Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richleau 07 (70 page)

At lunch, when the Duke
exchanged a few words with the
C. in C.
,
he did not wonder at finding him morose and ill-tempered, nor was he surprised
to notice that several of the more capable officers, like Colonel Pacher,
looked a little anxious. But the majority were delighted to be on their way to
the front and talked of the coming campaign with happy optimism. Few of them
had ever seen a shot fired in anger, and they displayed a contempt for the
enemy that showed they knew nothing of the bravery and tenacity of the average
Russian soldier.

Their attitude to their
allies, the Duke found amusing. They looked down on the Germans as a people
lacking in taste, refinement and sensibility; yet they were ingenuous enough to
admit that they counted on them to pull Austria-Hungary’s chestnuts out of the
fire for her. Their admiration for the German army was unbounded, and they
clearly thought of it as a miracle-machine impervious to all the hazards and
human weaknesses affecting the fighting forces of other nations. They were
confident that von Prittwitz’s single Army in East Prussia could take on any
number of Russians, defeat them in a matter of a few days; then, with unruffled
precision, about turn to descend on Warsaw; and that the German armies in the
west would be in Paris in a month.

There was no news yet of
any serious fighting on the Franco-German frontier, although the Germans were
reported to have penetrated some eighty miles deep into Belgium. But the
3,000,000 French and German troops that must soon clash head-on in the west had
lesser distances to cover than the Austrians and Russians, so the great
collision might now occur any day.

De Richleau recalled the
paper that Winston Churchill had written at the time of the Agadir crisis in
1911. He had predicted that by the 20th day after mobilization the Germans
would have forced the line of the Meuse; but had gone on to point out that by
the 40th day they would be so fully extended that, providing the French
husbanded their strength in the meantime, they should then have a good prospect
of giving battle under favourable conditions.
Would
the French husband their strength? The Duke wondered.
If so, all might yet be well. If not, he feared that the optimistic prophecies
of his Austrian companions, that the Germans would be in Paris by
mid-September, stood a very good chance of being fulfilled.

The railway ran almost
due north to Teschen on the Polish border, followed it north-east to Cracow,
and only then, having rounded the corner of the Carpathian Mountains, ran
eastwards through Tarnow to Przemysl. So from mid-morning the train had been
right up in the operational zone; but it was not until lunch time that it
entered the concentration area of the main armies. From then on every road and
by-way it passed contained a slowly moving column of horse-drawn vehicles
driven by troops clad in olive green; and at every railway siding stood trains,
containing more men, more horses, more guns, more wagons, that had been shunted
off the line to let the
C. in C.
’s
train through. It seemed as if whole cities must have been denuded of their
male populations and traffic so to flood this normally peaceful countryside,
and it was an awe-inspiring thought that, within a week, for many thousands of
this horde of healthy, cheerful human beings there would be no escape from
mutilation, capture or death.

Soon after three o’clock
the train arrived at Przemysl. It was a town of some size, having a population
of nearly fifty thousand which, even in peace time, was considerably augmented
by a large permanent garrison; as it was a major bastion in the northern
defence system of the Dual Monarchy and ringed by thirty-six forts mounting
between them no less than a thousand guns. On a hill above it stood the ruins
of an old castle built by Casimir the Great; but the town itself offered few
sights of interest. It was a dreary manufacturing and trading centre, and when
a fleet of cars transported the Archduke, von Hötzendorf and their staff to the
quarters assigned to them, they found these in keeping with the place.

Colonel Pacher whispered
to De Richleau that the
C. in C.
had made it plain that he was most averse to conducting battles from a
luxurious headquarters, so his well known asceticism had been duly catered for.
They were conducted to ancient bug-ridden barracks furnished only with bare
tables, a few score of wooden chairs and straw palliasses to sleep on.

That evening the
C. in C.
held a conference at which De
Richleau was not present; but he learned afterwards that important news had
come through from Serbia. On the previous day, the advance of the Austrian 5th
Army had been held up by exceptionally heavy rain; but this did not appear to
have immobilized the Serbians, as General Putnik had moved up in the night and
launched a violent assault. In consequence, there had been very heavy fighting
on the river Jadar all day, and General Potiorek had appealed through the
Emperor for the active assistance of the 2nd Army. Its advance units were
already about to entrain for the north, but von Hötzendorf, his wizened face
black with rage, had felt compelled to agree to it making a demonstration in
force before leaving.

However, De Richleau was
far more concerned with his personal problem of getting away through the
Russian lines before the K.S. should learn where he had got to; and, on the
following morning, when he had a chance to examine the situation maps of the
immediate front, he found that this was going to be a more difficult matter
than he had supposed.

Owing to the deep
penetration of the Austrian cavalry into Russia, it appeared doubtful if there
were now any Russian troops within a hundred miles of Przemysl. Long before he
could cover that distance on horse-back, his disappearance from H.Q. would be
noticed and, fearing an accident had befallen him, his colleagues there would
institute widespread inquiries, which would probably result in his being
located. Then, he would be forced to return and offer some explanation, and
even the outline of a satisfactory one at present exceeded the scope of his
imagination. No staff car had been allotted to him, and to attempt to steal one
would be a risky business. Even if he succeeded, he would have to abandon it on
the edge of the battle zone, as the cavalry patrols would naturally warn any
officer in a car not to proceed farther; and the sight of a staff Colonel
walking towards the enemy on foot would again require an explanation of a kind
that his brain refused to furnish. Anxious as he was to get away, he therefore
decided that he would do better to wait, anyhow until that night, on the chance
that some matter would arise during the day which would provide him with a
legitimate excuse for leaving Headquarters.

