutenant Bratianu
:
General
Oswald.

Velder
: Sorry, sir. He didn’t call himself General then.

Lieutenant Bratianu
: No comments. Answer clearly and concisely.

Velder
: I knew from experience that General Oswald would be away for about an hour. Four boys of about ten years of age were playing ball in the street and after about ten minutes one of them came up to me and asked if I would be goalie. They were playing one-ended goal, as they called it those days.

Lieutenant Bratianu
: Skip the linguistics.

Velder
: Yes, sir. I did as I was asked.

Lieutenant Bratianu
: How far did you go away from your post?

Velder
: About seventy yards.

Lieutenant Bratianu
: And what happened then?

Velder
: It was a warm day and although I left my tunic in the vehicle, I got very sweaty.

Lieutenant Bratianu
: Do you consider yourself to have broken military regulations by beginning to undress in the street?

Velder
: Yes, sir.

Lieutenant Bratianu
: I request to extend the charge with one more point concerning the transgression of paragraph two in military regulations. I further request that the charge of want of common sense and carelessness on duty be changed to gross want of sense respectively gross carelessness.

Major von Peters
: Granted. Continue, Velder.

Velder
: The ball game ended at about twenty past four. The boys went on playing something else and one of them asked if he could borrow my map-holder, which was lying on the front seat of the the jeep. I gave it to him and went to the nearest bar to have a cold beer. When I’d been sitting there for ten minutes, the General came and fetched me. When he left, I forgot I’d lent the map-holder.

Lieutenant Bratianu
: What did the map-holder contain?

Velder
: A map of the area east of Oswaldsburg.

Lieutenant Bratianu
: On which the headquarters of the militia and surrounding posts were carefully marked?

Velder
: Yes, sir. And a list on which Osw … on which General
Oswald had written down what we were to do during the coming week, a bar of chocolate and a letter I was going to post.

Lieutenant Bratianu
: A letter which the General had written by hand and entrusted to you?

Velder
: Yes, sir.

Lieutenant Bratianu
: Did you manage to retrieve the map-holder?

Velder
: No, sir.

Lieutenant Bratianu
: Did you try?

Velder
: No, sir. But the letter got there all the same. The boy himself or his father must have posted it.

Lieutenant Bratianu
: Do you presume to stand there making excuses in front of two colonels, one major and a commander in the Navy? Look me in the eyes, Corporal Velder. You have already confessed, but do you realise what risks your criminal activities in another situation might have signified for the security of the State and the General personally?

Velder
: Yes, sir.

Lieutenant Bratianu
: Your witness, Captain Endicott.

Captain Endicott
: What were relations like between you and the General?

Velder
: Very good.

Captain Endicott
: What did the General do when he found you in the bar?

Velder
: He sat down and had a beer.

Captain Endicott
: Did he criticise or punish you?

Velder
: No, not then. That evening he was a bit cross about the letter.

Captain Endicott
: Do you know whether the General’s visit to that building was in the line of duty?

Velder
: No, it was quite priv …

Lieutenant Bratianu
: I protest. The question has nothing to do with the case.

Colonel Pigafetta
: Yes, that’s enough now, Endicott.

Captain Endicott
: No more questions.

Lieutenant Bratianu
: Although there is no doubt justification at this point for extending the charge to threat to the security of the State, from a time point of view I request to be allowed to place this section of the case before the court.

Colonel Orbal
: Excellent, Bratianu. Granted.

Lieutenant Bratianu
: Stay standing to attention, Corporal Velder. Charges numbers forty-six to sixty-four. Nineteen cases of insubordination, drunkenness on duty, gross dereliction of duty, gross want of sense on duty, gross carelessness on duty, carelessness with military equipment, fornication and theft from military stores. In some cases, the charge is concerned with two or more of these offences in combination and committed at the same time. Most of the charges refer to events of the same or of a similar nature as charge number forty-five, which has just been thoroughly dealt with. Corporal Velder pleads guilty to all charges. To avoid unnecessary waste of time, I request that the procedure be simplified in the same way as before. I request that I be allowed to lay this section of the case before the court immediately.

Colonel Orbal
: Fornication?

