The Generals

by Per Wahlöö

  When Bartholic and Edner had finished, Ludolf said the plan was attractive but risky. So first of all, the militia in the northern sector should be used for the offensive. His own troops would develop a series of feint attacks in the south, but on the whole be held back to be able to cover the rear in case anything went wrong and Oswald succeeded in counter-attacking. Then he gave some advice, well, instructions on how the break-through place should be forced and promised some help with special materials. Stoloff said that Oswald was probably a military idiot but that Winckelman, Orbal and other old hands among the mercenaries shouldn’t be under-estimated. It sounded just as if they had known everything beforehand, before they’d come, both what we would say and what they would answer. So it was decided that the attack was to be launched ten days later, at four o’clock in the morning on the eighteenth of February. Then we all shook hands and Ludolf and Stoloff went off in their armoured car. Well, you see, this really is only a summary; much more was said and prepared, but it was like that, largely speaking. But I remember that just before he put his cap on and left, Ludolf said as if in passing to Edner: ‘Have you got plenty of drink?’ Edner looked surprised and said he didn’t know, but he’d look into the matter, and then Ludolf said: ‘I’ve got everything you can think of for two years ahead—and two dozen full-size bottles of whisky.’ Then he left. Everything was secret, of course, and we took all the following week working out the plans in detail. I hardly went out of the bunker once, but I heard that in Ludolfsport everything was …

  Colonel Orbal: What? What’s happening now?

  Major Niblack: Has he fallen asleep in the middle of a sentence?

  Captain Endicott: Yes.

  Major von Peters: Excellent. Let’s stop now, then.

  Colonel Orbal: Yes, of course. Don’t forget to tell us that story from Angola, Niblack. This extra-ordinary court martial is adjourned until Monday the twelfth of April, at eleven o’clock.

  Twelfth Day

  Lieutenant Brown: Present Colonel Mateo Orbal, Army, also President of this Extra-ordinary Court Martial; Major Carl von Peters, Army, Major Tetz Niblack, Air Force, and Commander Arnold Kampenmann, Navy. The Prosecuting Officer is Captain Wilfred Schmidt, Navy, and the accused is assisted by Captain Roger Endicott, Air Force. Officer presenting the case Arie Brown, Air Force. Colonel Pigafetta and Justice Haller have reported their absence.

  Colonel Orbal: What’s the situation, Niblack? Have you heard anything new?

  Major Niblack: An hour ago they said that the situation was unchanged.

  Major von Peters: Will he die?

  Major Niblack: None of us has really dared think about that. But his condition seems to be serious.

  Colonel Orbal: And you then, Brown? Have you heard anything new?

  Lieutenant Brown: Not directly, sir. An hour ago they were saying in the mess that the general’s condition had improved slightly.

  Major von Peters: Fifty per cent burns. He’ll probably die.

  Colonel Orbal: If Widder actually snuffs it now, will Pigafetta be Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force?

  Major Niblack: I imagine so.

  Major von Peters: Christ!

  Major Niblack: Colonel Pigafetta is already second-in-command and undoubtedly the best qualified. But naturally the final decision lies with the Chief of State.

  Major von Peters: The department for unnecessary observations has an unusual number of adherents in this place.

  Colonel Orbal: I say, Niblack, you’re an airman. What the hell was Widder doing in that crate?

  Major Niblack: General Widder was … is, I mean, naturally an experienced and skilful pilot and has always shown great interest in the technical and practical side of the service.

  Colonel Orbal: Where was he thinking of going?

  Major Niblack: Nowhere, I presume. It was just a routine flight.

  Colonel Orbal: A routine flight? A general who suddenly flies off. No wonder things went askew.

  Major von Peters: Funny business, making routine flights on a Sunday.

  Major Niblack: Not in this case. General Widder made … makes a habit of doing an inspection flight every Sunday at eleven o’clock. He always used to use the same plane.

