Charlie Davies collected Carter from the Stettiner Hof. The lights lit the Holzberg Square, shone on the leaning and timbered facades of the houses, on the cobbles. Noise and laughter spilled from the bars and cafes, a carefree accordion wheezed at the night. A cheerful community that was soon behind them as they took the road north.
'My wife did a flask of coffee and I put a half of Scotch on the NAAFI slate, and there's some sandwiches . . .' said Davies as he drove. 'There's a groundsheet in the back, too, and a torch. We could be out there all night.
. .'
'Signals said again this afternoon that the radio traffic over there is still lumping Johnny with Guttmann and his daughter.'
'Not my business, but they're important, are they?'
'They're what Johnny's there for.'
'And he's an old man, this Guttmann?'
'In his seventieth year.'
'Jesus . . . Who's this caper down to?'
'The high and the mighty, and they've had sod-all luck.'
'Luck doesn't get you far on the wire,' Davies said gently. The mood was oppressive and he sought to change the
tempo. 'I can't take the car that close. We'll have to walk the last mile, and death quiet then, no lights, no talking. Right?'
The car was off the main road, coughing along a rough track between the trees. Carter was subdued. A thousand miles from home. A thousand miles from Century House. A thousand miles from the 'Green Dragon'
and the snug bar. A thousand miles from everything that was real and dear to him. A thousand miles from Johnny who was across the wire and coming.
Charlie Davies parked the car, ran it off the track and under the trees.
'I think we'll have a last fag here,' he said. 'And maybe we'd better break open the bottle for a quickie.'
He stripped the cap off the small whisky bottle and passed it to Carter.
Johnny looked at his watch. For forty-five minutes they had been in the cover at the back of the woodman's hut. The pattern of the jeep patrol had developed in front of him. Ten minutes after they had come to the hut the vehicle had crawled along the makeshift track on the south to north run.
Fifteen minutes later it had returned, chugging in low gear, its headlights sharp and glinting on the fence. Another fifteen minutes and again south to north and Johnny had seen the silhouettes of the two men through the doorway space of the jeep.
All hinging on the watch face, because Johnny had sneered that he was exact, that he had a plan. All dependent on the moving minute hand.
Five more minutes and the jeep should return and with the heading away of its winking tail lights they would go for the Hinterland fence. If there was a concealed surveillance position, occupied since the previous evening, then he believed he would have seen a sign, heard a greeting from the jeep.
No moon, only a wind that drifted the clouds, curled the upper branches, shivered in the leaves.
'After the next run, we go . ..'
One hand in Otto Guttmann's, the other in Erica's.
Johnny felt them grasping at him, trying to borrow from him the strength for their survival.
'Just do as I said, exactly as I said. There aren't going to be any problems.'
He loosed the old man's hand, but Erica's hand he held longer, and her fingers were slipped between his. Afterwards, Johnny, afterwards is the time for thanks. Her fingers played on the palm of his hand.
The jeep was coming.
Johnny snatched his hand away, sank to a crouch, pulled them down beside him, was aware of the slow, stiff movements of Otto Guttmann.
God knows how you managed to get this far, old man.
First the twin beams of the head lights, then the following shadow of the jeep. Fifteen miles an hour. In its own time. Johnny covered his eyes to save his vision. The jeep passed within thirty yards of them and there was a murmur of voices beside the engine noise. It sank away out of their sight and the arc of light was lost, and they were left in the crowding darkness with only the fading lurch of the motor.
Johnny ran forward with the single larch pole. Thirty-five strides to the fence. A yard short he stopped, panted, caught at himself for control.
