Not for export, p.15
Not For Export, page 15
This was harder work still; Karas struggled gamely, but the task was plainly beyond his powers. While he was still heaving painfully, Frett's attention was distracted by the sight of another man coming over the gate, a bigger man this time and much more athletic. He dropped noiselessly to the ground and came running on silent feet round the yard behind the parked vans. The boy recognized him with horror for this was Ackermann: Frett shrank away and made himself small in the darkest shadow of the furthest corner, while Ackermann came on to hide, in his turn, behind the same range of empties but some ten feet away.
Karas neither saw nor heard anything, for his blood was thumping in his ears and perspiration running into his eyes. Suddenly he abandoned the attempt and leaned heavily against the car, clinging to the door handle and gasping for breath. Ackermann crept out and as he went Frett saw him draw something from his left sleeve, something thin and pliable and heavy at the end. He crept up behind Karas, rose to his full height, and struck with all his strength at the defenceless head. There was a dull, hard thud and Karas fell to the ground to lie there, not even twitching.
Ackermann stepped unconcernedly over his body and opened the off side of the bonnet. Frett had a boy's interest in cars and this saloon was of a common type, a Citroen such as are seen by the thousand on Continental roads; he could follow quite easily what Ackermann was doing. He was checking over the car for its running condition, the petrol supply, the oil and water level, the presence or otherwise of the rotor arm. The clicks were clearly audible as the distributor head was sprung off and replaced. Frett knew about rotor arms; a tiny part, indeed, but without it no car will go.
Ackermann left the bonnet open—probably he wanted to flood the carburetor at the last moment—and went across the yard to the gates where he busied himself with the lock upon the wide doors. Frett, quaking but audacious, crept out and slipped round the Citroen to the bonnet. Karas had left the car slewed across at an angle and the open bonnet concealed the boy from the man at the gate. Frett removed the distributor head, taking particular care that the spring should not click this time, drew out the rotor arm, and replaced the head with even more care. A dozen silent strides across the yard took him behind the nearest of the parked vans; he dodged in the shadow from one to the other just as Ackermann had done when he first came in, and waited there, quivering with excitement, until the gates were opened wide and hooked back and Ackermann returned to start the Citroen.
Frett was out of the gates in a moment and running like a hare. It was another landmark in his career that for the first time in his life he was actually seeking a policeman. He rounded a corner and ran straight into the arms of an extra large one. The arms closed about him.
"Mister," began Frett, "what's it worth to——"
He stopped. This was not the way to talk now; he had left all that behind in Berlin.
"What's worth what?"
"I say, d'you want promotion? There's a man broke into the lockups there tryin' to steal a car."
"Now then——"
"Besides," gasped Frett, "he's committed a murder."
"Nonsense! If you think I've——"
"Listen!"
There came clearly to their ears the whine of a self-starter. Not a hearty whine but a hesitant one; evidently the battery was down. The policeman released Frett and strode purposefully towards the sound. Frett paused only to drag a short but heavy length of iron bar from a heap of rubbish they were passing at the moment, and trotted after him. The policeman saw that the yard gates, which should have been shut, were indeed open and lengthened his stride. When they entered the yard Ackermann was half in and half out of the car fumbling in the dark for the starting handle but without success. He heard footsteps and looked round.
Frett hung back; the policeman was young and strong, but Ackie was still Ackie. Ackermann made to get out his gun but the policeman sprang at him and the battle raged over the yard between the vans, round the Citroen, and over the body of Karas. They fell into a clinch, grunting and straining, and Frett saw his chance; he danced up behind Ackermann and hammered him over the head with the iron bar. Ackermann staggered, the policeman hit him hard under the jaw and knocked him out.
After that it was simple. The policeman blew his whistle for reinforcements which arrived at a gallop. Ackermann's arms were handcuffed behind him and he was left to await police transport summoned by telephone.
"Here's the corpse," said Frett with assumed calm, but his voice ran up in a squeak.
