Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread III
- Thread starter Peabody-Martini
- Start date
Born a soldier, from the horseback to the skies,
And the legend never dies…
Awesome.
And the legend never dies…
Awesome.
Before the funeral of the Red Baron becomes a real song and dance, perhaps only @Peabody-Martini knows best what Manfred's final wishes are. My view is that while the Luftwaffe will take its due, perhaps the most poignant part will be the leading of the procession by a lone horse with Manfred's riding boots stitched into the stirrups in reverse to pay tribute to his essential character of a cavalryman.
Part 147, Chapter 2670
Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Seventy
1st April 1978
Breslau, Silesia
Looking through the viewfinder of the video camera, Zella looked at the people packed into Saint Elizabeth’s Church in Central Breslau, the principle Lutheran and Protestant Church in Silesia best known for the 130-meter-tall spire that was visible throughout the city. She had been gathering material that would be rushed back to Berlin so that it could be edited into a documentary about the life of Manfred von Richthofen that would air tomorrow night. For years, there had been jokes about how the most dangerous place was between certain people and a camera. Manfred von Richthofen had been one of those people, so ARD had no shortage of materials in the archives. Everything from his opinions about politics, conservation efforts, or hunting expeditions were all there. If anything they had too much to go through in a very short period of time. Tributes had come in from all over the world and there was a whole lot of Military Brass present, so it was no surprise that ARD wanted footage of this.
It was figured by her Director at ARD that Zella’s title as Markgräfin and her family having been invited to the funeral would give her access where no one else would be allowed. As soon as Zella had arrived she had found that her ears getting filled with all the juicy gossip. With this being the largest gathering of notables in one place in decades, the gossips were going to have a lot to talk about.
When all of this had been thrown together, no one had noticed what day the funeral had just happened to fall on. Zella understood that must have been an oversight, but she wasn’t quite sure. Having met Manfred the Elder on a few different occasions, she suspected that having it be on April Fool’s Day was giving the occasion exactly the sort of gravity he would have felt it deserved. According to Aunt Kat and Aunt Ilse, he had never been one for too much formality. According to them, if they had really honored his actual wishes it would have been along the lines of dragging him out back and burning him with the rest of the trash, with many in his inner circle including a few of his own children and grandchildren perfectly prepared to carry that out even if they had to steal the corpse. Apparently opting for a Military Funeral, which was his right as a retired Field Marshal had been a compromise.
Manfred’s two youngest daughters, unrepentant social climbers who had inadvertently married into downwardly mobile Old Junker families had wanted an elaborate funeral. Presumably so that they could preen before the press. Ilse had vetoed that, stating that they would stick to the original plan. Then Sonje Louise and Cecilie had made the mistake of demanding to know who Ilse was other than a guttersnipe who had lucked out by marrying their brother. They had gotten a rather harsh lesson in just who Elisabeth “Ilse” Mischner really was. Yes, she was a guttersnipe and damn proud of it. She had endured years in Berlin’s Care System before the postwar reforms and neglect had reigned. Only the strongest and most vicious survived in that sort of environment. She had demonstrated exactly why those two wouldn’t have lasted a day. Ilse might not have picked the fight, but she had certainly finished it.
So, Ilse had gotten her way. Cecilie had ended up in the hospital getting treated for a concussion and Sonje had been told explicitly that everything in the Richthofen House had already been thoroughly inventoried, so if she had any ideas, Ilse was perfectly willing to have her arrested if anything turned up missing. Probably most shocking for them, Albrecht publicly took Ilse’s side. She was now the Queen Consort of Silesia, Sonje and Cecilie could either get used to that, or else they could get the Hell out. It was only then that the two of them got a belated glimpse of public opinion. Namely that the support that their father had enjoyed from the Silesian public, which involved the largely Urban Germans and Rural Poles, had been extended to Albrecht and Ilse. It didn’t take too much imagination to figure out which part of that equation had been ignored. Now they had discovered that many of the friends they thought they had, had suddenly gotten very scarce.
