The Night of the Generals by Hans Hellmut Kirst Read Free Book Online Page B

take part in early morning sports, cross-country runs and field training. Nobody rots with me."
    "Nor with us," remarked Kahlenberge. "We practise club-swinging with bottles and dig trenches with knives and forks. Our conferences are marathon efforts. Anyone who wants to survive with us has to be an all-round athlete."
    Frau Wilhelmine von Seydlitz-Gabler endeavoured to inject a more friendly note into the proceedings. "General Tanz," she said, "to my mind, you're a model man in every respect save one: you're not married. May I ask why not?"
    "No opportunity," replied the General. "Greatly regret it."
    "Perhaps you've had plenty of opportunities and just let them slip?"
    "Maybe," said General Tanz, with the look of a man surveying a battlefield. "We cannot choose the age we live in, but it's our duty to shape it. That leaves us precious little time for what is commonly known as private life. We live in a period which makes great demands on us."
    "One of them being the extermination of the Jews, I suppose?" asked Ulrike aggressively.
    "Child, child!" Frau Wilhelmine raised her right hand in protest. "What a subject--and lunch not over yet!"
    "Life is a struggle," said General Tanz, dissecting his cheese. "Anyone who proposes to build a world order must be capable of destroying anything that threatens it."
    "Human beings are capable of the most incredible things," commented Kahlenberge bitterly.
    "I merely try to do my duty," said General Tanz.
    "Only your duty, nothing more?" Kahlenberge leant back in his chair as though evading an unseen blow. "To do nothing but one's duty can be a demoralizing process."
    Frau Wilhelmine said firmly: "General Tanz is a man!"
    "We're all men," declared the G.O.C. He raised his champagne glass as though it was a field-marshal's baton. "We are fighting a war that was forced on us, but we wage it unflinchingly."
    Coffee, brewed in the Turkish fashion, was served in the Blue Room. The carpet that covered the floor was a mixture of deep blue and subdued marine tones, heavy midnight blue hangings swathed the walls, and the pale crocus blue of the moulded ceiling shimmered like a clear sky in early spring.
    Into this extravagant symphony in blue stepped Major Grau. His lean, slightly saturnine face wore an ingratiating smile. "I have what I hope will be an entertaining item of news for you," he said when introductions were complete. "That is, if you're interested. It concerns a highly unusual corpse--a female corpse, to be precise."
    "I think," Wilhelmine von Seydlitz-Gabler said stiffly to her daughter, "that it would be better if we left the men alone."
    Ulrike followed her mother out of the room. An uneasy silence reigned for a moment after the door had shut.
    "Our good ladies," declared the G.O.C., "have a marked sense of tact where official matters are concerned."
    Kahlenberge glanced keenly at Grau. "Is this official?"
    "It's not beyond the bounds of possibility," said Grau.
    "Are you still talking about a woman's corpse?"
    "Why not? Does anyone mind?"
    General von Seydlitz-Gabler threw back his head and laughed. It was a melodious sound, the product of years of practice, and he was well aware of its effect. "What is all this about a corpse, my dear chap? Surely you can find a more entertaining subject. Perhaps you'd do better to concentrate on the Hartmann case."
    "The Hartmann case doesn't concern me, sir," said Major Grau. "Officially, it's the S. D.'s pigeon. Besides, the whole business seems to be little more than a comedy of errors. The man was declared dead. Let the matter take its course, I say."
    "Are those patent leather shoes you're wearing?" asked General Tanz abruptly.
    Major Grau raised his decorative head. "Are they forbidden?"
    "I find them ludicrous," said General Tanz.
    "I don't belong to your division."
    "Unfortunately."
    Kahlenberge shook his glistening skull as if trying to dislodge a fly. "What are we talking about, anyway, that poor devil Hartmann--or are we back on the