Behind him he heard Otto Guttmann and Erica, coming more slowly because the burden of the ladder was greater. Johnny raised the pole to the level of the second wire. He couldn't reach over the very highest. He edged the pole forward inch by inch between the wires. A fraction to spare top and bottom. The muscles of his back rippled and shook with the weight of it. His wrists ached in pain. At last he reached the fence with his hands. The pole was clear through. He let the far end down as slowly as he could. As it dropped the last two feet to the ground his hands jumped, brushed, tickled the wire . . . not enough, you bastard, the pressure only of a sparrow. Reaching through the strands he manoeuvred the pole against the cement post. Erica took his place and held the pole firm. He turned to bring the ladder. She began to bind the larch pole in two places to the post. With Otto Guttmann Johnny lifted the ladder and they carried it upright to the fence and with infinite care lowered it against the single pole. The angle above the bound join of the ladder slipped tight against the pole tied to the fence post. Johnny rocked the frame lightly at first, then more fiercely, allowed it to slip, then find its hold.
Clear of those bastard wires, free of them, because a scientist had worked the calculations. A small, friendly, fragile gap between the bark of the larch wood and the taut length of the upper wire beneath.
Johnny went first. He spread his feet lightly on the supports, pivoted at the join high above the untouched wire, dropped easily to the ground, fell and rolled in the style they'd taught him as a young recruit.
Otto Guttmann next. He would climb more slowly. Erica came under the ladder, prepared to take its weight against her shoulders, to protect from the depths of her strength the wires above. He climbed and once the smooth leather of his shoe slipped on the birch wood and the ladder danced and Erica gasped and Johnny cursed, and the wire remained untouched. At the highest support of the ladder Otto Guttmann swung a stiff, unsupple leg over into the void above Johnny's shoulder. It was caught, guided down and Johnny's hands reached up and clasped him about the waist.
'Let go . . .' the hissed command.
Johnny swung Otto Guttmann to the ground, as a man lifts down a child, and they tumbled together on the grass.
Then Erica. Easier for Johnny. And his hands caught at the softness above her hips, and she was down.
Johnny's eyes darted at the watch face.
Onto Erica's shoulders. His shoes cutting into the material of her coat, his ears hearing her struggle, his legs feeling the steadying hands of Otto Guttmann. The pole bound to the cement post supported him as he heaved the ladder up from the far ground, hoisted it over the wire, threw it to the grass below him.
One over you, little bastard, one you didn't bloody trap, and the wire was still and the demi-light winked on its cold, untouchable surface.
Johnny jumped. Erica fingered open the knots at the post. Otto Guttmann dragged the ladder to the cover of the tree line.
Johnny on his feet, holding the pole, waiting for Erica to finish with the knots and at last lifting it back and free.
Indistinct as yet, far from them, the sound of the jeep engine.
He caught her by the arm, dragged her without ceremony away from the fence, trailing the last pole.
All on the ground, all married to the wet night grass, they watched the spreading halo of the jeep's lights. Its pace was constant, its progress uninterrupted. They watched its coming and its going.
Otto Guttmann chuckled. 'It was perfect. . . brilliant. . .'
'Well done, Johnny,' whispered Erica, and her hand rested easily, naturally, on Johnny's.
' I said there had to be silence . . . you've seen damn all yet.' But he allowed himself one sharp snigger of pleasure. Hadn't been a bad effort.
In front of them was a quarter of a mile of woodland, and then the final barricade, and
the guns and the high fence. In front of them was what Charlie Davies, just one week ago, had breezily called 'the Chopping zone'.
At company headquarters in Walbeck village the new day's first shift had drawn their rifles from the armoury, signed for their ammunition and filed into the briefing room.
Heini Schalke stood at the front, close to the Politoffizier who had publicly congratulated him, close to the major who had praised him grudgingly, close to the sergeant who had queried his need to shoot and not spoken to him since. The other men with whom he messed had avoided him. He was not shunned, not ignored, only left in no doubt that his company was not wanted.
They never knew where they would be placed until the briefing. That was the way of the border. No man could take for granted that he would patrol the outer perimeter of the Restricted Zone, or the Hinterland fence, or lie up in a hide, or climb a watch tower, or ride in a jeep.
