“We are agreed” Dirk, too, spoke confidentially — man to man. He winked at Eichler. “A choosy dog barks up a forest full of trees before he finds one to piss on!”
Eichler nodded solemnly.
“That is true,” he said. He offered Dirk a work-hardened hand. “Auf Wiedersehen,” he said.
Dirk turned to his wife.
“Thank you again, Frau Eichler.”
The woman looked at him. Her eyes were suddenly bright with unshed tears. It is her Konrad she is saying goodbye to, Dirk thought. The woman's eyes flitted to his arm. Suddenly she gave him a brief hug.
“Sei vorsichtigt!” she whispered. “Take care….”
Dirk returned her hug.
He turned to Erika.
She was watching him.
On impulse he put his arms around her and hugged her. What the hell — the precedent had been set. He felt her stiffen — then almost at once she was straining against him. Oh, Christ, he thought. Out there is a barn full of hay….
Sig was at the door. Dirk joined him. He looked back at the Eichlers. Damned if he didn't like them — even greedy old Gerhard….
“Grüss Gott!” he said. “God be with you!”
It was Eichler who answered him.
“Heil Hitler!”
They were pedaling down the country road toward Lahr. It would soon be dawn. The bulging rucksacks were strapped to the handlebars of their bikes, the egg basket secured to the package rack behind Dirk.
Sig looked back at the Eichler farm.
He had just left ten years back there. In a cluttered, pitch-black storeroom.
He glanced at Dirk.
“I don't mind telling you,” he said, “you had me going there awhile back. When you went into that black-marketeer bit.”
“You may nominate me for an Academy Award.” Dirk grinned. He felt good. Things had turned out fine. They were on their way.
“I'll say this for you — you make one helluva subservient bastard.”
“Some first-class cringing was expected, Siggy baby,” Dirk quipped. “Remember the old French proverb? When the Hun is out and down, he's the humblest man in town. But when he mounts and holds the rod, he has no love for man or God!” He grinned broadly. “Seemed to me that as a good Kraut I'd better be damned humble. I sure wasn't holding the rod!”
Sig shook his head.
“I didn't know you were at Arnhem either,” he said.
“Arnhem?” Dirk grinned. “Never heard of it! Hell — in September last year I was flat on my ass at Walter Reed back in D.C.!” He sent a fleeting thought of appreciation to his talkative roommate at the hospital where he'd been recuperating from the fiasco with Jan. The guy had been a captain in G-2. From the 82nd Airborne. Been in the thick of the mess at Arnhem, and he'd never stopped yakking about it. At the time it had annoyed the hell out of Dirk. You never know….
An hour later dawn was lightening the sky. Dirk and Sig were nearing the town of Lahr.
Lahr was crucial. A town of some twenty-thousand souls, situated on the little Chutter River like a tight cork in a narrow bottleneck, it guarded the only access through the mountains to the vital Kinzig Valley. The town could not be bypassed. They had to get to the valley. They would have to brazen their way through….
They turned a bend in the road — and braked.
In the gray morning light the roadblock across the highway into town could be clearly seen. A wooden barrier painted with broad black and white stripes. It looked more forbidding than the black mountains surrounding them. A Wehrmacht non-com stood up from his perch in the open door of a Volkswagen parked on the road shoulder and walked purposefully to the front of the barricade as he saw the bicyclists approaching. Two men flanked him — machine pistols at the ready.
Imperiously he held up his hand.
16
Dirk and Sig brought their bikes to a halt before the barricade.
The Wehrmacht non-com — a sergeant, according to the piping on his uniform shoulder strap — walked up to them.
“Papiere herzeigen!” he ordered curtly. “Show your papers!”
Sig fumbled his identification papers from his pocket. His work permit. He felt excited. It would be the first test of the effectiveness of the work of the London Moles. Dirk handed the sergeant his dog-eared Soldbuch—his army paybook. The sergeant glanced through it.
“Wounded,” he commented.
“Yes,” Dirk said pleasantly. “Unfortunately, they got me bad enough to make me no longer kriegsfähig—fit for field duty, the devil take it!”
The non-com gave him a sour look. He examined Sig's work papers.
“Swiss,” he said.
“Technical specialist, Herr Unteroffizier,” Sig said politely. He wondered briefly if he should cringe. He decided it wasn't called for.
“You come from Hechingen,” the sergeant said, frowning. “What are you doing in this area?”
Dirk answered.
“We earned some time off,” he said cheerfully. “At long last. We decided a change of scenery would do us good. We visited a friend of mine. In Langenwinkel. He is the Ortsbauernführer there. I served in the Panzer Corps with his son, Konrad — God rest his soul.” He looked at the barricade and the armed sentries with mild curiosity. “Say — we went to Langenwinkel only a couple of days ago and we took a different route. But we didn't see any barricades. What's up?”
“Who the devil knows?” the sergeant grumbled. “It's the damned brain-child of some Bonze—some big-shot in Hechingen with nothing better to do than piss in the punchbowl. Took over only a few days ago. Real ballbuster. Roadblocks on every damned road. Blödsinn ist das! Idiocy! We have spent hours just sitting around stretching our assholes.”
“Say,” Dirk said brightly, “I bet you could do with a little something to fill your stomachs. My friend Eichler gave us some food. Some sausage. And real Landbrot. Fresh. Frau Eichler baked it herself.” He started to open his rucksack. He stopped and looked inquiringly at the sergeant. “It is permitted to open the rucksack, Herr Unteroffizier? To make a present of a little sausage and bread?”
The sergeant nodded.
“It is permitted,” he said.
Dirk hauled a sausage from his knapsack. He held it out to the sergeant.
“Bitte,” he said. “Please.”
The sergeant handed the identification papers to Sig and took the sausage. He looked pleased.
“It is a fine sausage,” he said, sniffing it.
Dirk brought out a loaf of bread.
“Give me your bayonet,” he said ingenuously to the sergeant. “And I'll cut half of this Landbrot for you.”
For a moment the non-com looked startled; then he drew his bayonet from its scabbard and handed it to Dirk.
Dirk cradled the big loaf in his left arm and, slicing toward him, cut the bread cleanly in half. He handed the bayonet and the half-loaf to the sergeant.
“Eat it in good health!” he said.
He replaced the other half of the bread in his rucksack and closed it.
“Push your bikes around the barrier,” the sergeant said. “We do not want to have to move the verfluchte thing more than we have to!”
“Thank you, Herr Unteroffizier,” Dirk said, as he and Sig wheeled their bicycles around the end of the barrier.