But to return. After the first pigeon-fancier agrees this is indeed the Madame Lea he has in mind-heaven only knows how many shady kikes operate under the same surely false name in Lille! — he says, "Well, come tomorrow at half past nine, then. She gives readings Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Other days, other things." He chuckles knowingly.
Tomorrow, of course, is Wednesday. Who knows what sort of treachery boils and bubbles in Madame Lea's house on the days when she does not give readings? No one-no one German-knows now. But after tomorrow, she will be exposed to the world for what she is, for a purveyor and panderer to filth of the vilest and most anti-German sort. Such is ever the way of the Jew. But it shall be stopped! Whatever it is, it shall be stopped! I take my holy oath that this be so.
Maybe it will not be Doriot. I hope it will be. I think it will be. No, it must be! It cannot be anyone, anything, else. On this I will stake my reputation. On this I will stake my honor. On this I will stake my verylife!
When the mothers of ancient Greece sent their sons into battle, they told them, "With your shield or on it!" So it shall be for me as I storm into the struggle against the enemies of the German Empire! I shall neither flag nor fail, but shall emerge triumphant or abandon all hope of future greatness. Hail victory!
Give me your prayers, give me your heart, give me the reward of the conquering hero when I come home covered in glory, as I cannot help but do. I pause here only to kiss your letters once more and wish they were you. Tomorrow-into the fray! Hail victory! for your iron-willed-
Uncle Alf
29 May 1929
My dear and most beloved Geli,
Himmelherrgottkreuzmillionendonnerwetter!The idiocy of these men! The asininity! The fatuity! How did we win the war? Were the Frenchmen and the English even more cretinous than we? It beggars the imagination, but it must be so.
When I returned toFeldgendarmerie headquarters after shaking off whatever tails the suspicious pigeon-fanciers might have put on me, I first wrote to you, then at once demanded force enough to deal with the mad and vicious Frenchmen who will surely be congregating at Madame Lea's tonight.
I made this entirely reasonable and logical demand-made it andhad it refused! "Oh, no, we can't do that," says the fat, stupid sergeant in charge of such things. "Not important enough for the fuss you're making about it."
Not important enough! "Do you care nothing about serving the Reich?" I say, in a very storm of passion. "Do you care nothing about helping your country?" I shake a finger in his face and watch his jowls wobble. "You are worse than a Frenchman, you are!" I cry. "A Frenchman, however racially degenerate he may be, has a reason for being Germany's enemy. But what of you?Why do you hate your own Fatherland?»
He turned red as a holly berry, red as a ripe tomato. "You are insubordinate!" he booms. And so I am, when to be otherwise is to betray theKaiserreich. "I shall report you to the commandant.He'll put a flea in your ear-you wait and see."
"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.