The Heir-Apparent enquired why I had left the submarine service to take up flying? And I, for my part, was preparing to give him the expected answers: looking for ever more dangerous ways of winning honour for the Noble House of Austria and so on and so forth. But then I thought, why should I? Perhaps it was the shaking-up administered to my brain by shell fire the previous day, but a sudden wild thought came into my head: why not tell him the truth for once? There are more than enough lies and half-lies in this venerable Monarchy of ours, I thought, and more than enough court flunkeys to filter reality; and anyway, who needs the truth more than this young man, who will soon be ruling over fifty-five million people? So I told him that in fact I had not volunteered for the Flying Service, but had been volunteered for it by my superiors to get them off the hook with the Germans over their sunken U-Boat; and that while I had no objection to risking my neck each day as an officer-observer in the k.u.k. Fliegertruppe, I felt that my talents might still be more profitably employed back in my own trade at sea. He listened sympathetically, nodding as he did so and intoning, “Yes, yes.” He seemed to have had a look of concern built into his face in his mother’s womb. He concluded the conversation by remarking that so far as he could see an injustice had been done, then shook my hand in farewell and moved on to speak with Zugsfuhrer Toth.
I knew now that I would henceforth be a marked man among the Habsburg officer corps for the rest of my days. In military life there are few offences against service propriety more heinous than that of going over the head of one’s immediate superior and complaining to his superiors. It is something which can occasionally be done, but only in the direst extremities and in the knowledge that one will be regarded with suspicion ever after. And now I, a junior naval officer, had committed the ultimate solecism by going to the man very near the top. Short of complaining to the Emperor himself I could scarcely have committed a greater outrage. And all for nothing: for I knew perfectly well from my experience of royalty that he would probably have forgotten about it already.
The Heir-Apparent made a great deal of talking with Toth in Magyar. I asked him afterwards in Latin what the Archduke had said to him. He replied that he had not the faintest idea: he thought that the man was trying to speak Magyar, but that he was by no means sure.
But at least there was some brightness in that dismal little square in Haidenschaft that afternoon. Our orders for the presentation had said that, if we wished, we might bring family members along to watch. Well, I had no family members nearer than Vienna. But not so Zugsfuhrer Toth: his Slovene girlfriend, the delightful Magdalena, had come along with him. And very fine she looked as well, wearing the gala version of the local costume: her best frock and bodice with the addition of a lace-trimmed headband and coloured ribbons in her hair. The written orders had said “Ladies: promenade toilette or national costume,” and as I looked at her I was profoundly glad that she had chosen the latter, making herself a glorious splash of gaiety and colour amid the field-grey wartime drabness of the square, like a kingfisher amid a flock of town-sparrows. She was presented to the Heir-Apparent afterwards, curtsied most prettily and answered his questions intelligently and confidently in German.
The Archduke passed on to someone else—and his place was immediately taken by a gangling and achingly aristocratic young ADC with a toothbrush moustache and a foolish grin: General stabshauptmann the Prince von and zu Steyer-Wurmischgarten and Rothenfels, or something like that. He completely ignored Toth, who as a ranker had to stand rigidly to attention before him. But he seemed very interested indeed in young Magdalena, even proposed taking her for a ride in his motor car, with perhaps a spot of supper afterwards at a hotel he knew in Marburg? I held my breath and watched Toth: assaulting an officer in wartime was a death- penalty offence. But I need not have worried; Magdalena smiled graciously and announced in her clear voice, “It is true, Your Serene Highness, that I am only a simple village girl and that you are a prince. But I’m afraid that Your Serene Highness has been watching too many operettas: we simple village girls aren’t anything like as simple as we used to be. However, if Your Serene Highness is desirous of the company of local young ladies I can supply him with the address of some very nice ones indeed.” The prince looked disappointed. But like a true soldier he seemed to recognise failure when he saw it and to be prepared to accept second-best. So the address was duly noted down in his pocket book before he bowed and left us. When he was out of earshot I asked her:
“Gnadiges Fraulein, what was the address you gave him, if I might ask?”
She giggled deliciously. “The back entrance of the Other Ranks’ knocking-shop on the Via Gorizia. There should be quite a stir among the townsfolk when his car draws up there. I hope he enjoys himself.”
