Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 07 (68 page)

Having been subjected to
that icy stare, everyone was glad when the ordeal was over, and as they rode
off the parade De Richleau was just congratulating the Prince on the excellent
show that the regiment had put up, when one of von Hötzendorf’s A.D.C. s
galloped up to him, drew rein, and said:

“The General’s
compliments, Count Königstein, and he would like a word with you.”

Surprised and
considerably disturbed, De Richleau saluted the Prince, turned his mount, and
galloped back to the saluting base with the A.D.C. Von Hötzendorf had just
mounted his horse. Returning the Duke’s salute, he gave him a hard look and
sniffed:

“What the devil are you
doing in this turn-out?”

De Richleau strove to
conceal his annoyance. He felt that it was a most appalling stroke of ill-luck
that von Hötzendorf should have spotted him among the eight thousand odd men
who had just ridden past. Gone now was any hope of his getting back to England
via Russia. The General knew that he was not an Austrian, so would never permit
him to go to the front. Instead, he would question the right of an alien to
wear Austrian uniform. If he took the matter up, as it seemed certain he would,
Major Ronge would be brought into the inquiry and give voice to his suspicions.
Von Hötzendorf would ride rough-shod over any right that Ilona could claim to
be responsible for the officers of her own regiment. He would have a fit at the
very idea that anyone suspected of being a spy should continue to hold a
commission, and would insist on the suspect’s instant dismissal. Or, worse, as
his powers over army personnel were virtually absolute, after hearing what the
secret service people had to say, he would probably have the suspect clapped
into a fortress.

Concealing his feelings
with an effort, the Duke made the only reply he could. “Your Excellency, since
Her Imperial Highness did me the honour of granting me a commission in her
regiment, I felt that now war has come my proper course was to serve in it.”

Von Hötzendorf continued
to regard him with a chilly stare, and barked: “I thought you were by birth a
Frenchman, and so half a foreigner?”

De Richleau knew that he
was not up against a Count Tisza, from whom he could expect a sympathetic
hearing if he attempted to explain his anomalous position: moreover the General’s
staff were gathered round him listening intently. So in a final effort to save
himself, if only temporarily, he resorted to a thoroughly misleading statement:

“It is true that I was
born a Frenchman, Excellency; but I long since repudiated that nationality. I
bear an Austrian title, and in this emergency I am proud to serve with the
Austrian army.”

The General’s reply was
as unexpected as a bolt from the blue. With an impatience that was typical of
him, he turned his horse preparatory to riding away, and flung over his
shoulder:

“Then you are far too
highly qualified to chuck yourself away as a spare sabre in a cavalry regiment.
I haven’t forgotten our talk on strategy when you lunched with me. I am leaving
for my battle headquarters to-morrow morning. My special train will depart from
the Arsenal station at six o’clock. Report there at half past five for duty
with my operations staff.”

As De Richleau rapped
out,
“Jawohl, Excellence!”
and saluted the retreating figure of the little General, he could hardly
believe that he had heard right. His situation had been extraordinary enough
before, but von Hötzendorfs order had made it positively fantastic. Here he
was, an enemy alien in Vienna, known to the police, suspected by them of
espionage, and allowed a limited liberty only because they had not a strong
enough case to contest the demands of a wilful Princess. And now, owing to von
Hötzendorf’s ignorance of all this, he had suddenly been appointed to the
Operations Staff of Supreme Headquarters, where he was bound to learn all the
secrets of the Commander-in-Chief of the Austro-Hungarian armies.

About the appointment
itself there was nothing at all extraordinary. His wide experience of active
warfare made him far better qualified than the great majority of von Hötzendorf’s
officers to fill such a post and had he been what he seemed, the
C. in C.
would have had every reason to
congratulate himself on having secured his services.

But he was not, and he
had deliberately misled the General about his nationality; so if the K.S. got
to hear of the appointment he would be in the very devil of a mess. Ronge would
have a case against him then, with a vengeance. It would be alleged that he had
lied with intent to gain possession of military secrets, and whatever he might
say to the contrary they would never believe him. In war time, espionage was a
capital crime. The false impression he had given to escape being locked up in a
fortress might now cost him his life. They might put him up against a brick
wall and shoot him.

As the Duke rode slowly
back to the barracks, he wondered what on earth he should do. Since he had told
von Hötzendorf that he was proud to be serving with the Austrian army, he could
not possibly refuse the appointment without an explanation; and neither Ilona’s
honorary commission nor Major Ronge’s complaisance would prevent a martinet
like the little General from having him locked up for wearing an Austrian
uniform under false pretences. If he deliberately missed the train that would
only be to postpone the issue, as von Hötzendorf would have him sent for. He
could elude the
C. in C.
by
disappearing but he had made no preparation for such a move, so that would be
to take a big risk of being caught by Ronge’s police. The only really safe way
in which he could now keep clear of von Hötzendorf’s unwelcome attentions
seemed to be to go to the K.S. Chief, tell him what had happened, and ask to be
put back into prison.

But De Richleau was not
the man to adopt such a solution. The
C. in C.’
s
train was leaving from the military station inside the Arsenal, so no railway
police would be there to watch its departure, and if he said nothing of his
appointment to his brother officers it was unlikely that Ronge would hear of
it, at least for several days. His people would report the suspect’s
disappearance, but the situation would then be no different from what it would
have been had he left Vienna with his regiment. And if he went with von
Hötzendorf his prospects of getting away into Russian-held territory would be
much the same. He realized that he would be taking his life in his hands from
the moment he stepped aboard the
C. in C.’
s
train but, as the only alternative to going back to prison, he decided it would
be worth it.

