Gossip From the Forest

by Thomas Keneally

  It was beyond Matthias, or so he thought. He thought Groener must choose the aides, arrange the cars. If necessary, get the count out of the lavatory.

  Erzberger: Excuse me.

  He broke his way out of the siege, abandoning the Tirpitz medalist. Near the stairwell the count, his arm around a young cavalry officer. His breath reeked but he was suddenly blithe.

  Maiberling: Matthias. This is young von Helldorf. Great horseman. Steeplechaser.

  The boy bowed.

  Maiberling: He wants to come.

  Erzberger: A horseman?

  Von Helldorf: Sir.

  Foch was horse artillery. Weygand cavalry. So, no doubt, von Winterfeldt. Now this young man. A clutch of hippophiles. To close the war that had spewed up the image of the martial horse.

  Erzberger: I have to see General Groener. If he agrees …

  Maiberling: It’ll be quite a picnic.

  He was on his mad swing again, from terror to gaiety. But if he’s jettisoned, Erzberger thought, I’ll have no one with me that I know. God help me. For I find Maiberling’s madness homely this terrible day.

  By the elevator door the transport officer surrendered too hysterically to old von Winterfeldt.

  Transport Officer: All right then. Five cars. Five it shall be.

  Von Winterfeldt: And I say, you must make it soon. History, you know, is in the balance.

  THE CARS MOVE OFF

  At noon five limousines arrived and halted in convoy outside the front door of the Grand Hôtel Britannique. Rain polished the imperial eagles on their front doors; those parlous birds.

  The Field Marshal had visited the lobby to bid the delegates good-by. He held Erzberger close to him by the elbows. The clumsy emotion of the old man, whose breath was in any case acrid with fright, made Erzberger blink.

  On the wet pavement an officer told them that the first car carried a guide and the last was for aides: the count’s von Helldorf and a secretary called Blauert Maiberling asked loudly if he could travel with Erzberger. Though secretly unhappy, Erzberger agreed. He hadn’t wanted the count’s company to that extent, had been looking forward to solitude behind the blurred panes. As of right von Winterfeldt took possession of his vehicle and, looking about him perhaps for any acceptable companion, forlorn Captain Vanselow of his.

  There were blankets in the steamed-up interiors.

  Maiberling: Excellent.

  He wrapped himself up and sat grunting with a sort of animal satisfaction. Not thinking of faceless Inga now, in the wet earth.

  They jolted off down the polite streets of Spa. Most houses seemed shuttered. The Belgians indoors, waiting for deliverance. Soon they’d be resort people again. Soon they’d have an off-season and a season. At dark noon the mute houses wavered beyond Erzberger’s rainy window in expectation of a restored clientele.

  Cabbage fields appeared, sleeping gray lanes of vegetables. Erzberger sat back and shut his eyes.

  Jesus, you know this place, have been here; it’s the grove of olives, crab apples and agonies. What will you do for me?

  In that moment however, the leading car developed a steering fault and slewed toward a high farmhouse wall. The row of impact split Erzberger’s devout rest.

  Roadblock, he thought. Ambush. Some imperialist remnant are set on stopping us. He suffered an image of blood-bespattered automobile upholstery.

  Then his own car crashed. Blanketed, hat in hand, he flew against the glass partition beyond which the driver himself had thrust his head through the glass of the windscreen.

  In the long silence there was only the hiss of rain and shattered radiators.

  Maiberling: Jesus.

  Erzberger clung to the jump seat as to the only secure fabric.

  Von Helldorf opened the door and made compassionate noises. He handed them out. They stood numbly with their mouths open to the low clouds. The first car had mounted a grass embankment and seemed about to topple.

  Maiberling: It isn’t much fun, is it? Road accidents. It isn’t much fun.

  Erzberger’s head was still floating high above flat Belgium.

  Erzberger: Why don’t you shoot the driver, eh? Why not?

  The count seemed somberly offended.

  General von Winterfeldt had stepped down from his vehicle and marched up to them.

  Von Winterfeldt: We can send a driver back for two more vehicles. These are quite finished. While we wait you two gentlemen must feel free to share my car.

  Both Erzberger and Maiberling had begun to accede and limp toward the general’s limousine. Then Erzberger stopped. To him it seemed that by physical effort he forced his gaseous brain back under the tight control of his skull.

  Erzberger: We have to get on. We have to get away from Spa.

  Von Winterfeldt: That isn’t reasonable. Such cramping.

  Erzberger: It isn’t a ride through the Bois de Boulogne.

