Swastika Night

by Katharine Burdekin

  Alfred came round the desk and looked over the Knight’s shoulder. The old man opened the book a few leaves from the end. Alfred saw a few lines in von Hess’s craftsman’s hand, then a space, and then some more German words in a writing which by comparison looked extremely coarse, weak and untidy.

  “My father, Friedrich von Hess, Teutonic Knight of the Inner Ring of Ten, gave me this book on June 19th, 2130. Then being seventy years old and nearly blind, and having nothing else to live for, but, as he said, being filled with a perfect faith in the goodness and universality of God, he took his own life on the following day, June 20th, 2130. He told me to lead him up to a certain place in some rugged hills not far off, called the Scarts of the Coolins, and there I was to leave him for three hours. When I came back again my father was dead, having swallowed some poison which he must have had with him ever since he left Germany ten years before. There was a little scrap of paper beside him on which he sent greetings and love to Kaspar, Friedrich, and Waldemar, and to me, Arnold, he wrote, Be faithful and guard the book. So I here record my oath.

  “I swear to be faithful and guard this book.

  “Arnold von Hess, Knecht.”

  Under there was a list of names in various handwritings, preceded by the words Und Ich.

  The Knight turned over the page and the names went on. The von Hess men were nearly all called after one of the old scribe’s four sons. Alfred glanced down the list till he came to the last one, written in nearly as lovely a hand as the book itself.

  Und Ich, Friedrich von Hess, Knecht.

  “And do you swear to be faithful, Alfred?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then take this pen, dip it in this special ink in this bottle here, and write your name under these.”

  “I’m not much good at writing, sir,” Alfred said, ruefully. “I’ll make a bad mess on the page.”

  “But you can write?”

  “Oh, I can.”

  “You can copy the Und Ich.”

  “Ich bin nicht Ich,” said Alfred. “I’m I.”

  Laboriously under the Und Ich he wrote a sprawling badly formed “And I” in English script. Under the von Hess names he wrote “Alfred” and under Knecht he with toil and pain inscribed the word “Englishmun”.

  “You might be an English man,” said the Knight. “Give me the pen.” Deftly he corrected Alfred’s faulty spelling. “I suppose you never have any occasion to write?” he asked.

  “Not often. There’s nothing to write about. About all I ever write is ‘Passed’ on a ticket for an engine.”

  “Don’t you have to indent for stores, tools and so on?”

  “The Nazi ground foreman does that. I’m the first man on that list without a surname. It looks odd, doesn’t it? Just ‘Alfred’.”

  “You could have put Alfred Alfredson.”

  “That’s nothing. Those aren’t surnames like von Hess. You are Friedrich Kasparsohn von Hess.”

  The ink was dry and the Knight closed the book.

  “That Nazi, that Johann Leder, he had a surname. How did he have one? Hermann hasn’t any more than me.”

  “I’ll tell you to-morrow,” said the Knight. He seemed tired. “How you lost your surnames, and anything I know about myself. I know you’ll be bursting with questions. But now you must go, and though the book is yours now, Alfred, you can’t have it yet. I must think of ways and means.”

  “Sir, how could you risk yourself in an aeroplane when you knew that if you were killed that book would be destroyed?”

  “I am still a German, and a Knight. It is not so easy always to see where one’s real duty lies. But I admit it was a superstitious weakness, going up with you. Hermann!”

  Hermann jumped like a man suddenly wakened out of deep sleep. He sprang to attention.

  “You are to go to the end of the passage, open the door and wait outside with Heinrich till Alfred comes. You are not to speak to Heinrich. Salute. Right about. March.”

  Hermann strode stiffly out and shut the door.

  “Alfred, tell him from me he can work on the farm or not as he likes to-day. Keep with him. Look after him. He may try to kill himself, or you. Be careful and take this.”

  This was a small revolver the Knight drew from the desk.

  “I’d better not, sir,” Alfred said. “If they found it, or if I had to use it, there’d be a hell of a fuss. An ordinary fight doesn’t matter.”

  “But he has a knife and you have nothing. You understand, Alfred, you simply must not be killed. Hermann has no control except under discipline. Why, ten Hermanns, a hundred of them, wouldn’t pay for you.”

