The Scarlatti Inheritance(22)
Strasser thought for a moment. “Very well, Amerikaner. Let’s choose a name you should find hard to forget—Kroeger.”
“Who?”
“Kroeger—Corporal Heinrich Kroeger, whose head you shot off in the Meuse-Argonne.”
On November 10 at three o’clock in the afternoon the cease-fire order went out.
Ulster Stewart Scarlett bought a motorcycle and began his swift journey to La Harasée and beyond. To B Company, Fourteenth Battalion.
He arrived in the area where most of the battalion was bivouacked and started his search for the company. It was difficult. The camp was filled with drunken, glassy-eyed, foul-breathed soldiers of every description. The order-of-the-early-morning was mass alcoholic hysteria.
Except for Company B.
B Company was holding a religious service. A commemoration for a fallen comrade.
For Lieutenant Ulster Stewart Scarlett, AEF.
Scarlett watched.
Captain Jenkins finished reading the beautiful Psalm for the Dead in a choked voice and then led the men in the Lord’s Prayer.
“Our Father Who art in heaven …” Some of the men were weeping unashamedly.
It was a pity to spoil it all, thought Scarlett.
His citation read in part:
… after single-handedly destroying three enemy machine-gun nests, he took out in pursuit of a fourth dangerous emplacement, destroying that also and thereby saving many Allied lives. He did not return and was presumed dead. However, until the fighting ceased a week hence, Second Lieutenant Scarlett provided B Company with an inspiring cry of battle. “For Old Rolly!” struck terror in the hearts of many an enemy. Through God’s infinite wisdom, Second Lieutenant Scarlett rejoined his platoon the day following the cessation of hostilities. Exhausted and weak, he returned to glory. Through presidential order we hereby bestow …
CHAPTER 5
Back in New York, Ulster Stewart Scarlett discovered that being a hero let him do precisely as he wished. Not that he had been confined, far from it, but now even the minor restrictions such as punctuality and the normal acceptance of routine social courtesies were no longer expected of him. He had faced the supreme test of man’s existence—the encounter with death. True, there were thousands like him in these respects but few were officially designated heroes, and none was a Scarlett. Elizabeth, startled beyond words, lavished upon him everything that money and power could make available. Even Chancellor Drew deferred to his young brother as the male leader of the family.
And so into the twenties bounded Ulster Stewart Scarlett.
From the pinnacles of society to the owners of speakeasies, Ulster Stewart was a welcome friend. He contributed neither much wit nor a great deal of understanding and yet his contribution was something very special. He was a man in working sympathy with his environment. His demands from life were certainly unreasonable but these were unreasonable times. The seeking of pleasure, the avoidance of pain, the enjoyment of existing without ambition were all that he seemed to require.
Seemed to require.
But not what Heinrich Kroeger required at all.
They corresponded twice a year, Strasser’s letters addressed to a general post office box in mid-Manhattan.
April, 1920
My dear Kroeger:
It is official. We have given a name and a new life to the defunct Workers party. We are the National Socialist German Workers party—and, please, my dear Kroeger, don’t take the words too seriously. It is a magnificent beginning. We attract so many. The Versailles restrictions are devastating. They reduce Germany to rubble. And yet it is good. It is good for us. The people are angry, they lash out not only at the victors—but at those who betrayed us from within.
June, 1921
Dear Strasser:
You have Versailles, we have the Volstead! And it’s good for us, too.… Everyone’s getting a slice of the pie and I’m not missing my share—our share! Everybody wants a favor, a payoff—a shipment! You have to know the right people. In a short time I’ll be the “right people.” I’m not interested in the money—screw the money! Leave that for the kikes and the greasers! I’m getting something else! Something far more important.…
January, 1922
My dear Kroeger:
It is all so slow. So painfully slow when it could be different. The depression is unbelievable and getting worse. Trunkfuls of currency virtually worthless. Adolf Hitler has literally assumed the position of chairman of the party over Ludendorff. You recall I once said to you that there were names I could not speak of? Ludendorff was one. I do not trust Hitler. There is something cheap about him, something opportunistic.
October, 1922
Dear Strasser:
It was a good summer and it’ll be a better fall and a great winter! This Prohibition was tailor-made! It’s madness! Have a little money up front and you’re in business!… And what business! My organization is growing. The machinery is just the way you’d like it—perfect.