Handing the camera to Yuri when Zella saw Kiki get out of a car with Benjamin. Both were in uniform out of respect and Zella had heard that Ben had been one of Luftwaffe Officers invited to be a pallbearer. It was considered an honor. Zella and Kiki exchanged greetings while she did her best to keep things civil with Ben who still regarded her as a psychopath.
The night before, when Zella had spoken with John Lennon over the phone he had joked about coming to Silesia to witness this. According to him the church service part of the funeral was all about the collective snobbery of Europe being seen mourning the death of a man who they had always seen as an upstart. The same man who had ruthlessly bribed, blackmailed, and backstabbed his way to the top. Inside they would all be seething, having the knowledge that their grandchildren were going to be stuck calling his grandchildren “Sir.” Though that seemed incredibly cynical, it seemed to be one of the better reads on the situation that she had heard.
1st April 1978
Breslau, Silesia
Looking through the viewfinder of the video camera, Zella looked at the people packed into Saint Elizabeth’s Church in Central Breslau, the principle Lutheran and Protestant Church in Silesia best known for the 130-meter-tall spire that was visible throughout the city. She had been gathering material that would be rushed back to Berlin so that it could be edited into a documentary about the life of Manfred von Richthofen that would air tomorrow night. For years, there had been jokes about how the most dangerous place was between certain people and a camera. Manfred von Richthofen had been one of those people, so ARD had no shortage of materials in the archives. Everything from his opinions about politics, conservation efforts, or hunting expeditions were all there. If anything they had too much to go through in a very short period of time. Tributes had come in from all over the world and there was a whole lot of Military Brass present, so it was no surprise that ARD wanted footage of this.
It was figured by her Director at ARD that Zella’s title as Markgräfin and her family having been invited to the funeral would give her access where no one else would be allowed. As soon as Zella had arrived she had found that her ears getting filled with all the juicy gossip. With this being the largest gathering of notables in one place in decades, the gossips were going to have a lot to talk about.
When all of this had been thrown together, no one had noticed what day the funeral had just happened to fall on. Zella understood that must have been an oversight, but she wasn’t quite sure. Having met Manfred the Elder on a few different occasions, she suspected that having it be on April Fool’s Day was giving the occasion exactly the sort of gravity he would have felt it deserved. According to Aunt Kat and Aunt Ilse, he had never been one for too much formality. According to them, if they had really honored his actual wishes it would have been along the lines of dragging him out back and burning him with the rest of the trash, with many in his inner circle including a few of his own children and grandchildren perfectly prepared to carry that out even if they had to steal the corpse. Apparently opting for a Military Funeral, which was his right as a retired Field Marshal had been a compromise.
Manfred’s two youngest daughters, unrepentant social climbers who had inadvertently married into downwardly mobile Old Junker families had wanted an elaborate funeral. Presumably so that they could preen before the press. Ilse had vetoed that, stating that they would stick to the original plan. Then Sonje Louise and Cecilie had made the mistake of demanding to know who Ilse was other than a guttersnipe who had lucked out by marrying their brother. They had gotten a rather harsh lesson in just who Elisabeth “Ilse” Mischner really was. Yes, she was a guttersnipe and damn proud of it. She had endured years in Berlin’s Care System before the postwar reforms and neglect had reigned. Only the strongest and most vicious survived in that sort of environment. She had demonstrated exactly why those two wouldn’t have lasted a day. Ilse might not have picked the fight, but she had certainly finished it.
So, Ilse had gotten her way. Cecilie had ended up in the hospital getting treated for a concussion and Sonje had been told explicitly that everything in the Richthofen House had already been thoroughly inventoried, so if she had any ideas, Ilse was perfectly willing to have her arrested if anything turned up missing. Probably most shocking for them, Albrecht publicly took Ilse’s side. She was now the Queen Consort of Silesia, Sonje and Cecilie could either get used to that, or else they could get the Hell out. It was only then that the two of them got a belated glimpse of public opinion. Namely that the support that their father had enjoyed from the Silesian public, which involved the largely Urban Germans and Rural Poles, had been extended to Albrecht and Ilse. It didn’t take too much imagination to figure out which part of that equation had been ignored. Now they had discovered that many of the friends they thought they had, had suddenly gotten very scarce.