  “He won’t kill me,” said Alfred. “And he won’t kill himself. I’ll look after him. While I’m here,” he added, rather uneasily. “I’ve only got another fortnight.”

  “You see, he ought not to have been told.”

  “No, he ought not. I’m sorry, sir. But perhaps I can get him out of his daze.”

  “There’s a lot to be thought about,” said the Knight, “so Heil Hitler, Alfred. You can come at-well, we’ll say six o’clock to-morrow evening.”

  “Sir——” said Alfred rather dubiously.

  “What?”

  “Is it all right for an Englishman and a Nazi farm-worker to go on coming to see you? Once perhaps for a Knight’s wigging.”

  “It’s quite all right,” said von Hess, with a tired smile. “The reputation of my family is fortunately so peculiar that I can do almost anything. Auf wiedersehen.”

  Alfred saluted and went.

  Outside the passage door he found Hermann and Heinrich standing like two wooden figures one on each side, gazing into space, apparently unaware of each other. Alfred glanced from one to another and thought either would do well enough for models of the legendary Hitler. Both were young, huge and blond. He wondered if Heinrich’s manly mien concealed a weakness, a strong desire for personal dependency, as did Hermann’s. You never could tell to look at Hermann. If he had a soft chin, his fine golden beard hid it. “I dare say it’s a good thing,” thought Alfred. “If I can make him think only of me now, perhaps he’ll be all right. Poor lad! I was wrong to let him be told. He’s not even a quarter of a man.”

  These thoughts took no more time than a slight hesitation, when he had closed the door.

  “Come on, Hermann,” he said, nudging his arm. “The highly-born wishes us to potter off. March.”

  Hermann marched, with a jerk. He walked with Alfred in silence until they were out of the Knight’s grounds and in the road that led to the farm.

  “Where are you going?” he asked in a dull voice.

  “Well, anywhere you like. The Knight says you can work or not, as you like. What ought you to be doing?”

  “Hoeing.”

  “Then, if you want to work, give me a hoe, tell me which end I use, and I’ll be with you.”

  “Did he say I didn’t have to work?”

  “He did.”

  “He said I was a coward.”

  “Oh, he didn’t mean that. He was only ticking me off for being glad we once had an Empire.”

  “Is that all true?”

  “What?”

  “All he said?”

  “Nobody could ever know. But by the way the tale came to him, I should say, yes. If a German was really set on telling the truth, I can’t help thinking that as far as his knowledge went, he would tell it, and nothing else.”

  Hermann stopped walking down the farm road and turned round to face Alfred. No one was in sight.

  “He did think I was a coward,” Hermann said. “And so do you. You think I can’t stand anything. So does he. But neither of you realise that it’s worse for me than for you. He’s used to it. You’re glad, because you’re an Englishman. I’m nothing, only a common Nazi.” Hermann’s voice broke. He coughed and recovered himself. “But you’re both of you wrong.”

  “I was damned wrong,” said Alfred. “I’m sorry, Hermann. I really thought you couldn’t stand it. To have your God an
d your belief in the infallibility of Germany taken from you at one stroke. Why, of course, I couldn’t stand it, if I had a belief in the infallibility of Englishmen, and if I had a personal English God. I’ve got all wrong over you. I never realised what it would be like.”

  “Did the Knight?”

  “He didn’t want you to be told. But no, he doesn’t realise, Hermann. The biggest influence in his life is old von Hess. And was he really a German? Yes, he was the Germanest kind of German; can you imagine any other kind of man being so single-minded, so devoted, so careless of himself, so patient, so strong? And yet all that Blood-stuff didn’t seem to mean much. ‘The goodness and universality of God’, that’s what he thought at the end. He thought Germany ought to rule the world, and he thought the truth ought to prevail. He was a grand man. By God, Hermann, he believed in Germany more than you do.”

  “You talk so much,” said Hermann, “you muddle me. What I want to tell you is that I can stand this, that I’m not really a coward, whatever you and the Knight think—but, Alfred, you can’t leave me here.”

  “Where?”

