The Rift

by H Schmidt

  The shouts were getting louder. Staying close to the edge of the cliff, Billy ran toward the stairs. He stopped, his back pressed against the cliff. Thirty meters of open beach to reach the end of the stairs. For a moment he watched the boats bobbing in the water.

  Friederich saw the man start to move down the stairs. A short burst and the man spun, then dropped onto the beach. The men above him would look for the flashes of the Browning. He moved closer. A second man appeared on the stairs, then a third. A second burst. He heard the body hit the stony beach. He saw the second scurry back out of sight. One clip gone. Friederich watched his brother dash for the steps. Someone began firing. Moving away from the cliffs, Friederich emptied his clip at the sound.

  He could see Willie crouching at the bottom of the stairs. He watched him move away, then drop below the docks, out of sight. As he disappeared, he saw the flash and dived for the cover of the overhang. He looked up. The top section of the stairway leading from the docks to the palace grounds was gone. As he moved closer to the cliffs, he saw Billy scurrying toward him. No one fired. Billy reached him breathing hard, a great smile on his face.

  “The boat is to our left. If we hurry, we may be able to get clear before they know where we are. They expect us to take one of the boats at the dock.”

  Friederich pulled the tarpaulin off. Billy grabbed the oars. Both pushed the boat away from the shore and jumped in.

  “There may be some more clips for the Browning. There’s a Springfield and some clips for it. The rain should make it pretty hard for them to see us from up there.” Billy had moved off shore almost fifty meters when he swung the boat to the west.

  The bay was choppy and the wind drove them toward shore. That was good, Billy thought. He looked at Friederich, who was working the bolt of the Springfield. He didn’t want to be anywhere else at that moment. What might happen now did not matter.

  “Friederich, look for a light. I’m going to have to bring the boat close to shore. We can only hope we will spot it. If we do not within the next half hour, we will have to bring the boat ashore and try our luck.” Billy rowed the boat close enough to hear the waves slapping the shore, retreating with a whoosh. He thought he could make out the shoreline; he wasn’t sure.

  “Can you see the shore, Friederich? I’m a daytime soldier.”

  “I can see it. We are about fifty meters from shore. We will be able to see a light.”

  “The captain of the fishing boat that dropped me off is waiting for us. We should have two horses and enough supplies to get you back to your lines.”

  Friederich saw the light. Someone was swinging a lantern just ahead.

  An hour before dawn, they rode west toward Riga. They knew the Germans occupied most of Russia until Revel, no more than a two-hour ride.

  Sovnarkom, the Council of People’s Commissars, had hoped to use Billy’s capture as leverage in dealing with the Americans. Having failed to capture him during the rescue, picking him up now would serve the same purpose. But they needed to find him. Telegraph and telephones would be busy instructing army units along the treaty line to watch for the two men, one American, one German, traveling together.

  The German intelligence center in Revel had picked up on the electronic traffic. Oskar von Hutier began conversations with Ludendorff about the possibility that the mystery of Colonel von Mecklenburg might be solved. The Russians were looking for a German officer who had escaped.

  At dawn, General von Hutier stood before General Volkov. Hutier knew the general was a colonel when he supported the revolution in October. His reward was to command the Russian armies that were positioned in front of the German Eighth Army. Like most Russians, Volkov hated the Germans. One day, he decided, Russia would be strong enough to wipe that sneer off the faces of such men as the general who stood before him. Today was different. He had no choice but to listen.

  “General, we understand you are looking for a German officer.”

  “I have no knowledge of that, General Hutier. We are at peace with Germany.”

  “General, I must ask you to instruct your men to escort the officer to the German lines. If any harm comes to him, I have been instructed to take the Eighth Army into Petrograd.”

  “We are at peace, General. You have no authority to move beyond the treaty line.”

  “General Volkov, we are only at peace if our soldiers are not attacked by the Russian Army. An attack on the German officer would be a violation of the treaty. My army would not have to wait for instructions.”