Handing the camera to Yuri when Zella saw Kiki get out of a car with Benjamin. Both were in uniform out of respect and Zella had heard that Ben had been one of Luftwaffe Officers invited to be a pallbearer. It was considered an honor. Zella and Kiki exchanged greetings while she did her best to keep things civil with Ben who still regarded her as a psychopath.
The night before, when Zella had spoken with John Lennon over the phone he had joked about coming to Silesia to witness this. According to him the church service part of the funeral was all about the collective snobbery of Europe being seen mourning the death of a man who they had always seen as an upstart. The same man who had ruthlessly bribed, blackmailed, and backstabbed his way to the top. Inside they would all be seething, having the knowledge that their grandchildren were going to be stuck calling his grandchildren “Sir.” Though that seemed incredibly cynical, it seemed to be one of the better reads on the situation that she had heard.
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What the St. Elizabeth's Church spire looked like when it was built. As a result of damage from WW2 and a fire in 1976, the tower lost 30 odd meters in OTL.
Its a pity that the military funeral is almost certainly open casket (so that his enemies can make sure the old bastard really is dead), because that precludes the old tape-deck-in-the-coffin trick.
From the closed casket: <knock, knock, knock>
Gathered guests: "..."
Casket: <knock, knock, knock> 'Hello? Is there anyone there? I'd like to get out now, it's quite dark in here. Hello?'
Gathered guests: "..."
From the closed casket: <knock, knock, knock>
Gathered guests: "..."
Casket: <knock, knock, knock> 'Hello? Is there anyone there? I'd like to get out now, it's quite dark in here. Hello?'
Gathered guests: "..."
The story about Mathilda putting a penknife in the hands of the Red Baron just before his death is going to be widely shared amongst family and friends and will just add to his legend.
I could see her singing a song in Old German about heroes going to their final reward spontaneously at the gravesite.
I could see her singing a song in Old German about heroes going to their final reward spontaneously at the gravesite.
That would have been something Grand Admiral Schmidt might have done. Then again there was and probally still is many alphabet agencies still making sure he actually died and he is still in his grave. Best thing is a case of Schmidt sightings like Elvis sighting IOTL.
Part 147, Chapter 2671
Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Seventy-One
1st April 1978
Richthofen Estate, Rural Silesia
The procession went from the church to the Estate where Opa was going to be laid to rest in the small family graveyard next to his wife Käte who had died more than a decade earlier. His brother Lothar who had died in the First World War was there along with the son who had the same name who had been in a car accident. Generations of the Richthofen family were buried here going back to when they had first conquered this land in 1742.
Earlier, there had been the funeral service in a Church in Breslau which had bored Mathilda to tears. That wasn’t helped by the itchy black wool dress she had been given to wear. Ilse had told her to stop fidgeting. Then she had mentioned how phony she felt the whole service was, that most of those present were only there because they thought that they had to be, at least those who weren’t there to see if Opa was really dead. Ilse had told Mathilda that was enough and that she needed to maintain respectful silence as Emperor Friedrich himself delivered one of eulogies. To Mathilda, the Emperor looked more like a Lawyer from television than what she had always imagined the Emperor would look. Opa had fit the part, he looked like a King should. His personal office which was full of mementos from expeditions, weapons, trophies from battles and hunting had shown that he had lived that role. Albrecht had told Mathilda that most of that was going to the Imperial War Museum in Berlin along with Opa’s medals & service orders, writings, and personal correspondence. This was because Opa had been an important man, Historians wanted to examine those things so that they could gain a clearer picture of his life. That said it was Albrecht’s intention to claim the office as his own. He intended to replace the trophies with books and curios, items from his time in the Navy and Space Program. That included a rock that he said had come from the Moon. Ilse had a lot of ideas for what she intended to do with the rest of house, and it occurred to Mathilda that when she returned for the Summer Holiday it was going to be a radically different place. For her all of these things just kept coming at her and she just wished it would stop.
