Gossip From the Forest

by Thomas Keneally

  But the admiral’s eyes remained blank before the niceness of this arrangement. If Wemyss answered at all it was only for the sake of tact.

  Wemyss: Excellent.

  The Marshal: You will wish to know what people are their delegates. My Chief of Staff will tell you their names. I am forgotten them myself. They are nobody I hear of.

  But when the naval men had been taken out by Weygand, his Anglophobia ran through him as a tremor and he indulged himself by repeating all four names to himself. Erzberger, he said. Herr Matthias. Maiberling, Count Alfred. Von Winterfeldt, Major General Detlev. Vanselow, Christian name not supplied, humble naval man.

  Come oh you Holy Spirit and fill the hearts of your believers.…

  ERZBERGER ORDERS A TRUCK

  A little earlier that same morning a general and three junior staff officers, Herr Matthias Erzberger, and Count Alfred Maiberling stood amongst wrought-iron fragilities that held up the station awning in the bijou Belgian town of Spa and looked about for the staff cars that should meet dignitaries at any time, let alone a morning of downpour. The young general seemed to want to exculpate OHL.

  General: We were delayed by all those troop trains. Then the railway people probably told them we wouldn’t be in till noon say. Something like that.

  Maiberling still retained his semihysterical holiday posture, a little strengthened, it seemed, by a hangover. It was all a poor mask for his infectious terror. But when he spoke he sounded rosy, gratified.

  Maiberling: All over Germany the timetables are coming unstapled, they’re blowing out the window, leaf by bloody leaf. The rule books are coming unglued.

  General: Not at the Grand Hôtel Britannique.

  Erzberger himself had caught a dose of Maiberling’s new insanity. In his brain and diaphragm the machines of urgency were burring without cease or mercy. Maiberling’s indulgence in metaphor, the general’s threadbare pride, made him itch with fury.

  He began raking his chest with an ungloved hand.

  Erzberger: There are three army trucks in the freight yard. I can see them from here. Get one immediately please, General.

  The general frowned.

  General: There’s no room in a truck. For the other gentlemen.

  Maiberling: They could just hang on. They’re soldiers, aren’t they?

  General: As you say.

  Maiberling: You know, I’ve never driven in a truck before.

  Erzberger wanted to speak to him, straighten him up. But not in front of the general.

  Now the two young staff officers marched across the railway square toward the freight yard. Rain swallowed up the authoritative clop of their boots. The general squinted upward through the downpour. It seemed that the matt ceiling of storm cloud wasn’t much higher than the roofs of the offices across the square.

  General: You don’t have a good day for travel, gentlemen.

  He began to wander about the railway entrance, taking different sightings on the weather, as if for the benefit of the plenipotentiaries. Maiberling called to him. Amicably.

  Maiberling: You’re in charge of the weather office?

  The general coughed and did not look at them.

  General: Chemical warfare, sir. Much the same thing.

  Maiberling whispered to Erzberger.

  Maiberling: Christ, a barbarian.

  Erzberger wondered at the count for allowing himself such luxuries: once we are through the French lines we shall be the monsters and we will be liable for the mustard-gassed and the torpedoed corpses. Whether or not we feel spasms of righteousness in the drenched railway square of Spa, no one will credit us with it.

  DEAD-EYE MAIBERLING

  Maiberling wouldn’t be quiet, trembling a little, pointing toward the general.

  Maiberling: How would you like to have a son who …?

  Erzberger: Shut up, Alfred.

  Maiberling: Listen, in the past, when I felt better … I wrote letters to the Red Cross on the question of …

  Erzberger: I know. Of gas.

  Maiberling: Of gas.

  Erzberger: Alfred, you aren’t yourself. Why did you come?

  Maiberling whispered.

  Maiberling: I hate the Reds. I hate the war.

  Erzberger: Yes. But the generals. There aren’t even cars to meet us. We have to be careful they don’t treat us with contempt.

  Maiberling: Don’t worry.

  The count put his arm around Erzberger’s shoulder and pulled him close—overcoat against overcoat. From the left-hand inside of his own great overcoat he hauled a vast service revolver. He turned it about in the wet air, as if saying “our secret.”