  The Russian general fought to keep his temper. He could see the face of the German general was also turning red. What are those fools in Moscow up to now, with this German officer? He knew the German was not making an empty threat. His army was so fragile that any attack would destroy it before it could be made into a real army again.

  “You have my word, General.”

  Hutier looked at the man in front of him. He had gone over to the side of the Bolsheviks last October. He had no reason to trust him now.

  “My men will be on alert until the colonel is safely behind our lines, General.

  Good day.”

  As Hutier climbed onto his horse, he could see the Russian general on the phone. He could not hear what he was saying, but he could tell he was angry.

  Ten o’clock that morning, Dzerzhinskii ordered the arrest of Bogrov for actions which threatened the security of the new Russian government. Troops alerted to search for the German officer and the American lieutenant were instructed not to interfere with their passage west.

  From where they stood, Friederich could see the German camp. The sun had risen to its zenith, and the air was warm. The grass was still wet where the two men stood. They had found a log, and both sat looking west. It was Billy who spoke first.

  “My days are numbered in Russia. The Soviet government will try to kill me or arrest me. In any event, they will watch me so carefully that I will be of little use to our government.”

  Friederich knew he couldn’t ask what his brother was doing. They were officially enemies, and fraternizing with the enemy was a serious offense. Both could be charged with treason. Whether he would be able to defend himself against the charges sure to be made against him, he did not know. At the moment, it did not matter.

  “Where will you go?”

  “My choice would be home, Friederich. I have never fought in the war like you have, but I have seen enough. As long as I can remember, I wanted to be a soldier. The Housmans, like the von Mecklenburgs, have always had soldiers in the family. Whether it was the Housmans, or what flowed in my veins, it is hard to say. If I had been sent to the western front, it may have been different.”

  “You must believe in what you are fighting for, Billy. It is your country. You must love your country.”

  “I think you are wrong, Friederich. You must love the people in it, enough to hate those who put them to death.”

  “You are not a warrior, Billy. You are very brave, but you fight for some purpose other than the war. Have you ever wondered why we are stirred by great music? Have you ever been moved by martial music, even though you are disgusted at the carnage? It is what we are, Billy.”

  Billy looked at his brother. “I remember the feeling at West Point. I remember it when I saw the American flag. I looked at the young men acting as if someone had declared a holiday when we declared war on Germany.”

  “We have our share of sins in Europe, Billy. I know that some in America look at us and wonder whether we will ever come to our senses. But think of your own Civil War, Billy. How was it possible to make human beings lose all control of their senses, to the point that brother killed brother, that members of the same village fought on opposite sides?”

  “You make it seem like we have no choice, Friederich.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid it is true. We are players because there is a beast in us. We can cage it, but it is always there. It disguises itself as noble sentiments like love of country and creating a better world. I
t draws us onto the rocks like the sirens. Only when we watch men being torn to shreds by shrapnel and bullets, when we watch men die in the mud, do we understand that the beast has deceived us.” “Perhaps the Bolsheviks are right, Friederich. They despise nations. They call on all workers to join together against those who run those nations, who profit by war.”

  “Remaking man in your own image is a form of tyranny, Billy, and a form of arrogance.” Friederich smiled at his brother. “Right now, the war is over there somewhere,” waving his hand, “the Bolsheviks are over there somewhere,” waving his hand in another direction, “and neither can touch us.” He put his arm around his brother’s shoulder. “I have my brother beside me. This is a moment, Billy, to be enjoyed. Tomorrow, who knows about tomorrow?”

  ---

  The sun was almost below the horizon when he rode into the German lines. A group of Russian and German soldiers were standing together. Friederich noticed the paper the German soldier was reading. He wondered what it was. Unshaven, dirty, he saw no need to find out at this moment. For the second time in less than two weeks, he had said goodbye to Billy. He thought about his decision to let Billy escape. He wondered what his government would do to him. He had always trusted the army. It was led by people like him. Still, the Foreign Office had the ear of the kaiser.

