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L.P.M. : The End of the Great War, a novel by J. Stewart Barney |
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Chapter 20. General Von Lichtenstein |
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_ CHAPTER XX. GENERAL VON LICHTENSTEIN That afternoon, Edestone took occasion to call at the American Embassy, where he found that Ambassador Gerard, broken down by the strain of the first few months of the war, during which he had accomplished such wonderful work, had been forced to go to Wiesbaden for a rest. The Ambassador had left in charge Mr. William Jones, First Secretary of Legation, who with his wife was occupying the Embassy and representing the United States. The doctors had warned the Secretary that the Ambassador's condition was such that he must have absolute quiet, and that he should under no circumstances be troubled or even communicated with in regard to affairs of state. Jones was, therefore, to all intents and purposes the Ambassador. This suited Edestone's plans perfectly, for Jones was only a few years older than himself and he had known him intimately since boyhood. His friend received him with almost the delight of a man who has been marooned on a desert island and was pining for the sight of a friendly face. "Well, well, Jack," he said, "what foolish thing is this that you are up to now? We have received the most extraordinary instructions from the State Department--I gather that the Secretary of State has either lost his mind or that you have got him under a spell, and then with your hypnotic power have suggested that he order us to do things which we could not do in peace times and which are simply out of the question now. Don't you people over home understand that these Germans, from the Kaiser to the lowest peasant, are all in such an exalted state of Anglophobia that they regard everyone with distrust, and are especially suspicious of us. My advice to you, as Lawrence would say,"--referring to one of his under-secretaries, a college mate and intimate friend of Edestone's,--"is to 'can that high-brow stuff' and come down to earth." "Now, speaking for myself as your friend, I advise you to go and see General von Lichtenstein, whom you will find a delightful old gentleman but as wise as Solomon's aunt. Talk to him like a sweet little boy, and then come back to the Legation and stop with us while you see something of the war. I can take you to within one hundred and fifty miles of the firing line and show you the crack regiments of Germany looking as happy and sleek as if they were merely out for one of the yearly manoeuvres. I would have difficulty, though, in showing you any of the wounded, as they are very careful to see that we are not offended by any of the horrors that one reads of in the American papers." "Berlin is being forced to fiddle, eh, while Germany is burning?" "Yes, she suggests the hysterical condition of Paris just before the Reign of Terror, while I, like Benjamin Franklin, in 'undertaker's clothes' in the midst of barbaric splendour, wait for the inevitable." "Is your face, like his, 'as well known as that of the moon'?" asked Edestone. "Yes, but a thing to be insulted, not like his to be painted on the lids of snuff-boxes, as souvenirs for kings. "Or if that does not amuse you, Mrs. Jones can introduce you to some of the prettiest girls you ever saw." "Big, strong, fat, and healthy, I suppose, with red faces looking as if they had just been washed with soap and water." "Well, then we might have some golf, and if you will give me half a stroke, I will play you $5 a hole and $50 on the game. Or if that is too rich for your blood, I will play you dollar Nassau. In fact, Jack, I will do anything to get this foolish idea out of your head. These people can't see a joke at any time, but to try one now might put you into a very serious if not dangerous position. Now you go along and see Lawrence, as I have to look after some American refugees who are waiting in the outer office. You will dine with us tonight, of course." Lawrence Stuyvesant, to whom the Secretary had referred, appeared at the door at that moment and beckoned to Edestone. He was one of those irrepressible Americans, born with an absolute lack of respect for anything that suggested convention, at home in any company and showing absolutely no preference. He would be found joking with the stokers in the engine room when he might be walking with the Admiral on the quarter-deck, flirting with a deaf old Duchess when he might be supping with the leader of the ballet. With a sense of humour that would have made his fortune on the stage, he spoke half-a-dozen languages and a dozen dialects. He could imitate the Kaiser or give a Yiddish dialect to a Chinaman. Light-hearted to a fault, he would make a joke at anyone's expense, preferably his own. An entertaining chap, but a rolling stone that could roll up hill or skip lightly over the surface of a placid lake with equal facility. He had already run through two considerable fortunes, and had been almost everything from a camel driver to a yacht's captain. Now he imagined himself to be a diplomat. "Behold the dreamer cometh," he said in Yiddish dialect as Edestone approached, and grasping the inventor by both hands, dragged him into the other room, and began to ask questions so fast that a Chicago reporter, had he heard, would have died of sheer mortification. After he had gotten all the information that he could pump, pull, and squeeze out of Edestone, he shook his head discouragingly. "I am darn glad to see you, old chap," he said, "but I am sorry to hear that you have come over to try and reason with this bunch