That night he made his
preparations. Unpacking a roll of bandage and a miniature automatic that he had
bought when getting together his war equipment, he knotted the bandage into a
neat shoulder sling which would enable him to carry the little weapon concealed
beneath his coat, under his left armpit. From next morning on, he intended to
wear it regularly until he was out of danger; as he felt that from the moment
he left the barracks he must consider himself to be at war with the K.S., and
he did not mean to be arrested and tried as a spy without putting up a fight.
Having packed the rest of his war kit, he wrote a short note to leave for
Prince Thurn und Taxis, excusing his abrupt departure on the grounds that he
had been ordered without warning to proceed on a mission of a highly secret
nature, and asking that his luggage should be sent to Sacher’s to await further
instructions. Then he set his alarm clock for four o’clock and went to bed.

When he woke in the
morning, as soon as he had dressed, he carried his kit downstairs, telephoned
for a taxi and, when it came to the door of the officers’ quarters, ordered the
driver to take him to the
West-bahnhof,
to
which he would have gone had he been heading for Switzerland. There, he changed
taxis, taking a second one to the
Sudbahnhof,
which
was the terminus for Italy, and thence, having muddled his trail as well as he
could, he took a third one round to the Arsenal.

In spite of the early
hour, the headquarters block was already a hive of activity. Officers and
orderlies were hurriedly loading kit, files, stationery, food, and other
impedimenta on to the special train that was drawn up in a nearby siding. A
corporal piloted the Duke through them to a waiting-room, and soon afterwards
an A.D.C. appeared, who took him upstairs to a mess where von Hötzendorf was
drinking coffee with several senior officers.

Among them was the
elderly Archduke Frederick, who belonged to a cadet branch of the Imperial family.
He was extremely short-sighted, wore side-whiskers in imitation of the Emperor,
and had the reputation of being almost childishly simple. The Archduke Charles,
now Heir Apparent, had left a week earlier for the temporary battle H.Q. at
Teschen, but he was considered to be too young to be given Supreme Command of
the armies; so, owing to Franz Ferdinand’s assassination, this poor nit-wit,
Frederick, had been entrusted with the task of maintaining the glories of the
Habsburgs in the field. But for all practical purposes von Hötzendorf filled
the role of Commander-in-Chief, and was referred to by his staff as ‘the
C. in C.
’. He greeted De Richleau with
abrupt affability, presented him to the Archduke, to his Chief of Staff,
General Count Bellegarde, and to the head of his Operations Section, a Colonel
Pacher, under whom it had already been decided that the Duke should work.

Pacher was a squarely
built man of middle height. His blue eyes were evidently weak, as he wore thick
lensed pince-nez; but he had a broad brow and good features. De Richleau put
him down at once as either an officer who had risen from the ranks, or one of
bourgeois origin; but it did not surprise him to find such a type on the
C. in C.
’s staff. Unlike the Germans, the
Austrian and Hungarian nobility felt so secure in the antiquity of their
lineage that they gave themselves no airs and were always willing to mix freely
with men of humbler birth; so there was no caste jealousy in the Austrian army
and many middle-class men like Pacher rose in it to hold high ranks. He said at
once that he was already overburdened with work, so would be delighted to have
the Duke’s assistance, then took him downstairs and had his kit stowed on the
train.

It consisted of five
coaches: a restaurant car, two sleeping cars, two fitted up as conference rooms
and offices, and, in addition, a baggage wagon and horse boxes. At six o’clock
precisely, with everyone who remained on the platform standing rigidly at the
salute, it steamed out on its way to the
C. in
C.
’s
battle headquarters.

De Richleau had already
learned that these were to be at Przemysl, a large fortress town in Galicia, on
the far side of the Carpathians: and the train was hardly clear of Vienna
before he began to learn a lot of other things, too. Pacher had at once settled
down to work, and was going rapidly through a big pile of situation reports,
while nearby two of his juniors were sticking coloured flags in a big map which
had been fixed up at one end of the staff car. The map showed the whole of the
Dual Monarchy and a considerable portion of all the states adjacent to it. The
flags indicated the present location of all the major formations of the
Austro-Hungarian armies, and as it was now the 16th of August the great
majority of these had reached their battle positions. Before half the flags
were in place De Richleau realized that the impetuous von Hötzendorf had kicked
off with the wrong foot and was now in a howling mess.

The Duke still had very
clearly in his mind the Serbian appreciation of Austria’s plans in the event of
war, which Dimitriyevitch had given him to read in Belgrade. The key to that
had been the deployment of the Austrian 2nd army. If the war were to be against
Serbia only, this, the biggest of all the armies, was to be hurled with the
weak 5th and 6th against the Serbians: but if the war were to be against Russia
and Serbia simultaneously it was to be deployed with the 1st, 3rd and 4th
armies on the Russian front. Yet the flags on the map showed that this all-important
force was concentrated in the south, along the rivers Save and Danube.

Such a set-up in the face
of Russia’s might seemed quite inexplicable. De Richleau could attribute it
only to an incredibly rash impulse on von Hötzendorf’s part to endeavour to
crush his small and most loathed enemy even at the risk of the Dual Monarchy
being invaded from the north. But the Duke was not supposed to know anything
about Austria’s pre-war plans so, with a bland air of innocence, he remarked to
Colonel Pacher:

“I find it somewhat
surprising that nearly half our forces should be employed against Serbia.”