  Billy had stood watching his brother leave again. He could not return to Petrograd. They would be looking for him there. If he was captured, he knew they would demand a confession. He didn’t know if he could stand torture. He knew of good men who could not.

  ---

  “Little Willie reminds me of Albert.” “Who?”

  “The Battle of Leipzig, October 1813. Paul was surrounded by the French and Albert rescued him. Had to swim the river to do it. You must remember, Sir Gustav. He married Elsbet. Otto’s daughter.”

  “Ah, yes.” Sir Gustav thought Albert foppish. Rupert did not agree and the arguments over Albert had been going on for over one hundred years. Time to change the subject, he thought.

  “The war is going badly for Germany. I am worried about the family.” “They have always survived, Sir Rupert, and come back stronger than ever.” “It is not the same this time, my friend.”

  Chapter Nine

  Many thought Eric Ludendorff a stubborn man, too inflexible to run a war. He was, in fact, very different. He was a gambler who tried to bluff his enemy out of the game. Two events drove him in the spring of 1918. One, the collapse of Russia, which left his armies free to concentrate their forces on the western front. The second, the buildup of American troops almost a year after the United States declared war on Germany. In 1918, there were a million. By 1919, there would be three million.

  On March 21, Operation Michael began. Named after the patron saint of Germany, sixty-five divisions attacked the British and French armies. Driving the enemy back forty miles, it lost momentum. He quickly mounted Georgette, then Blucher and Yorck. Ludendorff had committed the full power of the German Army. To the world, it seemed the action of a powerful Germany. To Ludendorff, it was a desperate gamble.

  A tired and unsettled Germany watched as the Allies stiffened, then on July 28, they began more than a counter attack, but an offensive of their own. The German Army, which had committed its reserves in Ludendorff ’s great gamble, was spent. A skeptical, often hostile German people had enough. The antiwar protests grew larger, the unions more discontented, the socialists more energized. Soldiers going to the front jeered those returning. Through September and October, while the majority of German soldiers continued to fight and die, resistance to the war grew. Workers openly carried the red flag of the Bolsheviks. The surface navy, which but for a brief period at the start had sat out the war in Kiel, became the center of military rebellion, raising the red flag over Kiel and joining with workers to march on Berlin. The Red Flag of the Internationale was raised over most major cities in Germany.

  The armistice was signed by the German delegation on November 11, all fighting to end that day. By November 11, the von Mecklenburgs’ Germany had ceased to exist.

  ---

  Friederich had been granted leave to return home from Berlin. At each stop, Friederich had seen the bands of soldiers roaming the streets. He noticed that the bands were seldom led by officers or sergeants. He suspected that being a sergeant, a leader during the war, disqualified you as a leader of these men. He worried about Erika, Maria, and the children alone at Marburg. He had talked to other officers and some of their men in Konigsberg. They agreed they would wait for the German government to restore order. They also decided that they could not wait for long.

  ---

  The Old Man had grown more flexible as he watched the manner in which the Bolsheviks clung to power. Once worried about the growing influence of Germany in Russia with the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, he began to admire the Bolsheviks for their shrewdness. By August, when the Allied offensive began in the west, and Germany had begun to show signs of collapse, he admired them all the more. The Bolsheviks had used the Germans to prop them up during the dangerous months after the October Revolution. They knew the Germans would lose and the treaty would be meaningless.

  Yes, the Bolsheviks had treated his friends badly by nullifying all their debts, and shutting them out of business deals by cozying up to the Germans, but they were still secretly talking to the Americans, letting them know that they planned to dump the Germans at the first opportunity. They assured the Americans that Russia’s natural resources needed a larger market than Germany could provide, and Germany did not really understand the value of the untapped cheap labor in Russia for anyone with real money to invest. You don’t walk away from a good business opportunity just because you lost a little money, the Old Man decided. We can start by extending them some credit, get them going buying our machines. Once you get the primary market, you go for spare parts, services, maybe building factories right there in Russia.

