Swastika Night

by Katharine Burdekin

  “It doesn’t matter,” said the Knight. “It’s stopping, I think. Report to me to-morrow morning at ten o’clock at my house.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Dismiss.”

  “Sir—may I say something?”

  Von Hess took no notice of him but walked on about fifty yards. Alfred followed a little doubtfully. He didn’t know whether the Knight was being genuinely official, or was only ignoring him because of the men in the hangar.

  “Well, what is it?” The Knight had turned round and was waiting for him. No one could hear them now.

  “Are you going to tell me to-morrow why you wanted me to take you for a flight?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you going to tell me anything else?”

  “yes.”

  “May I make a condition?”

  “You can try.”

  “I want Hermann to hear it too.”

  “Why?”

  “He has more right to hear it than I have. He must have more right.”

  “It isn’t a question of rights, it is a question of mind and stability. Hermann hasn’t much of either.”

  “I can make him stable.”

  “Can you? Can you make him hold his tongue until you say he can speak? If that time ever comes.”

  “Yes,” said Alfred, as confidently as he had said he could fly.

  “You don’t know what you’re letting him in for. Take him into a war, smash his limbs, pull his intestines out, blind him—he’d stand all that—but I don’t know about this.”

  “I want him to believe something. He’d believe you.”

  The Knight thought for some time, drawing vague patterns on the grass with his long black stick.

  “I agree,” he said at last. “He shall be told. But truth is an intolerable burden even for a grown man. I shall be glad enough myself to throw it off.”

  “You’re old, he’s young. Some young German ought to take it from you.”

  “As you like, Alfred. It shall be as you wish. There may very well be physical danger in telling Hermann, but I expect you don’t mind that.”

  “I’ve had to mind too many things in my life to mind anything particularly.”

  “Except not being allowed to fly?”

  “Oh, well—” Alfred laughed. “I know that’s rather childish really.”

  “When did you begin to mind things?”

  “At sixteen I lost my faith.”

  “And you’re now—?”

  “Nearly thirty-six.”

  “Twenty years of seeking light in darkness and harmony in confusion. You get very tired of it sometimes, I expect.”

  “Yes.”

  “So that you’d like to die, just to be able to stop thinking?”

  “Oh, occasionally one feels like that.”

  “Men are admirable sometimes. Auf wiedersehen, Alfred.”

  Without a salute, or a Heil Hitler, and with a very pink nose and aching ribs, the old Knight took his way home.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ALFRED limped back to the Court-house to collect his sack and stick. His head was aching and one knee was so severely bruised that he could only hobble, but he was gloriously happy. Now he had something that no one could ever take away from him, not if they tore him into little strips—he had flown. And there were other things too to make him content; at last some of the darkness was to be dispersed, some of his perplexities resolved; he was to know something instead of guessing, guessing until, strong and tenacious man though he was, he thought he must go mad. And yet, though he laughed at himself, with the intoxication of the air still upon him, he thought most of the flying.

  At the Court-house the pious and blood-conscious Nazi on duty at the door was sullen and contemptuous of him.

  “What do you want, Kerl?” he snapped, in mere average crossness as Alfred made to hobble past him into the entrance lobby.

  “My sack and stick, please.”

  At the sound of Alfred’s accent the Nazi’s eyes brightened. A dirty foreigner. Let him whistle for his sack and stick. The Nazi had only been on duty for half an hour; there were two hours yet to go before the Court-house would be locked for the night. He could while away a few minutes in pleasant conversation.

  “And why did you leave your nice clean wholesome foreign lousy—y sack and stick in our Court-house?”

  Alfred was far too happy to take offence, even inwardly. Indeed he hardly heard what the Nazi said.

  “The Knight told me to go with him at once.”

  “The Knight !” said the Nazi, aiming a swinging clout at Alfred’s head. “‘The highly-born’ from you, you scum.”