Unlike von Hötzendorf,
the Duke was not the type of soldier who believes that sleeping hard and eating
indifferent food is necessarily good for the brain; and, to his pleasure, he
discovered that the Chief of Staff, General Count Bellegarde, was of the same opinion.
So he asked his senior out to lunch, and they found a good little restaurant
just off the main street of the town.

The Count was a rather
ponderous gentleman who owed his appointment to Imperial favour. But he was no
fool, and towards the end of the meal it emerged that he was by no means happy
about the prospects of the offensive. He declared that it was one thing to
fling the main Austrian armies against Warsaw if the Germans were prepared to
meet them there, and quite another if they were not.

Suddenly an idea
germinated in the Duke’s brain, and he said: “We shall certainly be taking a
big risk if we go ahead without having more definite information about von
Prittwitz’s intentions, and in a matter of such vital importance telegrams
containing half-promises are anything but satisfactory. Why not send some
responsible officer to his H.Q. in East Prussia to impress upon him how
essential it is that he should give us his co-operation, and find out
definitely what he is prepared to do?” As an apparent afterthought, he added
casually: “As I joined the
C. in C.
’s
staff only yesterday morning, I could well be spared to undertake such a
mission if you considered me suitable.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” the
Count nodded. “I’ll think about it: and if we don’t have better news by
to-morrow, I may put it up to the
C. in C.
The thing that troubles me even more, though, is that the Russians probably
know the composition of our forces and the broad outline of our plans.”

“What on earth leads you
to suppose that?” asked the Duke in surprise.

“Why, through that swine,
Redl, of course.”

“You must forgive my
ignorance, but
—”

“D’you mean to tell me
that you’ve never heard of Alfred Redl?” The Count’s eyes showed astonishment,
but after a moment he went on: “Oh well, perhaps we managed to hush the scandal
up better than we thought. From 1900 to 1905 Redl was head of the K.S. From
then on until less than fifteen months ago he was Chief of Staff to the VIIIth
Army Corps which has its H.Q. in Prague. For over ten years he was in the pay
of the Russians, and during that time he sold darned near every military secret
we’ve got.”

“Good God! It sounds
fantastic.”

“Well, it’s a fact. In
the course of a few years he took hundreds of thousand of
kronen
off the Russians. Everyone thought he had private
means, but he hadn’t—it all came from the Czar’s secret intelligence funds. He
lived like a Prince: had a house in Vienna, another in Prague, four autos, and
after his death they found a hundred and sixty dozen bottles of champagne in
his cellar. He not only sold our plans, and every sort of information about
railway capacities, weapons, methods of training and war organization, but
betrayed all our best agents, many of who were his personal friends, and
succeeded in protecting the Russian agents who were spying on us. You see, in
his position as Chief of the K.S. everything connected with secret intelligence
passed through his hands, so he could sell it if he wished, or suppress it and
prevent it going any further if that suited him better.”

Temporarily, De Richleau
forgot that he was at the moment in the position of a spy himself, and said: “What
an unmitigated scoundrel! But as you know all about his activities, I take it
he was caught in the end?”

“Yes. Major Ronge got
him. Clever fellow, Ronge.”

At the name, De Richleau
suppressed a guilty start; but the Chief of Staff tipped another dash of K
ü
mmel
into his coffee and went on reminiscently: “Some years after Ronge succeeded
Redl at the K.S., he had the idea of establishing a secret censorship on
suspicious-looking letters posted in frontier towns. Early in March, 1913, two
envelopes came in postmarked from a place in East Prussia, and addressed
Opera Ball
13,
Poste Restante, G. P. O. Vienna.
When opened, it was
found that one contained bank-notes to the value of six thousand
kronen
and the other eight thousand, but nothing else. Ronge
had a push button fitted up on the postal clerk’s desk, which connected with
the Police headquarters across the square and rang a bell there. Two detectives
were put on to wait until someone claimed the letters; then the clerk would
push the button, the bell would ring, and they would run over to see who the
claimant was. For weeks those poor devils sat waiting for the bell to ring. But
it didn’t, and naturally they tried to get Ronge to chuck the matter up. He
wouldn’t though. Ronge is a very persistent fellow. Once he gets his teeth into
a thing, he never lets go.”

“Yes,” murmured the Duke
uncomfortably. “I am sure he must be.”

“Anyway, on the
eighty-third day—it was a Saturday afternoon towards the end of May—the bell
did ring. By that time the detectives had got slack. One was out getting
himself a coffee and the other was washing his hands. By the time they reached
the post office ‘
Opera
13’
had claimed his letters and gone. But by an extraordinary stroke of luck they
happened to get hold of the taxi driver who had driven him off, and they traced
him to the Hotel Klosmer. Even then it might have been one of half a dozen men
who had driven up to the hotel in the past half-hour. But in the taxi they had
found the grey suede sheath of a pocket knife, and by that they managed to
identify him. You can imagine how flabbergasted they must have been when they
learned that he was Colonel Redl, the ex-Chief of the K.S.”

“What happened?” asked De
Richleau, his hand now steady as he lit a cigarette.

“Our
C. in C.
was informed. He nearly had a fit.
They say he aged ten years in an hour. He could realize better than anyone else
the colossal damage we had sustained. He was faced with the fact that all his
work— the work of a lifetime—was in the hands of the enemy. Redl knew all about
his masterpiece—Plan III for our invasion of Serbia, the finest staff study he
had ever done. Since the Russians had that, it was a certainty they had passed
it on to the Serbs.”