The Two-Headed Eagle

“Top-secret? Not to my knowledge. I’ll speak with the Corps Technical Officer, but so far as I’m aware those valve sets came off the secret list last month. There must have been a clerical slip-up somewhere. Anyway, don’t worry about it: your commanding officer was probably misinformed.”

So we washed and shaved and spruced ourselves up, Toth and I, and got into a staff car to be driven to the town square in Haidenschaft to meet our future Emperor as he reviewed a guard of honour. A sizeable crowd had gathered in the little square to greet the Archduke and his entourage. As he drew up in his grey-green Daimler I got my first good look at the man who must surely become our ruler before much longer. He was a slight young man with an amiable if rather weak face, wearing the tunic—the austere field-grey “Karlbluse”—which he had made his trademark and which had been widely adopted of late as a mark of loyalty by front-officers of the more Kaisertreu variety. I noticed however, once I had had the chance to inspect this garment close-up, that it was well cut and of noticeably finer material than the increasingly shoddy wartime cloth that the rest of us wore.

The young Archduke shook my hand: a curious palm-downwards handshake in which I had been schooled beforehand by an ADC and which involved me extending my own hand palm upwards as if solicit­ing a tip. He made the usual small talk—how long I had been an officer, where I came from etc. etc.? Then he questioned me on every detail of our attack on the Italian airship, and also on our exploit the previous day in landing behind enemy lines to retrieve the fragments of the wireless set. As to our experience in the front line, I must admit that I glossed over certain incidents: like that of our rummaging beneath a decomposing corpse in our desperate search for a gas mask. I suspected that members of the Imperial House were even more solicitously protected than the gen­eral public from the gruesome realities of life and death in the trenches, and I felt that he would find this story—like the murderous exploits of Oberleutnant Friml—too distressing to be borne. I took good care though to say a great deal about Toth’s courage and quick-wittedness in flinging a hand-grenade out of our shell hole—omitting only to mention that it was one of our side who had thrown it in the first place.

The Heir-Apparent enquired why I had left the submarine service to take up flying? And I, for my part, was preparing to give him the expected answers: looking for ever more dangerous ways of wi

I knew now that I would henceforth be a marked man among the Habsburg officer corps for the rest of my days. In military life there are few offences against service propriety more heinous than that of going over the head of one’s immediate superior and complaining to his superi­ors. It is something which can occasionally be done, but only in the direst extremities and in the knowledge that one will be regarded with suspicion ever after. And now I, a junior naval officer, had committed the ultimate solecism by going to the man very near the top. Short of complaining to the Emperor himself I could scarcely have committed a greater outrage. And all for nothing: for I knew perfectly well from my experience of roy­alty that he would probably have forgotten about it already.

The Heir-Apparent made a great deal of talking with Toth in Magyar. I asked him afterwards in Latin what the Archduke had said to him. He replied that he had not the faintest idea: he thought that the man was try­ing to speak Magyar, but that he was by no means sure.

But at least there was some brightness in that dismal little square in Haidenschaft that afternoon. Our orders for the presentation had said that, if we wished, we might bring family members along to watch. Well, I had no family members nearer than Vie

The Archduke passed on to someone else—and his place was imme­diately taken by a gangling and achingly aristocratic young ADC with a toothbrush moustache and a foolish grin: General stabshauptma

“Gnadiges Fraulein, what was the address you gave him, if I might ask?”

She giggled deliciously. “The back entrance of the Other Ranks’ knocking-shop on the Via Gorizia. There should be quite a stir among the townsfolk when his car draws up there. I hope he enjoys himself.”

She turned to Toth and took him by the arm, digging him in the ribs with her elbow. “Quod dices, O Zolli? Princeps maxime fatuus est, non verum?”

I must say that I was rather shocked by this, even if filled with a certain admiration. I would not have expected convent-educated Slovene village maidens to know that such things as military bordellos even existed, let alone their address.