The Generals

by Per Wahlöö

  Velder: The eighteenth of November was a Monday. At about eight in the evening, one of our observation posts on the islands reported that the transport ships were just running into Ludolfsport. With that the matter was clear. At half-past eight, General Ludolf gave orders that Plan B should be implemented. Then it was just a matter of waiting. We couldn’t do anything else; every man and woman in the militia was in place.

  Commander Kampenmann: Were there women on operations too?

  Colonel Orbal: Must you be so damned inquisitive, Kampenmann?

  Captain Schmidt: As far as is known, there were women personnel in both the offensive forces and in the amphibious units.

  Major von Peters: It should be ‘in the so-called offensive forces and the so-called amphibious units’.

  Captain Schmidt: Naturally, sir. I apologise. Let the accused continue.

  Velder: Everything had been so well prepared that we hadn’t a thing to do. But we stayed in the operations centre. We were to stay there for four days, as a matter of fact, keeping ourselves awake with pills. General Ludolf and Colonel Stoloff played chess while we were waiting. They were skilful players, both of them. Shortly before midnight, it came to a draw and they shook hands. I remember that Ludolf said: ‘Have I ever succeeded in beating you with a Sicilian?’ Stoloff said: ‘No. Now it’s time to start work.’ The diversionary forces got away just when they should have, at exactly midnight. Then we heard nothing from them for almost an hour. All the time, we were receiving decoded signals from the enemy’s side, as our people had more or less cracked their codes completely by then. Everything seemed calm, only routine type radio-traffic coming over. It was quite quiet in the operations room. At regular intervals, our woman orderly came in with strips of text from the code technologists and signallers who were working in the bunker alongside.

  Colonel Orbal: Woman orderly, indeed. Whom you all slept with in turns, I suppose.

  Velder: I don’t think so. She was over sixty.

  Colonel Orbal: Ugh! What a piggy-wig.

  Colonel Pigafetta: Sorry, what did you say, Orbal?

  Colonel Orbal: Nothing. Just an old expression; used it when I was a child.

  Commander Kampenmann: The accused is answering questions again now.

  Captain Endicott: Velder has recouped astonishingly during these last two days. He seems to have an unusually strong physique.

  Velder: At eight minutes to one, the first sign that anything was happening came through. It was a brief report stating that suspicious boats had been spotted off the coast just east of Melora and they were being shelled by artillery. It sounded extremely negative, but neither Ludolf nor Stoloff said a word. I remember that Ludolf was standing in front of the operations map with his hands in his pockets, sucking on his pipe. Tobacco supplies were running out by then, by the way, for the general usually smoked cigarettes.

  Lieutenant Bratianu: Don’t presume to call that swine general ever again!

  Captain Schmidt: As long as I am present, I am the one who supervises the questioning.

  Major von Peters: Perhaps so, but Bratianu is right.

  Captain Schmidt: Go on, Velder.

  Velder: In actual fact, the southern diversionary force had already got itself into great difficulties at Melora. Just east of the fishing village, there was a battery of field artillery which we hadn’t reckoned on. The boats were spotted and three of them were sunk by artillery fire. The rest turned back to sea again and the flotilla commander was forced to land the militia force five kilometres west of Melora. The bridgehead wasn’t established until half-past two, under fire from that battery. They didn’t succeed in taking Melora, and the advance was soon stopped by reinforcements from the north. At ten o’clock the next morning, the bridgehead collapsed and only an eighth of the force managed to evacuate and retreat to the southern sector. This looked like a bad start, but the diversion towards Melora had fulfilled its function, all the same. The Fascists had brought troops from the north and that made the second offensive force’s task easier. After that first message, reports came in thick and fast, the code technologists hardly having time to decode them. The second message that we picked up implied progress, as from that we could see that the sabotage groups on the airfield in Oswaldsburg had blown up the runways and set fire to three large hangars before they had been wiped out. As far as we could make out, every single one of the saboteurs was killed.

  Captain Schmidt: Four men and a woman were taken prisoner. They were executed the next day.

