Swastika Night

by Katharine Burdekin

  “I shall understand everything now,” he thought—“when I get von Hess’s book to read it will all be plain. The difficult part, thinking by myself, is all done. And I was right. D There’s no Blood. Men are men. Some are stronger than others, that’s all. And this woman business. I must think about women. How does one do that? Do they think about themselves?” He made a serious effort to think unsexually and objectively about women, and he was, at least, successful in concentration. When he next realised his physical surroundings he had walked right through the village and was limping along the road towards the woods where he and Hermann had bathed the previous day. “It seems six weeks ago,” Alfred thought, turning round again. “Damn my leg. I’ve walked it farther than it need have gone.” But he soon forgot the discomfort again in the interest of his thoughts. Presently he stopped suddenly. He stared down at his stick. “God!” he said aloud, apparently to the stick. “What a weird idea! Has it a hole in it, somewhere?”

  But his idea had no holes, logically, it was merely quite fantastic and impossible. He began to walk towards the village again. “And it is quite likely right,” he thought, “for when I first began to think that I was superior to nearly all the Germans I met I thought that was fantastic and impossible too. Everything’s fantastic if it’s out of the lines you’re brought up on. At first I must try it on the Knight. Now I mustn’t go through the village again without buying the cigars. Red seal. And I ought to get back to Hermann. Six o’clock to-morrow! That’ll be another six weeks. My life is lengthening rapidly.”

  Alfred began to sing a tune he had heard from a Scotsman, a haunting melancholy air which was unlike German music. It had come out of the tribal darkness of old time. “Row bonny boat, like a bird on the wing, over the sea to Skye.”

  The tune had two parts and there never seemed any reason why one should stop singing it, except that the words came to an end. One part of the air slid into the next and the end of the next slid back into the beginning. The Scotsman used to play it on a wooden whistle, over and over again, until he had sunk himself into a dark Celtic gloom that always left him more cheerful next day. He had a very good whistle, and though he never admitted it, Alfred was almost sure it was a Christian-made whistle. Its tone was so sweet. Perhaps von Hess heard that tune when he was in Skye all those years. How the poor brave truth-defender must have missed the German music! Miles from a public wireless set and unable to have one of his own, unless Arnold brought him one and kept him supplied with valves and things. There’d be no power anyway. But of course he was very rich, he could keep on ordering new ones from England whenever he wanted one. There could be nothing suspicious about the disgraced Knight having a wireless. But perhaps he didn’t care to hear anything of the outside world, not even the music. Alfred was not a musical man; he could not sing well, or play a wooden whistle, not even a Christian one, which, in the Scotsman’s hands, seemed almost to play itself. But he was very fond of music and at times deeply affected by it. It was hard sometimes not to have a genuine inferiority feeling when he heard a Bach chorale or cantata perfectly rendered by the Nazi choir in the great barracks church in Salisbury. The Germans had such astonishing musical ability. Why, any four bumpkins among them could sing you into happiness or despair, according to your underlying mood, with a simple little part song. And the composers themselves. Bach, Brahms, Beethoven—when one heard them, yes, it did seem for a little while as if the Germans had some natural born superiority. For music was important, Alfred was sure of that. Bach was great in a way no man of action was great. “If they’d said he was God,” Alfred thought, “maybe I’d be a believer yet.” A sudden pleasing notion struck him. Perhaps he was not German! Perhaps he was long pre-Hitler and belonged to some other lost civilisation. Perhaps he was English! But then he shook his head. There was no particular reason to suppose that the great composers were not German, when the Germans were so obviously an intensely musical nation. “Wagner,” thought he, “is as German as the Sacred Aeroplane. But Bach—well, no, but he is above being anything really. He must be, he probably is, a kind of peak civilisation in general. The Nazis themselves are inclined to get much more excited over Wagner. Perhaps he really is since von Wied’s time, as one’s told. An expression of panic somehow, hysteria, all that violence and brutality and holy virtues. But I don’t believe anything they say any more. German simply means man-who-is-afraid of-the-truth. Except for von Hess. Perhaps at one time they were all like von Hess. Then there was a nation fitted for rule. But directly they started to rule they went rotten. Then power is rotting, and the more power the more rot. But I have power over Hermann, and dozens and dozens of other men, and I’m not rotten. It is physical power that’s rotting. It all comes back to that. The rebellion must be unarmed, and the power behind the rebellion must be spiritual, out of the soul. The same place where Bach got his music from. From God, perhaps. What is God? ‘A perfect faith in the goodness and universality of God. The understanding comes and goes like the best part of the sunset.’ Fancy worshipping that little soft dark fat smiling thing, when they might worship Bach or von Hess. But of course they don’t know about von Hess. And they don’t know Hitler was a little soft dark fat smiling thing, and he must have been a great man, anyway. Perhaps it’s as sensible as worshipping any other man. Now, cigars, cigars, think of cigars, or those poor bloody holy Germans will have no smokes to-night.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  PUNCTUALLY at six on the following evening Alfred and Hermann presented themselves before the Knight. Von Hess issued the same orders as before to Heinrich, and after the door had closed behind the servant he bade Alfred and Hermann sit down. But neither of them did so. Hermann started to speak, hesitated and stopped. Alfred helped him.

