HS02 - Days of Atonement Page 10

  Uncertain whether that shout had come from Egon Eis, I pressed my nose close up against the frosted windowpane and attempted to look out. I could see nothing more than a dark shape in the frame. Suddenly, the door jerked open, and the muzzle of a pistol met the centre of my forehead, the metal as cold as a searing iron on my skin.

  ‘Dismount, sir!’

  Five armed men in the tattered remains of regimental greatcoats stood in a half-circle. Prussian soldiers. They had removed the colours to avoid identification, but they were such muddy, dirty, ragged overcoats that recognition would have defied an expert. With one notable exception.

  ‘I am Prussian, like yourselves,’ I declared, holding up my hands as the man with the pistol waved me down to the ground. I glanced up at Eis in his sparkling, frost-coated waterproof. He sat snivelling high on his box, wiping tears from his eyes, the perfect picture of a helpless waif.

  ‘What do you want from us?’ I asked.

  A tall, mustachioed man with rough, red skin and the bearing of an officer stepped forward. He wore a uniform that denoted rank, and a shoulder-flap of the 2nd Regiment of the Hussars. A well-cut dark-blue overcoat with an upright collar and broad lapels of a rich, bright red stretched down beneath his knees, a sabre hanging from his broad brown belt. His black eyes held immovably on me. They were cold, humourless, pitiless. In that moment, I wondered whether my journey to Kamenetz had come to a premature end. Our rebel soldiers are ferocious in their treatment of Prussians they believe have bent beneath the foreign yoke.

  ‘Food, money,’ he said, looking hard at me. ‘And information. What is your business in Bartoszyce?’

  ‘I have no business there,’ I answered. ‘I am a magistrate on official business. I am bound for Kamenetz fortress . . .’

  ‘Kamenetz?’ he interrupted sharply. ‘You are going to Kamenetz?’

  ‘That is what I said,’ I replied.

  ‘Why, may I ask?’

  He was polite enough, though his pistol never shifted from my heart by so much as an inch.

  ‘One of the officers there is involved in a case that I am investigating,’ I said. It was the truth, less than the whole truth, but I hoped it would be enough to satisfy his curiosity and let me pass.

  ‘Nothing more?’ he queried with a hostile stare.

  ‘Nothing,’ I confirmed. ‘If you will allow me, sir, I have a pass and other official documents in my pouch. My papers will confirm all that I have said.’

  He waved his pistol in the air with a gesture of annoyance. He might have been swatting at a fly. ‘I am not interested in papers signed by Prussian puppets who choose to collaborate with the French,’ he said.

  This declaration of insubordination raised a cackle of wild laughter from his men.

  ‘What I am asking,’ he continued, ‘is whether you have been sent by those who would like to see the French attack the fortress?’

  He closed one eye, cocked his pistol, and pointed it at me.

  ‘Are you a spy?’ he asked.

  If I hoped to save my own skin, and the wrinkled carcass of Egon Eis, who was wailing like a newborn baby, much to the amusement of the renegades, it was best to confess the truth.

  ‘If you read my orders, you will see that I have been sent to prevent the French from entering Kamenetz,’ I said boldly. ‘I am conducting an investigation into a murder in Lotingen. Naturally, my enquiry has been authorised by the French. But it has been managed in such a way that they will not be involved directly. That is why I am travelling alone, with no one but my coachman to protect me.’

  He waved the pistol impatiently, gesturing to see the documents.

  I searched in my shoulder bag, my hand steadier than before, then handed him Count Dittersdorf’s letter.

  ‘What is the officer’s name?’ he snapped, glancing quickly at the contents.

  The gang of rebels stood in a threatening semicircle, their eyes flicking between myself and their chief. Once, they must have looked like other men, but the scars and the sacrifices of a hundred skirmishes were savagely carved upon their mangled features. It was hard to look at them with hope. A single word from him, they would shoot us dead.

  ‘I seek a man named Bruno Gottewald,’ I replied.

  ‘Not the general?’ he asked after some moments, turning his head to one side, peering at me through that half-closed eye again.

  ‘General Katowice?’ I said. ‘I’ll have to speak to him before I can talk to Officer Gottewald. He is in command of Kamenetz garrison.’

