Thomas Ochiltree Read online

  “This is the most preposterous, the most absurd accusation…!” von Falkenburg managed to splutter, almost paralyzed by a fatal combination of rage and astonishment. “How on earth would I get hold of secret plans? I’m not on the General Staff!”

  “But our witness is…or was, for he’s now under arrest,” Major Becker said, clearly enjoying the process of pulling the noose ever tighter. “He says he gave the plans to you.”

  Von Falkenburg had seen that smug, vicious satisfaction once before, when one of the best swordsmen in Europe had sought revenge on an enemy by goading the latter into challenging him to a duel that could – and did – have only one outcome.

  “The lying swine is willing to testify that I am a spy?” von Falkenburg roared, almost suffocating with rage.

  “Yes. He also gave us this,” the major said calmly.

  It was a scrap of paper written in German in what looked to von Falkenburg exactly like his own handwriting. It would have been uncanny to him regardless of its contents.

  “Planned increase in strength on Hungarian/Russian border can be confirmed; it will take place next month. Destroy this”

  “Nowadays, the science of handwriting analysis has made remarkable strides, as perhaps you know, Captain,” the major said. He calmly handed von Falkenburg some other papers in German representing correspondence between von Falkenburg and the Russian military attaché.

  Appalled, von Falkenburg saw that each one of them implicated him as a spy for the Russians. Taken individually, none perhaps would have been conclusive. But together, they constituted an overwhelming case against him. On evidence such as this a court-martial composed of his best friends would have to convict him.

  With every furious denial, every outburst of astonished rage, von Falkenburg felt himself sink deeper into the quagmire. He knew that he had to pause and try to approach the situation as a whole. He was like an army that has been taken on the flank, and can’t hope to save itself unless it can have a breathing space in which to re-form.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, taking a deep breath and trying to speak as calmly as possible, “I have no idea why or by whom this obscene fraud has been perpetrated against me. But I give you my word of honor….”

  “It’s a little late to talk about honor now, isn’t it, von Falkenburg?” the colonel interrupted brutally.

  “You believe me guilty?”

  “The documents are explicit.”

  “The documents are fakes, and I shall prove it!”

  “How?” the major asked quietly.

  There was no way of answering that, for the simple reason that for the life of him, von Falkenburg could not see how he could defend himself against evidence such as had just been shown to him…and which presumably was just part of a larger whole. Indeed, if he were sitting on a court-martial panel, such documents would cause him to vote the accused “guilty” without a moment’s hesitation.

  “Don’t you understand why we have shown them to you?” the colonel asked impatiently. “It is hardly usual to display to a man in advance the evidence that will be used against him at his trial.”

  “There is no intention to prosecute?” von Falkenburg asked incredulously.

  “There is no expectation that you will fail to do the right thing,” the colonel said. “You spoke of your word of honor just now. Well, you have a chance to take the honorable way out. To perform one last service for the regiment and army which will atone for your past actions.”

  “Take the honorable way out.” In the present context, the phrase could have only one meaning.

  “You want me to use my revolver to make things easy for you?” von Falkenburg asked bitterly.

  “Easy for the regiment and army, and if that does not matter to you, easy on yourself and your family. Look at your choices, man: on one hand, the fate we all come to in the end. On the other, arrest, certain conviction after a court martial that will be the talk of Austria-Hungary if not Europe, and then either the firing squad, or the rest of your days in prison with common thieves and murderers who will feel they have every right to despise you because they did not betray their country.”

  “I don’t know if it means anything to you that your grandfather served under Radetsky, and that your great grandfather played a crucial role against Napoleon at Leipzig when he led that charge against the French right,” the colonel went on. “I don’t know if it means anything to you that the von Falkenburgs have served the House of Hapsburg since the foundation of the dynasty. I have often suspected you of having a dangerously questioning mind on matters that an army officer should take on faith. But surely you cannot fail to see the disgrace and ruin that conviction would bring upon your mother and sister.”