  Alfred ducked the blow with the neatness of incessant life-long practice. The sudden movement sent a sickening pain through his bruised knee. He winced a little and backed away from the Nazi, who laughed disagreeably.

  “You yellow Britisher,” he said. “Can’t you stand up to a tap? All right, Lieblein, I won’t hurt you, sweet little boy. I should have to go and wash my hands if I touched you, anyway.”

  “The highly-born called me to go with him at once, so I had to leave my sack and stick,” Alfred explained again. “Please may I get them?”

  “No.”

  “Could you let me have the stick?” asked Alfred, still politely. (He had flown, he was going to know things, what did this lout matter? As much as a rat or other unpleasant but individually powerless animal.) “I’m lame.”

  “Dear, dear, what a pity that is! I’m afraid you’ll have to borrow the Knight’s for the evening. I’m sure he’d be delighted to lend it to you.”

  Alfred burst out laughing, this amusing phantasy of the porter’s was so near the truth. Probably old von Hess would lend him his staff if he could.

  “What’s all this bloody row about?” This interruption, an angry one, came from behind the Nazi, as the Knight’s Marshal who had been busy inside the Court-room, came striding to the outer door. “This isn’t a Boy’s Nursery. Oh, it’s you again!” he said as he saw Alfred. “What do you want?”

  “My sack and stick, please, Herr Marshal. I had to leave them here because the highly-born the Knight wanted me to go with him at once.”

  “Then why the hell don’t you get them without all this palaver? I’m perfectly aware you had to go with the Knight. I saw you come out of here.”

  Alfred said nothing more, but limped inside the entrance and collected his gear. He saluted the Marshal and grinned at the Nazi. “Heil Hitler!” he cried cheerfully. “Good night.”

  “Why didn’t you let him get his things?” the Marshal asked severely.

  “He’s only a dirty foreigner, Herr Marshal,” said the Nazi uneasily.

  “Just because he’s a foreigner you ought to have known that he couldn’t have been in here at all without some serious reason. You be careful and let him alone. He’s got some kind of business on with the Knight. You can’t help having a face like a turnip-lantern, I dare say, but you can help opening it.”

  The Marshal banged back into the Court-room leaving the Nazi abashed.

  Alfred found out the way to the Knight’s home farm, which with his magnificent house was not far from the hangar and landing-ground. He wandered about the empty farmyard for a little till he found a man in the dairy. Alfred asked him the way to Hermann’s room. This German was a cheerful person without any open contempt for foreigners. “Up over the cowshed,” he said. “Through that door and you’ll see some stairs. Supper will be in about three-quarters of an hour in the farmhouse dining-room. If you want to wash there’s the pump.”

  “Can I have supper with you?” Alfred was surprised.

  “Well, you’re Hermann’s English friend, aren’t you? He said you’d be coming when the Knight had done with you. What did he want you for?”

  “Oh, he talked about England. He used to be the Knight of a big port close to where I live. Oh, damn that boy!” Alfred had suddenly remembered that his jersey had gone careering off to some destination unknown to him
, still under the sick boy’s arm. Hermann would have no extra bedding, naturally, and the boards of the loft would be hard. However, it was not going to be cold. He stripped off his coat and shirt and had a refreshing swill under the pump. He combed his hair and beard and asked the friendly dairyman for a bit of rope or an old strap.

  “My breeches won’t stay up properly, and the boy’s got my belt as well as my jersey.”

  “What boy?”

  “You’d better ask Hermann about that. Thanks, that’ll do fine. Will Hermann come up to the loft before supper?”

  “There’ll be a whistle for supper if he doesn’t. Come straight into the house. It’s all right, you know. You may be only an Englishman, but you’re Hermann’s friend on this farm. Be civil to the foreman, though. He’s a small man with a very black beard.”

  Alfred thanked him. He went up to Hermann’s room and lay down on the narrow hard pallet, relieved to rest his knee. Hermann had already made some preparation for his guest, as a pile of sacks was arranged in bed form in the least draughty corner of the loft, but Alfred thought there would be no harm in using the bed until his host came in. In spite of the aching of his knee he grew drowsy and presently was sound asleep.

