The Foreign Correspondent

next station, the express shifted over to a siding so a military train could go past. Pulled by two locomotives, endless flatcars rolled past, carrying artillery pieces and tanks, their long cannons poking out from beneath tied- down tarpaulins.

“Just like la derniere,” Simard said-“the last one,” as the French called it.

“And the next,” Hamilton said. “And the one after that.”

And the one in Spain, Weisz thought. And, again, he would write about it. He watched the train until it ended, with a caboose, which had a machine-gun emplacement on its roof; the protective rim of sandbags and the helmets of the gunners white with snow.

At the next scheduled stop, the Czech town of Kralupy, the train stood in the station for a long time, its locomotive emitting an occasional snort of steam. Eventually, as Hamilton rose “to see what’s going on,” the first- class conductor appeared at the door of their compartment. “Gentlemen, I beg your pardon, but the train cannot proceed.”

“Why not?” Weisz said.

“We are not informed,” the conductor said. “We regret the inconvenience, gentlemen, perhaps later in the day, we may continue.”

“Is it the snow?” Hamilton said.

“Please,” the conductor said. “We do regret the inconvenience.”

“Well then,” Hamilton said philosophically, “damn it all to bloody hell.” He stood and yanked his valise off the luggage rack. “Where is beastly Prague?”

“About twenty miles from here,” Weisz said.

They left the train and trudged across the platform, to the station cafe on the other side of the street. There, the proprietor made a telephone call, which produced, twenty minutes later, the Kralupy taxicab and its sullen giant of a driver. “Prague!” he said. “Prague?” How dare they call him away from hearth and home in such weather.

Weisz began to peel reichsmarks from the roll in his pocket.

“I’ll take part of it,” Hamilton said quietly, reading the driver’s eyes.

“I can only help a little,” Simard said. “At Havas, they…”

Weisz and Hamilton waved him off, they didn’t care, were of a traveling class that mythically availed itself of oxcarts or elephants or sedan chairs with native bearers, so the overpriced Kralupy taxi barely deserved comment.

The taxi was a Tatra, with long, sloping rear end and bulbous body, and an extra headlight, like a cyclops’s eye, between the usual two. Weisz and Simard sat in the spacious backseat, while Hamilton sat next to the driver. Who grumbled continually as he squinted into the snow, and pushed hard against the wheel as they churned through the higher drifts, internal combustion being, to him, only part of the locomotion process. The invading Germans had closed the road to Prague, as well as the railway, and, at one point, the taxi was flagged down by a Wehrmacht traffic-control unit-two motorcycles with sidecars that blocked the way. But a determined display of red press cards did the trick and they were waved through, with a casual stiff-armed salute and an amiable “Heil Hitler.”

“So then, Prague, here we are,” the driver said, stopping the taxi on some nameless road on the outskirts of the city. Weisz started to argue, in Slovenian, distant from Czech but in the same general family.

“But I don’t know this place,” the driver said.

“Go that way!” Hamilton said in German, waving generally south.

“Are you German?” the driver said.

“No, British.”

From the look on the driver’s face, that was worse. But he slammed the Tatra into gear and drove on. “We’re going to Wenceslas Square,” Weisz said, “in the old city.” Hamilton was also staying at the Zlata Husa-the Golden Goose-while Simard was at the Ambassador. Once more, as they crossed a bridge over the Vltava, they were stopped by German traffic police, and got through by using their press cards. In the central districts, south of the river, there was hardly a soul to be seen-when your country is being invaded, better to stay home. As the taxi entered the old city, and began to work its way through the ancient winding streets, Simard called out, “We just passed Blkova, we’re almost there.” He had a Guide Bleu, open to a map, on his knees.

As the driver shifted down to first gear, trying to turn a corner never meant for automobiles, a boy ran in front of the taxi and waved his arms. Weisz’s impression was student-maybe eighteen, with tousled fair hair and a battered wool jacket. The driver swore, and the car stalled as he slammed on the brakes. Then the back door flew open and another boy, similar to the first, dove headfirst onto the floor at Weisz’s feet. He was breathing hard, and laughing, and bunched in his hand was a swastika flag.

The boy in front of the taxi ran around the car and joined his friend on the floor. His face was bright red. “Go ahead! Go, now. Hurry!” he shouted. The driver, muttering and cursing, started the taxi, but, as they began to move, they were hit from behind. Weisz, knocked halfway off the seat, turned around to see, through the snow- dappled rear window, a black Opel, which had been unable to stop on the slippery cobbles and rammed them, its front grille spewing steam.

The driver reached for the ignition key, but Weisz yelled, “Don’t stop.” He didn’t. The back wheels slewed sideways, then the car gained traction and drove away. Behind them, two men in overcoats climbed out of the Opel and started to run, shouting in German, “Halt! Police!”

“What police?” Hamilton said, watching from the front seat. “Gestapo?”

Suddenly, a man in a black leather coat ran out of an alley, a Luger pistol in hand. Everybody ducked, a hole appeared in the windshield, and another round hit the back door panel. The boy in the wool jacket yelled, “Get out of here,” and the driver stepped on the gas. The man with the gun had run in front of the taxi, now he tried to leap out of the way, slipped, and fell. There was a bump beneath the wheels, accompanied by a furious squawk, then the taxi sideswiped a wall-metal grinding on stone-and, with the driver hauling maniacally at the wheel, slid around a corner, wheels spinning, and swerved crazily down the street.

Just before they turned, Weisz had seen the man with the pistol, obviously in pain, trying to crawl away. “I think we ran over his foot,” he said.

“Serves him right,” Hamilton said. Then, to the boys on the floor, in German: “Who are you?” A reporter’s question, Weisz heard it in his voice.

“Never mind that,” the boy in the wool jacket said, now leaning against the door. “We took their fucking flag.”

“You’re students?”

The two looked at each other. Finally, the one in the wool jacket said, “Yes. We were.”

“Merde,” Simard said, mildly irritated, as though he’d lost a button. Gingerly, he raised the cuff of his trouser leg, to reveal a red gash that pulsed blood down his shin and into his sock. “I am shot,” he said, barely able to believe it. He took a handkerchief from the breast pocket of his jacket and dabbed the wound. “Don’t dab at it,” Hamilton said. “Press it.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Simard said. “I’ve been shot before.”

“So have I,” Hamilton said.

“Use pressure,” Weisz said. “To stop bleeding.” He found his own handkerchief, held the ends, and twirled it around to make a tourniquet.

“I’ll do it,” Simard said, taking the handkerchief. His face was very pale, Weisz thought he might be in shock.

In the front seat, as the taxi hurtled down a broad, empty street, the driver turned around to see what was going on in back. He started to speak, then didn’t, and held a hand to his forehead. Of course his head ached-his windshield had a bullet hole, his doors were scraped, trunk dented, and, now, blood on the upholstery. Behind them, in the distance, the high and low notes of a siren.

The student holding the flag got to his knees and peered out the window. “You had better hide your taxi,” he said to the driver.

“Hide it? Under the bed?”

“Pavel, maybe,” the other student said.

His friend said, “Yes, of course.” Then, to the driver: “A friend of ours lives in a building with a stable in back, we can hide it there. You can’t drive around like this.”