She turned to Toth and took him by the arm, digging him in the ribs with her elbow. “Quod dices, O Zolli? Princeps maxime fatuus est, non verum?”
I must say that I was rather shocked by this, even if filled with a certain admiration. I would not have expected convent-educated Slovene village maidens to know that such things as military bordellos even existed, let alone their address.
After the presentation Toth and I went to see the Medical Officer in Haidenschaft. We were both suffering from chest pains and nausea. Our eyes were sore and red and Toth was developing a fine inflamed rash around his neck. The Medical Officer diagnosed the after-effects of poison gas and wrote us each out a note authorising us to go and take two weeks’ immediate leave somewhere with clear air. He said that we would soon get over it—he thought that it sounded like a phosgene derivative, and apparently one needed to inhale quite a lot of phosgene to be permanently injured by it—but he recommended us both to get well away from the Front for a while. “Nervous tension: all the fliers get it before long. Too much altitude and excitement and inhaling petrol fumes. Yes, yes, I know the poor devils in the trenches have a much worse time of it; but for them it’s largely a matter of endurance, and they’ve got their comrades around them all the time to support them. Up in the air you fellows are completely on your own and, believe me, the strain begins to show very quickly.”
So a telegram was sent to Elisabeth at her hospital in Vienna, and that evening I boarded the train at Divacca. She had been due for leave for quite some time now, and in any case she would soon be tendering her resignation on grounds of pregnancy. However, we wanted to be alone together and I doubted whether we would be allowed that in the capital, so I told her to pack her bags for a holiday in my home town of Hirschendorf in northern Moravia. She had never met my father, so here was a wonderful opportunity to combine convalescent leave with filial duty.
We met early the next morning on the platform at the Franz Josephs Bahnhof. It was not quite a month since I had last seen her, but still her beauty struck me as forcibly as it had the first time I had met her, in Budapest the previous year. Beauty in women, I have always found, is far more a matter of personality than of looks. True, Elisabeth was certainly well provided for in the latter department, as are many Hungarian women (though in her case she counted Romanians, Italians, Russians and even Scots among her ancestors). But her dark-green eyes and dark-brown, almost black hair and fine-boned oval face would have been nothing without the gaiety and intelligence and grace of manner that illuminated them from within. She rushed over to meet me as I climbed down from the fiacre which had carried me from the Sudbahnhof. She was wearing a summer frock and hat and carried a parasol, since military nurses were allowed to wear civilian clothes off-duty. She flung her arms around me and kissed me, then stood back to look at me.
“Well, still alive I see after all. Whose idea was it to send me that telegram? ”
“Yes, I know. They could have waited. It was only a minor accident and they might at least have contacted the unit holding the sector where we came down. It was my commanding officer I’m afraid. I’d have wrung his neck for him but he was out when I got back to the airfield. Did it upset you very much?”
She smiled faintly. “I can’t say that it gave me a very agreeable sensation in the pit of my stomach when I opened it—until I looked at the date. Luckily it seems to have been delayed and I’d opened yours first. But your commanding officer—Kralik or whatever his name is—he sounds a first-class rotter. ‘It is my sad but proud duty to announce to you that your husband has died a glorious flier’s death on the field of eternal honour . . .’ I mean, who in their right mind writes stuff like that two years into a world war? He sounded almost glad that you’d been killed —as if I ought to send a telegram back thanking the Army for making me a widow second time around.”
“Did you think that they had?”
“Not really: in my heart I knew that you’d be all right. I just knew— woman’s intuition I suppose.”
“Flying’s a dangerous business, you know? I never wrote to you about how many men and machines we’ve lost these past few weeks, or the scrapes I’ve had.”
“I knew that perfectly well. We’ve had a lot of burnt and smashed-up airmen coming into the hospital recently. But I still knew that you’d be all right. Don’t ask me why, I just knew. I’ve got a little picture of the Blessed Virgin on my bedside table next to your photograph and I pray to that each morning and evening to keep you safe.”
“I thought that you didn’t believe in all that sort of thing?”
“I don’t. But it’s like the man who went around Messina a few years ago after the earthquake selling anti-