  Major von Peters: I wonder how the General reacted—the Chief of State, I mean.

  Colonel Orbal: No doubt he wasn’t pleased. He’s always got on well with Widder.

  Commander Kampenmann: I heard that the plane practically exploded in the air. Is that true?

  Major Niblack: In any case, it stalled immediately after taking off and crash-landed on the airfield on the extension of the runway. If it caught fire before or after hitting the ground has not yet been established.

  Major von Peters: Stalled, did it? Hmm.

  Major Niblack: As I said, we don’t know anything yet. A special accident enquiry has been ordered. That’s what has prevented Pigafetta from coming here.

  Colonel Orbal: Pigafetta doesn’t usually make that kind of flight, does he?

  Major Niblack: No, not often.

  Colonel Orbal: I thought not. Well, we’d better get going now. Brown let the parties in.

  Captain Schmidt: I request to be allowed to develop my case further on charges numbers eighty-three to and including one hundred and one, concerning rebel activities, terror, murder and accessory to murder. As the evidence for the prosecution is mainly based on the accused’s own statements, I request that Erwin Velder be called as witness.

  Major von Peters: Uhuh. Here we go again.

  Colonel Orbal: Granted, Schmidt, granted.

  Captain Endicott: From which point do you wish the accused to start? Mr Gerthoffer has once again examined the accused. He says that Velder is in a mental state in which he can virtually continue his simplified account of his impressions from the very words he had been about to say when he lost consciousness last Friday.

  Major Niblack: Let him do that then. An interesting experiment.

  Captain Endicott: Begin, Velder. I heard that in Ludolfsport everything was …

  Velder: Just as usual. Ships came and went in the harbour. People who came from there said that the town gave an almost peaceful impression. Along the demarcation line it was still calm and quiet. Our people and Oswald’s people were patrolling the outpost lines. Between them lay a stretch of about a kilometre, a belt of no man’s land which ran right across the island from north to south. We had no more meetings with Ludolf and Stoloff, but we spoke to them every day. Their own signalmen had installed a cable between the headquarters, just as if they couldn’t trust us to manage that ourselves. As far as I heard, Ludolf seemed calm and satisfied. Janos Edner was also very confident in face of the attack, which he hoped would be a brief and bloody victory—that’s how he expressed it several times. When this is out of the way, he said, both the Army and the militia would be disbanded and this time it would be for ever. Everyone at headquarters agreed with this except Gaspar Bartholic, who preferred to say nothing at all. Aranca Peterson, whose attitude was negative towards both attack and defence, put great energy into organising the medical corps, first-aid posts and hospitals. We were relatively well off for doctors, nurses and drugs, and I got the impression that she was doing a good job and …

  Major Niblack: Heavens above, it works just as he said it would. He began just where he stopped off last. I’ve found the place in the records now. Astonishing.

  Velder: Excuse me? What did you say?

  Commander Kampenmann: Niblack, we must ask you to try to the best of your ability to avoid interrupting Velder. It has the most appalling consequences when you try to cross-examine him or cut in on him.

  Major von Peters: Personally I still think that at least half of all this is pure bluff. I damned well think he’s just sitting there mocking us behind that death-mask he has instead of a face. Just imagine, a filthy deserter and a corporal, who gets a free chance to let a colonel, two majors, two captains, a lieutenant and a commander in the Navy dance to his tune. It’s damned grotesque
.

  Colonel Orbal: Let Velder go on now, Carl. Yes, yes, Endicott, get going and just mess about with him now. Don’t bother about us.

  Velder: And medical care we were indeed soon going to need. The only thing on our side which might be called warlike activity was that Bartholic and I sent patrols from the special units out every night to reconnoitre. They nearly always came back unscathed, but it wasn’t long before I realised that their way of scouting was far less innocent than their reports made out. I’d known that for a long time, actually; their equipment of stilettos, gas-cartridges and piano-wires showed quite clearly what they were after. Ludolf was very interested in these special units all the time. He kept asking whether we were able to make the best use of them, and about five days before the attack, we let him take half of them over to the southern sector. On the fifteenth of February …

  Colonel Orbal: What’s the matter now?

