“Right, Herr von Studmann.”
“And since you probably won’t meet anyone there, let me have the gun. Thanks. Well, good hunting, Pagel!”
“Same to you, Studmann.”
With his hands in his pockets, Pagel sauntered cross the stubble, his glance fixed on the starry sky rather than on the ground. The footsteps of the others had already died away. Through his shoes he felt the cold dew brushed from the stubble. For the first time he was glad he did not have to be with Herr von Studmann. Schoolmaster, nursemaid! But he immediately regretted this thought. Studmann was really a decent fellow, and his pedantry was merely the shadow cast by a perfect reliability, a quality that had almost vanished today. It’ll only make things difficult for him, he thought. Now I’m just the opposite, I’m too lax, I let things slide. This isn’t a hotel business with highly experienced headwaiters and cunning elevator boys—good old Studmann will have to adapt himself. I, on the other hand—well, take this case …
He looked around. The field of rye stubble stretched, gray-white, in front of him. The ground beneath his feet seemed to sink a little. The dark starless patch which he saw over there against the sky was the beetroot field, perhaps.
Take this case, he thought. I ought to get to the bottom of it. Me, sir? No, Kowalewski wasn’t being stupid. He really didn’t know anything about it. But why should Sophie try to fool me? What interest’s she got in a prison gang, to make her tell me that tale? Oh, what nonsense! There’s probably some very simple explanation. I’ve enough with this silly love letter in my pocket. I don’t want any more worries. I’ll do my work and worry about nothing. The beetroots …
He stood still. Only another fifty or sixty paces separated him from the beetroot field, which rose like a hill against the starry sky. But dark though the field was, he could make out darker points moving on it. Sometimes a clear echo resounded when a knife struck a stone. Darker points! Pagel tried to count them. Six or seven? Sixteen? Twenty-six? It could have been over thirty! A swarm of locusts, a flying plague, attacking the fields at night …
“If the goat has no fodder …” But these weren’t hungry goats. This was a robber gang—and must be caught!
Pagel’s hand went to his hip pocket. Then he remembered that he had no weapon. Walking more and more slowly, he wondered if he ought to run back and call the others. But he, who had been able to recognize the thieves against the dark background, must long since have been noticed by them, standing out as he did against the lighter rye stubble. If he went for help, they would be gone! The fact that they so calmly saw him approach proved that they thought he was one of them. Or they thought there was no need to be afraid of one man. That way it’s also probably going to go wrong. But in making all these rash decisions he didn’t even hesitate once.
Step by step he advanced, perhaps a little slowly, but not through fear. Now he was quite close. His feet had left the crackling rye stubble; the beetroot leaves hung over his shoes like wet rags. Soon he would have to call out to them.
If I only catch a few, six or eight … he thought. And an idea came to him. Wrenching his jacket open, he snatched the silver cigarette case from his waistcoat pocket and raised it. “Hands up, or I’ll shoot,” he roared.
The case glittered in the starlight.
If only they see it! he thought. If they only see it straight away! It all depends on the first moment. If those near me put their hands up, the others will do the same.
“Hands up!” he shouted again, as loudly as he could. “I’ll put a bullet into the man who doesn’t put his hands up!”
A woman gave a little scream. A man’s very deep voice said: “Here, what’s all this!” But they raised their hands. Scattered over the dark field, the shadowy horde stood, their hands reaching to the starry sky.
I must shout as loud as possible, he thought with feverish excitement, so that they’ll hear in the wheat field. If only they come quick enough!
And he roared at a non-existent man in the rear that, if he lowered his hands again, he’d have a bullet through him. He was gripping the cigarette case so tightly that its sharp edge cut painfully into his flesh. The people, so many around one man, stood like stiff dolls. This attitude did not necessarily mean surrender to fate. It might also have been a threat, and he was overwhelmed by the helplessness of his position: he was holding up thirty people with a ridiculous cigarette case. Only one of them needed to go for him, and they would all be on him. He was not afraid they would beat him to death—but he would be thrashed, the women would tear his hair out, he would become a figure of ridicule, unable to show himself in the village again …
How much time had passed? Do the seconds pass slowly? The minutes? How long had he been standing here, with pretended power among the powerless, who only need remember their strength to humble him? He didn’t know. Time passed so slowly. He stopped shouting and listened. Weren’t they coming yet?
Someone coughed, someone else moved. The man with the deep voice, quite close to Pagel, spoke: “How much longer are we to stand like this, sir? My arms are beginning to ache. What’s going to happen?”
“Be quiet!” shouted Pagel. “You’re all to be quiet, otherwise you’ll get a bullet!” He had to keep saying that. Since he couldn’t even fire a warning shot he must convince them by words of his dangerousness.
But now rescue came! Across the rye stubble Studmann came running, with Kowalewski following.
Breathless, as if it were he who had been running so quickly, Pagel yelled: “Shoot! For God’s sake shoot, Studmann, shoot into the air and show them that we can! I’ve been standing here for ten minutes with my cigarette case in my hand.”
“Good work, Pagel,” said Studmann—and a shot, strangely small and dry under the expanse of heaven, cracked over the heads of the people.
A few laughed. The deep voice said: “Look out, they’re throwing crackers about!” More laughed.
“Form up in twos!” called Studmann. “Get your baskets on your backs! We’re going to the farm, where we shall take your names. Then everyone can go home. Pagel, you lead the way; I’ll bring up the rear. We’d better leave old Kowalewski out of it; he can shuffle along behind. I hope they obey. We can’t go shooting people on account of a few beetroot leaves.”
“Why not?” asked Pagel.
The roles were changed. Pagel still trembled from the excitement; having felt himself threatened, he regarded his supposed threateners as bad lots, almost criminals. Every measure against them seemed justified to him. Studmann, who had seen how the thirty had let themselves be held up by a cigarette case, inferred therefrom the harmlessness of their activities. It was all a mere trifle.
Neither Studmann nor Pagel was right. The men from Altlohe were certainly no criminals. Yet they were just as certainly determined not to starve, but to get their food where they could find it, since they couldn’t buy anything. They accepted a first surprisal almost good-humoredly. A second might make them vicious. They were hungry—and saw the huge farm where abundance grew. The smallest fraction of the harvest, a little corner of one field, could still their hunger, silence their ever-gnawing worry. The Rittmeister didn’t know how much a goat gobbled up, they said. What difference did a sack of potatoes make to him? This spring he had sent a thousand hundredweights of frozen potatoes to the starch factory. Last year the rye had been so wet when they brought it in that they couldn’t thresh it. It was all rotten—afterwards it had been thrown on the manure heap!
As long as they had been able to purchase their requirements with their wages, they had bought and not stolen. A few lazy rogues had always done a bit of stealing, but they were rogues and regarded as such. But now the people couldn’t buy anything—and there had been the war with its thousands of regulations which no one could ever remember, and its ration cards which only enabled one to go hungry. Many of the men had been at the front, where it had not been a disgrace to “forage” what you needed. The moral standard had gradually grown laxer; it was no longer thought shameful to break the law, unless one were caught doing it. “Don’t let yourself get caught!”—this increasingly popular saying was an indication of the decay in morals. Everything was topsy-turvy. It was still war. Despite the armistice, the Frenchman was still the enemy. Now he had marched into the Ruhr; horrible things were said to be taking place there.