  My inquisitor said nothing, but he clenched his jaw and nodded his head. The answer seemed to satisfy him. He held Dittersdorf’s letter up and let it catch in the driving wind. For a moment I had the impression that he was about to let it blow away.

  ‘Inform the general that you met von Schill along the road. Baptista von Schill,’ he said with a hint of pride, stepping forward and handing back the papers. ‘Tell him that I let you pass, and say that all is quiet looking westward.’

  ‘Major von Schill,’ I repeated slowly, my interest fully awakened. I had always thought he was a phantom, a Prussian scarecrow meant to put the fear of God into the French. After every massacre, the name of Baptista von Schill was on all men’s lips. A full major in the Brandenburg Hussars, he had led his men out of the besieged bastion of Kolberg in Pomerania after the disgrace at Auerstädt, transforming his followers into a band of bloodthirsty nationalists, desperate men who refused to contemplate surrender. The Freikorps of von Schill were feared as much as they were hated, not only by the emperor’s troops, but by Prussian traitors also. The rumours spoke of farms and villages being wiped out after the inhabitants refused to aid or shelter the rebels. One story told of a large copper vat which had been filled with snow. Flames had been lit beneath it, and three men accused of treason by the major had been boiled alive.

  Had I just run that fatal risk?

  ‘One thing remains,’ he said, nodding to one of his henchmen, who stepped up close to me and drew his knife, a six-inch blade flashing close to my throat. I was not half so frightened of the weapon as I was of the man himself. As he stood beside me, the wind lifted the thin leather mask covering the left side of his face, and his features were caught in the light of the carriage for an instant. One cheek and the side of his nose had been torn away with violence. A mottled flap of glistening scar tissue had been pulled tight by a ham-fisted surgeon and roughly stitched from the cheekbone down to his mouth. I could not tell which was worse: the sight and the stink of this monster, or the thought of what he might do.

  ‘Do you mean to kill me?’ I asked von Schill.

  ‘Who knows?’ he replied. ‘The honour of old Prussia lives on in Kamenetz. If you betray the general, I’ll search you out in hell and have that head off your shoulders!’

  He nodded to the man beside me.

  That grotesque face twisted into a horrid grin, the serrated blade slashed down wildly towards my innards. A gasp blocked my throat, everything was a sudden blur. The world turned white, then slowly faded into smothering black fog. Was this the end? A stab of pain, a blinding flash of light, then darkness? I heard the hammering thud of my heart. When its furious beating stopped, I knew, I would be dead.

  Raucous laughter brought me to my senses.

  It must have seemed a tremendous jape as my money-pouch crashed to the ground with a loud tinkle of coins. Ninety thalers of the cash that Dittersdorf had handed me for the journey lay sparkling in the snow at my feet.

  ‘Dead men don’t carry messages,’ said Major von Schill, an evil glint in his eye. ‘Now, climb aboard and take this moaning wretch away with you. You’ll be in Kamenetz fortress before dark, Herr Magistrate. If anyone stops you on the road, tell them that you’ve had the pleasure of our company. My name will be your safest passport.’

  The deformed man grinned and threatened me with his knife again, edging me towards the coach, prodding me up the steps, closing the door firmly behind me. My coachman jumped up nimbly onto his box, as if
to give the lie to his age. He cracked his whip, and a minute later we were travelling down the hill again.

  Count Dittersdorf had just been robbed by patriots.

  I sat in a cold sweat, thinking of the folded twenty-thaler note that Helena had given me, insisting that I slip it inside my stocking for safe keeping.

  The major had been precise in his estimation. It was not yet night as the ancient fortress of Kamenetz loomed up two hours later. I lowered the window sash the better to see it. From a distance, a full moon glinting through dark clouds, accompanied by the insistent whistling of the Buran, the fortress was impressively menacing. It was an ugly brute of a place—not on account of its size, which was not so very grand, but for its shape. Eight tall bastions glistened like polished silver, seeming to support the dark, solid mass of the castellated walls above. The fortress perched on the crown of a barren hillside like a huge, hideous spider, ready to attack its prey. So this was the extreme edge of East Prussia, the fort from which the Teutonic Knights led by Ulrich von Jungingen had launched their murderous onslaught against Ladislao Jagellone and the tribes of Poles and Lithuanians. It was the last remaining Prussian stronghold, which the French invader had never reached, or tried to roust.

