Then a moment of inspiration. The crypt, I could rest in the crypt!
As I started to circle the ruins to find the crypt, the sound of voices, including children’s, drew me to a doorway down a flight of concrete steps. I popped my head through the door. The stench of unwashed humanity knocked me backwards. There must have been four or five families here, mainly women and children, and a few old men.
“You can’t come in here—there’s no room. Find somewhere else!” shrieked one of the women, frantically waving me away.
I climbed back up the steps. There was no point in trying to force the issue. The stench from my clothing alone would have been grounds for them to exclude me. The smell had abated somewhat—either that or I had become used to it—but it was still unpleasant. In any case, despite my four days’ growth of beard, I still wasn’t confident about my disguise.
I now needed water. In spite of my weariness, I decided to push on to St Michael’s church. It was only about a kilometre due east, which was pretty much the direction I needed to be taking anyway. If it was intact, I felt sure the priest would be able to supply me with water. The area I walked, or rather hobbled through, had been severely damaged in the air raids and I knew in my heart of hearts what I would find when I arrived there.
Certainly, it had been bombed, but it wasn’t as badly damaged as I had feared. Significant parts of the church were still upright and afforded good shelter and, blessing upon blessing, the baptismal font was still half full of water—dirty, dusty and stale water, but it tasted like the finest wine. It was, quite literally, a gift from God.
Gretel
I eased myself out of my improvised cot comprising two pews pushed side to side, with a mattress of knee hassocks. It had proven to be an excellent bed, and I had slept soundly. As I stood and took in my surroundings, I started to shiver and reached for my overcoat, which I had used as a blanket. Berlin mornings can be quite chilly, even in May. A light drizzle had started falling, which had contributed to the feeling of cold, and although I had been undercover, my clothes felt damp. Fishing my Luftwaffe watch from my trouser pocket—I didn’t dare wear it on my wrist—I checked the time. Just after six. I had slept for over ten hours! I moved across to the font which, being in the open, had started to fill with rainwater … icy cold, fresh, delicious rainwater.
I was now only about five hundred metres from the River Spree, which I needed to cross. The fact that there were two bridges in the immediate vicinity, Michael Bridge and Schilling Bridge, was a matter of supernatural indifference to me. If the bridges had been bombed, then I couldn’t use them. If the bridges were intact, they would have Soviet guards, so I couldn’t use them. I was going to have to swim across during the night!
That meant I had the rest of the day to reconnoitre the area and perhaps find a suitable hide to rest until nightfall. I knew the exact spot I wanted to cross. It was a stretch of the waterfront roughly equidistant from the bridges, close to the sewerage pumping station. Opposite were several commercial wharfs with waterfront cranes. Iron ladders attached to the sheer sides of the wharfs allowed the stevedores to climb down onto the barges. As a boy, I had watched in awe as the dockers, agile as monkeys, shimmied down the ladders, attached the crane hook to the load and then made a circling motion with their hand to tell the crane operator to start hauling up his cargo. I needed one of those ladders to be intact, otherwise I might not be able to get out of the river.
I didn’t go down as far as the waterfront—that would have been to invite suspicion—but I did find the ruins of a school only two hundred metres or so from my ‘drop off’ point where I could lay up until nightfall.
In the early hours, I moved slowly and quietly to the waterfront, stopping frequently and listening. My overcoat was wrapped in a bundle, in the centre of which were my shoes, belt with water bottles, knife, pistol and watch, the walking stick strapped to the outside. I had secured the bundle with cord I had obtained from the remains of a curtain I found in the church, and fashioned the whole thing into the form of a backpack. With this slung onto my back, I lowered myself into the Spree.
The water was freezing! It took all of my self-control not to call out. Pushing off slowly from the side wall, I employed a very gentle breaststroke in order to minimise noise. The width of the Spree here is only about fifty metres—the length of a swimming pool—but it was the longest fifty metres I have ever swum. Apart from the bitter cold, my nerves were as tight as a bowstring. I thought at any moment a searchlight would swing down on me from one
