Graham Greene (23 page)

“I cannot believe,” I said, “that anyone would know me for Hardross Courage. I am perfectly certain, too, that I should not recognise in you today the Leslie Guest who—died at Saxby.”

“I believe that you are right,” Guest admitted. “At any rate, it is one of those matters which we must leave to chance. Only keep your identity always before you. At the Café Suisse, we shall be watched every moment of the day. Remember that you are a German-American of humble birth. Remember that always.”

I nodded.

“I am not an impulsive person,” I answered. “I am used to think before I speak. I shall remember. But there is one thing I
am afraid of, Guest. It must also have occurred to you. Now that the Café Suisse is in the hands of strangers, will not your friends change their meeting place?”

“I think not,” Guest answered slowly. “I know a little already about that room. It has a hidden exit, by way of the cellar, into a court, every house of which is occupied by foreigners. A surprise on either side would be exceedingly difficult. I do not think that our friends will be anxious to give up the place, unless their suspicions are aroused concerning us. You see their time is very close at hand now. This, at any rate, is another of the risks which we must run.”

“Very well,” I answered. “You see the time?”

Guest nodded.

“I am going to explain to you exactly,” he said, “what you have to do.”

“Right,” I answered.

“The parcel on the sofa there,” he said, “contains a second-hand suit of dress clothes. You will put them on, over them your old black overcoat which we bought at Hamburg, and your bowler hat. At four o'clock precisely, you will call at the offices of the German Waiters' Union, at No. 13, Old Compton Street, and ask for Mr Hirsch. Your name is Paul Schmidt. You were born in Offenbach, but went to America at the age of four. You were back in Germany for two years at the age of nineteen, and you have served your time at Mayence. You have come to England with an uncle, who has taken a small restaurant in Soho, and who proposes to engage you as head-waiter. You will be enrolled as a member of the Waiters' Union, as a matter of course; but when that has been arranged, you write on a slip of paper these words, and pass them to Mr Hirsch—‘I, too, have a rifle!' ”

I was beginning to get interested.

“ ‘I, too, have a rifle',” I repeated. “Yes! I can remember that;
but I shall be talking like a poll-parrot, for I shan't have the least idea what it means.”

“You need not know much,” Guest answered. “Those words are your passport into the No. 1 Branch of the Waiters' Union, whose committee, by the bye, meet at the Café Suisse. If you are asked why you wish to join, you need only say because you are a German!”

“Right,” I answered. “I'll get into the clothes.”

Guest gave me a few more instructions while I was changing and by four o'clock punctually I opened the swing door of No. 13, Old Compton Street. The place consisted of a waiting-room, very bare and very dirty; a counter, behind which two or three clerks were very busy writing in ponderous, well-worn ledgers, and an inner door. I made my way towards one of the clerks, and enquired in my best German if I could see Mr Hirsch.

The clerk—he was as weedy a looking youth as ever I had seen—pointed with ink-stained finger to the benches which lined the room.

“You wait your turn,” he said, and waved me away.

I took my place behind at least a dozen boys and young men, whose avocation was unmistakable. Most of them were smoking either cigarettes or a pipe, and most of them were untidy and unhealthy-looking. They took no notice of me, but sat watching the door to the inner room, which opened and shut with wonderful rapidity. Every time one of their number came out, another took his place. It came to my turn sooner than I could have believed possible.

I found myself in a small office, untidy, barely furnished, and thick with tobacco smoke. Its only occupant was a stout man, with flaxen hair and beard, and mild blue eyes. He was sitting in his shirt-sleeves, and smoking a very black cigar.

“Well?” he exclaimed, almost before I had crossed the threshold.

“My name is Paul Schmidt,” I said, “and I should like to join the Waiters' Union.”

“Born?”

“Offenbach!”

“Age?”

“Thirty!”

“Working?”

“Café Suisse!”

“Come from?”

“America!”

He tossed me a small handbook.

“Half-a-crown,” he said, holding out his hand.

I gave it to him. I was beginning to understand why I had not been kept very long waiting.

“Clear out!” he said. “No questions, please. The book tells you everything!”

I looked him in the face.