of nuts. Don't you know they are so damn conceited that if you were to tell them that every time you look at a German you see two men, they would believe you; and then as if they hated to lie to themselves, they would say perhaps it was an optical illusion. Tell them that God did not create anyone but the Germans and that he left the rest of the world to the students in his office, and they will give you a smile of assent." Edestone smiled indulgently. "Tell them that when the Kaiser frowns every wheel in the United States stops and refuses to move until reassured by the German papers that it is but the frown of an indulgent father and not the thunder of their future War Lord, and they will give a knowing look. Tell them that only German is taught in our public schools, and that any child who does not double-cross himself at the mention of the name of any of the North German Lloyd steamers is taken out and shot, and they will say, 'Ach so?' "But just you pull something about what a hit Brother Henry made in the United States, especially with the navy, and what a swell chance he would have of being elected Admiral when Dewey resigns, then look out! Get under your umbrella and sit perfectly still until the storm passes. Keep well down in the trenches and don't expose anything that you do not want sent to the cleaners. For when one of these Dutchmen begins to splutter, there is nothing short of the U-29 that can stand the tidal wave of beer and sauerkraut which has been lying in wait for some unsuspecting neutral in their flabby jowls like nuts in a squirrel's cheek. They back-fire, skip, short-circuit, and finally blow up, and if you don't throw on a bucket or two of flattery quick, you've got a duel on your hands, which for an American in this country means that you get it going and coming." Edestone, knowing Lawrence well, took what he said largely as a joke; but from his own observations and from what Jones had told him he felt convinced that there did not exist the kindest feeling for Americans in Berlin. Brushing all this aside, he turned to Lawrence with a businesslike air: "Where are the trunks that I sent to the Embassy?" he asked. "Have they got here yet?" "Down in the basement," Lawrence nodded. "I'd like to get something out of them." "Well, why look at me?" inquired Lawrence. "I'm no baggage smasher." "It's a pity you're not," rejoined Edestone. "You would be better at that than you are at diplomacy. However, all I want is for you to have someone show me where they are." "Fred, show the King of America where his royal impedimenta await his royal pleasure," Lawrence directed a young man with the manners of a Bowery boy, who appeared in answer to his summons. With him Edestone went down to the trunks and took from one of them a small receiving instrument with a dial attachment similar to the one on top of the Deionizer, which he had dropped into the Channel. Then after a few words with his other friends in the Embassy, he went back to the hotel. The next morning Count von Hemelstein called, and it was quite like meeting an old friend. Edestone was really sorry when, the Count leaving him at the door of General Headquarters said: "This is where I turn you over to my superiors. These are times that try men's souls, and you are now dealing with men who must win." They had arrived on the stroke of the hour, and Edestone was quickly taken in charge and shown without a moment's delay into the presence of General von Lichtenstein. The General was a man whose age was impossible to tell. He was over sixty, but how much over one found it hard to estimate. He was erect and rather thin, and he wore his uniform with the care of a much younger man. The lines about his mouth and chin, which are such a sure index, were hidden by a full beard, white as snow and rather long. His high forehead was half covered by a huge shock of hair, also perfectly white, which was parted neatly on the side. His steel-blue eyes, looking out through a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles, were bright, but were set so far back under his heavy brows that they looked very old, very wise, and almost mysterious. When Edestone was brought into the room without any form of introduction, the General rose and greeted him in the most kind and fatherly manner. "Good-morning, Mr. Edestone," he said in English with a marked accent. "I am very glad to see you," and, putting out his hand with an air of simple kindness as if to lead him to a chair, he said: "Won't you sit down, sir? "You must not mind if I treat you like a boy," he went on with a gentle smile; "you are about the age of my own son who was killed at Ypres. I am too old to fight any more, so they keep me here to entertain distinguished strangers like yourself," and he laughed quietly to himself, looking at Edestone as he might at a little boy whom he had just told that he had on a very pretty suit of clothes. He picked up from his desk, a box of very large cigars, selected two, and, after looking very carefully at one to see that it was absolutely perfect, handed it without a word to Edestone. After he had watched with great interest to see that Edestone had lighted his cigar properly, he lighted his own. "I see by the way you smoke that you are a good judge of tobacco. I have always understood that you Americans like very fresh cigars and smoke them immediately after they are made. I like them old myself." "You are thinking of Cuba, perhaps," suggested Edestone. "Oh, that is true," admitted the old gentleman. "The Americans live in the United States and you do not allow the other inhabitants of the hemisphere to the north or to the south of you to use that name. You are perfectly right; you are--what do you call it?