  Major von Peters: Is it really the Prosecuting Officer’s task to give the accused complementary information?

  Captain Schmidt: The interjection was intended as information for the presidium.

  Colonel Pigafetta: In that case, it was superfluous. I signed the death sentences myself. It was one of my first duties. The swine were shot here, down in the basement. They weren’t so big-mouthed by then.

  Captain Schmidt: I beg your pardon. Go on, Velder.

  Velder: Part of the finesse of Plan B was that it was totally unconventional. There was, for instance, no tactical reserve. If any of the operations failed, there was nothing we could do about it. All instructions had been issued and could not be complemented. So we could really only sit and wait and see how things went, and for that we at first had to turn to what we could intercept from the enemy’s radio communications. Our own units kept radio silence and had orders to use couriers and dogs until the signallers had had time to put up telephone lines. So several hours went by before the picture of what had happened began to clear. Meanwhile, we were waiting in front of that map. We said very little to each other.

  Captain Schmidt: Can you try to get the accused to give a more lucid account of what happened, Endicott?

  Colonel Orbal: This is all just damned tittle-tattle. What are you doing?

  Velder: The raid on Melora failed, but things went much better on the point in the north-west. The boats got to the beach without being discovered, the lighthouse and the pilot-boat station were taken without noticeable difficulties and the Army units’ positions on the point were taken from the rear. Resistance was insignificant. By two o’clock, the whole point was in our hands.

  Major von Peters: There was only one infantry company up there.

  Velder: The first offensive force set off at exactly one o’clock and broke through the autostrad line along a five-hundred-yard stretch within less than half an hour. The force was grouped in wedges and by two o’clock, motorised militia units had advanced through the gap. The ground was so waterlogged that some of the vehicles got stuck in the mud, but the light tracked armoured cars went ahead. In actual fact, they advanced over twenty kilometres in two hours. Soon after three, the northern road was cut off and at a quarter past four … no, it was exactly twenty-three minutes past four when the orderly came in with a telex strip. General Ludolf read it. Then he took his pipe out of his mouth and said quite calmly: ‘They’ve reached the beach one kilometre north of the airfield.’ That meant that Ludolfsport was cut off. Five minutes later, the second offensive force set off. The whole operation was in action. By five o’clock, when the second force had already driven a five-hundred-yard wedge into the Army’s positions in the angle between the northern and western fronts, there was still nothing to indicate that the Fascists understood what was happening. As far as I could make out later, the confusion was almost total. When the first militia units reached the sea north of Ludolfsport and blocked the coast road, the Peace Corps troops stationed at the airfield were moving north to attack the bridgehead at the lighthouse. So they were heading in a direction away from the real offensive. When they tried to turn back later, the convoy fell into disorder and soon after that, they broke out from the bridgehead and attacked the convoy in the rear. The result was that the airfield was left undefended and was taken by our troops almost without any fighting, planes and all. At eight o’clock in the morning, the seconds offensive force had broken through too, and crossed the river and the autost
rad. The covering troops began to dig themselves in and set up posts west of the river, and before they’d even made any contact with the enemy, the main militia force had begun to advance through the terrain towards the north-west, to take Brock and cut off the road between Oswaldsburg and the Eastern Province. In Ludolfsport, everything was going according to our calculations. The operation there …

  Captain Schmidt: One moment, Endicott. Can you let the accused rest for a while. There is now a full account of what happened in and around Ludolfsport. It has been compiled with material from a number of sources, of which the most important is the testimony of a certain Alaric Scott. This Scott was a sergeant belonging to a Peace Corps unit stationed in the harbour area of Ludolfsport. Amongst other things, he was partially responsible for the disembarkation and unloading of the transport ships. In connection with the events we are now touching on, he deserted to the Communists. He was later taken prisoner and was executed more than three years ago. Before that, he gave his testimony, which was marked Top Secret and was only released for the first time a few months ago, because of the Velder investigation. It is to be found in the preliminary investigation as Appendix V X/41. I will now hand over to the officer presenting the case.