  The colonel paused for a second.

  “You in a traitor’s grave or a dungeon, your mother half-mad with shame, your sister doomed to the life of an old maid dependent on charity and shunned by everyone. That, von Falkenburg, is your alternative to taking the gentleman’s way out.”

  “I can only admire your tact,” von Falkenburg managed to reply. But in fact he was badly shaken by the colonel’s unexpectedly eloquent presentation of his choices. Perhaps Major Becker had coached the colonel, but that did not make the arguments any less telling.

  “If you do the right thing,” the colonel continued, “Military Intelligence – which has no desire to weaken Austria-Hungary by casting discredit upon her most famous regiment – is willing to promise the most complete discretion. If you leave a letter explaining your action, any motive you give in it (other than the real one, of course) will be treated as official and definitive, both towards your family and towards the world. Or if you wish, you may leave instructions for another cause of…decease…to be announced, such as a fall from a horse or an accident with a firearm. At any rate, the incriminating documents will be destroyed. The honor of the army, of the regiment, and of your family, will be preserved.”

  “Is the honor of the regiment compatible with applying pressure by threatening the happiness of two innocent women, Colonel?”

  “That is not the issue,” the colonel said curtly. “The issue is your treason. We expect your decision by eight o’clock tomorrow morning. And if you make the right decision, we expect it to have been put into effect by then.”

  “My corpse before breakfast, Colonel?”

  “The interview is at an end, von Falkenburg. You may go,” the colonel replied.

  Chapter Two

  Down the corridor, his footsteps resounding on the hard floor; out the main door of the barracks and into the cold of the waning day. Von Falkenburg placed one foot rapidly in front of the other with hardly any idea of where he was, and none of where he was going, as he sought unsuccessfully to focus his mind on the fact that by morning he would be dead or disgraced.

  Dead or disgraced, dead or disgraced, dead or disgraced; the phrase bounced back and forth inside his skull to the rhythm of his stride.

  “Achtung!” and a hand was grabbing his shoulder roughly, and there was the noise of metal grinding on metal, and the sound of a frantically clanging bell.

  The streetcar skidded by, sparks flying from its locked wheels. One more step, and the colonel and Major Becker would not have had to wait for morning.

  The streetcar motorman leaned his head out with the intention of saying something biting, but the sight of the uniform, and ingrained habits of respect, made him limit himself to a “hrmmph!” He pulled his head back, and von Falkenburg watched the car start off down the Ring again, slowly accelerating.

  “With all due respect, the captain should be more careful,” a voice behind him said gently.

  Von Falkenburg looked around and saw a middle-aged civilian in a rather rumpled suit.

  “Captain von Falkenburg, Infantry Regiment “Hoch- und Deutschmeister,” von Falkenburg said with a bow. “You saved my life, sir.”

  “Professor Hupfnigg,” the civilian replied, bowing in turn.

  There was a pause. Both men rea
lized that they had nothing more to say to one another. They bowed again, and the professor turned and headed back into his own life.

  Von Falkenburg looked around him and realized for the first time that it was cold, but no longer raining, that he was standing on the Ringstrasse two blocks from his barracks, and that he did not have to keep thinking the same three words over and over again.

  That in itself was such a relief that it took a moment for him to remember that he was condemned to death or to an existence that would be an endless nightmare of shame and rage. He felt cold and wondered if he should go back and get a coat. He decided against it, telling himself that the cold would help him keep his mind clear. In fact, it was already clear enough for him to realize that he really wanted to be cold in the irrational hope that he could bargain with fate, and by accepting a minor discomfort now escape what awaited him tomorrow. But he still did not go back. He had to be alone, had to get away from all these people on the Ring whose future had not yet been reduced to just two fearsome possibilities. A cab was coming along at the trot, and von Falkenburg hailed it.

  “To the Rudolfsbrücke,” he said to the cabby.

