Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 07 (39 page)

Next day the Duke was
installed in a small but pleasant room at the War Office, in the same corridor
as that occupied by Dimitriyevitch, and provided with an aide-de-camp whose
name was Basil Militchevitch. He was a tall young man with a sad expression and
large, sloe-black eyes, but he seemed intelligent and anxious to please his new
master. The Colonel then unlocked a safe in De Richleau’s room, gave him the key,
and showed him a row of files inside it, the contents of which he was asked to
master as soon as possible.

Nothing loath, he at once
set to work upon them but, to his disappointment, a quick run through showed
that they contained nothing that was not of a purely military nature.

That afternoon he was
introduced to the Commander-in-Chief, Radomir Putnik, who received him very
affably and conversed with him for over an hour on the Balkan campaigns, during
which they had been in opposite camps. Putnik was a stalwart grey-bearded man,
and the Duke already had a high respect for him as a shrewd and able soldier.
Now that he met him personally, he formed the impression that he was by nature
a straightforward upright character who, normally, would have had nothing to do
with the Black Hand. No mention of it was made between them, but the
C. in C.
made it clear that De Richleau
should look to Dimitriyevitch for his orders, so he could only assume that the
gang either had General Putnik in its toils, or his patriotism was such that he
preferred to continue to serve his country by remaining at the head of the
army,
to opposing them and risking being ousted through
their intrigues.

De Richleau formed a very
similar impression of the Serbian Prime Minister, M. Nikola Pastich, when
Dimitriyevitch took him to lunch with the statesman on the following day.
Pastich made no secret of his desire to see the Serbian population of Bosnia
freed from the Austrian yoke, but he was broadminded, tolerant, and cultured,
and it was clear that he hoped that a betterment of their state might be
brought about by diplomatic measures.

The Foreign Minister,
with whom De Richleau was to work in close collaboration, was also there; and
of him the Duke took by no means such a good view. He was obviously hand in
glove with Dimitriyevitch and almost fawned upon the powerful Chief of the
secret society which had such a strangle-hold on Serbian affairs.

During the Wednesday,
Thursday and Friday, the Duke met a number of other key men in the Serbian Government
and Army, and, between whiles, devoted himself to going through the papers he
had been asked to study. That which he found by far the most interesting was a
copy of the Austrian war plans, or an appreciation of their probable plans
drafted by the Serbian General Staff. On reading it, he could not determine
which, as none of the papers was an original—they were all translations that
had been made for his benefit into French before his arrival—but on asking
Dimitriyevitch about it, he learned that it had been compiled from stolen
documents and other reliable information, so could be graded as A. l material.

It disclosed that Austria
could put six armies into the field, and the dispositions they would take in
two different eventualities.

Plan A was in the event
of war with Serbia alone. In this case the 5th and 6th Austrian armies, which
were based on Bosnia and Herzegovina, would invade Serbia from the west, while
their 2nd army, which was based on Hungary, would do so from the north, and the
remaining 1st, 3rd and 4th armies would move to precautionary positions in
Galicia to guard against possible Russian intervention. The intention here, as
von Hötzendorf had himself told the Duke, was to fling every man that could be
spared with safety against Serbia as swiftly as possible, with the object of
overwhelming her completely before any other power made up its mind to
intervene on her behalf. It was further appreciated that a swift, decisive
victory’ over Serbia offered the best chance of preventing the war spreading.
If it could be achieved, even should Russia decide to come belatedly to the aid
of her stricken prot
é
g
é
, by that time, the Serbian armies
having been broken, Austria would be able to withdraw the bulk of her forces in
the south to reinforce her armies in the north, and thus have a good hope of
also defeating Russia.

Plan B envisaged war with
Serbia and Russia simultaneously. In this case, it was argued, in view of the
great weight of the Russian armies, it would be most unwise to risk any serious
embroilment which would detract from the number of Austrian troops that could
be brought against the bigger enemy. Moreover, as it was known that the Russian
armies would take considerably longer to mobilize than the Austrian, it was
hoped that by concentrating all available forces in the north to start with,
Austria might obtain an initial victory which would cripple Russia for some
months to come. That would later enable a strong offensive to be launched
against Serbia, who, up till then, was merely to be held at bay. In pursuance
of these ideas, the 5th and 6th Austrian armies were, as before, to operate
against Serbia from the west, but the 2nd army was to join the 1st, 3rd and 4th
on the Russian front.

The disposal of the
Austrian 2nd army was, therefore, the only apparent difference between the two
plans, but a glance at the composition of the armies soon showed De Richleau
that there was much more to it than that. They were not all of the same
strength; the 5th and 6th being considerably weaker than any of the others,
with only three corps

(Each square represents an army)

between them, and the 2nd having four corps, which made
it stronger than the other two together. As the total number of corps available
was fifteen, this meant that if Plan A was put into operation eight corps would
be retained to guard the Russian frontier, while seven corps attacked Serbia on
two fronts; whereas, should Austria be forced to adopt Plan B, she would send
twelve corps against Russia and only three corps would be allocated to
operations against Serbia on a single front.