"Take it easy, boy," said his first friend. "You haven't done too badly tonight."
"That other man," said Frett, struggling to control his teeth, which were beginning to chatter, "is Ackie from Berlin. Ackermann, he's horrible. You won't let him go, will you?"
"No. Oh, dear me, no. He's finished. Look, you come from the Kolnerhof, I see. I'll walk along there with you."
"Th-thank you," stammered Frett. "And will you p-please t-tell them I haven't been in m-mischief? I don't want to get the sack," and to his rage and disgust large tears began to roll down his face.
"You come on," said the policeman. "You're all right. What you're suffering from is shock. You want a nice nip of brandy and off to bed. I'll talk to the Kolnerhof."
Zolbin, in Piotr's uniform, with Piotr's papers and carrying all his equipment except the balalaika which Zolbin presented to his landlady, went to the place of assembly for troops being drafted to the West. He knew where to go and at what time, for all this was written upon Piotr's leave pass. He entered the barrack square where the transport waited, there were many other men like himself straggling in in loose groups and he attracted no notice. The transport officers were bustling about glancing at each man's place of destination and rounding them up into groups for the different vehicles. Zolbin was hustled into a lorry with benches down either side; there was not enough room on the benches for all the passengers so the last comers sat on the floor. It was very early in the morning, a little after four o'clock, the men were chilly, sleepy and dispirited; when the last man was aboard and the lorry jolted into motion most of them wriggled into the most comfortable position attainable and tried to go to sleep. It is about two hundred miles from Berlin to Eisenbach. As soon as the lorry came out upon the great autobahn it settled down to a steady thirty-five miles an hour and the monotonous road slid past. They stopped for a meal at midday; thick soup, bread, and potatoes; in half an hour they were away again but the hot meal and the short break had awakened Zolbin's companions and they began to talk. What worried and alarmed Zolbin was that he had practically no notion of what they were talking about; soldiers' slang is baffling to the civilian. He decided that he had better keep quiet but even this was not easy, they were friendly souls and they tried without success to draw him out.
"You're one of the silent ones," said one of them, "aren't you, Comrade?"
Zolbin made an effort. "I'm sorry, Comrades, to be so dull. The fact is that while I was home on leave my wife died. Please let me alone, Comrades."
After that they left him alone. The day passed slowly and they arrived at Eisenach towards five in the evening. They climbed stiffly down from the lorry and stood about, stamping their feet and stretching their cramped limbs while a sergeant scanned their papers and sorted them out. Zolbin and six others were ordered back into the lorry to be taken the half-dozen miles on to Creutzburg.
"When you get there," said the sergeant, "you'll find someone to tell you where to go."
"I expect so," said one of the six. "That's one thing that's never failed me in the Army yet, somebody to tell me where to go."
"None of your lip," said the sergeant. "Drive on!"
They drove on to Creutzburg and once more climbed out of the lorry into, more or less, the arms of yet another sergeant. Three of the party remained in Creutzburg; the other four, including Zolbin, were told to go on down a road which the sergeant pointed out.
"You," he said to Zolbin, "take the first on the left and keep on till you come to a wood. There is a lane through the wood. Turn right down it. There is a crossroads less than a kilometre down the lane. Turn left and in ten minutes you'll be home. Got it? Left, right, and then left; just like marching. You three, keep straight on till you reach the road post and there you are. About five kilometres. Go on, march!"
They did, but Zolbin bungled the regimental movements and covered it by stopping to tie up his bootlace. The other three went on and left him; they found him dull company anyway and he would be turning off in about two hundred yards. Zolbin glanced back but the sergeant had already gone into his office and there was no one about to criticize a soldier's bearing.
Zolbin padded off along the road. He had been used to wearing light shoes; the heavy Army boots with soles like boards hampered him severely, but at last he was alone. He turned left as directed, the frontier must be towards his right hand somewhere. He came to a right-hand turn long before the wood and took it, only to run into a patrol of two men coming up.