The flyby that the Luftwaffe had arranged came as they had been carrying the coffin out to the waiting hearse. First a number of the old clattering Fokker Triplanes that Opa had made famous, then a formation of the later Albatros D.XVI biplanes from the Russo-Polish War where he had run up a score that wouldn’t be equaled until the Soviet War decades later. Then the modern jets from JG1 had arrived. As per tradition, that Airwing painted a plane in brilliant crimson in case their Commander ever returned. That plane flew with three other planes in tight formation until it rocketed skyward out of sight. The other planes maintained their position in what was called the missing man formation. While Mathilda understood that it was being done in tribute, it left her cold.
Those were just machines, artifacts made by human hands.
In the old epics, when a great warrior died there was some sort of sign that the Gods had welcomed him. She knew that it was childish to be looking for it, but she wanted to believe that. It was like that thing with the knife found in Opa’s hand. There was some question as to how it had ended up there and Mathilda had kept quiet on the subject despite getting some rather hard looks from Ilse, who definitely suspected something. She had seen what Ilse had done to Cecilie and up until that moment she had forgotten that the woman who had been her primary Guardian since she had left the State School for Girls in Berlin six years earlier had come through the same system. The difference was that Mathilda had only been there for a few days while Ilse had spent her whole childhood and most of her teenaged years in places like that. The girls at that school had been fast talking and tough as nails, being around them had horrified Mathilda who had only been eleven at the time. That had been a reason why the Social Worker had recommended that Mathilda be placed with a family in a rural or at least suburban home and because the Emperor took a personal interest in her case she had ended up with Richthofens. She remembered that when she had seen Ilse thump Cecilie and tell off Sonje.
Mathilda just felt numb as she got out of the car she had been riding in and took her place in the line of people walking towards the graveyard, this was a smaller event that was limited to just family and those who had been close the Manfred von Richthofen in life. A Military Chaplain said a few words about Opa, how he had ably served his Nation, first in the Cavalry and later in the Luftwaffe before returning home and spending the rest of his life serving Silesia. He concluded with the familiar words from the Common Book of Prayer then said, “Manfred von Richthofen’s Ward, Mathilda Brunhild Auer has offered to sing the first elegy.”
Mathilda knew now as there were dozens of eyes on her that making that offer hours earlier had been a profound mistake. She started to sing a song she knew by heart, the song about the seasons that Opa had liked. In the back her head the meaning of the song, the metaphor became too much as she was standing only a couple meters from an open grave. Her voice faltered during the last verse, and she found that she couldn’t sing another word. Looking at the sky, vast blue and empty on a cold spring afternoon. She had never felt more alone in her life.
“He would have loved it” Ilse said as she led Mathilda back to her chair. Despite thinking that she was beyond such things, she sat there weeping uncontrollably. With that, those present started singing The Good Comrade as they lowered the coffin into the ground as they saluted.
1st April 1978
Richthofen Estate, Rural Silesia
The procession went from the church to the Estate where Opa was going to be laid to rest in the small family graveyard next to his wife Käte who had died more than a decade earlier. His brother Lothar who had died in the First World War was there along with the son who had the same name who had been in a car accident. Generations of the Richthofen family were buried here going back to when they had first conquered this land in 1742.
Earlier, there had been the funeral service in a Church in Breslau which had bored Mathilda to tears. That wasn’t helped by the itchy black wool dress she had been given to wear. Ilse had told her to stop fidgeting. Then she had mentioned how phony she felt the whole service was, that most of those present were only there because they thought that they had to be, at least those who weren’t there to see if Opa was really dead. Ilse had told Mathilda that was enough and that she needed to maintain respectful silence as Emperor Friedrich himself delivered one of eulogies. To Mathilda, the Emperor looked more like a Lawyer from television than what she had always imagined the Emperor would look. Opa had fit the part, he looked like a King should. His personal office which was full of mementos from expeditions, weapons, trophies from battles and hunting had shown that he had lived that role. Albrecht had told Mathilda that most of that was going to the Imperial War Museum in Berlin along with Opa’s medals & service orders, writings, and personal correspondence. This was because Opa had been an important man, Historians wanted to examine those things so that they could gain a clearer picture of his life. That said it was Albrecht’s intention to claim the office as his own. He intended to replace the trophies with books and curios, items from his time in the Navy and Space Program. That included a rock that he said had come from the Moon. Ilse had a lot of ideas for what she intended to do with the rest of house, and it occurred to Mathilda that when she returned for the Summer Holiday it was going to be a radically different place. For her all of these things just kept coming at her and she just wished it would stop.