From other papers the
Duke learned that General Putnik, with commendable caution, intended to
concentrate the whole of the Serbian army in a central position until it became
clear which of the two plans Austria was putting into operation. If it proved
to be Plan B he would then be well justified in launching a strong offensive
into Bosnia: but if it proved to be Plan A he would find himself attacked from
the west and north simultaneously by two forces, both roughly equal in numbers
to his own. The difference in these prospects was little less than a good hope
of the swift conquest of Bosnia and facing annihilation between two fires.

It had been obvious from
the beginning that it would be enormously to Serbia’s advantage if she could
draw Russia in; but now it was clear to De Richleau that it was positively
imperative to the success of Dimitriyevitch’s plans that he should do so.
Everything hung upon it: and with that conclusion was gone one of the last
hopes that the machinations of the Black Hand would not result in plunging the
whole of Europe into war.

Terribly conscious that
the fateful days were passing, the Duke lost no opportunity of probing for
information about that sinister secret society, whenever he could do so without
appearing unjustifiably curious; but all his tentative inquiries drew a blank
until Saturday, the 20th. On that morning Dimitriyevitch told him that a car
would call at his hotel at ten o’clock that evening to take him out to the
châlet, and that he would then be initiated there.

Striving to suppress his
impatience, De Richleau got through the rest of the day wondering what the
night would bring.

The
car arrived punctually with his own A.D.C., Militchevitch, as its driver. As it
was nearly the longest day of the year, when they left the town a gentle
after-glow still lit the fields. But there was no moon and when they reached
the châlet the dark forest surrounded it with a belt of blackness.

In the hallway
Militchevitch asked the Duke to wait for a few minutes and went into a room at
the back of the house. When he came out he was wearing a long white woollen
cloak and hood, which completely hid his uniform and concealed the shape of his
head, and black kid gloves. A black mask covered his features and on the right
breast of the cloak a fist holding a dagger was embroidered in black silk.
After he had given five quick knocks at irregular intervals on the door of the
main room, a voice called ‘Enter’ and he led De Richleau inside.

There were about twenty
people present. They were seated in a long line behind a trestle table which
had been covered with a green baize cloth. All identity was concealed by cloaks,
hoods and masks similar to those worn by Militchevitch. In front of them, on
the table, lay a dagger pointing outwards. Militchevitch signed to the Duke to
stand at the middle of the table and sat down himself at a small one in a far
corner.

The room was lit only by
two candles, the dim light adding to its atmosphere of sinister mystery and
making it even more difficult to identify any of those present; but when the
central figure in the line spoke, De Richleau had no doubt at all that he was
being addressed by Dimitriyevitch.

The Colonel put to him a
number of questions. They were obviously a ritual formula and began with
inquiries as to his name, age, place of birth, etc.; then as to his willingness
to devote himself to the cause of Serbia to the exclusion of all else, and
without thought of self, to the point of sacrificing rank, fortune, wife and
family, culminating in life itself. It was not until they were half-way through
that De Richleau noticed that Militchevitch was taking down his answers in a big
vellum-bound book: but he answered every question firmly and in the sense
expected.

When the interrogation
was completed the book was brought for him to sign. Then a bible was produced
and he was told to place one hand on it and the other on the book, and to swear
by his hope of salvation to the truth of the answers he had made. He had felt
certain that he would be faced with some such demand, and had he not already
made up his mind to accede to it he would not have come there: so, praying God
to forgive him his perjury, he took the oath.

Next, Dimitriyevitch laid
on the table something that looked like a thick piece of yellow, shrivelled
leather. It was roughly circular, about four inches in diameter, and perforated
with scores of small holes. Handing De Richleau the dagger he said slowly: “This
was one of the breasts of the infamous Queen Draga, which I cut off while she
was still living, on the night that justice was done upon her. Plunge the
dagger into it as a symbolical act that you would do the same to anyone who
dishonoured Serbia.”

Repressing a motion of
repulsion, the Duke did as he was bid.

One of the brotherhood
then appeared with a chalice three parts filled with wine. Dimitriyevitch took
the dagger, pricked his left thumb with it and pressed until a drop of blood
splashed into the liquor. Returning the dagger to the Duke he bade him do
likewise, then the chalice was passed up and down the table until each of the
masked and hooded company had done the same. When this grim loving cup was
returned to Dimitriyevitch he offered it with a bow to De Richleau and invited
him to drink to the damnation of all enemies of Serbia. Again repressing any
sign of disgust, the Duke lifted the horrid brew to his lips and sipped it. The
Chief of the Brotherhood of Union or Death took a mouthful of it, and it was
then passed from hand to hand until everyone present had followed suit.

Finally, Dimitriyevitch
addressed the neophyte in the following terms: “By your spiritual oath and the
temporal bond of blood you are now one of our brotherhood. I welcome you to it;
but at the same time I warn you that should you ever betray us in the least
degree the worst of fates will be your portion. Any act of treachery will
invoke our united curse, which will so prey upon your mind that, in due course,
you will inevitably commit suicide and go unshriven to the grave.”