"Where are you for, Comrade? Let's see your papers. You've turned off too soon. Go on to that wood and turn right there. It's not far now, Comrade."
Zolbin sighed, returned to the road and walked on and on, past the wood, past his turning. The wood ended and there was pasture and arable land. His boots hurt him and his ankles ached. Another patch of woodland, a bean field, a potato field. It would soon be dark; he would find somewhere to lie up for the night and go on tomorrow. No, go on tonight till he came to a farm and, when they were all asleep, slip in and steal some clothes and especially some more boots. Clop-clop, clop-clop. There was a blister coming on his right heel.
"I know why soldiers are issued with these boots," said Zolbin bitterly. "It is to make it impossible for them to run away."
He plodded on with his eyes on the road and started violently when a voice suddenly addressed him in German from behind a hedge.
"Good evening, Comrade Soldier," it said.
Zolbin stopped and looked up to see a moon-faced yokel with a hoe upon his shoulder looking at him over the hedge.
"Good evening," said Zolbin.
"What are you doing here?"
"Well, come to that, what are you doing?"
"Hoeing," said the yokel, and grinned. "Where's the fancy-dress dance?"
"Fancy-dress dance?"
"That's what I said."
"Why?"
"Because anyone can see you're not a soldier. You don't walk right, you don't hold yourself right, you can't swing your arms, and you can't endure your boots."
"That's true, anyway," said Zolbin impulsively.
"Well, well," said the yokel, and grinned more widely than ever.
Zolbin made up his mind suddenly. "Is a hundred marks any good to you?"
"Money always looks good to me. What for?"
"Civilian clothes instead of these."
"Soldier," said the yokel, "for another two hundred marks I'll hide you, too."
Zolbin hesitated, but he might go much further and find nothing better. He had to trust some stranger, he knew no one in these parts. He shifted his feet and the blister on his heel gave him a stab of agony which settled his doubts.
"Very well. Thank you. Where do we go?"
"Just a bit further on there's a gate."
Zolbin limped along the road and his new friend kept pace with him inside the hedge. The gate admitted Zolbin to a rutted dusty track across fields and they walked along it together, the yokel occasionally swinging his hoe round his head in a manner which made the Russian acutely uneasy.
"Where are we going?"
"To the farm, of course. By the way, I'll have the first hundred marks now."
"Certainly," said Zolbin. He took some notes from a pocket in which he was carrying a few for immediate expenses and gave the yokel two fifty-mark notes which were promptly stowed away. "To the farm," continued Zolbin. "But won't the farmer object?"
"He won't find you if you're lucky, and if he does he won't dare say anything. It's him as would get into trouble for harbouring you, not me. He'll keep quiet for his own sake. See?"
"But doesn't anybody ever come here?"
"No. Use your head," said the yokel contemptuously. "What would anyone come here for?"
He waved his hoe again and Zolbin looked wearily round an empty landscape of gently rolling country with large open fields, few roads, and still fewer buildings of any kind. The yokel began to laugh to himself and Zolbin asked him sharply what the joke was.
"Funny, that's all. Here's us two walking along together, you pretending to be a soldier and me pretending to be a farm labourer."
"And aren't you?"
"Not really. It's convenient for the moment, same as you. It's only when I look at my hands." He held them out. "I tell you, when I get a pack of cards in my hands again I shan't be able to feel them. It's all this verdammlich hoeing. How I hate it!"