The flyby that the Luftwaffe had arranged came as they had been carrying the coffin out to the waiting hearse. First a number of the old clattering Fokker Triplanes that Opa had made famous, then a formation of the later Albatros D.XVI biplanes from the Russo-Polish War where he had run up a score that wouldn’t be equaled until the Soviet War decades later. Then the modern jets from JG1 had arrived. As per tradition, that Airwing painted a plane in brilliant crimson in case their Commander ever returned. That plane flew with three other planes in tight formation until it rocketed skyward out of sight. The other planes maintained their position in what was called the missing man formation. While Mathilda understood that it was being done in tribute, it left her cold.
Those were just machines, artifacts made by human hands.
In the old epics, when a great warrior died there was some sort of sign that the Gods had welcomed him. She knew that it was childish to be looking for it, but she wanted to believe that. It was like that thing with the knife found in Opa’s hand. There was some question as to how it had ended up there and Mathilda had kept quiet on the subject despite getting some rather hard looks from Ilse, who definitely suspected something. She had seen what Ilse had done to Cecilie and up until that moment she had forgotten that the woman who had been her primary Guardian since she had left the State School for Girls in Berlin six years earlier had come through the same system. The difference was that Mathilda had only been there for a few days while Ilse had spent her whole childhood and most of her teenaged years in places like that. The girls at that school had been fast talking and tough as nails, being around them had horrified Mathilda who had only been eleven at the time. That had been a reason why the Social Worker had recommended that Mathilda be placed with a family in a rural or at least suburban home and because the Emperor took a personal interest in her case she had ended up with Richthofens. She remembered that when she had seen Ilse thump Cecilie and tell off Sonje.
Mathilda just felt numb as she got out of the car she had been riding in and took her place in the line of people walking towards the graveyard, this was a smaller event that was limited to just family and those who had been close the Manfred von Richthofen in life. A Military Chaplain said a few words about Opa, how he had ably served his Nation, first in the Cavalry and later in the Luftwaffe before returning home and spending the rest of his life serving Silesia. He concluded with the familiar words from the Common Book of Prayer then said, “Manfred von Richthofen’s Ward, Mathilda Brunhild Auer has offered to sing the first elegy.”
Mathilda knew now as there were dozens of eyes on her that making that offer hours earlier had been a profound mistake. She started to sing a song she knew by heart, the song about the seasons that Opa had liked. In the back her head the meaning of the song, the metaphor became too much as she was standing only a couple meters from an open grave. Her voice faltered during the last verse, and she found that she couldn’t sing another word. Looking at the sky, vast blue and empty on a cold spring afternoon. She had never felt more alone in her life.
“He would have loved it” Ilse said as she led Mathilda back to her chair. Despite thinking that she was beyond such things, she sat there weeping uncontrollably. With that, those present started singing The Good Comrade as they lowered the coffin into the ground as they saluted.
Part 147, Chapter 2672
Chapter Two Thousand Six Hundred Seventy-Two
3rd April 1978
Washington D.C.
It was clearly an election year. The voters were fickle as ever. All they seemed to know was that Nixon had been in power for the last six years and shouldn’t someone else have a turn? As if having knowledge of how the Government worked was a bad thing and that it was far better to be represented by a Freshman Congressman or Senator who would be led around by the nose by this or that Lobbyist. Not that people thought on those terms, it was more like the belief that new was better than the stogy old. It was particularly ironic that many of the new faces just happened to be pushing very old ideas that had never worked in the first place.
It was the understanding of James Hendrix that while the House wasn’t in play this year, the Senate map was difficult for the Democratic Party. All the first term Senators who rode Nixon’s coattails in 1972 were up for reelection. The result was that Hendrix had a full schedule between now and November as he had been invited to campaign for various candidates. He was Representative from a cobalt blue Urban Congressional District with strong backing from the Unions since he had strengthened Boeing’s position in Aerospace and was credited with bringing an auto assembly plant to the Seattle Region.
