Officer Factory. Hans Hellmut Kirst

abruptly.

      “But why not?” suggested Bieringer. “You know what a high opinion I have of you, Fräulein Bachner, and my wife loves you like a sister. We're worried about you, though. You work too hard and are alone too much. Don't you think it might be good for you to allow yourself a little relaxation?”

      Sybille Bachner looked the A.D.C. straight in the eye. Bieringer's smooth, rather pale face wasn't much to write home about. He looked rather like someone who was hoping to be a teacher, and was certainly not what could be called a soldierly type. But he was a man with a sixth sense for everything that concerned the General, taking the place for him of a calculating machine and a whole bundle of notebooks and thus preserving him from a vast amount of unnecessary work.

      “Herr Bieringer,” said Sybille Bachner, “I’m completely satisfied with my job here. I find no need of any relaxation.”

      The A.D.C. pretended to be very busy with a file of documents.

      “Well,” he said slowly and with certain wariness, “that is only as it should be. After all, the General is wholly dedicated to his work too. And he has no need of any relaxation either.”

      “Kindly keep any unnecessary remarks of that sort to yourself, Herr Bieringer,” said Sybille Bachner indignantly.

      “By all means,” said the A.D.C., “by all means that is in so far as they are unnecessary. Believe me, my dear Fräulein Bachner, I've known the General for a long time now; since long before you knew him. You can be quite sure of one thing: he neither has any private life nor ever will have any. And if you're clever you'll find yourself someone who will distract you in time from any false hopes you may be entertaining—someone like this fellow Lieutenant Krafft, for example. Always provided, of course, that this fellow Krafft stays with us. But that's for the General to decide.”

      “Lieutenant Krafft, sir, reporting as ordered.”

      Major-General Modersohn was sitting behind his desk, which was placed exactly opposite the door. The seven yards or so between him and the door was covered by a plain green hair-cord runner. In front of the desk stood a single hard chair.

      The General was busy making extracts from a document and didn't seem to want to interrupt his work. He merely said without looking up: “Come in, please, Lieutenant Krafft. Sit down.”

      Krafft obeyed. Modersohn seemed to be making quite a fuss of him. All he had expected was two or three annihilating sentences, a curt and brutal ejection in the unmistakable language of a pure-bred Prussian.

      But the General seemed to be taking his time.

      “Lieutenant Krafft,” began Modersohn, looking straight at his visitor for the first time, quite impersonally yet with the intensive scrutiny of someone who is a complete master of his subject. “Have you any idea why you were posted to this training school?”

      “No, General,” said the Lieutenant truthfully enough. “Do you think your ability had anything to do with it?” “I don't suppose so, General.”

      “You don't suppose so?” drawled Modersohn. He never liked this expression. An officer didn't “suppose “anything—he “knew,” he “assumed,” he “held it as his opinion.” “Well?”

      “I assume, General, that my ability was not the decisive factor in my posting.”

      “What was, then?”

      “An officer was due to be posted from my unit and the choice fell on me.”

      “There was no reason for this?”

      “I don't know the reason, General.”

      Lieutenant Krafft didn't feel entirely at ease. He had come prepared for a severe dressing down from the General, not for an interrogation. So he tried to fall back on the traditional technique of the old soldier and acted dumb, answering everything as shortly as possible, and appearing to agree with his superior officer at every opportunity. This was a technique which usually saved considerable time and trouble. Not with Modersohn, however.

      The General pulled towards him a writing-pad that lay on his desk. “Have you seen your personal file, Lieutenant?” he asked.

      “No, General,” said Krafft in some astonishment but also truthfully enough. Modersohn was slightly taken aback by this. (Not that anyone would have realized the fact. His hand, which was on the point of thrusting the writing-pad away, merely stopped for a second.) For the General knew the form. Personal files were theoretically “Secret,” but there were always ways and means of getting a look at them if only one were determined and smart enough. And this fellow Krafft was smart, the General could see that. So there was only one conclusion to be drawn, namely that he had had no wish to take a look; his personal file was a matter of indifference to him. Presumably he knew from experience how haphazardly these accumulations of paper were compiled.

      “Why do you think you were made an officer of the headquarters company in this training school and not an officer among the cadets?”

      This was a question that Krafft had often asked himself. He had been posted here nominally to train cadets, but had immediately found himself stuck with Captain Kater and all the other canteen heroes. Why this should be so he had absolutely no idea.

      “I assume that there was just one officer too many for the course, General, and that one had to be transferred to the headquarters company, that it was just a coincidence that it happened to be me.”

      “There are no coincidences of that sort in my command, Lieutenant Krafft.”

      Krafft should of course have known this. But since the General seemed to be asking for frank answers to his questions, the Lieutenant didn't hesitate to give them to him after his fashion.

      “Well, General,” he said, “I assume that I'm regarded as an awkward sort of fellow, and there's even a certain amount of truth in that. Wherever I go, I find myself posted again almost at once. I'm gradually getting used to the fact.”

      The General was not impressed. “Lieutenant Krafft,” he said, “I gather from your personal file that certain differences arose between you and your former regimental commander, Colonel Holzapfel. I wonder if you would be so good as to enlighten me further about this.”

      “General,” Krafft replied almost light-heartedly, “I had occasion to lay certain information against Colonel Holzapfel regarding misappropriation of ration supplies. The Colonel used to move about with his own baggage train, and not only thought it proper to withhold rations from the front-line troops but also deprived them of military vehicles in order to transport his spoils to the rear. The Colonel was court-martialled, severely reprimanded, and posted elsewhere. It was his successor who transferred me to the training school.”

      “You had no misgivings, Lieutenant Krafft, about laying information against a superior officer?”

      “No, General. For it was not a superior officer against whom I was laying information but a swindler.”

      The General did not indicate what he thought of this answer. Without further introduction he suddenly asked: “Have you concluded your investigations into this alleged rape of the day before yesterday?”

      “Yes, General.”

      “With what results?”

      “A summary of evidence on a charge of rape would not be justified by the facts. The three girls maintain, plausibly enough, that at first they merely intended to play a joke. They couldn't foresee that it would get out of hand. Moreover, three empty bottles were found on the scene of the alleged crime. Corporal Krottenkopf admits to having drunk one of these all by himself in the course of the proceedings. A detail which effectually rules out rape. The whole affair should be dealt with on a disciplinary level.”