“Except, I believe, in China, at least in the old days,” said Micklejohn. “They considered that war was uncultured barbarism and that therefore only coarse and brutal men would stoop to become soldiers.”
“It is at least a civilised point of view,” said the German drily. “To return to whatever has exasperated the Russian Command, the thing that has stung them most sharply is the loss of the brief case and especially of the papers in it.”
“Oh, indeed. Yes. What has become of the brief case?”
“It is no longer a brief case and therefore no longer recognisable. It is good soft leather and there is enough to make the uppers of a pair of shoes.”
“Splendid,” approved Micklejohn. “And the papers?”
“They are here,” said Neumann, withdrawing flat folded papers from various pockets. “Can the Herr read Russian?”
“I’m sorry, no. Can you?”
“No. And I make no attempt to learn it. Before the war, Herr Micklejohn, I was a schoolmaster, it was always my profession, but now I am a labourer and work in the fields.” He showed his hands, calloused with manual labour. “It is better so.”
“For political reasons, I suppose.”
“Precisely. Those entrusted with the education of the young must be politically reliable, that is, good Communists. I am not any sort of Communist and I am too old to learn. When I saw what happened to other teachers who also did not wish to learn communism I left my post, changed my name, and became a fieldworker. By this means I am still alive. It is very odd,” said Neumann, in a faintly puzzled voice, “how one so naturally desires to go on living. I have often wondered why.”
Micklejohn, who had not previously encountered deliberately inflicted human misery, said something incoherent about hope being innate in the human soul and Neumann said briskly that even when one was beyond hope there still remained innate damned obstinacy. “So,” he concluded, “I have learned no communism nor Russian either. Please look over these papers. There is a large map, some smaller sketch plans, and a page of notes.”
Micklejohn looked them over carefully. “This large map was on the General’s table when I was first taken to him. I can’t say I actually recognise the others but I saw him fold them all up together and put them in the brief case. They do look important, don’t they? But I’m sorry to say I’ve no idea what they are all about. I suppose you could not borrow a Russian dictionary for me, could you? Or even a Russian-German primer of some sort? If one could make out even a few words here and there, it might give the gist of it.”
“I will try,” said Neumann, and got to his feet. “I must apologise for inflicting my company upon the Herr for so long, the delight of conversing once more with an educated man——”
“Please don’t go, please sit down again. I also miss having someone to talk to. Karl is very kind and his wife is an old pet but she’s nearly stone-deaf and they don’t seem to have many interests. Besides, I wanted to ask you again about getting away. Do I gather that I must wait till all this excitement has died down?”
“That is so,” said Neumann, settling down again. “I must explain that the Herr is reasonably safe here; he is outside the five-kilometre zone. That is, five kilometres from The Wire.” Micklejohn mentally translated this into just over three miles and nodded. “Everyone in Soviet-occupied Germany carries identification papers, naturally. Within the five-kilometre zone he has also a special pass to live and work there. Within a half-kilometre zone, only the Vopos pass freely; anyone working there, like the fence-repairing party, has a temporary pass for a day at a time or less. The time for the work is estimated. If it will take three hours he will have a three-hour pass and if the work is not done in the time, he must leave it and come out. I tell the Herr all this not to depress him but to make clear what the difficulties are, even normally. Now, with the Russians swarming about it is not difficult, it is impossible.”
“Yet I walked through——”
“Herrgott! And met the Russians. Also, the Herr must have been surrounded by a bright phalanx of guardian angels holding their wings about him, not to have been seen by the Vopos.”
Micklejohn thought that he was far more likely to escape notice if he were not escorted by any bright phalanx however well-intentioned and also that this poor little man had got the wind up, and no wonder. However, things did seem to be extra difficult at the moment.
“I suppose,” he said, “that there are, in fact, means of communication between you and friends in the Western Zone?”
Neumann fidgeted.
“There are, in fact, rare occasions when messages are passed across,” he said evasively. “But it is desperately dangerous. If one is caught, there is an end.”
Micklejohn took this with a large pinch of salt. If people made up their minds to pass messages, messages would pass, if they had to be tied round a stone and hurled across. The Vopos could not stand shoulder to shoulder along several hundred miles of wire. Neumann appeared to have read his thoughts.
“That is the whole point of the prohibited-zone system, you understand,” he said. “People cannot get near The Wire except by permit and then they are closely watched all the time they are there.”
Micklejohn still thought a good forester would get through if he chose his time and place, but it was no use arguing that now.
“I only thought,” he said apologetically, “that I might get a note through to my people, saying I was quite well and would come——”
“No, no. It may be that the Russians think the English Herr slipped out again at once. If the note were intercepted they would know that he was still this side and then they would go on looking for him until they found him. No, no notes, Herr Micklejohn. Far too dangerous. I must go,” said Neumann, getting to his feet more determinedly this time. “I have been here a long time and someone might wonder why. I will try to get a Russian-language primer of some kind for the Herr as quickly as possible and I will bring some identification papers for him, such as we all carry. Then the Herr will be able to go out a little, with care. That will make a pleasant change, nicht wahr? Auf Wiedersehen, Herr Micklejohn.”