Presently, Hendrix was sitting in his office returning phone calls from earlier in the day. He had discovered over the last several months that his staff had needed to grow along with his perceived stature. Somewhere along the way, he had learned to play the game in Washington, and that was a culmination of everything he had been working towards since Grade School.
“Busy?” Bill Stoughton asked as he let himself in.
“I was” Hendrix replied. He had heard Speaker Stoughton referred to as an alley cat. He came and went as he pleased, no one could tell him what to do, and being a paunchy man in his sixties didn’t stop him from hitting on every woman in the room.
“I got something that you got to see, Jimmy” Stoughton said as he turned on the television in Hendrix’s office, shoved a video cassette into the slot in the front of the VCR, and hit play. The image that appeared on the screen was one that the whole world had been watching for the last few days.
“This isn’t exactly news” Hendrix replied.
“Yes and no” Stoughton said, “A friend of mine at WGBH in Boston was able to get the stuff that didn’t get initially get released by the Kaiser’s Press Office from someone they know who works for their German counterparts.”
Hendrix knew how Stoughton worked, there were always friends of friends who could seem to get damn near anything. He had yet to see exactly where the limits of that was. Hendrix watched as Stoughton fast forwarded through what he had already seen.
“This is it” Stoughton said as the tape played.
This was video of the burial and it was much smaller than the Church Service which must have been a complete circus from what Hendrix had seen. Even so it was still a fairly substantial production. A number of different colored military uniforms were seen representing all the various Service Branches of the German Military. Some of them were seldom seen by Americans. A man wearing a dark blue tunic, white trousers, and a large numbers of medals pinned to his chest was in the center of the screen.
“That is Field Marshal Dietrich Schultz from the German Marines” Stoughton said, “His father was the SOB who caused so many headaches for us over the years.”
The camera panned over to a young man who was either a teenager or his early twenties. He was wearing a blue tunic and grey trousers that were the dress uniform of the German Army and was leading a horse with backwards facing boots sewn into stirrups.
“That is Prince Nikolaus von Richthofen” Stoughton said as a striking young woman with shoulder length black hair and grey-blue eyes was walking next to him. “And Monique Chanson, they are rumored to be an item.”
“This is all well and good” Hendrix said, “But that last thing was the sort of thing that you might see in the sort of trashy magazine you see in the supermarket check stand.”
“Wait for it” Stoughton replied as a girl with long blond hair was introduced as Manfred von Richthofen’s ward, Mah-Tilda Broon-Hilt Ouwer-something or the other. She started singing in a language that didn’t sound like anything that Hendrix was familiar with. It was beautiful in an otherworldly way.
“What language is she singing in?” Hendrix asked.
“German, if you would believe that, just in a rare dialect” Stoughton replied, “I talked to several Linguists at Harvard and the one who recognized it said that it hasn’t seen common use in centuries. There are perhaps a few dozen of people in the world who can speak that language. Here is a girl who can sing in it.”
Hendrix was really wondering what Stoughton was getting at as he watched as the girl was unable to finish a verse of the song. She seemed then to collapse in on herself as Hendrix realized he was watching an emotional breakdown playing out.
“Manfred von Richthofen was a tyrant in the classic sense” Stoughton said, “There is a reason why he was able to forge strategic alliances with the Mischner and Schultz families. He was just as ruthless and cunning as they are. They might have just buried him, but his political machinations are still playing out. That girl singing and how it ended is the sort of thing that sticks with people. The woman who is comforting her is Elisabeth von Mischner, now the Queen of Silesia.”
If what Stoughton was saying was correct, he was seeing the sort of political manipulation that was conducted by a master.
3rd April 1978
Washington D.C.
It was clearly an election year. The voters were fickle as ever. All they seemed to know was that Nixon had been in power for the last six years and shouldn’t someone else have a turn? As if having knowledge of how the Government worked was a bad thing and that it was far better to be represented by a Freshman Congressman or Senator who would be led around by the nose by this or that Lobbyist. Not that people thought on those terms, it was more like the belief that new was better than the stogy old. It was particularly ironic that many of the new faces just happened to be pushing very old ideas that had never worked in the first place.