  That was an odd order to get from someone coatless and without baggage, for the only thing at that bridge – which was far from the center of town – was the landing stage for the steamers that plied up and down the Danube. But the cabby was used to getting strange orders from young officers, and was enough of a student of the human race to know that his fare wanted silence. So without a word he laid his whip on the rump of the horse.

  Why him? von Falkenburg kept asking himself. Why was he to be destroyed?

  No matter from which side he approached the question, it remained insoluble. The documents that so utterly incriminated him were clearly the result of very considerable, very painstaking labor. Who would want to undertake that labor in order to shatter the life of an obscure army captain?

  Von Falkenburg realized that he would never know the answer to that question, but he could not leave it alone. He told himself that he would give his life to know the names and motives of his persecutors, but then realized with a start that he would have to give his life anyway, without getting anything in return except protection from a disgrace as unmerited as it would be terrible.

  The cab was rolling through the Praterstern now, with its bizarre Roman-style monument to Austria-Hungary’s great naval hero, Admiral Teggerthoff, who had routed the Italians at Lissa. Now the Prater amusement park was on his right. Night had quite fallen, and the gimcrack booths and the Great Wheel were ablaze with light. Von Falkenburg hated amusement parks, but some of the girls he had known had loved them: Annie, for instance. He remembered the condescension – good natured, but condescension nevertheless – which he had felt when she had begged him to take her to the Prater, and the way she had hugged him when he had agreed to do so. That had been before he really knew her, when she was just another little shop assistant he had bedded. He was sorry about that condescension now, even though he had hardly remembered it when she was alive.

  Annie was dead, and that made her almost a sister. But that was an absurd thought. Annie did not exist. Nor did Endrödy. Nor would he, soon.

  But he was sorry that he had not understood her better; had not understood that the pride she had felt at being seen with him in the Prater was not the pride of a shop girl being seen with an officer from a smart regiment, but the pride of a woman at being seen with the man she loved.

  The Prater was behind them now, and von Falkenburg put his thoughts of Annie behind him with a shudder. After all, it was cold. And the dead do not make very good company.

  The harness brasses jingled musically, and the hooves of the horse fell on the cobblestones like a steady rain. The city had been pretty well left behind. Ahead was darkness, broken only by a few streetlights, and the headlamp of an approaching streetcar. It rattled by, its interior glowing a soft yellow, its seats empty.

  “The Rudolfsbrücke, Captain.”

  The great bridge was more brightly lit that the street leading to it, but its upper girders were still lost in the gloom.

  “Stop here.”

  Von Falkenburg got out.

  “Shall I wait?”

  “No.”

  The cabby shrugged his shoulders, then turned the cab and headed off, while von Falkenburg stared out over the bridge. Beneath it, deep, wide and powerful, flowed the silent Danube on its way to the sea. This was not the branch known as the Danube Canal that ran along one side of the Inner City and that most foreigners thought of as the Danube. This was the great river itself, and though the wind blew through his tunic, von Falkenburg drew comfort from the Danube’s strength.

  He heard the blast of a steam whistle behind him, and crossed over to the downstream side of the bridge. One of the big paddle steamers was getting ready to cast off for Budapest. Her decks sparkled with lights, and through the windows of her varnished superstructure von Falkenburg glimpsed the comforts she offered. Tomorrow morning her passengers would awake in their soft bunks, go into the dining saloon for breakfast, and later watch the Budapest waterfront slide by. Tonight there would be music and wine, dancing and love. Von Falkenburg had once taken a steamer down the Danube with a woman. He gripped the iron railing with helpless rage and despair.

  The steamer cast off and pulled away from the landing stage, the soft churning of her paddle wheels breaking the stillness of the night. She headed downstream, and von Falkenburg watched her go, feeling more utterly alone than he ever had in his life.

  He crossed back over to the upstream side of the bridge so that the lights of the steamer would not distract him. He had an important decision to make. He had to decide whether to live or die.