  Erzberger: Why, in God’s name?

  The unexpected appearance of weapons always frightened Matthias Erzberger. The faint oil-and-cordite odor of the count’s revolver stretched his nostrils wide. Did Maiberling know something—that plenipotentiaries would be ambushed in corridor or street or forest? By the unappeasable young officers who didn’t want a bargained end to war, whose taste was Götterdämmerung?

  Maiberling: I’ve heard nothing. But these bastards … OHL … they’re a different race. (He shook the weapon.) Go armed amongst strangers.

  Erzberger: For Christ’s sake. Put it away.

  Maiberling did so. Now that Erzberger knew the revolver was there its contour seemed a howling variation in the accepted shape of decent civilian overcoats.

  Erzberger: It’s pulling your clothes out of true.

  Maiberling: A small sacrifice.

  Erzberger: We’ve been promised the gratitude of the German people.

  Maiberling: Words. You’re a politician. You know about words.

  Erzberger: I know. Just the same …

  Considerately the general stayed aloof, idly reading a decree the government of occupation had posted on the station wall.

  Maiberling: What are you carrying?

  Erzberger: For protection? Nothing.

  Maiberling: What?

  Erzberger: It didn’t occur …

  Maiberling: I’ll get you one. I’ll lift one off an officer for you. At OHL.

  Matthias exhaled his fear, his resentment at suffering fears. It all rose as robust steam toward the dripping roof.

  Erzberger: Anyone might be shot these days. If they want to shoot us now or afterward, they will. You have to be even-minded about it.

  Maiberling: Damn it. I refuse to be even-minded about getting a bullet.

  A military truck from the freight yard came humming up to them. The two young staff officers, knowing their place, were standing on the back, gaping like postilions over the roof of the cabin.

  Erzberger, Maiberling, the general crushed in with the driver. All the crammed bodies and overcoats filled the cabin space with a gentle vapor smelling rather of camphor, cigar smoke, and the dust they had brought from Berlin.

  Maiberling again assumed his idiot-tourist demeanor.

  Maiberling: These are really first class. I’m going to get one of these after the conflict. Put the servants in the back …

  Does he actually hope, Erzberger wondered, that his small talk will winkle out the extremists, the stand-to-the-death men at OHL? That they will creep up on him in the lounge of the Hôtel Britannique but he will whirl and shoot them down? Dead-eye Maiberling!

  THE GRAND HOTEL

  The Supreme Command’s hotel looked like any opulent hotel in any resort. It kept a sober face on a narrow commercial street but had the ingrained promise of high ceilings, brocade paneling, gold scrollwork, chandeliers, and great fireplaces. Rain pelted the imperial eagle over its lobby.… Under your wings safely I can do my ironing. The eagle and the sentries before the door could not altogether dissuade Erzberger that inside he might find wealthy men reading tranquil prewar news and rich aunts talking about East African railway stock.

  The general in charge of gas sent Erzberger through the glass doors first. In the lobby the tone of things reassured Matthias still more. A few orderlies worked behind the reception desk an
d by the elevator a middle-aged lieutenant sat at a card table like a waiter posted in the height of the season to take guests’ reservations for dinner. In a seat by a good fire a lonely naval officer drank coffee, eyes fixed on the silver pot, and in the lounge a dozen regimental officers, called to OHL for some reason, glad to have been summoned in from the rain for whatever cause, drank schnapps and holidayed close to still another high blaze.

  One of these men looked up suddenly, his head jolted back as if he could smell a politician at some distance. He was about twenty-six or -seven. He wore a major’s rank. His eyes were deepset and bruised. Matthias Erzberger knew immediately; one day in the armistice I will make, in the peace that will then be made, that boy—being beyond my diplomatic exertions—intends to blow his head off.

  The chemical general told the orderlies that General Groener and the Field Marshal von Hindenburg were absent, over at the Château de la Fraineuse making a morning report to their Emperor. So a breakfast tray was ordered for Matthias and the count.

  Orderly: Would the gentlemen like it in here or in the lounge?

  Maiberling whispered at Matthias.

  Maiberling: Make it the lounge. I could lift you one of those fellows’ Lugers. They’re quite pissed, you notice.

