Alternate Generals II

"Go ahead!" I jeer. "Brigadier Engelhardt is a brave man, a true warrior… unlike some I could name." The fat sergeant went redder than ever.

The hour by then being after eleven, the brigadier was snug in his bed, so my being haled before him had to wait until the following morning. You may be certain I reported toFeldgendarmerie headquarters as soon as might be. You may also be certain I wore uniform, with everything in accordance with regulations: no more shabby cap and tweed greatcoat, such as I had had on the previous night for purposes of disguise.

Of course, the other sergeant was still snoring away somewhere. Did you expect anything different? I should hope not! Such men are always indolent, even when they should be most zealous-especially when they should be most zealous, I had better say.

So there I sat, all my buttons gleaming-for I had paid them special attention-when the commandant came in. I sprang to my feet, took my stiffest brace-my back creaked like a tree in the wind-and tore off a salute every training sergeant in the Imperial Army would have admired and used as an example for his foolish, feckless recruits. "Reporting as ordered, sir!" I rapped out.

"Hello, Sergeant," Brigadier Engelhardt replied in the forthright, manly way that made him so much admired-so much loved, it would not go too far to say-by his soldiers during the Great War. I still tried to think well of him, you see, even though he had thwarted my will before. He returned my salute with grave military courtesy, and then inquired, "But what is all this in aid of?"

Having only just arrived, he would not yet have seen whatever denunciation that swine-fat fool of a sergeant had written out against me. I had to strike while the sun was hot. "I believe I have run this polecat of a Doriot to earth, sir," I said, "and now I need theFeldgendarmerie to help me make the pinch."

"Well, well," he said. "This is news indeed, Ade. Why don't you come into my office and tell meall about it?"

"Yes,sir!" I said. Everything was right with the world again. Far from being corrupt, the brigadier, as I have known since my days at the fighting front, is a man of honor and integrity. Once I explained the undoubted facts to him, how could he possibly fail to draw the same conclusions from them as I had myself? He could not. I was certain of it.

And, again without a doubt, he would at once have drawn those proper conclusions had he not chosen to look at the papers he found on his desk. I stood to attention while he flipped through them-and found, at the very top, the false, lying, and moronic accusations that that jackass of a localFeldgendarmerie sergeant had lodged against me. As he read this fantastic farrago of falsehoods, his eyebrows rose higher and higher. He clicked his tongue between his teeth-tch, tch, tch-the way a mother will when confronting a wayward child.

"Well, well, Ade," he said when at last he had gone through the whole sordid pack of lies-for such it had to be, when it was aimed against me and against the manifest truth. Brigadier Engelhardt sadly shook his head. "Well, well," he repeated. "Youhave been a busy boy, haven't you?"

"Sir, I have been doing my duty, as is expected and required of a soldier of theKaiserreich," I said stiffly.

"Do you think abusing your fellow soldiers for no good cause is part of this duty?" he asked, doing his best to sound severe.

"Sir, I do, when they refuse to dotheir duty," I said, and the entire story of the previous evening poured from my lips. I utterly confuted and exploded and made into nothingness the absurd slanders that villain of aFeldwebel, that wolf in sheep's clothing, that hidden enemy of the German Empire, spewed forth against me.

Brigadier Engelhardt seemed more than a little surprised at my vehemence. "You are very sure," he remarks.

"As sure as of my hope of heaven, sir," I reply.

"And yet," says he, "your evidence for what you believe strikes me as being on the flimsy side. Why should we lay on so many men for what looks likely to prove a false alarm? Answer me that, if you please."

"Sir," I say, "why did theFeldgendarmerie bring me here to Lille, if not to solve a problem the local men had proved themselves incapable of dealing with? Here now I have the answer, I have the problem as good as solved, and what do I find? That no one-no one, not even you, sir! — will take me seriously. I might as well have stayed in Munich, where I could have visited my lovely and charming niece." You see, my darling, even in my service to the kingdom you are always uppermost in my mind.

Brigadier Engelhardt frowns like a schoolmaster when you give him an answer he does not expect. It may be a right answer-if you are clever enough to think of an answer the schoolmaster does not expect, it probablywill be a right answer, as mine was obviously right here-but he has to pause to take it in. Sometimes he will beat you merely for having the nerve to think better and more quickly than he can. Brigadier Engelhardt, I will say, has not been one of that sort.

At last, he says, "But Ade, do you not see? No one has spoken Doriot's name. You do notknow that he will be at Madame Lea's."

"I know there will be some sort of subversion there," I say. "And with Doriot in the city to spread his Red filth, what else could it be?"

"Practically anything," he replies. "Lille is not a town that loves the German Empire. It never has been. It never will be."

"It is Doriot!" I say-loudly. "It must be Doriot!" I lean forward. I pound my fist on the desk. His papers jump. So does a vase holding a single red rose.

Brigadier Engelhardt catches it before it tips over. He looks at me for a long time. Then he says, "You go too far, Sergeant. You go much too far, as a matter of fact."

I say nothing. He wants me to say I am sorry. I am not sorry. I amright. Iknow I am right. My spirit is full of certainty.

He drums his fingers on the desktop. Another pause follows. He sighs. "All right, Ade," he says. "I will give you exactly what you say you want."

I spring to my feet! I salute! "Thank you, Brigadier! Hail victory!"

"Wait." He is dark, brooding. He might almost be a Frenchman, all so-called intellect, and not a proper German, a man of will, of action, of deed, at all. He points a finger at me. "I will give you exactly what you say you want," he repeats. "You can take these men to this fortuneteller's place. If you bring back Jacques Doriot, well and good. If you do not bring back Jacques Doriot… If you do not bring him back, I will make you very, very sorry for the trouble you have caused here. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, sir!" This is it! Victory or death! With my shield or on it!

"Do you wish to change your mind?"

"No, sir! Not in the slightest!" I fear nothing. My heart is firm. It pounds only with eagerness to vanquish the foes of the Reich, the foes of the Kaiser. Not a trace of fear. Nowhere at all a trace of fear, I swear it. Into battle I shall go.

He sighs again. "Very well. Dismissed,Feldwebel."

Now I have merely to wait until the evening, to prepare theFeldgendarmerie men who shall surround Madame Lea's establishment, and then to-to net my fish! You shall see. By this time tomorrow, Doriot will be in my pocket and I will be a famous man, or as famous as a man whose work must necessarily for the most part be done in secret can become.

And once I am famous, what shall I do? Why, come home to my family-most especially to my loving and beloved niece! — and celebrate just as I hope. You are the perfect one to give a proper Hail victory! for your proud, your stern, your resolute-

Uncle Alf