  “He has something he wants to say to you, sir.”

  “Well, get on with it, Hermann.”

  “My lord,” said Hermann, looking not at the Knight but straight in front of him, “if you would graciously allow me I would rather do my work on the farm and not hear any more about the book of your thrice noble ancestor. I am not, please, a coward, but I do not understand very much when you and Alfred are talking. I would rather hear things from Alfred. So I beg, highly-born, that I may be excused.”

  “Of course you may,” said the Knight, secretly relieved, but courteously concealing it. “I know it’s all very difficult, and if you don’t want to hear any more, why, it’s best you shouldn’t.”

  “I am not afraid to hear things, sir. Only I do not understand very well, and would rather do my proper work.”

  “Then dismiss. Oh, Hermann, how are those mangolds looking?”

  “Poorly, sir. About half the size of Wiltshire ones at the same stage of growth.”

  “They’ll be better after the hoeing,” said the Knight, hopefully. “Dismiss.”

  Hermann saluted, turned stiffly and went out. Alfred sat down in response to a word from the Knight.

  “How is Hermann, Alfred?”

  “Collapsed.”

  “He seems all right.”

  “Oh, I don’t mean physically. He works like a dynamo. But he didn’t behave at all as we thought he would. He was violent enough when he still believed in Hitler and I didn’t, but now you’ve knocked all his props away. He’s collapsed completely into personal dependency on you and me. He’s our dog now, not Germany’s dog. Hermann has a very weak soul, a baby soul. But he asked me to tell you that though he considers you his father, God and Authority all rolled into one, or words to that effect, he cannot stay in Germany when I go. He says he must kill himself then. He couldn’t carry on.”

  “Even if I tell him he’s not to kill himself?”

  “I still think he might. It’s a great worry. If I overstay my pilgrimage leave they’ll drag me back in handcuffs, and I shall be a marked man. Unless you could apply for me to be your private ground mechanic, or something like that.”

  “I don’t want to do that. You’re an army mechanic and a good one. All sorts of questions woul
d be asked. Besides, I want that book to be out of Germany before I die. I don’t know when that will be. I’m old, and I get bronchitis in the winters. No, you must go back at the proper time, Alfred. I suppose what Hermann really means is that he can’t now live without you.”

  “Well, he can’t talk to you, sir. You’re too high above him. He’d be completely alone really.”

  “He’s always been unhappy, ever since he went to England. Even when he still had all his props. I’ve never seen such a worker as Hermann. The farm has been his only real hold on life the last five years. Well, I’ll think of something before you go. Some way to get him to England. Back to the army, perhaps. No, that won’t do. There’d be a rain of questions over that. This Empire is so damned well run no one can do anything quietly.”

  “He said,” Alfred suggested dubiously, “though whether he really means it only you could tell, probably, that he would submit himself to Permanent Exile rather than stay in Germany without me.”

  “Oh,” said the Knight. “He said that, did he? H’m.”

  Permanent Exile was a terrible punishment to which death was at any rate theoretically preferred. Few Nazis, given the choice, would have been so lacking in pride as to say they would choose the Exile. It was a sentence given usually only for the very gravest crimes of sedition against der Fuehrer, or religion, or Germany. No single Knight could deliver the sentence, it must be pronounced by a Knights’ Court. It meant that the culprit lost his German status entirely and for ever, that his Blood was proved to be now infected and unworthy; he was expelled permanently from the Holy Land, and thereafter was treated as if he belonged to an inferior and conquered race. Alfred had never seen any of those poor outcasts, and it was a subject on which no German would dwell, talking to an Englishman.

  “He has to knock a piece off the Sacred Aeroplane, or something awful, hasn’t he?” asked Alfred.

  “As a matter of fact they’d kill anyone who did that, in case he became wholly reckless in despair and boasted about it. It is usually for treason of some sort though. There’s only one private crime that can be punished by Permanent Exile.”

  “What is it? Murdering a Knight?”

  “No. Bringing a malicious false accusation against a German of having intercourse with a Christian woman. It is considered the worst thing one German can do to another, far worse than beating him up or killing him. A mistaken false accusation would be severely punished, for the accuser ought to have been certain before he brought it, but a malicious one is a very serious crime. If Hermann really will go through with it——” The Knight paused, frowning. “I don’t believe he’d face it.”

  “But anyway, will accusing only a boy do?”

  “The Knights’ Court would consider it worse to accuse a boy. A young clean creature in the first dawn of his German manhood. Trying to taint him for life with false filth.”

  “But what about the boy? I’m perfectly certain it was not a malicious false accusation, even though Hermann may have been mistaken. And I don’t believe he was.”

  “The boy is dead. He died yesterday of internal bleeding.”