  “In Germany. You say—he says that Germany is wrong—all that. Well, then, if I stay here I’ll kill myself. What else could I do?”

  “You could go on hoeing.”

  A cri de cœur, wholly without pride, came from Hermann’s bearded lips. “Alfred, if any man I trust will tell me what to do, I’ll do it. You or the Knight. I don’t care which.”

  Alfred took his arm. “Hermann, young fellow, you’ve been thinking too long. Let’s get some hoes.”

  But he was thinking, “Ought any man to be like Hermann? Would there have been men like Hermann when that girl in the photograph was alive? Is he perhaps not so much childish but rather like a woman, when women were different? But he’s not going to kill anyone, and that’s a good thing, anyway. How does one hoe?”

  Hermann went to the toolhouse at the farm to get two hoes, and then to the kitchen to receive his hedge-meal. The cook gave him a portion for Alfred, when Hermann suggested it, without demur. Their long session with the Knight had raised, their status on the farm to privileged men. Either the Knight was ferociously displeased with them, in which case some sympathy was due, even to the Englishman, or else he held them in some special kind of favour. The cook showed his interest and curiosity by hints, but Hermann made no response and the man had to go back to his kitchen unsatisfied.

  “It’s all about that chorister, I suppose,” he thought. “Perhaps the Knight has heard he’s dead.”

  In the field they found other men working, toiling up the long rows between the roots.

  “You draw the hoe so, Alfred. Get in the next row to me and don’t try to go too fast. It’s hard work.”

  “These are mangold wurzels,” said Alfred, chopping at the leaves of one of them idly with his hoe. “But they’re rotten little plants.”

  “Well, don’t cut all its leaves off to improve it. They won’t really grow in this part of Germany. They don’t get enough damp. It’s one of the Knight’s everlasting experiments with a special manure. And he thinks a lot of hoeing will make up for no rain at the proper time.”

  “He’s an agriculturalist too then, like the old man?”

  “He’s a very bad one,” said Hermann, almost smiling. “He does the most fantastic things. Don’t dig so. Just draw it along through the surface of the ground.”

  “Heilige Nacht!” muttered Alfred presently, referring to the Night of Hitler’s final disappearance in the Holy Forest. “What a hog’s job this is!”

  His knee hurt him, sweat poured off him and his back ached ferociously. Hermann, without any appearance of effort at all, drew fast ahead of him. But Alfred was ashamed to give in. He toiled along as fast as he could go, trying to catch Hermann up. He got farther and farther behind, for Hermann when he was in the swing of his work gradually quickened his pace. “The fellow is just a turbine-driven hoeing machine,” Alfred thought, stopping for an instant to wipe sweat out of his eyes. “I hope there’s something to drink in the hedge.”

  Fortunately for him it was near dinner-time when they had arrived in the field. Before he was quite cooked a welcome shout called them to the hedge. Alfred undid his back, which seemed to have permanently shortened itself into a hoop, picked up his coat, and staggered towards the group of hoers. He was received with friendly jeers.

  “It’s all very well,” he said, collapsing into the shade. “I’m not used to it. If you men tried to repair an engine you’d look just the same mugs.”

  “That’s a skilled job,” said one. “Anyone, even an Englishman, ought to be able to draw a little hoe through the ground.”

  “The holy soil of Germany is too thick for me, I’m afraid. Sausage! You Nazis do live high. Do all farm workers get as good food as you? Is there some water?”

  “There’s some beer. Pass him some, Hermann. The poor little fellow’s faint.”

  Alfred drank gratefully. The beer was thin, but there was plenty of it and it was not sour.

  “Our food depends partly on whatever Knight we work for,” explained a labourer. “Of course there are lots of things we don’t have except on feast days. Butter—things like that. But ours is a very good Knight. The von Hesses are mad, but never mean. It’s desperate the old man has no son.”

  Hermann sat next to Alfred in the hedge, munching slowly. He did not speak or listen to what the other men were saying. Once he turned to look at Alfred, a strange stupid lost look, vague and yet despairing, like a woman who had just had to surrender her baby son.

  “It’s all right,” Alfred murmured in English. “The Knight will look after us. He’ll tell us what to do. You go on with your hoeing and don’t try to think.”