  He was roused by Hermann’s laugh.

  “What a fellow to sleep you are!” he said, looking down at his friend. Alfred blinked up at him.

  “Is it supper time?”

  “Nearly. I say, Kurt said you were very lame and couldn’t walk without a stick. What’s happened?”

  “Oh, lots of things. But I think I’d better tell you afterwards. I’m glad you sleep out here by yourself and not in the house.”

  “I like it out here better,” said Hermann. He had entirely recovered his temper, and his pleasure at finding Alfred in his own room, lying on his own bed, had given his face a temporary charming radiance. But now it clouded over into its usual dark unhappiness.

  “That’s the thing I like best. To be by myself and hear the cows underneath when they’re in in the winter. They’re out in the fields at night now. I should hate to sleep in the house. Have you got a headache?”

  Alfred was feeling his head with his fingers and then shaking it as if he were rather doubtful about it.

  “No, it’s much better. But it was a fair crack.”

  “Have you been fighting?”

  “I never fight unless I absolutely have to. There’s the whistle, Hermann. Will it be a good supper?”

  “Better than you’ve had many a time, I dare say. Potatoes, soup and bread, and as many apples as you like to eat. Of course you’d have done better still to have stayed and dined with the Knight.”

  “I could eat three Knights’ Tables clean out,” said Alfred, hitching up his borrowed strap. “They say that if a man sleeps a lot he doesn’t need to eat so much, but I sleep all night and any time I’m at a loose end in the day as well, and I’m always hungry.”

  “It’s soft to have all you want to eat always,” said the young Nazi piously.

  “Then the Knights must be jelly-fish.”

  “Ach, that’s different. They could live hard if—if there was any occasion.”

  Alfred enjoyed his supper exceedingly. There was enough food, and good of its plain kind, and all the Germans were very pleasant to him, including the foreman, who was attracted by something in his stocky tough-looking figure and his darkish grey eyes. This man actually gave him and Hermann a little cheap cigar each to smoke after their supper. Hermann could not often afford to smoke, while Alfred’s expenses on his pilgrimage were calculated to a pfennig, to keep him in good health, but to include no luxuries whatever. He had had no money saved. There was no incentive for Nazis or subject races to save money. They would be kept by the State when they were ill or too old to work, their sons were kept by the State, and women were kept by the State too, fairly well kept while immature and at child-bearing age. After that they were on a very narrow margin. Old Marta would have thought herself in the men’s heaven if she could have eaten the meal Alfred had just finished. But Alfred had never worried about the ordinary day-to-day sufferings of women. He hardly realised they did suffer. It was natural and right that they should always have less food than men, and when they could bear no children why give them more than just what would keep them alive? They had no hard work to do. So his enjoyment was not spoiled by futile thoughts of others starving, and he accepted the cigar with delight as a fitting little coronet on a glorious day.

  He and Hermann went off up to their loft to savour the smokes together, outside the company of those who could hardly help being envious. Smoking was neither forbidden nor encouraged in the Empire. The Holy One, the Hero-God, of course, had never smoked, nor eaten meat, nor had He drunk beer or wine. His colossal size (seven feet tall was He) and His phenomenal feats of strength owed nothing to the coarse rich food beloved of lesser Germans. But there was no absolute necessity to try to imitate Him in His way of life, in His complete asceticism (which included never even being in the contaminating presence of a woman), and most men smoked and drank beer and ate meat, when they could get them.

  Hermann switched on the electric light, which was wired from the big system in the cowshed below. Alfred said, “The moon’s up, Hermann. Let’s open the door in the wall and have the light off. It’s very warm still.”

  Hermann turned off the light and opened the door through which sacks would be pushed if the loft were used for its proper purpose. They pulled the bed up near the door and sat on it side by side. They lit their cigars and drew long, delicious breaths of smoke.

