The Generals (5 page)

Colonel Orbal
: What now? Has he died? That mustn’t happen.

Captain Endicott
: Unconscious, probably fainted from the strain of standing upright for so long. Better call in the guard.

Major von Peters
: The parties may leave the room. You stay, Lieutenant Brown, but see to getting the men with the stretcher out first. This extra-ordinary court martial will now deliberate in private.

Colonel Orbal
: What a day!

Major von Peters
: Yes, and we’re not a step further on, either. This will go on for months. I’m also very dissatisfied, very dissatisfied, with Schmidt and his way of presenting the prosecution. Too bloody soft.

Colonel Pigafetta
: On that point, I’m prepared to agree with you.

Major von Peters
: We’ll have to do something about it. It wasn’t exactly the interrogation that made that swine pass out … if he fainted at all.

Commander Kampenmann
: I’m sorry if I openly question the method, but is there really any point in making the accused stand to attention for so long?

Colonel Orbal
: Damn it all, standing to attention never hurt anyone, did it? On the contrary, good for a man’s bearing.

Commander Kampenmann
: Considering the man’s physical condition …

Major von Peters
: Aren’t there any malingerers in the Navy?

Commander Kampenmann
: This is like an old joke. Yes, there are malingerers in the Navy, but they don’t pretend that their left eyes have been removed, or that their kneecaps have been smashed or that all the fingers on their right hands have been amputated.

Colonel Orbal
: Oh, yes, the man was wounded, wasn’t he?

Commander Kampenmann
: Yes, in the neck. That’s why he finds it difficult to hold his head up. The rest are of a more recent date.

Colonel Pigafetta
: Don’t start getting soft now, Kampenmann.

Commander Kampenmann
: I’m not. I’m just telling you a few facts.

Major von Peters
: May I ask one thing? How the hell do you know all this?

Commander Kampenmann
: I told you. I’ve read the record of the preliminary investigation.

Colonel Orbal
: I’m getting tired of all this now. Am I the only one who wants to have a pee? Where’s that instruction thing, Carl? Good. This extra-ordinary court martial is herewith adjourned until eleven o’clock on Monday. Thank you, gentlemen.

Lieutenant Brown
: Present: Colonel Orbal, Major von Peters, Colonel Pigafetta, Commander Kampenmann. And Lieutenant Brown presenting the case.

Colonel Orbal
: Isn’t Haller here?

Lieutenant Brown
: Justice Haller has been prevented from appearing. He’s at a meeting of the government.

Colonel Orbal
: You seem to have got some life into the central heating, anyhow.

Colonel Pigafetta
: I’m afraid that’s due to the weather rather than the heating system. It’s considerably warmer out today.

Colonel Orbal
: Spring’s coming.

Commander Kampenmann
: Didn’t Haller’s behaviour seem a bit peculiar on Saturday? Why didn’t he want to testify until later?

Colonel Orbal
: Are you asking me? How would I know?

Major von Peters
: Who is Prosecuting Officer today?

Lieutenant Brown
: Captain Schmidt.

Major von Peters
: Alone?

Lieutenant Brown
: Yes.

Major von Peters
: It’s getting tiresome having to repeat it, Brown, but it should be ‘Yes, sir’. Is Schmidt in uniform?

Lieutenant Brown
: Yes, sir.

Major von Peters
: Well, that’s something.

Colonel Orbal
: Then let’s start, shall we? Summon the parties.

Captain Schmidt
: At Saturday’s session matters prior to national liberation were dealt with. Does the presidium consider that that part of the commission calls for further study?

Colonel Orbal
: No, no.

Captain Schmidt
: We come then to the time of the formation of
the militia before the liberation; this moment—perhaps I needn’t point this out especially—has considerable judicial significance, as this extra-ordinary court martial is not bound to pronounce sentence in cases which arose prior to it.

Major von Peters
: You needn’t point out so bloody much, Captain Schmidt. It’d be better if you kept to points of prosecution.