Many times in the day Heini Schalke had seen the fair sweeping hair that rolled in the headlights, and the young dead face of the girl. Ulf Becker was in his thoughts, too . . . Becker, who in the manacles of the captive met his eyes without fear. It was not possible for Heini Schalke to understand why the man who had slept four beds from him in the dormitory at Weferlingen would have come with his girl to the Hinterland fence.
'Corporal Schalke, you are with Brandt. The jeep run on the forward road from the Walbeck Strasse tower to two kilometres north.'
Two kilometres, backwards and forwards for two kilometres, four minutes up and four minutes down, and in between the pull off the patrol road and only Brandt, who was from the farm country of Mecklenburg in the north, to talk with. He looked behind him, saw Brandt, saw the grim resignation on the boy's face.
'A car has been found at Bischofswald, between here and Haldensleben. The car was stolen from near Magdeburg yesterday morning. It is believed that three persons are attempting an illegal crossing of the frontier. There are two males and one female. Battalion have called for especial vigilance from all personnel. I know you will do your duty if confronted by these criminals. I know the company will not be found wanting in the fulfilment of its responsibilities.'
Johnny held the stick that was stripped of leaves and their stems as a blind man walks with a wand. He held it loosely between forefinger and thumb and rocked it forward and back with a great gentleness in front of his legs.
By his estimate they were half way between the Hinterland fence and the final cleared cutting in the forest.
It had been cripplingly slow along the path, torture to their nerves, and now the stick's swing was blocked. The impediment was at knee height.
Three times he had swung the stick. To the right of his legs, to the left of them, to his front. Each time the thin stick stumbled against the obstruction. He had allowed Otto Guttmann and Erica to be with him for the last push, had reckoned there was a greater terror for them if they were behind and cut off from him. They wanted to be with him, close to the source spring of encouragement. He pushed Otto Guttmann softly back to avoid being crowded into error.
The stick was his guide in the darkness and his fingers found the contact point where it met the trip wire. They were not so sensitive, these wires, not like those on the Hinterland. A man's whole weight would activate the alarm, but not the impact of a running hare or a wandering fox. The wire was tight stretched, there for the unwary, there for the fool.
He reached out and coaxed Otto Guttmann forward and lifted him over the single wire, and Erica after him.
It pleased Johnny to have found the trip. If there was a wire on the path then there could be no foot patrols.
The wind played at his face because the tall trees were no longer around them. They were into the space that had been cleared and where only intermittent waist-high undergrowth had come to replace the pines.
He remembered the place as he had seen it from the far side, remembered the cover that stretched to the dull grey of the patrol road and the sandy earth of the ploughed strip.
Close to midnight, a good time for them to be coming. The time of the change of the Border Guard details. The time when some were cold and hungry and tired for their beds, when others had not accustomed their eyes to the night.
They had eaten the sandwiches, they had drained half the bottle, they had broached the coffee flask. The groundsheet was spread across the track that ran parallel to the line of the border. A desperate, lonely place, Carter reckoned, the
Roteriede at night. No life here . except when the moon passed beyond the wire and threw colours of light between the bushes.
Not a job for Carter, not his end of the business, not here wet and half frozen. Should have been someone half his age.
There was an owl somewhere in the tree above. Could have been a tawny from its call, Strix aluco and fifteen inch wingspan. An awkward, cussed creature, for ever stamping at its perch. Each time it shouted, Carter flinched. Lucky bugger, with its night sight, and elevation. Carter could see damn all from the level of the groundsheet.
'If he comes, do you know where it will be, how far either side of us?'
Carter whispered in Charlie Davies's ear.
'Right here.'
'Where we are now?'
'Where we're lying is where he stood, right here, there's something of a path that comes out opposite us . . .'
Nothing more to be said, and Davies offering no encouragement for conversation. Only the waiting and the straining for a sound of the coming of Johnny.
Why did the bastard jeep come so often?