  All the time he was taking account of himself. That concussion, he thought, I shall never get over. All my talents are lying about loose in my too-big body. All off their shelves. Tangled, tangled.

  Von Winterfeldt: I need a vehicle to myself.

  Erzberger: Count Maiberling and I will share the first car with the guide. You, General, will either ride with Captain Vanselow or remain here.

  The count was kicking at shards of glass with the toe of his shoe. Frankly desolated.

  Maiberling: A disaster this. An omen. A rotten omen.

  Erzberger: Nonsense. They say in Swabia broken glass means good luck.

  Maiberling: Fuck what they say in Swabia.

  The general coughed.

  Von Winterfeldt: You leave no choice. I shall join Captain Vanselow. But I cannot pretend to give General Groener’s instructions full attention under these circumstances.

  So it was done. Three cars edged round the wreckage and whirred away to the east. Two bloody-headed drivers were left standing numb on the wet pavis. With accidents to report.

  WEMYSS READS HIS DOSSIERS

  At Senlis they had boarded the armistice train.

  The First Sea Lord found his cabin spacious. He called to George Hope next door.

  Wemyss: Not bad, George.

  Hope: No. Splendid. Just the same … there’s nowhere to bathe.

  Wemyss: Isn’t there?

  Hope: No. Nowhere. Marriott’s done a thorough search. Just those finicking little washbasins. Art Nouveau.

  Wemyss: Get Bagot to arrange something when we arrive. Eh? A tub …

  Hope: Maybe the Marshal has one in his wagon-lit.

  Wemyss: Maybe. Can’t very well ask though. If he hasn’t, criticism’s implied.

  He took a wing collar from his suitcase and rubbed it with his thumb, speaking dreamily.

  Wemyss: A bit musty, the old boy. I noticed it in the office.

  Hope: Weygand too.

  Wemyss: Oh yes. An eau-de-Cologne boy, that one. Long time since I unpacked my own kit, George.

  Hope: Would you like help, sir? Ring for someone.

  Wemyss: No, just reflecting. In any case, can’t have those bilingual stewards hanging about.

  He caressed a shirt.

  It was so quiet in Senlis station that you could hear the shunters calling to each other through the rain.

  Wemyss: You’ve got those dossiers?

  Hope: Yes sir.

  Wemyss: Remiss of Political Section. Been waiting on them a week. Bring them in here, will you? I’ve an excellent reading desk.

  Hope: I as well, sir.

  Wemyss: Please call me Rosy.

  Hope: Rosy.

  Wemyss: Hate working alone. Bring in Marriott will you? Very much concerns him.

  Waiting, dinner shirt laid out on the bed, Wemyss made a hole in the condensation on his window. He saw two old women sitting on quai three beneath furry lamplight.

  One nattered, the other nodded, nodded, nodded. Telling and heeding some eternal woman’s story: first he says he loves and must have you, then you bud with children and he’s
off with low women, so next you’re both old and veins show and he dies of his excesses and your womb is shrunken to a split pea and your sons’ sons are imperiled in strange wars. A tattered man in a veteran’s cap limped over the tracks pushing a handcart full of brushwood. Wemyss felt a schoolboy’s pleasure at seeing while unseen.

  If those people knew what this train was for, the lame man would walk straight, the old women hug and dance quaint measures. The Château-Thierry local would hoot all the way to Senlis and the driver and all the passengers get drunk in the railway bar. It would be Breughel stuff.

  He shivered. Hope and Marriott were at the door.

  Hope: Cold, sir?

  Wemyss: Not exactly the Gulf of Arabia, George. Is it?

  Hope: Indeed not.

  Marriott came forward with his face of grammar-school-prefect reliability.

  Marriott: There’s a heating device, sir.

  Bending, he turned a knob.

  Wemyss: We’re moving.

  Hope: Indeed.

  Wemyss sneaked a final look at the old women on quai three. They did not seem even to notice the fluently departing armistice train.

  As well as supplying heat, Marriott had taken the trouble to turn on the admiral’s reading lamp. They all sat down—Marriott on the bed, notebook in his hand, an obeisant distance from the dress shirt. Hope, in shirtsleeves, took from his brief case two dossiers and put them on Lord Wemyss’s desk. Wemyss turned to Marriott.

  Wemyss: These are the reports of Political Section. Enlightening, one would hope. Concerning our two colleagues in the next carriage. You read, George.

  Hope pulled his chair in close to the desk so that he was shoulder to shoulder with Wemyss. For concentration’s sake the First Sea Lord let his monocle dangle and jutted his face toward the molded ceiling.