  “The poor silly little lout,” said Alfred regretfully. “We oughtn’t to have made him walk. Only he seemed to get along all right.”

  “This can hardly be a gentle or humanitarian age,” observed the Knight. “The people in Munich are much annoyed that the boy’s dead, but really only because he might have sung for six months or so longer. But though the boy, whatever his character, could hardly have let Hermann go into Permanent Exile if his evidence could save him, we needn’t worry about his evidence because it can’t be given. Hermann must make another deposition to the effect that he is overcome with remorse at the boy’s death, that there was no girl there at all (because if there was a girl, there is a very strong presumption that it must have been a Christian) and that he brought the accusation in a fury of anger because he was attracted to the lad, and he rejected Hermann’s advances with scorn. I dare say there was a bit of personal feeling in it. Hermann didn’t give the lad just an ordinary hiding.”

  “No,” agreed Alfred. “He had a tremendous access of violence and brutality and soldierly virtue. He’d have kicked the lad to death in the wood if I hadn’t stopped him.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said the Knight callously. “As far as the boy is concerned his life wouldn’t have been much good to him. Hermann would have stuck to it as tight as wax that it was a Christian, and the boy would almost certainly have confessed. And then he’d have been officially done for.”

  “What, exiled?”

  “No. As he was only fourteen he’d have been severely beaten when he was well enough to stand it. But he’d have had a mark against him for life. But about Hermann, his two depositions will go up to the Knights’ Court. I shall go to give evidence about the taking of them; Hermann will confess again by word of mouth, and he’ll undoubtedly be given Permanent Exile. That is, if he has the nerve to go through with it, and if he really wants to do it. It seems a curiously roundabout and dirty way to get an innocent man out of the country, but, as I said before, this Empire is too well run. The Authority knows where everyone is, and only Knights and Christians can move about as they like.”

  “Or pilgrims, for a little while. Sir, I have thought of something about the women. You say they are discouraged and won’t reproduce themselves.”

  “I can’t say that as a fact. There may be some obscure physical reason as to why girls are not being born in the proper quantity. As von Hess says, research into sex biology was not encouraged even in his time.”

  “Oh, why?”

  “They were afraid the biologists might prove for certain that it is the male who determines the sex of the child, and then no one can ever blame a woman for not having sons. That would be highly inconvenient. Also they were afraid that it might be established that the female, being the more complicated and developed physical machine, takes more vitality in her conception and gestation. That the female is physically the better sex and that with tired parents more boys are likely to be born.”

  “Is there any human evidence to support that?”

  “As a rule more boys are born in times of scarcity, sieges, long blockades, and war, when parents are certainly under the influence of nerve-strain and fatigue and under-nourishment. The official explanation was that Nature is worried by the destruction of males and leaps in and restores the balance. I don’t think it at all likely that Nature does things as quickly as all that or as conveniently, and Nature does not mind, either, a shortage of males. One male can fertilise hundreds of females. A shortage of females is the only naturally serious thing.”

  “And that’s what’s happening now? Without the parents being fatigued or severely under-nourished or under nerve-strain?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you know that women are unhappy, somehow?”

  “I know that. You would know it too if you were a Knight. They can carry on all right till they get all together at their Worship, and then their deep grief expresses itself in the most miserable caterwauling.”

  “But if a woman is of herself nothing but an animal, just a collection of wombs and breasts and livers and lights, why should they be unhappy now, when they are at last required to be nothing but animals?”

  “A cow bellows when her calf is taken from her.”

  “For a few days. Then she forgets. But your older women then, they are quite happy? They never cry?”

  “They always cry, except one incredibly old and filthy thing called Marta.”

  “Why should the older ones cry if they’re only animals? Or why should the young girls cry?”

  “What are you getting at, Alfred? I think myself that women have some terribly deep discouragement. I don’t deny it.”

  “But you don’t see that that proves they must be something else besides animals and an innate desire to please men, like a good bitch with her master. They are animals and they are pleasing men, or the pattern would be
changed. So they are, according to you, being themselves for the first time in history, perhaps. But actually they are discouraged. Why?”

  “I don’t know,” said the Knight. “All of us want to know.”

  “It’s as plain as a swastika that women are something more than animals and a reflection of men’s wishes.”

  “But, Alfred, think of them. Even think of the German girl of long ago. She was beautiful, certainly, but just as adaptable and pliant. Women have always followed the pattern set, so how can they ever have had anything in themselves?”

  “When I was a young boy I was brought up to believe that I was different in some deep unalterable way from all Germans, and that because I was different I was inferior. When I grew up I realised this was not so, and then I thought all that Blood business was religious nonsense, that all men are equal in a way, though some, both individuals and races, have special abilities. The Germans have musical ability, for instance. And martial ability. However, I naturally discussed that with no one, and Germans kept on telling me I was inferior. And suddenly one day when I was working in the shop with a very decent but fearfully blood-conscious Nazi I realised if he was right in this great difference, then I was not only equal to him, but, of course, superior.”