7: The Road to Walkenried
Hambledon went again to see the Chief of Police at the Polizeiamt just behind the Markt-Kirche in Goslar.
“I am infinitely obliged to you for giving me that authorisation to show the Frontier Police,” he said. “They tried to shoo me away before they saw it but afterwards no one could have been more helpful.”
The Chief nodded casually and said that the Frontier Police were by way of being a corps d'élite; they were, as no doubt the Herr Hambledon knew, a body of men employed exclusively upon frontiers all round Germany.
Hambledon said yes, indeed, he had also seen them at Aachen and other frontier stations in the West. “And the Vopos? Are they to be described as a corps d'élite also?”
The Chief’s face darkened and his voice became expressionless. “The Volkspolizei police the whole of Soviet-occupied Germany. Probably those who actually patrol the frontier are specially trained, but they are basically all one force.”
“I gather that ‘force’ is the operative word,” said Hambledon blandly. “I hope that, over the zone as a whole, they are not all equally trigger-happy, as I am given to understand that these men are?”
“The Herr,” smiled the Chief, “has made good use of his time. I thought it better that you should see for yourself how things are rather than that I should attempt to describe it to you. Besides, I do not go up there, it is no pleasure. My hobby is model railways, not being glared at by armed hooligans through rusty barbed wire.”
“Not a pleasant sight, no——”
“Particularly when it is one’s own country,” said the German angrily. “However, I do not wish to bore you with our troubles.”
“I wish I could say that I found them merely boring, but it is plain that they are much more serious than that. I really went to try to find out whether young Micklejohn could inadvertentl
y have strayed across the frontier——”
“I should say, quite impossible, ‘inadvertently.’ ”
“And I learned that, on that day, there was a stretch where The Wire had been taken down for the posts to be replaced.”
The Chief’s eyebrows went up.
“I did not know that. The Herr will understand that the Frontier Police are not under my authority; they do not report to me. I was asked to make enquiries about this young man and I was told what I told you before, that he had been seen at Eckertal but that they—the Frontier Police—did not know which way he had gone from there.”
“I found them very loth to admit that he was likely to have gone across.”
“Naturally, since it is their duty to see that such incidents do not take place! What does the Herr wish to do now?”
Hambledon thought for a moment.
“Is there any undercover communication with sympathisers the other side of The Wire?”
“None,” said the Chief sharply, and rather spoiled the effect by adding: “So far as we know.”
Hambledon mentally translated that into: “Almost certainly there is, but they wouldn’t tell the police about it.” He dropped that line of enquiry and said that he felt he must know more about conditions before even beginning to make any sort of a plan. “I should like to hire a car with a reliable driver who knows the country and get him to drive me to all the places along the Zonengrenze where the line runs near the road. I see on the map that there are many such places. There are roads which used to cross, and so on. Perhaps you could recommend someone.”
The Chief of Police stroked a rather bristly chin.
“Yes, there is a man—what is his name?—Britz, of course. Hugo Britz. He knows the frontier very well indeed, and he is an honest man and a good driver. He runs a taxi service in Goslar but there is not much scope for him in a small place like this. It will be a help to him financially to have even a short period of continuous employment.”
“Is he a local man?”
“Not originally. He came in from the East about three years ago. He is quite reliable, he does not like the Communists. He has a girl in the Soviet Zone and they will not let him see her. He lives in the Schildergasse, I must make sure of the number, he has a room in the house of a widow. The Herr knows the Schildergasse? You turn off left, by the Jakobi-Kirche, from the road to the station.”
“Thank you very much,” said Hambledon, getting to his feet and taking the slip of paper on which the Chief had written Britz’s address. “I will go there now and see if I can find him at home. I am so much obliged to you.”
“Not at all,” said the German. “A pleasure. You will find Britz very obliging, I believe. He will take you wherever you wish to go, and if you suddenly say to him: ‘Turn the car and drive away like the devil,’ he will do that too. He is afraid of the Vopos.”
“People seem to be,” said Hambledon thoughtfully.
“Yes,” said the Chief of Police.
Hugo Britz was a square-faced young man in the early thirties, not tall but well built and strong. He had a quiet manner and was obviously pleased at Hambledon’s suggestion.
“You wish me to drive you to wherever one may come close to The Wire. Certainly I will do that, it is quite easy. The Herr has, perhaps, a map, or shall I bring one?”
“I have one, here it is,” said Hambledon, unfolding a highly coloured Wanderkarte of the West Harz, made for the use of walkers.
“Yes,” said Britz, looking at it, “yes. It is not quite so easy as it appears on that map, some of those roads are closed, but there are many places where one can go to look. When does the Herr wish to go? Today?”
“I think so. It is not yet midday. We will have lunch and then start, if you have no other engagement?”
“No. We will at least see something,” said Britz.
They drove out of Goslar by that one of the city’s ancient gates which is called the Breite Tor, past the mines of Oker, where so many of the refugees live and work, to Bad Harzburg, and beyond that by a lovely road through pine forests.
