Chapter Eleven
28th October, 1916
Wilhelmshaven, Jade Bight, Germany
1st Scouting Group was putting out to sea and all leaves were canceled. Oberfähnrich zur See Jacob Schmidt was thankful for that as walked up the gangplank on to the SMS Moltke. A crew of over a thousand and all of them knew exactly who he was and many of them were less than thrilled by that but still it had become his home.
He was coming back from leave where he’d spent the entire time arguing with his father about his choice of vocation and other things. Now he got to come back and deal with the Moltke, where a substantial percentage of her crew despised him for his religion. He had a hard time dealing with people in ordinary interactions without that. That was the problem with being on a totally different wavelength.
It seemed odd that the son of a rabbi would be recruited to the High Seas Fleet but it was an offer he’d received when he’d received his PHD in Mathematics at the age of 16. As far almost all the Fleet was concerned he was a radio operator, they liked how fast he was able to decipher messages. But he’d kept the extent of his abilities a secret. His ability to decipher from memory and crack cyphers just by listening to them would have gotten him put ashore. That would have been intolerable.
He walked through the battlecruiser, hostile territory. Finally, he reached his haven. The one place in the world where everything made sense. The radio room.
Oberstabsbootsmann Gunther Klimczak was there running the radios. The Oberstaber was 45-years old, he’d lost two fingers on his left hand and suffered other injuries in the Battle of Heligoland Bight but had saved the destroyer he’d been stationed on in the process. Afterwards he’d learned telegraphy to stay in the Navy because he could no longer be a coxswain.
It would be several hours until his watch started but he didn’t feel like going to his quarters just yet. Dropping his sea bag in the corner he sat down in his chair.
“How’d leave go Kid?” Gunther asked.
“Oh, the usual” Jakob said.
“That bad”
Gunther was one of the few crew members who had never inflicted their prejudices on Jakob or succumbed to peer pressure on the matter. Both of them were different sorts of outsiders in the Kaiserliche Marine. It was obvious that Jacob was a Jew, there was no hiding that and he didn’t even try. Gunther on the other hand was a Pole and secretly homosexual. Jakob had discovered this due to his curse of being able to see every detail and never forget any anything. They’d agreed to keep each-others secrets after that.
“My father still doesn’t understand why I joined the Navy and he said that it’s past the time that I got married” Jakob said.
“There are worse things in the world.”
“I know, just she is a nice girl and we are at war, I wouldn’t want to hurt her by getting killed.”
“We all fear the loss of loved ones in times like these” Gunther said. Jakob had met Gunther’s partner who was a stoker aboard the SMS Friedrich der Grosse. They feared whenever the other put to sea.
“You should write to your father that you’ll except the proposal the next time you’re on leave.”
“Why should I do that?” Jakob asked slightly aghast. At 20 he knew little about women other than he liked to look at them.
“Because life is short and uncertain”
“My grandparents would disagree with you, they’ve been married for 53 years.”
Gunther raised his eyebrows at that “Wow” he mouthed.
“You have anything good for me” Jakob asked changing the subject.
“Yeah” Gunther said handing Jakob a pair of headphones.
Jakob sat there for several long moments visualizing the patterns he was hearing into colors and musical notes, finding the harmony.
He then reached for his notebook and a pencil off one of the shelves and wrote out;
Chaumuzy, A.O.K.2 54th Corps, IV Reserve Corps, 51st Corps fully involved, situation holding.
Damery, A.O.K.5 58th Corps, XXI Corps fully involved, situation holding.
Gunther heard that and swore. “Those goddamned bums in the Army just keep getting pushed back, that’s almost to Reims”
“That’s it” Jakob said “They just changed the cypher.”
“They’ve been doing that” Gunther said “I swear back in the old days they would have burnt men like you at the stake.”
Then Gunther saw the sour look on Jakob’s face, that was exactly what would have happened in the old days to those with uncanny abilities AND Jews.
“Gee, sorry I didn’t mean to…”
“Got you” Jakob said with a smile.
“You little bastard” Gunther said.
“That could be true, my father might disown me at any second” Jacob said adjusting the dials on the radios “You should have seen the look on your face, now let’s listen in on what the Russians are up to.”
Outside Ovillers-la-Boisselle, France
It was a rainy autumn afternoon when the staff car pulled up, General von Gallwitz and an Aide got out. “What is so important that you cannot tell me over the phone Hauptmann” The General demanded of Hauptmann Bauer “Do you have any idea what’s happening at the front.”
“Let Oberlieutenant Holz tell you” Bauer said nodding in Emil’s direction.
“He’s an Oberlieutenant?” The General asked.
The General walked up to a very nervous Emil “Tell me why in God’s name you are dressed like that?”
Emil was dressed in a second hand feldgrau coat he’d picked up along the way, a stained tunic and mud covered boots. With the Mauser rifle slung over shoulder he looked just like an enlisted man. Only the rank epaulettes lined in rust red on his shoulder straps showed that he was an Oberlieutenant and a staff officer.
“Sir, there are partisans about some of them are good shots and I don’t want to make myself a target, Sir” Emil said.
The General became very self-conscious of his tailored uniform and new coat, Hauptmann Bauer had a horrified look on his face.