  Lieutenant Brown: Appendix V X/41, concerning the disturbances. Testimony of Sergeant Alaric Scott, alien citizen. The document is marked Secret to the Third Degree. The text is as follows:

  Shortly before eight o’clock in the evening, the first transport ship was towed into the deep harbour, where it was tied up at eleven o’clock. Meanwhile, the other ship anchored in the outer harbour basin, as it proved impossible to have both ships at the quay at the same time. I was at this time, and during most of the night, in the control-tower of the harbour authority’s office building. At about half-past eleven, the officer in command of the troops on the ships, a Colonel Joao Zarco, came into the control-tower with his adjutant. There he had a long conversation with the commandant of the town. This conversation was carried out with the help of an interpreter. Colonel Zarco demanded that the disembarkation should be started immediately, partly with gangways and partly with barges from the anchored ship. The commandant of the town—a major in the National Freedom Army—protested that the vehicles that were to take the troops to their posts had still not been brought up and that from every point of view it would be better to wait until daylight. After a brief discussion, they telephoned headquarters in the first military area, where the officer on duty replied that Major-General Winckelman had retired and was not to be disturbed, and that the Chief-of-Staff, Lieutenant-Colonel Orbal was in Oswaldsburg. The duty-officer referred us to General Oswald’s headquarters, which were situated in Marbella. A major who was clearly guard-officer at headquarters said that the decision should be made by the officer in command of the Peace Corps, whose headquarters were in Oswaldsburg. Colonel Zarco rang there, too, but the general in command of the Corps was at a function at his embassy. However, the Chief-of-Staff was woken up, and he at once referred us to Naval Command. This had been set up adjoining Army Headquarters in Marbella, so we rang there again. The major who had previously referred us to the officer in command of the Peace Corps turned out to be the officer on duty for Naval Command too. After a while, he managed to connect us to a naval commander, who considered the affair of a local character which should be settled by the harbour authorities in Oswaldsport (Ludolfsport). The commandant of the town summoned the harbour-master, who was in the next room. After a brief discussion, they told Colonel Zarco that he could start bringing the troops on land at once, but in that case they would have to bivouac on the quay until eight o’clock, when they could start marching to the collecting-place. The trucks which were to take them to their posts were expected at the collecting-place shortly after nine. To this, Colonel Zarco replied that anything was better than having the troops left on board the ships. It was now half-past twelve at night. The disembarkation of the troops began at once, but it was rather slow, especially when it came to the ship lying at anchor, from which the soldiers had to get into barges first and then be brought to the quay by tugboats.

  Soon after one o’clock, we got a telephone message that one of the rebel patrols had made an attack on the lighthouse on the north-west point. Such raids had not happened for over a month. A moment later, we heard that it was no longer possible to make contact with either the tugboats, the lighthouse staff or the Army post up there and that the defence force at the airfield had been roused and given orders to go north to restore order. Only a quarter of an hour later, a very unclear report came in to say that other rebel patrols had started a series of attacks on Army front line positions by the motorway, fifteen kilometres south-west of the town. The town commandant put this report aside and said that there was no reason to make Colonel Zarco even more anxious than he had already seemed earlier. After yet another half an hour, a regimental officer at the front line reported that there was rebel activity in a limited sector and that a few patrols may have penetrated the front and continued in the direction of Oswaldsport (Ludolfsport). The commandant then regrouped a number of local guard forces towards the south to capture any guerilla units trying to make their way towards the town. At the same time, he informed the head of the riot-police and the gendarmerie. A number of motor-cycle police were also sent to the southern outskirts to stop any possible attempts at sabotage. The police force in Oswaldsport (Ludolfsport) was relatively speaking smaller than in other parts of the country. Many of the inhabitants were adherents to the Oswald régime and were strongly anti-Communist. This was said to be due to the fact that large numbers of civilian buildings had been destroyed by the demolition commandos on the rebels’ retreat from the northern sector eight months beforehand. Meanwhile, disembarkation continued in good order, but rather slowly, and there were no signs to indicate that anything special was going on. The harbour-master went home to bed, but the commandant and his two officers stayed behind, together with the communications officer from the staff of the military area, Second-Lieutenant de Wilde, who was lying asleep on a sofa in the next room all the time.

