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“What? I h then? Who?”

“I retired, as it… six years ago? He was only a colonel, a very young colonel What a hter like hiuerrilla fighter with the Boer commandos”

“Did you know him?”

“Me? A sergeant from Berlin know a Prussian aristocrat? What could you be thinking, my friend?”

Curtis gripped the table to right himself as a sudden burst of pain nearly knocked hi his voice “I meant, did you serve under him?”

“I only knew him by reputation He was admired Still is, I’m sure”

“Why did they call him Monkey?”

“Not to his face,” the sergeant chuckled “Mein Gott, Colonel Semmler would have sliced their ears off and made them eat them”

“Semmler… But why did they call him ‘Monkey’?”

“He looked like one Enorlanced about and lowered his voice “Not quite the picture of the purebred Prussian aristocrat, if you knohat I mean More the sturdy peasant, like me”

“I thought Semmler was a Prussian name?”

“Of course And they said he’s a Roth

, too — buckets of superior Prussian blood, if not the superior shape My friend, are you all right? You look at death’s door”

“What is his first name?”

“Christian”