Colonel Orbal
: Yes, so that we get somewhere.

Captain Schmidt
: I shall proceed with the case for the prosecution itself in a moment. At first I should just like to be rid of one more formality. I hereby submit that the militia began to function as a military unit the moment the independent State was proclaimed and that Velder from that moment in time, that is 0530 hours on Independence Day, was subject to military law.

Major von Peters
: That seems absolutely obvious. Get to the point.

Captain Schmidt
: The first section of the case for the prosecution covers the period of the first thirteen months of Velder’s service in the militia. During this period he committed offences on thirty-two occasions. All these fall within the framework of military penal regulations, and they must be judged all the more seriously in consideration of the fact that the tense and critical situation during the nation’s first year made the position comparable to a state of emergency. In all these thirty-two cases, the main evidence consists of Velder’s own confessions. To avoid any unnecessary waste of time, I do not intend to call upon the accused for each separate charge.

Major von Peters
: Why not?

Captain Schmidt
: Mostly because in that case the session would probably go on for years.

Colonel Pigafetta
: That would undoubtedly be highly undesirable.

Captain Schmidt
: There are also some practical reasons. The preliminary investigations have not taken over three years for nothing. Concerning each and every one of these thirty-two charges, Velder has confessed and rendered full accounts of them. These he has sworn on oath, they are witnessed by interrogators from the General Staff Judicial Department and have been perused by experienced psychologists. The completeness and truthfulness of these confessions are beyond doubt.

Commander Kampenmann
: I seem to remember that the accused pleaded not guilty to the first charge.

Captain Schmidt
: That did not concern this part of the case. Of the separate offences in this series of crimes, some are more or less of the same kind. They concern various kinds of insubordination and more serious breaches of duty. I here present the material to the presidium of the court with the recommendation that the accused be given the opportunity of pleading guilty to these offences all in one go, so to speak.

Colonel Orbal
: Aha. I see. Do you plead guilty to these thirty-two offences?

Velder
: Yes, sir.

Colonel Orbal
: Then that’s that.

Major von Peters
: One moment, this is quite a list of sins, I must say. Velder!

Velder
: Yes, sir.

Major von Peters
: The fact that you simulated a fainting fit on Saturday does not mean that you needn’t observe elementary discipline. Stand to attention.

Velder
: Yes, sir.

Major von Peters
: So you’ve been guilty of absence without leave seven times by just not turning up on duty. In most cases you’ve quoted various personal reasons for your behaviour.

Velder
: Yes, sir.

Major von Peters
: Four times, you were so drunk on duty that your fellow-soldiers were forced to lock you up so that you wouldn’t do yourself any harm, it says here.

Velder
: Yes, sir.

Major von Peters
: You’ve fallen asleep while on guard-duty a number of times, I see, and sat fishing during guard-duty. On eleven occasions when on guard-duty, which no doubt you remember, you’ve brought women with you into military areas and …

Velder
: Only one, sir. I mean, it was the same woman each time.

Major von Peters
: Don’t interrupt me, man. Are you insane? And you’ve had intimate relations with them in guard-posts and ammunition depots and various other places. On one of these occasions you were surprised by your Section Leader. You had on that occasion undressed and left your own and the woman’s clothes lying in the
guard-post alongside arms, ammunition and map-holders, while you had sexual intercourse with each other on the beach three hundred yards away.

Colonel Orbal
: I say, I haven’t read all that. Hand over those papers.

Major von Peters
: On this occasion you seem to have excused yourself by saying it was a warm night and you felt like a bathe.

Velder
: Yes, sir, that’s correct.

Major von Peters
: We have been given an admittedly confused answer, but at least an answer to the question of how it came about that Velder became a soldier. But can anyone tell me why the hell this man wasn’t executed there and then? Or at least dismissed the service?