It was the understanding of James Hendrix that while the House wasn’t in play this year, the Senate map was difficult for the Democratic Party. All the first term Senators who rode Nixon’s coattails in 1972 were up for reelection. The result was that Hendrix had a full schedule between now and November as he had been invited to campaign for various candidates. He was Representative from a cobalt blue Urban Congressional District with strong backing from the Unions since he had strengthened Boeing’s position in Aerospace and was credited with bringing an auto assembly plant to the Seattle Region.
Presently, Hendrix was sitting in his office returning phone calls from earlier in the day. He had discovered over the last several months that his staff had needed to grow along with his perceived stature. Somewhere along the way, he had learned to play the game in Washington, and that was a culmination of everything he had been working towards since Grade School.
“Busy?” Bill Stoughton asked as he let himself in.
“I was” Hendrix replied. He had heard Speaker Stoughton referred to as an alley cat. He came and went as he pleased, no one could tell him what to do, and being a paunchy man in his sixties didn’t stop him from hitting on every woman in the room.
“I got something that you got to see, Jimmy” Stoughton said as he turned on the television in Hendrix’s office, shoved a video cassette into the slot in the front of the VCR, and hit play. The image that appeared on the screen was one that the whole world had been watching for the last few days.
“This isn’t exactly news” Hendrix replied.
“Yes and no” Stoughton said, “A friend of mine at WGBH in Boston was able to get the stuff that didn’t get initially get released by the Kaiser’s Press Office from someone they know who works for their German counterparts.”
Hendrix knew how Stoughton worked, there were always friends of friends who could seem to get damn near anything. He had yet to see exactly where the limits of that was. Hendrix watched as Stoughton fast forwarded through what he had already seen.
“This is it” Stoughton said as the tape played.
This was video of the burial and it was much smaller than the Church Service which must have been a complete circus from what Hendrix had seen. Even so it was still a fairly substantial production. A number of different colored military uniforms were seen representing all the various Service Branches of the German Military. Some of them were seldom seen by Americans. A man wearing a dark blue tunic, white trousers, and a large numbers of medals pinned to his chest was in the center of the screen.
“That is Field Marshal Dietrich Schultz from the German Marines” Stoughton said, “His father was the SOB who caused so many headaches for us over the years.”
The camera panned over to a young man who was either a teenager or his early twenties. He was wearing a blue tunic and grey trousers that were the dress uniform of the German Army and was leading a horse with backwards facing boots sewn into stirrups.
“That is Prince Nikolaus von Richthofen” Stoughton said as a striking young woman with shoulder length black hair and grey-blue eyes was walking next to him. “And Monique Chanson, they are rumored to be an item.”
“This is all well and good” Hendrix said, “But that last thing was the sort of thing that you might see in the sort of trashy magazine you see in the supermarket check stand.”
“Wait for it” Stoughton replied as a girl with long blond hair was introduced as Manfred von Richthofen’s ward, Mah-Tilda Broon-Hilt Ouwer-something or the other. She started singing in a language that didn’t sound like anything that Hendrix was familiar with. It was beautiful in an otherworldly way.
“What language is she singing in?” Hendrix asked.
“German, if you would believe that, just in a rare dialect” Stoughton replied, “I talked to several Linguists at Harvard and the one who recognized it said that it hasn’t seen common use in centuries. There are perhaps a few dozen of people in the world who can speak that language. Here is a girl who can sing in it.”
Hendrix was really wondering what Stoughton was getting at as he watched as the girl was unable to finish a verse of the song. She seemed then to collapse in on herself as Hendrix realized he was watching an emotional breakdown playing out.
“Manfred von Richthofen was a tyrant in the classic sense” Stoughton said, “There is a reason why he was able to forge strategic alliances with the Mischner and Schultz families. He was just as ruthless and cunning as they are. They might have just buried him, but his political machinations are still playing out. That girl singing and how it ended is the sort of thing that sticks with people. The woman who is comforting her is Elisabeth von Mischner, now the Queen of Silesia.”
If what Stoughton was saying was correct, he was seeing the sort of political manipulation that was conducted by a master.
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