Count Luckner, the Sea DevilLuckner, Felix, Graf von
History
Count Luckner, the Sea Devil
Luckner, Felix, Graf von
Germany. Kriegsmarine; Luckner, Felix, Graf von, 1881-1966; Seeadler (Ship); World War, 1914-1918 -- Naval operations
Uniformed aërodrome attendants ran over, leaned their spidery metal
ladder against the glistening duraluminum fuselage, and opened the
cabin door. Two passengers descended, a giant of a man and a dainty
slip of a woman. The former, who climbed down first, was tall, of
massive frame, with huge shoulders, and altogether one of the most
powerful-looking men I had ever seen. After him came the little
blonde, who looked for all the world like a fairy who had arrived on
a sunbeam. Putting her slipper to the top rung of the ladder she
jumped into her escort's arms.
What a voice that man had! It boomed across the flying field like a
foghorn or the skipper of a Yankee whaler ordering his men aloft.
As they came toward us, he walked with a rolling seaman's gait. In
his mouth was a nautical-looking pipe, and his jovial weather-beaten
countenance suggested one who goes down to the sea. He wore a naval
cap cocked over one eye, and a rakish light brown chinchilla coat,
called a "British Warm."
Every pilot and mechanic on the field stopped work and saluted the
couple. The mariner who had dropped from the sky saluted in all
directions after the cheery but somewhat perfunctory manner of the
Prince of Wales. One could see that he was accustomed to doing it,
and presumably was someone of more than local fame. He even saluted
us, as they passed into the little restaurant, although he had never
set eyes on us before and we had not saluted him. But the newcomer
seemed to take the whole world, including strangers, into the compass
of his rollicking friendliness. We were still sitting on the veranda
when they came out and drove off for Lake Constance. He called, or
rather bellowed, "_Wiedersehen, wiedersehen_," to everybody, as he
squeezed into the door, and the frame of the limousine bent under his
weight. The man simply radiated personality, and turning to the
commandant of the Stuttgart Plug Platz, who stood near me, I said:
"Who is that?"
"That? Why that's the Sea Devil."
"And who may the Sea Devil be?"
"Why, the Sea Devil is Count Luckner, who commanded the raider
_Seeadler_. The young lady is his countess."
I remembered the _Seeadler_ vaguely as a sailing ship that had broken
through the British blockade and played havoc with Allied shipping in
the Atlantic and Pacific during the latter part of the war.
Certainly, this Sea Devil looked the part of a rollicking buccaneer.
I thought the age of pirates had vanished with the passing of Captain
Kidd and the Barbary Corsairs, but here was one of the good old
"Yo-ho, and a bottle of rum" type.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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