On and on, past cleared stretches with the stumps of trees showing above the coarse grass.
“Quite a lot of the woods have been cleared here,” said Hambledon. “I am glad to see that they are being replanted!”
The driver glanced about him indifferently. “The British had these trees felled,” he said. “For pit props.”
A notice against some tall fences a little back from the road: “The deer are fed here.” But presumably it was not feeding time, for there was not an antler in sight. A tall slim radio mast with small buildings about it: the radio station which broadcasts to Eastern Germany. A high conspicuous hill upon the further side with what looked like a castle on the top: the Brocken: Walpurgisnacht, demons and witches and bale fires fading out in the dawn of May Day.
“That is an hotel on the top,” said Britz. “The Russians hold conferences there sometimes; there is a ballroom for meetings. I myself have driven a West delegation there, via Helmstedt and back the same way.”
On several occasions Britz turned off the main road to drive down a subsidiary lane towards the east, and at the end of it there was always the same thing: the road surface deteriorating to loose gravel, a pole across the road and, upon the further side, a pit dug and the earth out of it piled up into a bank, as at Eckertal, and, always, The Wire.
They passed through Braunlage, a small town with shops and people about the street, and on again until the road ran towards a pine wood and turned sharply to run beside it. At the corner the driver stopped the car.
“This is one of the best places to see The Wire. People come here quite a lot.”
Hambledon got out and walked across the wide road margin towards the barbed-wire fence. The driver came after him and laid a hand upon his arm.
“Not too near, mein Herr. That line of stone posts is the actual frontier line. It is wiser not to overstep it.” He dropped his voice. “There is a Vopo there watching the Herr. He is lying on the ground—no, not so far back. Just beyond the plough here. By this nearest tree.”
Hambledon saw him suddenly, although he was only some ten yards away. There was The Wire, inside it the interminable narrow strip of plough, beyond the plough the trees, and, at the foot of one of them, a young man with a red face, flaming auburn hair, and staring brown eyes fixed on Hambledon. Under his hand there was a machine pistol. The sun struck down upon reddish-brown tree trunks, the brown carpet of pine needles and a red-haired young man in a brown uniform, all slightly differing shades of the same colour.
“I should not have noticed him if you had not told me,” said Hambledon.
“They are like that,” said Britz. “There are two more further back, standing up.”
“Yes, I see them. There is another upon the watchtower,” for there is one of the numerous tall lookouts at this point.
“I have never seen so many about as there are today,” said Britz uneasily. “One may drive to these various points and hardly see one, but today they are everywhere.”
There were two labourers digging a large hole just inside The Wire. They worked steadily on and never once glanced over their shoulders towards the road. One was an old man with sparse white hair round an almost bald head. Another car pulled up and four people got out. One was a girl with a camera slung round her neck. As she came forward one of the men in the party hurried after her, took the camera from her, and carried it back to the car.
“Are cameras forbidden here?” asked Hambledon, observing this.
“Not forbidden, no. But the Vopos don’t like them.”
“But surely one can do what one likes outside the Soviet Zone!”
“It is not advisable,” said Britz, “to bring them so near.”
Another car pulled up behind the last. The people in it got out and stood round the car, looking but coming no nearer.
“I know those people,” said Britz. “Excuse me one moment.”
&nbs
p; He went away to speak to them and left Hambledon standing in the sunshine, looking up at the watchtower. It was difficult to see clearly the man silhouetted against the bright sky and Hambledon shaded his eyes. The man had binoculars and was looking at him, at closer range this time than from the other watchtower at Eckertal. What was really called for, Hambledon felt, was a thoroughly rude gesture.
Britz came back.
“Those people I know,” he said, “that old man is their uncle. They heard that he was working here and they have come up to see him.”
“Will they speak to him?”
“Oh, no. It is not allowed, but it is something to be able to say they have seen him. He had two sons but the Vopos shot them both.”
“What——”
“They were escaping,” explained Britz. “They got over The Wire but the Vopos got them before they could reach cover.”
“When was this?”
“About three months ago, I think. Some little time ago.”
The labourers went on working; the people in the road stood about watching them and talked in low tones. One of the Vopos lit a cigarette and the sense of brooding unease was nearly palpable.
“Let us go on,” said Hambledon heavily.
“Schön,” said the driver briskly, and led the way towards his car with long strides.
They visited several other such stretches where The Wire ran along close to the road, but they were all the same. The Wire, rusty in the sunshine, the ploughed strip six or seven feet wide snaking across the country without a break for mile after mile and, wherever they stopped, two brown uniforms—the Vopos are usually in pairs—somewhere lurking just within view.
There was one brighter interlude. Britz saw a party of men working in a field, hoeing turnips in fact. There were a dozen or so of them and a Vopo with the usual machine pistol in his hand was walking up and down in front of them. They were plainly not working any harder than they could help and every time the Vopo guard on his beat turned his back upon any of them they left off working at once and leaned upon their hoes. Britz broke into a laugh and pointed them out as the car swept past.
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