Johnny had clocked it, watched the pattern. When it passed them going north it returned in two minutes, when it passed them going south it was with them again in six minutes. Shit, that was tight time. Six minutes, but that took no account of the speed with which it would return once the automatic guns were detonated. Then it would be racing, accelerator down, roaring forward on the patrol road. So much to bloody do. The run to the fence, the fastening of the ropes, the exploding of the SM 70s, the climbing of the wire. And the jeep could never be more than three minutes from the firing of the SM 70s, never more and always less.
Not a yard of cover from where they knelt in the undergrowth beside the patrol road to the wire.
He could do it on his own, no sweat, he was not alone. One old man and one girl to go first. Johnny was down the order. Otto Guttmann, scientist from Padolsk, had first priority on the fence.
Should they lie up another night and hope the patrol pattern tailed off?
But when daylight came and the foot patrols were out by the Hinterland then there would be the trampled grass, the disturbed earth from the sharpened poles. The dogs would come, heaving their handlers along Johnny's trail.
Has to be tonight, Johnny. What's the problem, Johnny? Frightened?
Scared witless, what else.
It's a hell of a way to the fence. I can bloody see, every time the bloody jeep goes by.
The guns are set close here. They're set close every bloody place.
Johnny reached out, felt Erica's shoulder, slid his fingers down the sleeve of her coat, found her hand and held it. There would be another time for them, wouldn't there? Somewhere removed from this bastard evil place.
The jeep went past, the regular throb of its engine, the regular speed of its wheels.
There had to be another bloody chance, for Johnny and Erica, somewhere as comforting as the hand that held his own. Somewhere, anywhere; any time, all the time. Over the other side of that bastard fence.
'Doctor Guttmann. It's the last time I say it, I promise, but you have to listen . . .'Johnny whispered and a nervous smile flickered at his lips. 'The patrolling is very thorough, so it won't be easy but we can manage.
Nothing to spare but we can manage. When we go, then you and Erica run straight for the ditch, down on your faces, take all the cover the ditch gives you. I go first to the fence with the ropes, then I come back to you and we fire the guns. I can't over-emphasise it, but we have very little time after th
e guns go. Very, very little. We stop for nothing, we wait for nothing. Doctor Guttmann goes first, then Erica. There are no guns, no mines on the other side, but you must run straight for the trees, at least fifteen metres and you must make a hiding place. Don't call out, don't shout ... or you'll be fired on. Can you do it?'
'You ask me to do nothing,' Otto Guttmann said. 'You take everything on yourself. You are a fine boy. Both of us think that.'
Johnny let go of Erica's hand, took the long loops of rope.
'As soon as the jeep is past, we go.'
'We are ready.'
'Remember your hands on the top of the wire . . . Pull your cuffs right into the palms of your hands.'
'Yes.'
'You too, Erica.'
'Yes, Johnny . . .'
The engine sounds of the jeep. Johnny saw the glow of the driver's cigarette. No door on the jeep, because on the border a door could mean delay. He closed his eyes.
The jeep was ten yards gone. Johnny was on his feet and running forward, hunched and fast and stretched. Slower steps behind him, he did not look back. Go, Johnny, go. All the way, darling. All the way, you crazy bugger. Off the patrol road and into the ploughed strip his feet sinking and slipping into the loose earth, over the ditch his fingers clawing at the top rim of cement blocks and he pulled himself up. Only the fence now.
Calm, Johnny, calm for God's sake. You have to take time to find the wires, find the rope ends, tie the loose knots. Twenty-five yards killing range the bastard guns have, and there's one that's white and protected in its shield and it's five bloody feet from your guts. They rip your insides out, Johnny, it'll spread you back over the ploughed zone. They're razor sharp, the bits inside, Johnny. Cut your face, your bones, your veins, gouge your eyes, strip your skin. Two firing wires you have to find. You have to take time, you have to be right.
There's no bloody time.
The ropes were looped over the upper two of the three firing wires, the knots tied with leaping, fumbling fingers.
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