  Hope: The Marshal first. “Foch, Ferdinand, born Tarbes, Hautes-Pyrenées, 2nd October, 1851, son of a senior provincial civil servant.…”

  Wemyss: Sixty-seven years old at the moment.

  Hope: Indeed. “Jesuit-educated. Enlisted infantry 1870, saw no service. Entered École Polytechnique at Nancy, 1871, where Germans still in occupation. The Marshal affected as much as any Frenchman by these memories of defeat and occupation. Commissioned, horse artillery, 1873. Attended cavalry school. Promoted captain, age 26. Spent next ten years—apart from one year as student École de Guerre—rising to rank of major in a succession of horse-artillery regiments. Was well known in army circles as a contributor to journals of military science. His teachings stressed morale as the great strategic and tactical determinant in warfare.…”

  Wemyss: Can you skim, George?

  Hope: I think so, sir.

  Wemyss: Then skim like a good chap. It’s the insights we want. Where are we?

  Marriott tried to supply the geographic answer by peering out the hazed window at a poorly lit multiple-word sign on the station they came slewing through. The too-many syllables swiped him across the eyes. He could not catch them.

  Hope: “Colonel 1895 … professorship École Supérieure de Guerre … director of same 1905. Appointment due to M. Clemenceau, unexpected.” Here’s an interesting item. “While a teaching military scientist, Foch met and greatly influenced Sir Henry Wilson, commandant Camberley and later Director of Operations, War Office. Sir Henry a devout Francophile. On becoming Director of Operations, War Office, 1911, Sir Henry’s task was drawing up mobilization plans. His work mirrored the conviction which he and Foch fraternally shared: that in the coming conflict the British should operate as the French left flank facing Germany. Through Sir Henry and others, the Marshal has had a greater influence on the British conduct of this war than any other French soldier.…”

  Wemyss: I’ve seen the two of them clowning in the anterooms in Versailles. Double-Vay, the Marshal calls him. Amazing.

  Hope: “Appointed general commanding XXth Corps, Nancy, 1913. Led this formation impetuously but with some skill, August 1914.… Commander IXth Army on Marne at end of month. Contribution crucial in turning German flank … 1915, general assisting Marshal Joffre … canny use of reserves … removed from post, December 1916, after failure Somme offensive …” Sorry, Rosy, we’ll get there.… “Planning job … then chief of general staff … German breakthrough, March this year, appointed generalissimo Allied Forces, in view his vim and aggressiveness, and signs of nervous instability, Haig and Pétain.”

  Wemyss: Vim and aggressiveness …

  Hope: Ends, sir, with a brief analysis. “In accordance with his temperament, the Marshal sees war as a moral and mystical exercise. In some ways too his ideas of the meaning of the war are based on the French defeat by the Prussians in 1870. The present war has been, as it were, a replayed tournament. He is therefore either ignorant or contemptuous of the part sea power has had in this war as also in the wars of Napoleon, about whom he is a supposed expert. Attached is a bibliography.…”

  Wemyss: Don’t worry about the bibliography. It’s too late for reference libraries.

  WEMYSS REMEMBERS FEISAL

  He got up from the desk and began roving the cabin.

  Wemyss: Strange man. Strange man.

  His fallen monocle bounced from his chest.

  Hope: Indeed.

  Turning at the door he saw Marriott sitting on the couchette, bland, solemn. A London Illustrated News staff artist’s impression of a British heavy-cruiser commander who has just given the order to ram. He thought, can we really be so simple, so much to a formula? What does he do with his wife, this Marriott? Has he got girls in ports? Or boys? Can he begin to deal with weird men like Foch?

  No, no, Wemyss muttered. Identify the true enemy. Why be captious about poor Marriott? Who turned your heater on.

  The one you’re uneasy about is the Marshal.

  Wemyss had suffered like moments of threat when faced with Emir Feisal last year. A contemptuous subtlety in deep Hamitic eyes. As if they only let us rule them, make treaties over their heads, in consolation for our own stupor.

  That Lawrence, whom Wemyss had once carried on his flagship in the Gulf of Arabia, certainly made no bones about it: the Arabs had all the inner answers, according to Lawrence. Lawrence himself a weird man with inner answers!

  Now Foch, the mad Arab of the Western War.

  Wemyss: Saying he won’t put the naval terms to them for fun … it isn’t good enough.

  Hope: It doesn’t give us any proper guarantees.

  Wemyss: How to corner the cocky old bastard!

  For he was aware of failing to corner him that afternoon.