  At three o’clock, I drove round the harbour area in a patrol jeep with three men from the guard. Disembarkation was continuing normally, and the soldiers who had already landed were lying curled up asleep in their coats on the quay or in the warehouses round about. It was raw and cold and very misty. I also made a tour of the town. The streets were empty—there was a curfew on, of course—and everything was calm and quiet. On the northern outskirts, I noticed that most of the defence posts were not manned, presumably because the men had been sent south. We parked the jeep for a few moments on the hill by the road out to the northern coast road. The town lay below us, dark and silent in the mist, and all we could hear were faint sounds from the harbour area. When I got back to the control-tower, it was ten past four. The commandant seemed tired and sleepy and the other two officers were playing cards in a corner of the room.

  At about half-past five, the telephone rang. I picked up the receiver and a voice shouted: ‘This is Lieutenant Olson, the rebel patrols are just …’ Then the conversation was cut off. I didn’t know any Lieutenant Olson and neither did anyone else. Not until afterwards did I realise that it must have been the duty-officer at the airfield. The commandant thought for a few minutes, then he rang up the tele-centre, who said that there’d just been a total break in communications—except in the actual town area. The commandant began to get worried, but nothing happened except that telecommunications were still broken off. There was a radio-centre one floor up in the harbour office building, but we heard nothing from those manning it. At twenty minutes past five, a dispatch soldier from one of the patrol boats came running in with a message which was not at all clear, but which said that the rebels had tried to break out and that the general alarm had been sounded.

  The commandant went into the room next door and woke up Second-Lieutenant de Wilde, who at first tried to contact the military area staff on the Army’s own telephon
e network. After a quarter of an hour or so, he realised that he couldn’t and he set off for the radio-centre. The door to it was locked and Second-Lieutenant de Wilde called three men from the guard, who blew it open. Inside the radio-centre, one of the radio men was lying dead on the floor. The other was standing with his back to the entrance, doing something to the installations. He turned round and shot Second-Lieutenant de Wilde in the stomach and was himself shot dead by the guards immediately afterwards. Second-Lieutenant de Wilde died half an hour later. The whole of the radio-centre was out of action. The shots were heard up in the control-tower, and the commander ran downstairs one floor. It was six o’clock now and beginning to get light outside. The mist was thicker than ever. The commandant seemed quite bewildered and I can quite see why. It wasn’t easy to grasp how it all connected up. After a while, he realised that one of the radio men had been a Communist fifth columnist, and that he’d first killed his colleague and then put the installations out of action. Yet another quarter of an hour went by before the commandant gave orders to the tele-centre to sound the alarm.

  I don’t know exactly what the time was by then, but only twenty minutes later a fierce exchange of shots began along the ridge above the town. This was government militia attacking and beginning to clear the lines of defence posts from the north. The confusion was clearly very great up there. The only sensible report that came in during the next half hour was this: ‘They’re coming from the north, attacking us in the rear with flame-throwers and automatic weapons. Send reinforcements at once.’ Colonel Zarco came rushing up to the control-tower with a couple of officers, who obviously belonged to his staff. He ranted and raved and wanted to know what was going on. The commandant at long last replied that the town was being attacked by rebel patrols and that all communications inland were broken off. Colonel Zarco turned scarlet in the face with rage and left the room without saying a word. He came back twenty minutes later with signallers from his own force. They had portable radio equipment with them and lots of other stuff. Half an hour later, the radio installations were partially in action again. It was quite light now and very misty. The sound of shooting came nearer and nearer and it was clear that the rebel advance was continuing. In many places in the centre of the town, the gendarmes and police began to build barricades across the street with overturned cars, furniture and other lumber. The disorder grew worse and worse. The only instruction we received was a categorical message from General Oswald that not a square yard of ground was to be surrendered.