--the boss," and again he smiled his gentle smile. "I get all my cigars from England," he continued. "The English and I have very similar tastes--in cigars. I have a very old friend, Professor Weibezhal, who lives in England, and he sends them over to me. I just received these a few days ago. He is not having a very good time over there now, he writes me. He can't get what he wants to eat, and he says he misses his German beer." Edestone could scarcely realize that he was sitting in General Headquarters, the very heart of German militarism, talking to General von Lichtenstein, the most powerful and astute man in all Europe. But for the German accent and magnificent uniform it might have been in the Union Club in New York, and he himself talking to a very nice, rather simple-minded old gentleman, who was flattered by the attention of a younger man. After the General had inquired about a friend of his who lived in America--he said he did not know exactly where, not in New York, but some town near there, Cincinnati or perhaps St. Louis. This struck Edestone as strange when he thought of the springs on his father's old place which were marked on a German map that he had seen, although he himself did not know of their existence, and he had spent his entire childhood roaming all over it. Finally, when he had told him one or two stories about an American woman whom he had been quite fond of when he was a young man, the General said in a most apologetic manner: "Now I must not keep you. I suppose you would like to go out with some of the younger officers and see something of this war, now that you are over here. Or, by the way, it was about some discovery or invention you have made that you called to see me, was it not? What is this invention, tell me, and exactly what is it that you want the German Government to do? If you will explain to me and I can understand, I will be glad to help you in any way I can. Of course you know that I am a very small part of the German Empire. I am, however, in a position to bring your wishes to those who are above me and are all-powerful." Then, while Edestone explained to him everything in regard to his mission except the actual construction of the Deionizer, the old General sat quietly smoking, smiling occasionally and listening with the attention that a man might show who was being told of an improvement in some machine in which he had no personal interest but was glad to be enlightened, although up to that time the matter had been something he had never thought much about. He would now and then say, "How very interesting!" "Can that be possible?" "Is that so?" Not even when Edestone described the pictures shown to the King of England did he manifest any feeling except that of kindly interest in a most charming young man, who was taking a great deal of trouble to explain his youthful hopes to a rather slow-thinking old one. He allowed Edestone to talk on, not even interrupting him, to ask a single question, and when the visitor had finished by expressing the hope that he might be instrumental in bringing the war to a close, General von Lichtenstein replied with apparent sincerity: "I really see no reason why you should not. You are a brilliant inventor, apparently a hard worker, and above all you seem willing to give your talents to the world for the benefit of your fellow-men. The only thing that you lack is age and experience. I am not an inventor, I cannot work hard any more, and I am not known as a philanthropist, but I have age and I have experience, so I think that you and I might make a good combination. Leave this to me, and I think I can show you how all that you wish to accomplish can be accomplished, if not exactly in your way, in a way which I think you will agree with me is a better way. Whereas I should not dare to speak for His Imperial Majesty, the Kaiser, I believe I am perfectly safe in saying that he will see you and inspect your photographs, drawings, and anything else that you may wish to show him. I will see him and let you know when and where." He laid his hand on Edestone's shoulder and walked with him as far as the door. "You are a fine young fellow," he said with a hearty grasp of the hand as he bade him goodbye, "and all you want is an old head on your broad young shoulders. Let the old man help you, and everything will be all right." When Edestone was on the outside and thought over all that the General had said, he would have been delighted with the turn things had taken had he not been warned by Jones and did he not recall what Count von Hemelstein had said. Being so straightforward himself, he could not understand deceit in others, and when he recalled the almost inspired expression on the kind old gentleman's face when he spoke of his son so recently killed in battle, he could not bring himself to believe that this was the trained diplomat of iron who covered with that gentle exterior a determination to crush and kill anything that came between him and the accomplishment of the great purpose, the great cause to which he had gladly sacrificed his first-born and the heir to his name and title. It was nearly noon, Greenwich time, now, so Edestone hurried back to his hotel to receive from "Specs" the daily signal: "Awaiting orders. All is well." With the forethought of a good general he wished to be prepared for any emergency, and when the needle of the receiver, which he had taken from the trunk at the Embassy, recorded the reassuring message, Edestone thoroughly satisfied with the work of the morning returned to the Embassy to keep his appointment with Lawrence. _ |
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