The Generals

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Book: Read The Generals for Free Online
Authors: Per Wahlöö
Tags: Crime
enough.
    Roth
: Oh, do you? Wherever that boat came from, it had laida whole lot of mines too, but they weren’t much use. Not then, anyhow. But they were afterwards, of course, when they tried to blockade us and we mined the coast. Anyhow, the militia were sort of divided up amongst the three harbours, the largest lot placed in and around Ludolfsport, as it was called then. It was only a little fishing village, then, of course, but boats of up to five or six hundred tons could tie up at the quays. We had about two hundred men and two guns there—ordinary 12.5 centimetre howitzers. Two fishing trawlers, each with a machine-gun mounted on the foredeck sailed out of the harbour and anchored there as guard-ships. Oswald, that is General Oswald as he has become, was there and directed the whole thing as well as was possible. There weren’t many orders as such given, anyhow I didn’t hear any, but that didn’t matter because everyone knew what they were supposed to do. At about ten, just what we’d expected to happen happened. A tug and two big motorboats came in towards the harbour, all of them packed with uniformed police. The trawlers, which had the new national flag flying, hailed them, but they went on all the same, and so they opened fire from the trawlers with their machine-guns. One of the police-boats seized up almost at once and stopped, and then the guns began to shoot at the tug. We had a good gunner—and the second shot scored a hit in the stern. The tug began to sink at once, but thank God it swerved out of the channel and got stuck on one of the sandbanks with its stack and bridge above the water, so we could pick up most of those who’d been on board. The motor-boat that was still untouched began to pull away with the other, but it was a slow business, it was, and after a bit of chitchat, Oswald sent off one of the trawlers and took all the policemen prisoner. After an hour or so, he changed his mind and let the motor-boats go again, after we’d taken the police’s arms off them, of course. They only had pistols and tear-gas grenades, anyhow. They’d shot at the trawlers from one of the motor-boats and a fisherman had got a bullet in his shoulder, but that was all. And the police didn’t do too badly anyhow. Five or six copped it, perhaps, when we sank the tug. We got it up again, as a matter of fact, a few weeks later, and it wasn’t badly damaged.
    Captain Schmidt
: And then?
    Roth
: Then there wasn’t any more fighting. Their planes flewbackwards and forwards above us, but quite high up, and we didn’t shoot at them, because we’d appealed to all the international organisations and all the great powers to find a peaceful solution, as it’s called. And they didn’t shoot at us, either. After a few weeks, when they were still at the height of the jawing at the United Nations, they stopped flying over, too.
    Commander Kampenmann
: To what extent did Velder take part in all these events?
    Roth
: He was in my group. We lay protected behind sandbags on the pier, covering the harbour entrance. That wasn’t actually necessary any longer, as no one ever got that far. But two or three years later, he and I both got a medal. Everyone who’d been at Ludolfsport at the time got one.
    Captain Schmidt
: What were the circumstances within the militia during the period that followed.
    Roth
: The only important task we had was passport and immigration control. My group did mostly guard-duty, event-free mostly. The militia was also responsible for internal order and other purely police matters. That was even more uninteresting, because all that happened was an accident or two, usually in connection with the big building projects.
    Captain Schmidt
: What was your opinion of Velder as a soldier?
    Roth
: We didn’t regard ourselves as soldiers.
    Captain Schmidt
: How did he behave? Did he obey orders? Was he reliable?
    Roth
: Don’t know what to say, really. He didn’t exactly obey orders, but he would have done

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