  There was a small problem. The young boy. He’d been running around Russia stirring up trouble. Got the Russians upset enough to try to catch him in Narva.

  That was another thing that worried the Old Man. Young Billy goin’ in and rescuin’ his brother, Friederich von Mecklenburg. Can you trust a man who rescues somebody we’re at war with, brother or not? Loyalty is just about everything. Man can be sharp as a tack, and if he’s not loyal, he’s not worth a plug nickel. But it doesn’t help any of us if the lieutenant keeps stirrin’ up trouble. We could bring him back home, but maybe we’d better hedge our bets a little and leave him up there in Archangel where the Russians can’t get to him. Find him a job where he’s useful but still stays out of Russia’s politics. That’s their affair.

  ---

  The port had been frozen over for two months. The Americans and the British soldiers would be ice-bound for another four months. Colonel Forbison had the foresight to prepare for winter by stocking the commissary with good food and lots of liquor. He and the British colonel had only to worry about the morale of the men, how to keep fights from getting out of hand, and keeping the men busy. Billy’s value to Forbison was immediate after he arrived in September. He knew Russian and could deal with the Russians who worked at their base, as well as those who came for business before the ice had put a stop to everything. For a while, after the ice had stopped the ships from coming, supplies were still being moved overland into Russia. Even Billy, who had lived in Russia for eighteen months, and who had been privy to Allied government activities, could only shake his head at the orders to send weapons to the Russian rebels one day and the Soviet government the next. When he was sent to Archangel, the Old Man had made it clear that he was to make no contacts with the Volunteer Army or to involve himself in any way in what was going on in Russia. He remembered the final amusing instruction, that he was to continue to maintain an interest in Russian politics since the possibility existed that his services might be required. The news reaching Archangel came through Petrograd. The rail line was kept open to Archangel, allowing the American
Expeditionary Force to receive a diplomatic pouch from the American Embassy. Included in the pouch were Russian newspapers reporting on the armistice. While his American friends treated the news from Germany as either interesting or entertaining, Billy felt his heart jump when he began reading about the riots and anarchy.

  ---

  Anarchy in Germany created suffering for millions. For those who were not members of strong organizations, the situation was particularly desperate. Members of army units, unions, political organizations, and the communists; their cohesion and numbers gave them power. It was power that allowed them to get more than a fair share of food and fuel for the winter. Power that allowed them to protect their members from bands of soldiers roaming the countryside, power to prey on others. Those who had relied on the government, ordinary citizens who relied on the understanding that exists between governments and its people, were defenseless with the collapse of government. Individual shop owners found their shops ransacked, farmers their cattle, grain and potatoes stolen, pensioners robbed by inflation which doubled the prices in weeks, days, even hours. In such times, those who could, found groups to join. Those who could not perished or were robbed of human dignity.

  ---

  Marburg was thirty kilometers from Konigsberg. He would be in Konigsberg in an hour, unless something happened on the line. In the last month, Friederich had begun to notice how many things were not working well anymore. The street cars often seemed late or early, the trains delayed at stations more often, phone service was frequently out. Other things too numerous to mention. He thought about the captain and remembered the conversation he had at the officers’ club. He was in the army. He had a responsibility to make it work; to keep order.

  When he returned to Berlin, he would find General Groener. Perhaps there was more he could do.

  ---

  Tomas would be tall like his father. He seemed all arms and legs. He had come to collect the eggs from the chicken coop he had built. He looked down the stable stalls. Where once twenty horses had been stabled, now there were only two. Some had gone to the army. A sergeant had come by one day, and handed them a piece of paper saying he could take any horses he found. The others had been slaughtered for meat. The boy remembered the last time his father had talked to them about how things had changed, that he must be the man while he was gone. He remembered that, the last time someone had to decide to butcher one of the horses for meat. He had taken Mercury. With the local butcher, he took his horse behind the stable and shot him. It had taken almost the whole day to butcher the horse, skin the animal, cut it up, make sausage using the intestines filled with chopped meat and fillers and seasonings that Karl had brought with him.