  Hermann nodded.

  “If I hoed for a year or so,” Alfred asked, “should I be able to go as fast as Hermann?”

  “Not likely. Seeing he’s the strongest man on the farm.”

  “Then I shan’t bother to learn. I’ll do a very little more at about five o’clock, when it’ll be cooler.”

  “Where are you going?” Hermann asked quickly.

  “To sleep. And then just to the store to buy some cigarettes. You see, my hosts and all good chaps, if you keep me in sausage and beer and soup I can buy cigarettes for you. Your paternal and gracious government gives me two marks a day for expenses, besides my railway pass. What shall I get?”

  “The little cigars are better value than the cigarettes. Ask for the red-seal packets. Do you get all your expenses money at once, in England?”

  “I can draw on any Knight’s Marshal up to a certain amount. He writes it off on the paper and gives me whatever I want.”

  “Then you could draw it all at once and have a huge feast in Hamburg or wherever you landed ?”

  “I could. But I should be slung out of Germany on my ear with an impaired reputation for piety. And I should have to go back to work. I’d rather stay the whole month and see all the Holy Places.”

  “Which have you liked best so far?”

  “The Forest. And the Rhine.”

  “The Rhine isn’t particularly holy. Only in the one place where He swam across it.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Alfred murmured sleepily. “Now don’t clatter your hoes, you men, when you go back to work.”

  “He wants kicking, Hermann. Why don’t you do lit?”

  “You do it,” said Hermann. “But it’s no good kicking him. He won’t be any different afterwards. And he might not bring back your smokes.”

  “Why don’t we just murder him and take his two marks or whatever he has, and buy the smokes ourselves?”

  “Because it’d be better to torture him, and make him draw all the rest of the money from the Knight’s Marshal, and then just kill him after that. They can’t worry much if one odd Englishman never comes back again. Come, lads. Time.”

  Herman sat up and took off his coat. He pushed it under Alfred’s head for a pillow.

  “Odd Englishman is rig
ht,” he said.

  Alfred, sound asleep by this time, opened his mouth and snored.

  “Are all Englishmen as lazy as he is?” someone asked Hermann, as they plodded back to their work.

  “They don’t just rush about looking for work, any of them. But when Alfred’s on a job he’s quick and clever. At his aerodrome they think a lot of him. He’d have been ground foreman five years ago if he’d been a Nazi.”

  Hermann went back to his lonely row. The rhythmical hard work soothed him; he managed to reduce himself, very nearly, to an automatic collection of expertly working muscles. A peace, the peace of emptiness, came to his mind. But for all his physical absorption he was aware of it when Alfred, two hours later, woke up and moved off across the field.

  He waved to Hermann, who made an answering gesture with his hoe. He hoped Alfred would come over to talk to him, but he did not. He went to the gate and vanished. Alfred was feeling as strong as ten men. All his life he had been more refreshed, not only physically, by sleep than by food or drink or love or lust or triumphs of skill. He never understood it, but however despairing and bewildered he had been by his almost life-long struggle to think light into the darkness of human origins, when he woke after a sleep he always felt renewed to battle, with his gloominess and dejection and fear of madness gone. It was as if something inside himself, not his brain, went on thinking, much better than he could; and though it could not tell him anything definite, yet he always had the feeling of being a little farther on than when he lay down. He would go to sleep sometimes on thoughts of suicide and eternal rest from this bitter conflict, all the worse because it was like a battle with wind and mist; but he would wake up determined to live till the last possible minute of his appointed time. “For,” he thought, in these giant moods, “if I go on thinking long enough and hard enough, I must understand.” After his sound sweet sleep in the hedge, the sounder and the sweeter for his wakeful night and his furious unskilled exertion with the hoe, he knew that the world really was a paradise. For no Valhalla or Hero’s Heaven or everlasting supernatural bliss of any kind would he have changed this German landscape and himself walking in it. He had been happy when he lay down, owing to the light that had dawned with the Knight’s tale; and now when he woke up he felt that his secret mind, the one that could never give him any direct message, but which was always strong and hopeful, had taken its usual forward leap.