  “I don’t believe I would like to be a Knight,” Alfred said. “I can’t believe they can ever enjoy anything, having things all the time. I haven’t had a smoke since I left England.”

  “Good, isn’t it?” Hermann grunted. “But when they’re done we shall wish we had another one each, and if one was a Knight then one could just go and get a smoke out of a box.”

  “Well, they’re not done, only just begun, so let’s not think of that.”

  They smoked in silence, looking out on the moonlit yard, with the big barn a jetty soft black, rising up on the other side. A cat picked its way across with dainty steps as though the yard had been full of puddles. The men were too peaceful even to hiss at it. Hermann was very curious about Alfred’s doings after the Knight had sent him, Hermann, out of the Court-room, but he was quite willing to wait until Alfred was ready to tell him. And Alfred did wait, not wishing to spoil Hermann’s pleasure, until the cigars were smoked to the last possible scrap, with the butts stuck on the ends of pins. They stamped the smouldering ends carefully out on the floor.

  “Not a spark,” Alfred said. “All gone. Quite dead. Now if I were a Knight, should I have another or shouldn’t I? No, I shouldn’t. I should know I could have one to-morrow morning. To-morrow morning!” he added, in a different tone.

  “Is something going to happen?”

  “It is. Some time to-morrow early you’ll get a message to report to the Knight at his house at ten o’clock.”

  “About that bloody soprano singer?”

  “No.”

  “Whatever can it be?” said Hermann uneasily. “How do you know? Do you know what it is?”

  “Hermann, would you like there to be a war with the Japanese?”

  “Hitler! Wouldn’t I just? Is there going to be one? Hurrah!”

  “There isn’t. But this that’s going to happen is going to be much worse than a war, at least for you. You’ve got to be braver than for that. Well, look here, I’ll tell you something to show how strange and important it’s going to be. I took the Knight up in his private aeroplane this afternoon. I flew the plane.”

  “You flew the——! But you’re only an Englishman! You can’t fly a plane. Oh, don’t be funny, Alfred. I don’t feel like it.”

  “It’s true, Hermann. You must believe me or you’ll have an unnecessarily bad shock, I flew to Munich and back with him, and came down all right, at least I would have, but for some
fools in the way—there was miles of room really, but they made me nervous—but though I smashed the plane into the hangar wall coming in too fast, it was very funny really, just like a dog tearing into its kennel, but neither of us was hurt. At least I hurt my knee and head a bit and he made his nose bleed and bumped his side.”

  “Made his nose bleed!” said Hermann, dazed, catching at this one point in the incredible tale.

  “Yes, yes. Aren’t Knights’ noses allowed to bleed if they bang them? But don’t you see, he thought we might be killed.”

  “He’s gone mad. The von Hess family—it isn’t like others. You oughtn’t to have taken him, Alfred. It was a wicked thing to do when he can’t be—be himself.”

  “He’s not mad,” said Alfred very earnestly, then added with a chuckle, “not that I’d have minded. Do you think that I’d let the life of one batty Knight stand between me and a chance to fly? Never. But he’s not mad. Well now, listen. To-morrow he’s going to tell me why he wanted to have a good chance to be killed, to leave the whole thing (whatever it is) to the, to him, improbable good luck that I could fly a plane for the first time without a man on double controls with me. And he’s going to tell you too.”

  “Why he wanted to be killed?”

  “To have the chance of being killed.”

  Hermann shook his head hopelessly.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do I. But we shall understand to-morrow. I insisted that you should be told too.”

  “I don’t want to be told anything!” cried Hermann in a panic. “The old man’s mad and you took advantage of it to fly. It’s all-all lunacy.”

  “Hermann, it is not. And you’ve got to be a man and stand up to something more than fights and farm-work. You’re probably going to have hell, but don’t run away from it, and I’ll see you through. The Knight will help us too.”