you'd better get that hand attended to – it could turn septic.'
`Also,' Newman began, 'you're holding me up.' He checked his watch. 'Almost five minutes so far. Do you think I'd be out this time of night if my mission wasn't urgent? Any more delay and I'll take your name, report you. You've seen my folder, you brainless clot!'
The other policemen stood close by, arms folded, grinning. The fat Vopo hesitated. Newman switched on the ignition and waited, his expression bleak. He looked at his watch again, stared at the Vopo.
`These people have been helping me,' he ranted on. 'They know the district. So I help them. Which delayed me. Any more delay and I miss my rendezvous…'
The Vopo swore to himself, heard the laughter behind him, swung round in a fury. 'Let them through, you bastards. I want nothing more to do with this lot.'
The driver behind the wheel of the central car blocking the highway moved, leaving clear passage. Newman roared on through the gap, watching his rear view mirror. One of the policemen was walking towards the fat Vopo carrying something. A first aid kit, he guessed. His hands were slippery on the wheel and as he drove he wiped each hand on his trouser leg.
`Oh, thank God for that,' Gerda called out from the back. `I am trembling all over. Nice grey lag.'
`Camouflage. I told you,' Falken said. 'How far is it now to Radom's place?'
`About ten kilometres from here. Up a side turning to the right. I'll warn you as we approach it.'
`Step on it,' Falken advised Newman. 'Forget the limit. Risk it. Then if they have second thoughts and come after us we'll be off this highway. We'll get a little sleep at Radom's. Then in the morning it's Leipzig. And there we have to be careful.'
`What the blazes do you think we've had to be so far?' Newman responded and put his foot down.
The road-block they had left behind had been re-established, the three cars forming a barrier across the highway. The fat Vopo's injured hand had been sterilized and bandaged by one of his men.
`There, Gustav, now there is no danger of infection.'
`Thank you,' Gustav growled. 'Now take up your position.'
Gustav was fuming. His left hand looked as though he wore a small white boxing glove. And he was well aware that he was unpopular with his men, that they were secretly laughing at him.
He stood by the radio car, wondering whether he should report the incident. He was very reluctant to do so. That blasted goose had made him look such a fool. He could well imagine how they would react back at headquarters if the story of his mishap reached them. He'd be a laughing stock for weeks.
And he was fed up anyway. Like his men he had been got out of bed to carry out this screwy patrol. All of them were still half-asleep, tired and unenthusiastic as he was. The goose had given them something to joke about. Before they went off duty he'd warn them to keep their mouths shut – otherwise they'd find themselves doing a lot more night duty. He moved away from the radio car. No, he wouldn't send in any report.
`Gustav, another car is coming,' called out the Vopo who had attended to his hand.
From the same direction as the goose car. Gustav felt in his pocket with his right hand. His fingers closed round a wad of forged notes he'd taken off a shopkeeper. He watched the headlights come closer, slowing down. If this was nobody important, he'd plant the notes on him and 'find' them, then arrest the driver. That he would report – which would drive out of his men's heads the goose car incident. Releasing the notes, taking his hand out of his pocket, he adjusted his peaked cap. Gustav, member of the People's Police, protector of the proletariat, knew how to take care of himself.
The Chaika was parked in the side road. Gerda had left Newman and Falken with the vehicle while she walked to the farm to warn Radom they were coming. She approached the heavy five-barred gate which was closed and the only entrance between a high hedge.
The first light of dawn was streaking the eastern sky, shafts of fiery and unseen sun. The honking started before she reached the gate despite the lightness of her tread. More and more honking murdered the quiet. She paused by the gate as the geese kept up their chorus. A stooped, wide-shouldered figure holding a shotgun appeared.
`Ulrich,' she called out, 'it's Gerda. That is you?'
`Who else would it be?' Radom replied in a deep voice. `Come in. The geese are penned up.'
Talken is waiting down the road. With a friend. A friend who has no name. We have a car, a Chaika.'
`Lousy Russian car. Bring them in. Drive the car into the yard close to the house. Hildegarde is up. You need food?'
'I think so. I will fetch them…'
The gate was open when Newman drove the car inside. In the dark a stooping figure closed the gate as soon as he had taken it into the yard. Gerda guided him to an old single-storey farmhouse with a roof angled like a ski- slide. Radom came up to the car, said something to Gerda so rapidly in German that Newman couldn't get the gist.
`Follow him. You have to drive round the back.'
Newman crawled after the stooped figure, hobbling along at a surprising pace. He passed an ancient and monster-sized farm tractor with a high seat. Radom led them round the back of the long farmhouse, along a track across a field and into a hollow surrounded with trees.
`You leave it here,' Gerda whispered.
It was the dark making her talk so softly. The honking of the geese ceased the moment he switched off the engine. In Falken's arms the grey lag was alert and watchful, switching its pink bill from side to side.
`He can sense the other geese,' Falken said as they alighted. `We sleep here until mid-morning,' he told Newman. 'We must be as fresh and alert as possible when we enter Leipzig.'
Inside the low-roofed farmhouse Newman blinked in the strong light. He was amazed to see that Radom had to be at least eighty years old, a powerfully-built man with a grizzled chin and sharp eyes. A slightly younger woman, dressed in a long apron with a mass of grey hair and hawk-like features stood cooking something which had a cheesy aroma on an old-fashioned stove. She was introduced as Hildegarde by Gerda while Radom disappeared back into the yard. A few moments later there was a grinding roar.
`What the devil is that?' Newman asked as Falken settled himself in a basket chair with the grey lag.
`Radom starting up the tractor. He will drive it over any of the wheel tracks the Chaika made. They will disappear. In case the Vopos come to search for us here. That horrible fat one may report our presence. He had a radio car.'
The room was very long, oblong in shape with a large wooden table in the centre, a table large enough to serve twenty people, a table with its surface scrubbed spotless. They were seated together by an open fireplace where birch logs burned and crackled. Hildegarde was cooking her cheese dish at the other end of the room, out of earshot.
`I don't like this,' Newman told Falken firmly. 'I don't like it at all…'
`Don't like what, my friend?'
`Staying here for even a short time – endangering the lives of this old couple. It's not right. I want to move on. Now!'
`For many hours we have had no sleep, no food, nothing to drink. It is essential we have these things,' Falken snapped. `Sleep, after food and drink…'
`You don't give a damn, do you? If they were younger it would be different. Someone has to run the underground. I understand that. But,' Newman continued vehemently, 'I refuse to be a party to risking this old couple. I want to leave. Now!'
`You don't understand at all…'
`Explain it – if you can.'
`We are all very fatigued…'
`Stick to the bloody point,' Newman rasped, keeping his voice down.
`Of all the people I work with, Ulrich Radom is the most reliable, the cleverest. Look how he is using the tractor to…'
`I know about that. All right, he's very careful. Good for him. Now you be careful – get us out of here…'
`If you will just keep quiet and let me finish my explanation you may see it differently…'
`Then get on with your explanation. But make it quick.'
