Free Strange Intelligence: Memoirs of Naval Secret Service by Hector C. Bywater, H. C. Ferraby Page A

for his visit to that city, since a legitimate occupation (which served as a ‘cover’ not only for his residence in Germany, but also for the almost constant travelling that his real work entailed) was as essential to the intelligence agent as the pursuit of cricket was to ‘Raffles’. Amongst Brown’s friends in Hanover was an army reserve officer, who was inordinately proud of the privilege of wearing the Kaiser’s uniform on certain occasions. By the Prussian regular soldier these reservist officers were slightingly labelled as ‘civilians with extenuating circumstances’, but they were none the less keen and efficient soldiers who largely formed the backbone of Germany’s second-line formations during the Great War.
    That night Brown’s friend, Herr Schultz, was attending a reserve officers’ reunion dinner, more properly termed a Bier-Abend , and he was kind enough to invite Brown to accompany him as his guest, these occasions being very informal and gemütlich . Brown accepted with alacrity, knowing by experience how expansive and communicative the sternest Prussian often became under the mellowing influence of plentiful beer.
    Good fellowship and camaraderie were the order of the evening. Among the other guests were eight or nine regular officers of the Hanover garrison who were relatives or close friends of their hosts.
    The simple meal over, beer mugs were refilled, cigars were lighted, and the company ‘proceeded to harmony.’ Old favourites, such as the ‘ Gaudeamus ’, ‘Was Martin Luther spricht ’ and ‘ Wer niemals einen Rausch gehabt, der ist kein braver Mann ’, were succeeded by the more classical melodies of Schubert and Schumann, rendered by accomplished singers who are invariably to be found in any German gathering, irrespective of class or profession. After these came tuneful Volkslieder , and the stirring patriotic ballads of which German music has so rich a store. The latter harmonised well with the atmosphere of the evening. Round the long, bare table sat uniformed officers of all ranks, from a grizzled colonel of artillery to a pink-cheeked Sapper subaltern whose first tunic had but lately left its tissue-paper wrappings.
    In physiognomy and mannerism the company was a microcosm of the Germanic race. One saw the high cheek-bones and snub features of the East Prussian, in whose veins – deny it as indignantly as he would – runs Tartar blood; the blond, blue-eyed, athletic Rhinelander, who has only to pass through the hands of a Savile-Row tailor to become, to all outward appearance, a typical well-bred Englishman; the short, dark, vivacious Saxon, whose naturally easygoing temperament peeps through the veneer of restraint and discipline imposed by a military training that is Prussian to the core, despite the nominalindependence of the Saxon kingdom; the jovial, loud-voiced, but choleric Bavarian, whose somewhat unruly instincts, checked and tempered by the same Prussian discipline, make him one of the doughtiest fighting men in Europe.
    These Teutonic warriors are taking their ease, with belts unbuckled and stiff collars loosened. On side tables are piled their red-lined cloaks, high-crowned caps and gleaming swords. Old comrades pledge one another in deep draughts of Pilsner or Münchner , beverages exhilarating but not too potent. Jests crackle to and fro across the board, and now and then an explosion of laughter follows some Rabelaisian anecdote by the genial captain of the crack Maikäfer Regiment, who is the best raconteur of the evening.
    A lull in the conversation, and then the strains of ‘The Song of the Sword’ with its almost mystical, staccato verses, which the Saxon poet Körner penned only a few hours before he fell at the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig in 1813, steal through the room.
    A murmur of astonishment runs round the table, for the singer is the English guest, yet he is singing this essentially German martial song with all the impassioned fervour of