It took all his concentration to hold the matter of his book in his mind. As he wrote, he realised this was his last chance to redeem a reputation compromised by the wide-eyed wrong- headedness of The Battle of St Petersburg. His hands were permanently stained, fingers black with ink. His cuffs were spotted. By writing, by envisioning in minute detail a world as it should be, mankind as it should be, he could make it so. His mind, stretched near madness, must prove strong enough for the task.
'Eddy,' Theo appeared, collar turned up against the wind Poe had not noticed, 'if you have a moment, there are a few matters we must discuss.'
Since Orlok's arrival, Theo was burdened with a thousand duties. Through the smiling Hardt, the elder insisted on supervising in detail all matters pertaining to intelligence and security. There could not be enough checks and examinations. Tiny flaws in the records of a dozen men, from an adjutant on Karnstein's staff down to one of the castle's troop of cleaners, had been exposed and the personnel removed.
Theo, like everyone, was newly formal. Fliers wore full dress uniform, breasts heavy with medals, at all times. Huge ledgers of military etiquette were learned by rote. Theo wore a fur- collared greatcoat over his immaculate uniform. On his tunic hung an Iron Cross earned on active service in Belgium. He had a large, flat box under his arm.
'Firstly, your problem with Ewers is at an end. *
Since his display before Orlok, Ewers had sulked, chattering out 'reports' on a typewriter, plotting his own advancement.
'The Baron has settled the matter personally.'
Poe tried not to think what that might mean.
'Now, as you understand, our little nest is to make accommodation for a very high-flying bird. Because of JG1's record, we have been able to adopt a certain casual attitude which will no longer be applicable.'
Theo was coming around to something awkward.
'I understand you held the rank of full colonel in the army of the Southern Confederacy?'
'I rose to that position. Under the name of Perry.'
Theo presented his box like a tray. He opened it, and thin paper was disturbed by the breeze.
'Matters are complicated, you understand, by the absorption of the Confederacy into our enemy, the United States of America, but it seems you are entitled to wear this.'
In the box, neatly folded, was the uniform of an obersturmbahnführer in the Uhlans. Poe picked up the Ulanka jacket. The quality was of the highest. A double row of buttons glittered. Theo saluted.
'We have equal rank, Oberst Poe.'
He tried to get used to the continual saluting. His reaffirmed rank demanded salute of almost everyone in Schloss Adler, and he was obliged smartly to return the gesture.
'When they opened up the west tower, they disturbed the filth of ages,' Goring was saying. 'They had to send Emmelman in. He ate everything half-alive, and most of the dirt.'
Emmelman was the kobold-flier who never reassumed human shape. A shambling heap, he was a writhing mass of wormy appendages, lumbering alarmingly through corridors he filled entirely. Even this creature was crammed into immaculate uniform.
The Great Hall was being rearranged. The trophy wall was inviolate, but electric lights were strung everywhere, banishing shadow from the vaulted space. Centuried cobwebs were ruthlessly burned away. Cleaners grew fat on the spiders that were a perk of the position.
'Did you see the monster in the courtyard?' Goring asked Poe. 'Barrel wider than a factory chimney. Engineers claim it can hit Paris.'
Gun emplacements had sprung up all around the castle. Mainly anti-aircraft positions. JG1 expected to do a deal of air fighting close to home. The Allies knew what they were up against now, thanks to Albert Ball's lucky observer, and serious assaults were expected.
'You must set everything down. This is the sharp end of history.'
Poe outranked Rittmeister von Richthofen. He was worried this would prompt the flier to close up. Over the past weeks, he had just begun to tease thoughts and feelings out of the hero. This could bring down a steel shutter. He supposed that, if it came to it, he could order the Baron to be forthcoming.
Richthofen had been flying full-strength dusk-till-dawn missions for several nights, leading his hunting pack, bringing up his score until he was within sight of an unprecedented hundred victories. The general order was that no Allied aircraft be allowed to return to the lines with intelligence of the gathering forces of the Kaiserschlacht. In addition, JG1 were destroying balloons by the half-dozen, ensuring the Allies were running short of trained observers. The Baron was not tired by such exertions. Rather, with the glut of foes' blood, he swelled sleekly and seemed almost fat. He thought faster and was more expansive.
'I do not care for balloons,' he said.
'Because they don't add to your score?'
At the outset of the collaboration, Poe would not have dared make the suggestion. Now he knew his man, he could afford to be facetious.
There's no sport in it. But it's dangerous. As you know.'
JG1 had suffered its first loss, to ground fire. Ernst Udet, swooping on a balloon, was transfixed by a lucky silver bullet and shape-shifted to human form, tumbling from the sky a broken wreck.
'Your father-in-darkness will be here soon.'
'I have met Dracula.'
A Sahnke card, sold by the million, commemorated the event, the Baron and the Graf together. Though Richthofen could be photographed, Dracula had no reflection and so appeared in photographs as an empty uniform. The card showed the Baron posed stiffly, shaking the hand of a figure whose head was drawn in, a magnificent coin profile.
'On my twenty-fifth birthday, shortly after my fiftieth victory, I was summoned to Berlin. I met Hindenburg, Ludendorff, the Kaiser, the Empress and Graf von Dracula. I found the Empress to be a pleasant lady, very grandmotherly.'
'And the others?'
Richthofen hesitated, knowing praise of his superiors was his duty.
'Our Kaiser gave me a birthday present, a life-sized bronze and marble bust of himself. A characteristic gesture, I think.'
Poe smiled at the understatement. He was surprised the Baron should express even such mild criticism.
'What did you do with it?'
'I sent it to my mother in Schweidnitz, to be placed with my boyhood hunting trophies. In transport, one moustache was snapped off. I dare not exhibit an imperfect thing.'
'What of the others?'
'Hindenburg and Ludendorff lectured and asked technical questions, many beyond my poor knowledge. Hindenburg was struck by a nostalgic impulse when he learned we had occupied the same cadet room at Wahlstatt. I gather it changed very little between his time and mine, and that he had happier memories of the place than I.'
Hindenburg must have been at Wahlstatt only shortly after Poe was suffering at West Point.
'My own memories of military school have not become fonder with age.'
'That does not surprise me.'
'And Dracula?'
Poe remembered his own brief encounter with the Graf. And how overwhelming it had been.
'He is a huge person. He has his own gravity. There is a mental pull, an invisible fist. Those of his line, he has made his slaves.'
'New-borns who have been turned by elders are often bound to them.'
'It was not so with 'Auntie' Perle. She is meek and knows her place. But with Dracula's blood in me, I am chained to him. To be in his presence is like being buffeted by strong winds which threaten to tear one's mind to fragments. This is not even his intention, it is what he is. I cannot best serve him by becoming like those creatures who have attended him down the centuries. His wives and his serfs.'