  Erzberger shivered. The count’s brain was stewing apart like a boiled onion. Yet if I mention it I’ll be given another stiff general in his place.

  Erzberger spoke to the orderly.

  Erzberger: In here, thank you. By the fire.

  Maiberling: And a bottle of schnapps, thanks. On the tray.

  ERZBERGER MEETS THE NAVAL DELEGATE

  They found places at the fire and nodded to the naval officer. He immediately stood and approached them. He may have had an injured neck, for he carried his chin tight-in against his collar. You could barely see the Iron Cross at his collar button for the shadow his locked chin threw.

  Naval Man: Captain Vanselow from High Seas Fleet. I know who you gentlemen are.

  Erzberger: Then you also know …?

  Vanselow: About my own appointment? Yes sir. I got a cable. About midnight.

  Erzberger: You’d have been told then. How we’re to travel.

  Vanselow: I’m not aware that arrangements have yet been made.…

  You could be sure his jawbone clung even more strenuously to his collar.

  Erzberger: No arrangements?

  Vanselow: No secretary’s been appointed. There aren’t any vehicles allocated.…

  Maiberling: Never discount the worthy bike.

  Erzberger thought, if it’s like yesterday, the chasing-about, I’ll need a pistol. But to suicide with.

  Coffee and schnapps, rolls and butter were laid out on the table close by. Maiberling immediately poured three measures of liquor and handed one each to Erzberger and the captain. The captain received his but put it to one side.

  Erzberger: Have you been here long?

  Vanselow: Since Tuesday morning. As the train left Kiel I could hear shooting. It seems it was the marines shooting at sailors.

  Maiberling was already draining his second glass of firewater.

  Maiberling: So the marines retained their political purity, eh? Virgins on Walpurgis Night.

  Vanselow: They’re more in the nature of policemen.

  Maiberling: Quite.

  Vanselow: It wasn’t such a bad idea.

  Maiberling: Idea! Idea?

  Clearly he thought the word pretentious. But Vanselow, an uncomplicated man, believed the count was asking for a briefing.

  Vanselow: The general strategy. To send the light vessels into the Thames estuary and draw out the British fleet into our minefields. Then our submarines would have moved in. Then we ourselves. The four squadrons.

  Maiberling got very bellicose, as if Vanselow were pushing some naïve and fundamentalist view of the world.

  Maiberling: Do you think the British would have been led by the nose like that?

  Vanselow: Perhaps. It was worth a tryout.

  Maiberling: Christ. It ended with Germans shooting Germans.

  He was on his third double. What price his trigger finger now? Erzberger thought.

  Vanselow: There were mad rumors amongst the sailors—that there’d be a duel to the death between the British fleet and ours. On the flag deck I distinctly heard a sailor use the words “death ride!”

  Maiberling: Perceptive, I call that.

  But the captain’s flat jaw, backed by his collar, was proof against low irony.

  Vanselow: We made rendezvous in the Jade estuary. I was with Admiral Kraft on the König. No thanks, not another, Your Excellency. Well … well, if you must …

  Maiberling: And what happened? On this dreadnought of yours?

  Vanselow: The sailors were signaling … illegally … from ship to ship. Before sailing time Admiral Kraft and I got a message from the engine room. The stokers were threatening to put their slicer bars into the boilers. I quite realize the mysteries of the steam turbine might mean little to you. But the stokers put in the slicer bars, draw the coals out on to the floor plates, hose them down.

  Erzberger: In brief, stop the boilers.

  Maiberling: Our Matthias isn’t slow!

  Vanselow: That’s right. Stop the boilers. Under this threat we signaled Admiral Hipper. It seems Hipper was getting the same message from all the battleships in all the squadrons. Terrible news for a Grand Seas admiral to get.… On the König we had a conference on the bridge. Admiral Kraft, all senior officers. We’d armed ourselves. But the captain of the marines told us the sailors had emptied most of the arms chests amidships. We decided to pipe all hands to sea details. Sailors never disobey that.…

  Captain Vanselow gave a little moan and tears came out on his cheeks.