“I, too, have a rifle,” I said boldly.

I found, then, that those blue eyes were not so mild as they seemed. His glance seemed to cut me through and through.

“You understand what you are saying?” he asked.

“Yes!” I answered. “I want to join the No. 1 Branch.”

“Why?”

“Because I am a German,” I answered.

“Who told you about it?”

“A waiter named Hans in the Manhattan Hotel, New York,” I lied with commendable promptitude.

“Have you served?” he asked.

“At Mayence, eleven years ago,” I answered.

“Where did you say that you were working?” he asked.

“Café Suisse!” I said.

It seemed to me that he had been on the point of entering my name in a small ledger, which he had produced from one of the
drawers by his side, but my answer apparently electrified him. His eyes literally held mine. He stared at me steadily for several moments.

“How long have you been there?” he asked. “I do not recognise you.”

“I commence today,” I said. “My uncle has just taken the café. He will make me his head-waiter.”

“Has your uncle been in the business before?” he asked.

“He kept a saloon in Brooklyn,” I answered.

“Made money at it?”

“Yes!”

“Were you with him?”

“No! I was at the Manhattan Hotel.”

“Your uncle will not make a fortune at the Café Suisse,” he remarked.

“I do not think,” I answered, “that he will lose one.”

“Does he know what you propose?”

I shook my head.

“The fatherland means little to him,” I answered. “He has lived in America too long.”

“You are willing to buy your own rifle?” he asked.

“I would rather not,” I answered.

“We sell them for a trifle,” he continued. “You would not mind ten shillings.”

“I would rather pay nothing,” I answered, “but I will pay ten shillings if I must.”

He nodded.

“I cannot accept you myself,” he said. “We know too little about you. You must attend before the committee tonight.”

“Where?” I asked.

“At the Café Suisse,” he answered. “We shall send for you! Till then!”

“Till then,” I echoed, backing out of the room.

•

That night I gravely perambulated the little café in my waiter's clothes, and endeavoured to learn from Karl my new duties. There were a good many people dining there, but towards ten o'clock the place was almost empty. Just as the hour was striking, Mr Kauffman, who had been dining with Mr Hirsch, rose from his place, and with a key in his hand made his way towards the closed door.

He was followed by Mr Hirsch, and seven other men, all of whom had been dining at the long central table, which easily accommodated a dozen or more visitors. There was nothing at all remarkable about the nine men who shambled their way through the room. They did not in the least resemble conspirators. Hirsch, who was already smoking a huge pipe, touched me on the shoulder as he passed.

“We shall send for you presently,” he declared. “Your case is coming before the committee.”

I began checking some counterfoils at the desk, but before I had been there five minutes, the door of the inner room was opened, and Mr Hirsch appeared upon the threshold. He caught my eye and beckoned to me solemnly. I crossed the room, ascended the steps, and found myself in what the waiters called the club-room. Mr Hirsch carefully closed the door behind me.

The first thing that surprised me was, that although I had seen nine men ascend the three stairs and enter the room, there was now, besides myself and Hirsch, only one other person present. That other person was sitting at the head of the table, and he was of distinctly a different class from Hirsch and his friends. He was a young man, fair and well-built, and as obviously a soldier as though he were wearing his uniform. His clothes were well-cut, his hands shapely and white. Some instinct
told me what to do. I stood to the salute, and I saw a glance of satisfaction pass between the two men.

“Your name is Paul Schmidt?” the man at the table asked me.

“Yes, sir!” I answered.

“You served at Mayence?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Under?”

“Colonel Hausman, sir, thirteenth regiment.”

“You have your papers?”

I passed over the little packet which Guest had given me. My questioner studied them carefully, glancing up every now and then at me. Then he folded them up and laid them upon the table.

“You speak German with an English accent,” he remarked, looking at me keenly.

“I have lived nearly all my life in America,” I reminded him.

“You are sure,” he said, “that you understand the significance of your request to join the No. 1 Branch of the Waiters' Union?”

“Quite sure, sir,” I told him.

“Stand over there for a few minutes,” he directed, pointing to the furthest corner of the room.

I obeyed, and he talked with Hirsch for several moments in an undertone. Then he turned once more to me.