“Clever thinking Oberlieutenant Holz” The General said “Now please show me what was so important.”
“Please follow me, Sir” Emil said walking towards a large pile of British detritus past the Pioneer platoon that he’d commanded for the last couple of months. They had taken whatever shelter they could find. “We were going through this lot when we found this” He lifted camouflage netting to reveal a riveted steel plate. “Then we found this” Two men lifted up a different section of netting revealing a canon sticking out the side of whatever this was.
“What is this?” The General asked.
“The documents we found refer to this as a water tank or water transport but that’s clearly not what it is, Sir.” Emil said “Whatever it is the Brits went to a lot of trouble to keep us from finding out about it.”
The General smiled, now the Army had its own big secret, after all it was fun to be the one to have first crack at the new toys.
31st October, 1916
Outside of Reims, France
They had finally been pulled from the front lines after weeks of hard fighting. The French had been pushing them hard down the Eastern road. There were rumors that the 3rd and 4th Armies were getting pounded in Châlons-en-Champagne and Bar-le-Duc. Up north the French 5th Army and the BEF had gotten back into the war, the 1st and 7th were having to join the party.
Word was that Clemenceau had declared that this was a battle against the forces of darkness. That every French soldier had a duty to cleanse the sacred soil of France of the stain that was German occupation in the name of God. It sounded like Le Tigre had really lost the plot, this was the same man who’d had pushed to have there be a separation of Church and State in 1905.
At moment Horst was just happy to still be alive. He and Sjostedt were sitting on the side of the road watching French prisoners walk by. There were a lot fewer of them then there used to be. Horst shuttered to think about what might be happening to any one of their people who got caught.
That was when one of the prisons saw them sitting there, Horst noticed that this man was wearing red pants that were partially covered by his coat, Foreign Legion, always trouble even as prisoners. He turned and yelled “Look at the lazy Boche slime sitting about small wonder we’re beating you now!” In strangely accented French. Horst noticed that Sjostedt had gone very still when he heard that accent, he knew from being around Sjostedt for months that was also trouble. Horst shot to his feet and looked the man in the eye “We took Verdun and we took you, so we must not be doing too bad” Horst said hoping that this man would back down. That was when the man saw Sjostedt and the man’s face was contorted with rage. “You’re a long way from home Chief!” The man Yelled. Sjostedt just stood there with his jaw clenched. “You worthless Boche are so stupid you don’t know the sort of trash you allow into your Army” The man said to Horst “Your buddy is a worthless half-blood prairie ni…”
Horst had never seen anyone move so fast as Sjostedt did in that second. He was a blur and when he stopped he had his bayonet to the man’s throat. Horst knew that Sjostedt kept it crystal sharp, the man was just a hairs breath from death. “Finish the sentence” Sjostedt said in cold rage “I dare you.”
“Sjostedt…” Horst said trying to calm him down. He noticed a wet patch forming on the front of the man’s trousers.
“That’s what I thought” Sjostedt said letting the man go and stalked off. Horst knew that none of the men around them would report this, everyone knew that Sjostedt had been one of those on top of the fort in Verdun. The entire Division treated them with a bit of reverence because of that.
But still rumors got around and the last thing he wanted to see was word get around that Sjostedt had lost his wits.
“What the Hell was that about?” Horst said chasing after Sjostedt “What’s gotten into you.”
“You wouldn’t understand” Sjostedt said.
“Try me” Horst said “We’ve been caught up in the same shit for so long…”
Sjostedt finally stopped and let out a long sigh. “My Grandfather was a teacher at a mission school on the Reservation north of Flagstaff” Sjostedt said.
Horst nodded, Sjostedt had said that before.
“He took his son Karl with him when he went there, my father” Sjostedt said “My father fell in love with a Diné woman and married her, they had me and my sisters. My father died when I was 12 and my Grandfather decided to go home, he just didn’t have the heart to stay. Me, my mother and sisters came with him to my great uncle’s farm in Bramstedtland.”
“What’s a Diné?” Horst asked.
"What the whites call Navajo.”
Horst nodded, he’d read enough cowboy novels to understand that.
“What does that have to do with that guy back there?”
“His accent was pure Deep South, those people are mean, bigoted and proud of it” Sjostedt said “He was trying to get under my skin and he did.”
“My mother is a French Catholic and my father is Protestant from Saxony” Horst said “So I’ve an inkling of what that’s like.”
Sjostedt nodded.
“One thing though” Horst said. “You said you weren’t a Dane but isn’t Bramstedtland right on the border.”
Sjostedt laughed “Can’t you let that go” he said.
“Nope, never.”
When they got back to the road they saw that some of the other men had grabbed the Legionnaire. “What do you want us to do with him, Oberfeld?” One of them asked.
Horst buried his fist into the man’s gut. “I wanted to kill you and bury you right here where no one would ever know or care what happened to you” He said to the man as he was doubled over. “But my brother here talked me out of it, so spend the rest of your worthless life knowing that the only reason you are still alive is because a Navajo soldier who I’m proud to serve next to wanted it so.”
He walked away from the man who fell down into the road dust.
Sjostedt who saw and heard all this had a wide grin on his face.
