Part 25 (1/2)
Von Kufner was in his forties and his manner indicated greater talent for pomp and ceremony than for administrative work. His grandfather had been the engineer to whose genius Berlin owed her salvation through the construction of the submarine tunnel. By this service the engineer had won the coveted ”von,” a princely fortune and a wife of the Royal Level.
The Admiral therefore carried Hohenzollern blood in his veins, which, together with his ample fortune and a distinguished position, made him a man of both social and official consequence.
It did not take me long to decide that von Kufner was hopeless as a prospective convert to revolutionary doctrines. Nor did he possess any great knowledge of the protium mines, for he had never visited them.
Inheriting his position as an honour to his grandfather's genius, he commanded the undersea vessels from the security of an office on the Royal Level, for journeys in ice-filled waters were entirely too dangerous to appeal to one who loved so well the pleasures and vanities of life.
I had explained to von Kufner the distinctions I had discovered in the various samples of the ore brought from the mines and the necessity of having new surveys of the deposits made on the basis of these discoveries. After he had had time to digest this information, I suggested that I should myself go to make this survey. But this idea the Admiral at once opposed, insisting that the trip through the Arctic ice fields was entirely too dangerous.
”Very well,” I replied. ”I feel that I could best serve Germany by going to the Arctic mines in person, but if you think that is unwise, will you not arrange for me to consult at once with men who have been in the mines and are familiar with conditions there?”
To this very reasonable request, which was in line with my obvious duties, no objection could be made and a conference was at once called of submarine captains and furloughed engineers who had been in the Arctic ore fields.
I was impressed by the youthfulness of these men, which was readily explained by the fact that one vessel out of every five sent out was lost beneath the Arctic ice floes. With an almost mathematical certainty the men in the undersea service could reckon the years of their lives on the fingers of one hand.
Although the official business of the conference related to ore deposits and not to the dangers of the traffic, the men were so obsessed with the latter fact, that it crept out in their talk in spite of the Admiral's obvious displeasure at such confession of fear. I particularly marked the outspoken frankness of one, Captain Grauble, whose vessel was the next one scheduled to depart to the mines.
I therefore asked Grauble to call in person at my office for the instructions concerning the ore investigations which were to be forwarded to the Director of the Mines. Free from the restraining influence of the Admiral, I was able to lead the Captain to talk freely of the dangers of his work, and was overjoyed to find him frankly rebellious.
That I might still further cultivate his acquaintance I withheld some of the necessary doc.u.ments; and, using this as a pretext, I later sought him out at his quarters, which were in a remote and somewhat obscure part of the Royal Level.
The official nature of my call disposed of, I led the conversation into social matters, and found no difficulty in persuading the Captain to talk of his own life. He was a man well under thirty and like most of his fellows in the service was one of the sons of a branch of the Hohenzollern family whose declining fortune denied him all hope of marriage or social life. In the heroic years of his youth he had volunteered for the submarine service. But now he confessed that he regretted the act, for he realized that his death could not be long postponed. He had made his three trips as commander of an ore-bringing vessel.
”I have two more trips,” declared Captain Grauble. ”Such is the prophecy of statistical facts: five trips is the allotted life of a Captain; it is the law of averages. It is possible that I may extend that number a little, but if so it will be an exception. Trusting to exceptions is a poor philosophy. I do not like it. Sometimes I think I shall refuse to go. Disgrace, of course,--banishment to the mines. Report my treasonable utterances if you like. I am prepared for that; suicide is easy and certain.”
”But is it not rather cowardly, Captain?” I asked, looking him steadily in the eye.
Grauble flung out his hand with a gesture of disdain. ”That is an easy word for you to p.r.o.nounce,” he sneered. ”You have hope to live by, you are on the upward climb, you aspire to marry into the Royal House and sire children to inherit your wealth. But I was born of the Royal House, my father squandered his wealth. My sisters were beautiful and they have married well. My brother was servile; he has attached himself to the retinue of a wealthy Baroness. But I was made of better stuff than that.
I would play the hero. I would face danger and gladly die to give Berlin more life and uphold the House of Hohenzollern in its fat and idle existence; and for me they have taken hope away!
”Oh, yes, I was proclaimed a hero. The young ladies of this house of idleness dance with me, but they dare not take me seriously; what one of them would court the certainty of widowhood without a fortune? So why should I not tire of their shallow trifling? I find among the girls of the Free Level more honest love, for they, as I, have no hope. They love but for the pa.s.sing hour, and pa.s.s on as I pa.s.s on, I to death, they to decaying beauty and an old age of servile slavery.”
Surely, I exulted, here is the rebellious and daring soul that Zimmern and h.e.l.lar have sought in vain. Even as they had hoped, I seemed to have discovered a man of the submarine service who was amenable to revolutionary ideas. Could I not get him to consider the myriad life of Berlin in all its barren futility, to grasp at the hope of succour from a free and merciful world, and then, with his aid, find a way out of Berlin, a way to carry the message of Germany's need of help to the Great G.o.d of Humanity that dwelt without in the warmth and joy of the sun?
The tide of hope surged high within me. I was tempted to divulge at once my long cherished plan of escape from Berlin. ”Why,” I asked, thinking to further sound his sincerity, ”if you feel like this, have you never considered running your craft to the surface during the sea pa.s.sage and beaching her on a foreign sh.o.r.e? There at least is life and hope and experience.”
”By the Statue of G.o.d!” cried Grauble, his body shaking and his voice quavering, ”why do you, in all your hope and comfort here, speak of that to me? Do you think I have never been tempted to do that very thing? And yet you call me a coward. Have I not breathed foul air for days, fearful to poke up our air tube in deserted waters lest by the millionth chance it might lead to a capture? And yet you speak of deliberate surrender!
Even though I destroyed my charts, the capture of a German submarine in those seas would set the forces of the outer world searching for the pa.s.sage. If they found and blocked the pa.s.sage I should be guilty of the destruction of three hundred million lives--Great G.o.d! G.o.d of Hohenzollern! G.o.d of the World! could this thing be?”
”Captain,” I said, placing my hand on the shoulder of the palsied man, ”you and I have great secrets and the burden of great sorrows in common.
It is well that we have found each other. It is well that we have spoken of these things that shake our souls. You have confessed much to me and I have much that I shall confess to you. I must see you again before you leave.”
Grauble gave me his hand. ”You are a strange man,” he said. ”I have met none before like you. I do not know at what aims you are driving. If you plotted my disgrace by leading me into these confessions, you have found me easy prey. But do not credit yourself too much. I have often vowed I would go to Admiral von Kufner, and say these things to him. But the formal exterior of that petty pompous man I cannot penetrate. If I have confessed to you, it is merely because you are a man without that protecting s.h.i.+eld of bristling authority and cold formality. You seemed merely a man of flesh and blood, despite your decorations, and so I have talked. What is to be made of it by you or by me I do not know, but I am not afraid of you.”
”I shall leave you now,” I said, ”for I have pressing duties, but I shall see you soon again. So calm yourself and get hold of your reason.
I shall want you to think clearly when I talk with you again. Perhaps I can yet show you a gleam of hope beyond this mathematical law of averages that rattles the dice of death.”
CHAPTER XI