  Captain Endicott: I don’t know.

  Commander Kampenmann: Is he crying?

  Colonel Orbal: It looks bloody peculiar, anyhow.

  Captain Endicott: That’s right. Velder. Go on, now.

  Velder: On the fifteenth of February in the morning, we had a long conversation on the situation and the prospects. We were still just as optimistic and believed in speedy success. On an international level, there was clearly optimism, too. The absence of military activity meant that diplomats generally regarded the crisis as over and the division of the country a fact. Janos Edner and Aranca Peterson were extremely annoyed that foreign newspapers and many others kept calling us either the ‘socialist-liberal’ or ‘left-radical’ régime. Danica Rodriguez, on the other hand, said that if they had to give us a label, then those two were the ones which lay nearest to hand. We were just going through the grouping of transport facilities and the transfer of ships—the outflanking manoeuvre was to be kept secret by the landing force being transported in small boats from the area around Ludolfsport—when the telephone rang. Gaspar Bartholic answered it and listened for a moment. I remember that he held up his right hand for us to keep quiet. Then he put his hand over the receiver and said perfectly calmly: ‘There’s an air-raid on Ludolfsport, between ten and fifteen planes bombing the harbour.’ Immediately after that, the connection was broken. Then followed a whole series of raids on roads, transport depôts, and other targets in both the northern and southern sectors. They went on for about two hours. Eighteen planes were shot down from the ground and by a few fighter planes. That was quite a lot and we thought we knew that Oswald hadn’t all that many left. And yet the attack was a surprise and the damage was quite great. When we did a survey, however, it was clear that we could still carry out the attack on the eighteenth as planned. Janos Edner made telephone contact with headquarters in the southern sector at about three o’clock in the afternoon. Ludolf just said: ‘No damage.’ After a while he added, as if explaining: ‘We’re not so vulnerable at ground level as you are.’ An hour later, at exactly five minutes past four in the afternoon, artillery fire started. That was the real shock. We’d never very seriously reckoned with artillery barrages, and I still don’t really understand where that fearful storm of shelling came from.

  Major von Peters: It was bloody simple. It came from ninety-six field batteries, two hundred and eighty-eight pieces. It was all due to that non-intervention agreement. The signatory powers thought it sounded much too provocative and risky to the balance of power to give us planes. So we decided to hold the rabble down with artillery instead. The Chief of State decided to wait until we’d got enough pieces and the batteries were in place, but then, when it got started it was a really solid artillery barrage. The planes on the other hand, the few we had, were already used up on the first day.

  Colonel Orbal: But it was tremendous how long the shelling went on. I remember that Winckelman was enraged that he wasn’t allowed to advance and clear out the Reds at once.

  Captain Schmidt: With the permission of the presidium, I request that the accused be allowed to continue his account.

  Colonel Orbal: What? Yes, by all means.

  Velder: We waited for the shelling to stop, but it never did. It went on hour after hour, right up until six o’clock the next morning. We thought that they’d attack then and the men in the forward lines got ready. It was deathly quiet for forty-five minutes. Then the guns began firing again. It seems incomprehensible, but it went on like that day after day.

  Colonel Orbal: It’s damned well not in the slightest incomprehensible. We fired off between ninety and a hundred and ten guns in slow salvoes for thirty-three hours fifteen minutes a day. The firing plan was to systematically shell quarter by quarter up to a depth of ten thousand yards behind the demarcation line. God knows how many barrels we wore out. But it was worth it. The finest concert I’ve ever heard. Wouldn’t you agree, Carl?

  Major von Peters: Yes, indeed. What’s the matter with Velder now? Same old coma?