  Hope waited long enough to be sure Wemyss wanted him to make suggestions. Unimpeachable George Hope. Little private income—some small estate near Devizes. And even in far British legations and wild caliphates, faithful to his wife’s honor, calmly so, in the name of his calm Anglican God. That was real virtue. Not all the fiery sword stuff of fetid little Frenchmen.

  Hope: I should imagine we introduce the subject without warning. Perhaps when the laughter dies down from one of his stories. He’s a raconteur. Especially in his own eyes.

  Wemyss: There’s an element of spite to him. The hardest thing has always been to get him to discuss the thing on its merits.

  Hope: I suggest we don’t move till he has. Four of us. In the uniform of another country’s navy. Refusing to budge.

  The First Sea Lord turned absently to Marriott, who rushed to contribute.

  Marriott: If he won’t listen. Yes sir.

  Wemyss: Agreed then. We don’t leave the office car …

  Marriott: 2417D, sir.

  Wemyss: Quite.

  Hope seemed to find the captain’s gift for numbers engaging, and explained it with a smile.

  Hope: Marriott is a ciphers man, sir.

  Marriott: For my sins, sir.

  If you have any, Wemyss wanted to say.

  Wemyss: We must be clear what we want. We need some sign of what he means to do should the Germans balk about their navy. It isn’t that we need his suppor
t in any absolute sense.

  Hope: Indeed.

  They all felt more robust now, after suspecting all afternoon that the Marshal might artfully be about to downgrade them.

  And Hope and Marriott thought, Lord Wemyss is an enlightened consulter of aides, a modern and liberal lord of sea.

  And Wemyss thought, this is what makes me a tolerable commander. No Poseidon, me. No great whale. It is impossible that I should ever blaze and burn out amongst clouds of mad cordite like, to name the most preposterous case, Horatio Nelson. I am First Sea Lord because First Sea Lord Jellicoe hoarded for his own decision such matters as the caliber of armament to be mounted on trawlers, wattage of Aldis lamps on mine sweepers. Disappearing into his own In tray, J. R. Jellicoe had no time to tool a strategy. The cry from the Navy Board and even from Downing Street was, find someone who will deputize.

  Rosy Wemyss had begun lobbying only after his name had been pushed forward. And lobbying hadn’t been hard.

  For he had no enemies.

  Now, in the truce train, he spoke to his flattered deputies.

  Wemyss: We must nearly be there. Please, George, give us the end of the Weygand dossier.

  ALL THE KAISER’S SOLDIERS

  It seemed all the Kaiser’s soldiers were already coming home eastward on the country roads of Belgium. Through the distorting window Erzberger saw an occasional gaping mouth aimed at him. What, going west? the mute mouths said. So late in the day?

  Sometimes ambulances appeared head-on, moving a little faster than the soldiers. They beeped for right of passage. I’m wounded too, Maiberling would mutter inside his blanket. Beneath the privacy of his skull, Erzberger made the same claim. He wanted to let down the window and be sick in the mud. But that act, he felt crazily sure, was politically dangerous. It would outrage the mass to see Minister-of-State-without-Portfolio Erzberger sick on their familiar mud.

  Light went early, and against the unscheduled clouds of men they were lucky to make fifteen kilometers an hour.

  IN THE CAR SHARED BY THE GENERAL AND VANSELOW

  In the car shared by the general and Vanselow, von Winterfeldt read typed instructions by the light of a hand torch. Vanselow could only presume they were documents supplied by Groener, and wished he himself had so many memoranda to steer by. He felt embarrassed to open his own attaché case, in case the general noticed how sparse the directives were inside it, how thin the dossiers labeled Defense and River Craft, Destroyer Flotillas, Grand Seas Fleet, U-Boats. He sweated inside his overcoat. I am too naïve a man to be making this journey. Oh yes, all the admirals have told me my memory is good—on that account, taken me into palaces and embassies. I’ve been that species of aide who stands by the potted plants and doesn’t drink more than the one measure of spirits all evening. If I’d stood there a thousand years no brilliant woman would have spoken to me. Nor could I have controlled my cowardice if she had. Twice I have dined with the Emperor and the imperial cabinet and kept hysterically mute except when Admiral Müller once called on me to agree to some half-whimsical truism he uttered about the burdens of junior officers. Not for a moment did getting spoken to at that high table ease my mad suspicion that those men did not breathe the same air as the rest of us. And where is this table we’re traveling to at the moment? And what awesome men will be sitting there? For midget Vanselow to face? The burdens of junior officers …