For he was, in spite of his bucolic appearance, a cardsharper. His round face with its silly, good-tempered expression, and his look of country innocence had helped him enormously in taking money off city men who think themselves so much cleverer than the rustic. Even when he won mysteriously and unexpectedly, it was hard to believe that he had done it, as it were, on purpose. That gap-toothed grin and the childlike yells of delighted laughter when he fumbled his cards and produced an unexpected ace, surely behind them there could be no guile. However, he had got into trouble and the Russians were not amused. Hitler's jails were bad enough but the Soviet ones were worse; worse still were the uranium mines to which he was assigned on his third conviction. He slipped off the train, went into hiding, and acquired a set of false papers. Since quite twenty per cent of the Germans in Soviet-occupied Germany carry false papers it follows that they are not very difficult to get, but his stated that he was a farm labourer, so a farm labourer he had to be. It was better than the uranium mines and would not last so long if he could help it. Only till next harvest when the farmer had sold his produce and brought home the money. Then, if all went well, the farm hand would disappear and the money too.
The farm came into sight; a solidly built Thuringian house with a big square of farm buildings behind it, barns and cow-sheds and piggeries, cart sheds and stables.
"Is the farmer at home now?" asked Zolbin nervously.
"Not he. He's been to monthly market to trade a bit and pick up the usual bunch of new regulations for farmers. How to get more eggs on less feed. He'll get drunk; he always does whenever he gets a new set of regulations. Mister, he wouldn't see you tonight if you danced round him in pink satin tights. But keep out of his way tomorrow; hangovers don't agree with him. This way."
Zolbin was led into a vast barn and up a steep ladder to a half-empty hayloft. Trusses of hay were pulled out to let him crawl in behind upon a bed of hay softer than any mattress he had ever slept upon. He pulled off his boots, and that in itself was bliss.
"Got any matches?" asked the farm hand.
"Yes—why?"
"Hand over. Can't run any risk of you smoking in here."
"I'm not a fool——"
"Never mind. Nor am I. Hand 'em out."
Zolbin obeyed.
"That's right. You go to sleep and I'll bring you something to eat in the morning. Sleep well, soldier, sleep well!"
The last thing which Zolbin heard for nearly twelve hours was the sound of heavy boots descending the ladder.
15. THE BLACK CROSS
Hambledon and Spelmann arrived at Eisenach some time in the small hours of the morning. Not wishing to make themselves conspicuous by wandering about empty streets in the middle of the night, they lay down on benches in the waiting room and dozed uneasily until morning. When the town was thoroughly awake they arose, stiff, unrefreshed, and hungry, and went out to find breakfast.
"I should like to know," said Hambledon, pulling his hat down over his eyes, "where Andrei and dear Vassily are staying."
"We needn't worry just yet," said Spelmann. "They also had a long journey yesterday and Russians don't like getting up early. It is not yet half-past seven, they won't be about until ten at earliest."
They went into a café which was only open in the sense that the doors and windows were standing wide and vigorous cleaning operations were in progress. The operator was a young German with an artificial foot and three fingers missing from his left hand, but he was mopping the floor with scalding hot water and a long-handled mop while a young woman moved tables out of his way which had plainly only just been scrubbed. The place was poor and cheap, but clean.
"Excuse me," said Hambledon. "I'm afraid we're horribly early, but is there any chance of breakfast?"
"In a quarter of an hour," said the young woman, "we shall be having ours while these tables are drying. If the Herren could bear to wait——"
"Could we not help?" asked Spelmann. "Tell me, mein Herr, how you want these tables moved and let me take the place of the Würdige Frau for this morning."
"So that you may get your breakfast earlier?" smiled the German. "It will be a help, we are a little behindhand this morning."
"We overslept," said his wife, and abandoned the tables and chairs for her kitchen at the back. Hambledon found himself dusting chairs and polishing the inevitable mirrors, while Spelmann and the proprietor straightened up the café. A quarter of an hour later the woman came back to ask if the Herren would care to breakfast with them in the kitchen, it was pleasanter in there. They sat down at a scrubbed deal table to coffee and hot rye bread and ate hungrily. The young woman said that they had taken over that business when Rudi came back from the war too disabled to work on a farm any longer; it was a poor living but one could manage, and there was the house to live in also. The ground floor only, of course, the upper rooms were tenanted by another family. "Nice people, Germans like ourselves, elderly but kind. The good Frau was most kind when our Margrethe was born last year."