  Captain Endicott: I request a brief pause to …

  Colonel Orbal: Yes, do as you like as long as you push the wretch out of the place first. We might as well go up and have a beer and sandwich and get an eyeful of Pigafetta’s tarts. The session is adjourned for forty-five minutes.

  * * *

  Colonel Orbal: Fifty per cent burns. As I said, he might well make it.

  Major von Peters: Doubt it. But it’d be a good thing if he survived.

  Colonel Orbal: Of course. Let the parties in, Brown.

  Captain Schmidt: The accused’s condition is anything but satisfactory. It would be a good thing if we did not interrupt him, except when absolutely necessary. We’ll try to continue, now, Endicott.

  Major von Peters: All this experimental stuff is beginning to go too far. Schmidt, what about giving Velder a good beating just for a change? Then perhaps he’d tell us something we don’t already know.

  Captain Endicott: Start now, Velder.

  Velder: By the end of the first day we knew we’d never be able to carry out the attack. Casualties were already great. The opportunity has gone for ever, Janos Edner said. But our disappointment was replaced by resolution to defend ourselves. In the headquarters bunker, we talked about giving up, but the people in the trenches talked about fighting to the last man. The strangest of all was Ludolf. Over the telephone, he said day after day: ‘No serious damage. No, hardly any casualties.’ And then he repeated: ‘We’re not so vulnerable at ground level as you are.’ Anyhow, we did the best we could, digging in more and more. Working all round the clock, now on the defence plan. Stoloff sent us bits of advice from the southern sector. Sent over machines and special workers on a few occasions. The artillery fire went on for so long that people got used to it. That shows that people can get used to anything. People learnt to protect themselves too. Casualties got fewer quite quickly. Strangely enough, it wasn’t long before they began to shell the area round headquarters. We soon realised that they had no imagination, but were just shelling according to geometrical tables. We learnt to evacuate like lightning. In that way, lots of people escaped death.

  Captain Endicott: Go on, Velder.

  Velder: The bunker was badly constructed. The Army had built it, of course, but we had reinforced it. Stoloff had also said that it should stand up to a direct hit. On the fourth of March, at nine in the evening, they began shelling the quarter where headquarters were situated. The first shell hit the section where Janos Edner and Aranca Peterson were living. The shell went straight through the casemate and exploded on the children’s room. The kids and their nurse had just gone to bed. It must have been a howitzer.

  Commander Kampenmann: What did you say, Velder?

  Major von Peters: He said that the projectile must have come from a howitzer. A fully correct conclusion for once.

  Velder: It was their own fault. The children should have been evacuated long before then. But no one wanted it, neither Janos nor Aranca nor the kids. Then we got three direct hits in the second section of the bunker. None of them came through. Janos Edne
r and Aranca Peterson always reacted strangely and often in exactly the same way, as if they were one and the same person. This time they said practically nothing. But I noticed that they looked at each other more often than usual. At a run-through a week later, that was on the eleventh of March, Aranca lost control. That was the only time I’d ever seen her do that. Our own artillery was in action then, actually. There wasn’t much point to it, as we hadn’t even a fifth of the guns Oswald had. The run-through was very dismal; the only positive thing was that reports on determination to defend and keenness to fight in the trenches were stronger than ever. I suppose that was lies. Aranca Peterson said: ‘Keenness to fight, determination to defend …’ Janos Edner said: ‘Yes, that’s what we’ve got to fall back on. To be able to win.’ That was when she lost control and shouted ‘Win, win, win. And when we’ve won, yes, then we’ll win, yes, then we’ll win in a hundred years!’ She half-shouted, half-sang it. Then after a while she calmed down. Edner looked at her. ‘Don’t you see that we have to?’ And she said: ‘Yes, I see that.’ She was a remarkable person, Aranca Peterson. I remember looking at her and thinking that. Bartholic thought so too. He told me so a little later. Her children were dead and their idea was shot to hell and …