  Twenty minutes more, and we were called to halt outside the gate, then obliged to await the captain-of-the-watch. He came at once, cutting a smart figure, marching quickly over the snow-sprinkled cobblestones, his heels raising a spark now and then. I watched with interest, and despite my doubts I was impressed. It was rare to see a Prussian soldier with military snap in his step, even rarer to see a Prussian officer so immaculately turned out since the coming of the French. His leather riding boots gleamed like polished ebony.

  The words of von Schill sounded in my ears again.

  He had spoken of Prussia as it used to be, before the coming of the French. Suddenly, I shared his nostalgia. This was the Prussia that I remembered. The wonder was that it had all been cancelled out so quickly.

  ‘Good evening.’ The officer came to attention with a spine-snapping salute. ‘What is your business here?’

  ‘I have come from some way off,’ I said guardedly, ‘with important news for the commanding officer. Can I see him?’

  Though stiff and formal, I thought I saw a sardonic smile flit across the young captain’s lips and light up his eyes.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘General Katowice,’ I insisted.

  ‘You’ll have to wait until morning. Herr General’s orders. You can speak with him at eight o’clock.’

  ‘But I have been travelling for two days!’ I protested, attempting without success to keep a whining note of exasperation out of my voice. ‘Inform him of my arrival at once. I bring important news regarding the French. I have a letter . . .’

  ‘I’ll give it to him,’ he said, taking it from my hand.

  ‘I am a magistrate on official business. I represent the law in Prussia.’

  ‘There is only one law here,’ he replied without a trace of humour. ‘General Katowice sits in judgement from eight in the morning, seven days a week. I’ll tell him what you said, and put you on his agenda for tomorrow.’

  There was something final and forbidding in his manner.

  ‘Where am I to sleep?’ I asked, as the reality of the situation dawned on me.

  ‘You’ve been snug inside that Brandenburger chariot for two days,’ the captain rejoined. ‘Another night won’t do you much harm, I think.’

  For a moment I was tempted to sound the name of von Schill in support of my case, but I did not. Could I present myself in Kamenetz as a magistrate, then back up the claim with the name of a murderer, albeit a patriotic one?

  ‘You can drive inside the fortress, if you prefer. But shift your vehicle into that corner over there, and keep it out of the way. The garrison wakes at dawn. Goodnight to you, Herr Magistrate.’

  With another perfectly executed salute, he spun on his heels and marched away.

  All I could do was admire the fine cut of his coat, the perfectly aligned red folds in the tail, the sparkling silver of his spurs and scabbard.

  Then I had to break the news to coachman Eis.

  I was under an obligation to invite him to shelter inside the carriage on the leather bench across from my own. As I tried to conquer my shivering, his snoring began. Louder than the ‘Military Symphony’ of Papa Franz, it would persist throughout the night.

  11

  A SCREECH SPLIT the early morning silence.

  I took it for the cry of a bird. One of those large, ugly gulls that seek refuge in Lotingen when the weather on the coast is particularly rough. An instant later, it was followed by torrential rain.

  I pushed the carriage blanket from my face and opened my eyes. The light was purple. In an attempt to keep out the cold, I had pulled the plumcoloured curtains of the coach as tight as I could. The lanterns set at intervals around the parade ground of the fortress would hardly have disturbed the sleep of a man as tired as I had been.

  That bird squawked out again, and the rain ceased instantly.

  As slumber tiptoed from my mind, I heard what I now recognised to be a human voice. It was angrier, sharper, more penetrating than any voice that I had ever heard. It grated on my ears, screaming out a rapid sequence of words—Left! Right! One! Two! Atten-tion! And each order immediately prompted the disciplined pounding of feet, which seemed like a heavy downpour of rain.