  The colonel had told him that his choices were suicide, or trial and conviction followed by the firing squad or life imprisonment, but the sight of the steamer suggest a third one: flight. Even if he had to walk back to the Prater to get a cab, in an hour or two he could be at either the West or the South Station, from which a mahogany-paneled Wagon-Lits sleeping car could carry him anywhere in Europe. Von Falkenburg imagined the warm blankets pulled up under his chin, and the determined pounding of the wheels and sway of the car as it bore him into the night, and far from his troubles, but he knew that it was a choice he would not make. To flee in such a manner would be to admit guilt, to ratify the monstrous accusation, to live for the rest of his life with the knowledge that through cowardice he had allowed his name to be fouled by a lie, for if he fled he would doubtless be tried and convicted in absentia. That would be the real dishonor: the dishonor of knowing himself a coward. Endrödy had spoken of this, and von Falkenburg now understood what he had meant.

  So it was suicide or standing trial. Standing trial and being convicted. Von Falkenburg thought again of the documents that he had been shown. No court-martial on earth could fail to convict on the basis of such evidence. And if he were alive after eight o’clock tomorrow morning he would be under close arrest. That would mean that obtaining proof that he had been framed – which von Falkenburg regarded as hopeless anyway – would be in the hands of an indifferent, pettifogging lawyer.

  But if he stood trial, at least he would have made his stand. He would have proclaimed his innocence to the world, and even though the world did not believe it, when the cell door shut behind him, he would know that he was there rather than in a Paris hotel because he had chosen the hopeless defense of his family’s name over the cowardly safety of flight. Publicly broken to the ranks, standing before a firing squad or cast among common criminals of the lowest sort and exposed to their contempt, he would know that his real, inner honor was safe.

  Or would he? The colonel had spoken not merely with brutal frankness, but with accuracy, of what his conviction would mean for the two people in the world closest to him: his mother and his sister.

  The Barons von Falkenburg were an ancient family, one which had served the Habsburgs since the latter first acquired Austria centuries be
fore. But it was a service that had profited the von Falkenburgs little, and it was hard to tell who had ruined the family more: those of its members who had dissipated the fortune in extravagant living, or those who had dedicated themselves so thoroughly to the Emperor’s service as to have no time to supervise what was left.

  Everything was now mortgaged, and although it was still possible to pay the interest while providing a dowry for von Falkenburg’s sister, reasonable comfort for her and her mother in one wing of the ancestral house, and a supplement to his army pay which von Falkenburg’s mother insist on his drawing “to maintain the family’s honor,” even a small shock would bring down the whole delicately-poised structure of debt. A trial would mean the utter ruin of the family. His mother and sister would be reduced to penury, as well as being subject to the contempt that always attaches to the family of a traitor. And that to buy him a life of imprisonment, or a death far more shameful than the one which the colonel had offered him.

  Von Falkenburg knew the goodness and generosity of his mother and sister, knew their love for him, knew that they would willingly sacrifice everything for him. And he found himself shuddering at the thought that he might even consider accepting such generosity.

  His courage was the only thing shielding them, his courage to do what was, after all, the only possible thing: to trade his death for a suppression of the charges against him.

  And there was yet another argument in favor of that course, and one that he was surprised to find the most imperious of all: his responsibility towards all the von Falkenburgs who had gone before to preserve the honor of the family.

  He had always regarded himself as something of a rationalist and skeptic as far as the whole aristocratic-military cult of honor was concerned. Suddenly, he was surprised to find that perhaps because that cult was irrational, it was beyond the attack of reason. His father, who had lost his life in a duel and who would still be alive if it had not been for those “outmoded notions,” would never learn of his son’s decision. Neither would his grandfather, who died for his Emperor at the ill-fated battle of Königgrätz. Nor would his great-grandfather, who had helped topple Napoleon by leading a desperate cavalry charge against the French at Leipzig. Nor would any of the other Barons von Falkenburg. All were now just bones or corpses in the family vault. Yet he knew that he simply could not betray their heritage.