Lieutenant Bratianu
: That point will be taken up as evidence in charge number seventy-seven of the case, that is, the section of the case in which Corporal Velder still contests his guilt. I request to be allowed to place before you section forty-six to sixty-four.

Major von Peters
: Excellent. Now things are shaping up.

Lieutenant Bratianu
: Keep your head still, there, Corporal Velder. Pull in your chin. Remember that you’re still a soldier and stand to attention. Corporal Velder, do you agree to your confession to the nineteen charges which will now be laid before this court martial.

Velder
: Yes, sir.

Lieutenant Bratianu
: Do you feel any regret or shame for the way in which you betrayed the General’s trust and your duty as a soldier?

Velder
: Yes, sir.

Lieutenant Bratianu
: Then turn to the presidium of this court martial and explain what you feel.

Velder
: I regret the way in which I betrayed the General’s trust and my duty as a soldier. I feel deeply ashamed.

Commander Kampenmann
: Not frightfully good phraseology, but it was your own, wasn’t it, Lieutenant Bratianu?

Colonel Orbal
: What? I don’t understand a thing.

Lieutenant Bratianu
: This section of the case is now concluded. Charge number sixty-five. Offences against the secrets act, and illicit intelligence activity. At the time of the offence, Corporal Velder had
belonged to General Oswald’s personal bodyguard for more than two years.

Commander Kampenmann
: Permit me to intervene with one question. Why and by whom was Velder chosen as the General’s bodyguard?

Lieutenant Bratianu
: Corporal Velder was a relatively skilled shot and his physique was good. People around the General had recommended Velder and had also said that he was trustworthy and intelligent. General Oswald relied on these people. To the utmost. He also relied on Corporal Velder.

Colonel Pigafetta
: I would be grateful if you would not repeat that word corporal ten times a minute. It’s extremely irritating. If you don’t mind.

Lieutenant Bratianu
: Naturally, sir.

Commander Kampenmann
: Just one more thing. In charge after charge, it has been maintained that through his in itself unprecedented and inexcusably undisciplined behaviour, Velder offended against militia regulations. Earlier in the session, however, one of the Prosecuting Officer’s own witnesses maintained unchallenged that no such regulations existed.

Major von Peters
: You’re being hellish awkward again, Kampenmann. And just now, too, when we’re at last getting going.

Lieutenant Bratianu
: The witness was lying or mistaken. In a general order, signed four years ago, General Oswald laid down for everyone that military instructions and service regulations which were put into practice when he himself had received his basic military training, were applicable to the militia from half-past five on the morning of the liberation. In that general order, it was also stated that the militia was a military organisation from that time on, equivalent of regular troops. I hold the evidence in my hand. Here you are, sir.

Commander Kampenmann
: Strange that this important confirmation wasn’t signed until five years after the liberation.

Colonel Orbal
: Not at all. I remember that order. I was here then. It came at the beginning of the disturbances, to enable us to clear the place of deserters. It came as a relief.

Commander Kampenmann
: I see. Incidentally, what basic training did the General have before the national liberation?

Tadeusz Haller
: He’d been a national service lance-corporal in a service regiment.

Colonel Orbal
: What?

Major von Peters
: Think about what you’re saying, Mr Haller.

Tadeusz Haller
: It was a joke, of course.

Colonel Orbal
: Singularly out of place.

Major von Peters
: May I remind you, Mr Haller, that this is a military court and not a music-hall act. You may continue now, Bratianu.

Lieutenant Bratianu
: Think about your bearing, Velder. I repeat: Charge number sixty-five. Offences against the secrets act and illicit intelligence activity. I request to be allowed to extend the charge to preparation for high treason.

Major von Peters
: Granted.

Lieutenant Bratianu
: Velder had, as I said, for more than two years belonged to the General’s bodyguard at the time of the offence. In this capacity, he had automatic access to secret material and was often in a position to listen to conversations and conferences dealing with matters of weight to the security of the armed forces and thus also to the State. The case I am now to lay before you is far more serious than the original charge implies. It is also hitherto the grossest of all the offences. I request to be allowed to call and interrogate two witnesses, Corporal Velder and Justice Tadeusz Haller.