  Vanselow: I became a cadet in 1891. I won the Tirpitz medal at the Kiel Naval Academy. I was a liberal officer. I never hit a sailor.

  Though Matthias did not expect it, the count was quite disarmed to see Captain Vanselow fall apart.

  Maiberling: You oughtn’t to take it personally. It’s happening all over the country.

  Vanselow made a fist of his right hand. A wart stood on it which he scratched dementedly. My God, Erzberger prayed. It’s in our hands. Maiberling drunk, riotous, trigger happy. A weeping captain. Me, dreaming of umbrellas and hatchet men.

  Vanselow: You have to forgive me. Every time sea details were ever piped, from 1891 till now, sailors ran on deck. I’m not an artistic man, gentlemen. That was the height of art for me. Sailors. In sea boots. Answering the pipe.

  Erzberger: Of course. We understand.

  He nearly said Don’t labor it!

  Vanselow: That morning they ignored the order. They rushed below decks. Into the cable compartment. They wouldn’t obey. They sang Red songs down there. I suggested to Admiral Kraft that we ought to pipe quarters for inspection and see if they’d obey. We did. They did. They just wouldn’t raise anchor though. They wouldn’t go to sea.

  With his knowledge of long-standing about the war being lost, Erzberger felt peevish toward the captain, lashes still twinkling with tears, but his loss, it seemed, narrow; squadron loss, divisional.

  Erzberger: You would have? You would have gone to sea?

  Vanselow: I hate death. I hate pain. But in the fleet we’d begun to feel we were only paper tonnages. Statistics for diplomats to gesture with whenever they got round to sitting down with the enemy.

  Maiberling: Now you’re the diplomat. Now you make the gestures.

  But Vanselow still answered Erzberger, as if three landlocked days at OHL had left him in doubt of his power to argue sustainedly and Matthias was his test.

  Vanselow: We hadn’t gone beyond Heligoland in two years.

  Erzberger: Don’t be ridiculous. The British have been lusting for you to come out. Look at your hands. You wouldn’t have them. Your eyes would be cinders.…

  Maiberling: Or hors d’oeuvres for electric eels.

  But while Maiberling was chuckling Erzberger h
ad lost all his patience with the captain’s gallantry. The sailor didn’t know that soldiers were picnicking on Marxism in the Wilhelmstrasse. And where was Groener?

  Erzberger: Your fleet isn’t as important as Germany.

  Vanselow: I’m aware of that.… They chose a Tirpitz medal winner to give the fleet away.

  It was too much.

  Erzberger: Tirpitz medal! I won a medal for economics once.

  Vanselow: Of course. You’ll have to forgive me.

  Matthias Erzberger let his breath out at length.

  Erzberger: No. You’ll have to forgive me. We all have our individual stories.

  Maiberling: But they’re not the total story, are they? Eh?

  The count was sneering at Matthias for being prim. Also he was challenging, seeming to say, I have a story that is the whole five acts of universal tragedy. So damn you. Perhaps, it occurred to Matthias, the count’s mad manners were rooted in a loss. But whose? He was a widower. His daughters and sons hadn’t died—Paula would have picked it up from her daily poring of the Deaths columns in Berliner Tagblatt.

  Erzberger: Where is Groener?

  Maiberling: Another tot!

  Erzberger: No. Not that.

  Maiberling: I don’t recognize your jurisdiction over my bottle.

  Erzberger: Then I ask you, Alfred.

  Maiberling: Don’t be so soulful, Matthias. You haven’t the build. Captain?

  Vanselow: No. No. I had far too much last night.

  Maiberling punched Matthias fraternally on the upper arm.

  Maiberling: Don’t be swayed by Matthias. He’s only a promoted country journalist. A little to the right of center and to the center of right. Still awed by officers and even by me. Oh yes. We were riding over Erzbergers, see, when Luther was a pup.

  Matthias could see the captain taking literal account of what the drunken Maiberling was saying. As if it might be a serious political analysis, the captain nodded.

  Erzberger: What happened then? When they refused to put to sea?

  Vanselow rushed to tell them. To an extent, he said, farce. When the fleet returned to its ports the officers were surrounded and under open arrest and sailors’ soviets ran the city, even directing traffic.