“We shall accept you, Paul Schmidt,” he said gravely. “You will come before the committee with us now.”

I saluted, but said nothing. Hirsch pushed away the table, and, stooping down, touched what seemed to be a spring in the floor. A slight crack was instantly disclosed, which gradually widened until it disclosed a ladder. We descended, and found ourselves in a dry cellar, lit with electric lights. Seven men were sitting round a small table, in the furthest corner of the place. Their conversation was suspended as we appeared, and my interlocutor, leaving Hirsch and myself in the background, at
once plunged into a discussion with them. I, too, should have followed him, but Hirsch laid his hand upon my arm.

“Wait a little,” he whispered. “They will call us up.”

“Who is he?” I asked, pointing to the tall military figure bending stiffly down at the table.

“Call him Captain X,” Hirsch answered softly. “He does not care to be known here!”

“But how did he get into the room upstairs?” I asked. “I never saw him in the restaurant.”

Hirsch smiled placidly.

“It is well,” he said, “my young friend, that you do not ask too many questions!”

The man whom I was to call Captain X turned now and beckoned to me. I approached and stood at attention.

“I have accepted this man Paul Schmidt, as a member of the No. 1 Branch of the Waiters' Union,” he announced. “Paul Schmidt, listen attentively, and you will understand in outline what the responsibilities are that you have undertaken.”

There was a short silence. The men at the table looked at me, and I looked at them. I was not in any way ill-at-ease, but I felt a terrible inclination to laugh. The whole affair seemed to me a little ludicrous. There was nothing in the appearance of these men or the surroundings in the least impressive. They had the air of being unintelligent middle-class tradesmen of peaceable disposition, who had just dined to their fullest capacity, and were enjoying a comfortable smoke together. They eyed me amicably, and several of them nodded in a friendly way. I was forced to say something, or I must have laughed outright.

“I should like to know,” I said, “what is expected of me.”

An exceedingly fat man beckoned me to stand before him. “Paul Schmidt,” he said, “listen to me! You are a German born?”

“Without doubt,” I answered.

“The love of our fatherland is still in your heart?”

“Always!” I answered fervently.

“Also with all of us,” he answered. “You have lived in America so long, that a few words of explanation may be necessary. So?”

Now this man's voice, unimpressive though his appearance was, seemed somehow to create a new atmosphere in the place. He spoke very slowly, and he spoke as a man speaks of the things which are sacred to him.

“It is within the last few years,” he said, “that all true patriots have been forced to realise one great and very ugly truth. Our country is menaced by an unceasing and untiring enmity. Wherever we have turned, we have met with its influence; whatever schemes for legitimate expansion our Kaiser and his great counsellors may have framed, have been checked, if not thwarted by our sleepless and relentless foe. No longer can we, the great peace-loving nation of the world, conceal from ourselves the coming peril. England has declared herself our sworn enemy!”

A little murmur of assent came from the other men. I neither spoke nor moved.

“There is but one end possible,” he continued slowly. “It is war! It must come soon! Its shadow is all the time darkening the land. So we, who have understood the signs, remind one another that the power who strikes the first blow, is the one who assures for herself the final success!”

Again he was forced to pause, for his breath was coming quickly. He lifted his long glass, and solemnly drained its contents. All the time, over its rim, his eyes held mine.

“So!” he exclaimed, setting it down with a little grunt of satisfaction. “It must be, then, Germany who strikes, Germany who strikes in self-defence. My young friend, there are in this country today 290,000 young countrymen of yours and mine who have served their time, and who can shoot. Shall these
remain idle at such a time? No! We then have been at work. Clerks, tradesmen, waiters and hairdressers, each have their society, each have their work assigned to them. The forts which guard this great city may be impregnable from without, but from within—well, that is another matter. Listen! The exact spot where we shall attack is arranged, and plans of every fort which guard the Thames are in our hands. The signal will be—the visit of the British fleet to Kiel! Three days before, you will have your company assigned to you, and every possible particular. Yours it will be, and those of your comrades, to take a glorious part in the coming struggle! I drink with you, Paul Schmidt, and you, my friends, to that day!”