  I drew back the curtains, then struggled to lever up the window sash. A thick coating of ice had formed on the glass, both inside and out. The sky was a sickly leaden grey which promised nothing good. But as I looked out over Kamenetz parade ground, I saw a sight that promised far worse: Crime was marching up and down the parade ground with all the energy that a Prussian drill sergeant could bring to the event.

  I quickly looked the other way.

  No Prussian could ignore the consequences of Jena. One minute, subjects of our God-given sovereign, obedient to the laws and religion of his land; the next, we’d been swallowed up by an empire of atheists. After Jena, we had no Rights, no God, no King to whom we might appeal for Justice. Our legal system was swept aside, as each man scrambled to save the little that he had. Anarchy prevailed. The Treaty of Tilsit brought hostilities to an end: our king appealed to Paris for immediate implementation of the Napoleonic Codes. I was a Prussian magistrate; those Codes should have told me what to do if one of my fellow countrymen was accused of a crime. But I had never held a copy in my hand. What was I to do? I did what I had always done. I applied the time-honoured laws of Prussia.

  I sat inside the carriage, listening, wondering what to do.

  When the sergeant yelled a command—to start marching, to turn left, or wheel right at the double, to present arms, or shoulder them—I heard what I took to be a well-drilled squadron of men obey at an instant.

  I realised then what Count Dittersdorf had been so concerned about. No Frenchman must ever enter the fortress and see what was going on. Those troops were, without a doubt, a well-trained body of men.

  Men?

  With the exception of the sergeant, there was not one soldier on the parade ground who was over fifteen years of age. Marshal Lannes had ordered the Prussian standing army to be reduced in size. Soldiers were being sent home without a pension to beg for their bread, and the economy was in tatters as a result. No more Prussian troops were to be trained, the French had ordained.

  But General Juri Katowice was training them.

  I drew a deep, thoughtful breath.

  Was any law being broken?

  No man was being drilled in the arts of war.

  Nor were these strutting boys a ‘body of men’, in the way that the distinctive uniform and the insignia generally identified the members of a specific regiment. Each one was dressed today as he had been dressed the day before. There must have been two hundred children out on the parade square, some wearing fine boots and well-cut jackets, others in clogs and hand-me-down rags.

 
Those little boys had been moulded into men-at-arms . . .

  Again, the word men caused me to pause. Around his neck, each child wore a bright red ribbon. I myself had worn a red ribbon. Every male child in Prussia had worn one. And proudly so. Anyone who wore one was old enough to be trained in the local militia. That ribbon implied that he was ready and willing to fight and die for the Prussian fatherland. Two hundred boys were being put through their ‘traditional’ paces, and I could not fail to be impressed by the ability they displayed. Especially when the fortress bell rang seven o’clock.

  They were called to attention, and formed smartly into ranks which were four rows deep. Then, the double gate at the farthest end of the parade ground swung open. Positioned as I was in the coach, I seemed to be sitting in the grandstand. A trill of shrill notes were blown by a cornet, a drumroll exploded in a thunderous cascade, and a group of officers came trotting into the arena on horseback. There were five animals, a white stallion and four blacks. I caught my breath. This was the military excellence of a past generation, and all for the benefit of an audience of motley-dressed boys with shaven heads and spotty faces!

  The officers wore waisted tailcoats of Prussian blue with upturned scarlet collars, matching facings interlaced with white stripes across the chest, and white pantaloons with a scarlet stripe along the seam tucked into black boots which buttoned up above the knee. And if his officers were immaculate, which adjective could hope to capture the essence of General Katowice?

  I had met him in Königsberg Castle in 1804. On that occasion, he had warned me of the imminent danger of a French invasion, and I had chosen not to take his prophetic words seriously. Yet, within the course of three short years he had been proved correct. Three years? It might have been three aeons, so much had changed. I sometimes thought the azure sky of Prussia had been transmuted for ever to a leaden weighty grey. Despite his splendid uniform and martial demeanour, General Katowice had been marked by Time. His right hand had gone, chopped off above the wrist in some battle—the defence of Königsberg, perhaps, which had been a long and fierce struggle. His rugged face was an ordnance map of age-lines and deeply sculpted wrinkles, which scarred his brow and carved deep channels in his cheeks from his hooked nose down to his square chin.