The Secrets of the German War Office by Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
page 21 of 223 (09%)
page 21 of 223 (09%)
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know. The next thing I remember was a rattle of grounding arms and
the sight of two other officers, excitedly gesticulating with the one in charge of the firing squad. All three presently came towards me and one pulling out a flask of cognac with a polite bow offered me a drink. I needed it; but didn't take it. All this time I had been standing motionless with my arms folded across my breast. I heard one say to the other, "Nitchka Curacha" (no coward). If he had only known. Indeed, had I anticipated such an experience, had I known the things I know now I doubt if I would have been so pleased with the results of my first visit to Koenigergratzerstrasse 70, where the Intelligence Department of the German Admiralty is quartered. Will the reader step back with me in the narrative to the day of my officially joining the Service? Returning to my hotel after my interview with Captain von Tappken in his office, I began to reflect. I had not entered the Service out of pure adventure or for monetary reasons alone. Money has never appealed to me as the all-powerful thing in life. I have always had enough for creature comforts and as for adventure I had had my fill during the Boer War and my world wanderings. No, I had joined the German Secret Service for quite a different reason. I was thinking of the influences that had pressed me out of my destined groove, by every human right my own. I remember how sanguine Count Reitzenstein was that through the Service I ought to gain the power I had lost. But as I sat in the hotel room had occult powers been given me, I never would have taken up Secret Service work. But one is not quite as wise at twenty-four as at thirty-nine. |
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