Captain Schmidt
: To enlighten you on that matter, and on a number of other relevant questions, I request to be allowed to call a witness.

Major von Peters
: Who?

Captain Schmidt
: A person called Roth, who was the accused’s leader in the militia during the first thirteen months after the liberation.

Major von Peters
: Have this witness called, Mateo.

Colonel Orbal
: What? What did you say? What’s this all about?

Colonel Pigafetta
: A witness, who is to be summoned.

Colonel Orbal
: Oh, yes, of course. Call him in.

Lieutenant Brown
: Mr Roth, you are now to bear witness. Do you swear by Almighty God to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

Roth
: I do.

Lieutenant Brown
: I should remind you that this is a court martial and perjury is a punishable offence.

Roth
: Hullo, Velder. It’s been a long time, indeed it has. Hardly recognised you.

Major von Peters
: No fraternising with the accused, please.

Captain Schmidt
: You’re no longer in military service, are you?

Roth
: No, I left the militia after thirteen months, when the danger was over, so to speak, and became a farmer again, just as I was before. I had a farm quite near here, fourteen miles west of
Oswaldsburg, and still have. Great big place. Now of course, it’s mostly army supplies.

Major von Peters
: Is there anything wrong with army supplies?

Roth
: Well—wrong—you know—as things are, one can’t grumble.

Captain Schmidt
: How did it come about that you became Section Leader in the militia?

Roth
: Group Leader it was called. Now did that come about? Well, someone has to do these things, don’t they? I was an experienced hunter and a good shot, and that was enough.

Captain Schmidt
: Can you, in your own words, tell us about the formation of the militia and the circumstances within the force?

Commander Kampenmann
: Especially in connection with your relations to Velder.

Roth
: The militia came about more or less … well, if not exactly at random—but anyhow very hastily and in a strange way. The whole idea of liberation, and all that, was said to be pacifist and—yes, sorry—anti-militaristic. We were short of arms and had no trained men, and there was never any question of being able to offer any resistance if the mainland lot decided to start bombing and landing troops from the sea. We simply had to rely on them being completely foxed over there, at least for a few days. Then our proclamations and international pressure would do the trick, and that’s what happened, too. We relied on the armed forces not daring to do anything until they’d got clearance from the politicians and that that would take at least a couple of days before the politicians had had time to realise what had happened. We’d reckoned all that out, and we were right, too.

Captain Schmidt
: You keep saying ‘we’ all the time—I suppose you mean the Liberation Committee.

Roth
: Well, at that time, we all felt very much welded together as a group, all of us. What I said just now about not offering resistance was only in reference to the Army, of course. There was one thing we were much more scared of, and that was the police. There were several towns on the mainland only a few hours away from here, and we could almost certainly reckon on the police there not standing about with their hands in their pockets while we annexed a bit of the country for ourselves. In some way or other, we had to repulse purely police actions—otherwise a hundred or
two hundred policemen could just come ashore and arrest us and put an end to the revolution within a few hours. So the only answer was to form a militia. They say that the members of the Council—or the Liberation Committee as it was called right at the beginning—drew lots out of a hat for who should be chief of the militia. The woman, Aranca Peterson, was there too, but it was Oswald who won … so to speak.

Major von Peters
: General Oswald, if you don’t mind. And listen to me …

Colonel Pigafetta
: Calm down, von Peters, and let the witness tell his story in his own way.

Roth
: He wasn’t in fact a general then. About half of the soldiers that were here on the island joined us, about fifty men, and some of the policemen. Then we started at about midnight, opening the stores and arming ourselves. The division into groups had been done beforehand roughly. Most of the two thousand five hundred, who belonged to the so-called inner section, had dropped in during the week. At about three in the morning, we’d managed to get hold of members of the resident population who were considered to be directly in opposition and dangerous, and collected them up into a temporary camp. That was easy, as there weren’t many of them, and the lists had been ready ages beforehand. No one offered any resistance. Not a shot was fired.