They had clearly by then recognized the Triumph and the number plates as British. The reason they had come off the autobahn made itself plain when one of them faced the woods and unzipped his fly. A comfort break, but that bursting bladder might prove to be their lucky night.
The senior of them was a top NCO, what I took to be the Unteroffizier. The other two examined the Triumph curiously while their colleague urinated. The NCO held out his hand.
“Ausweis, bitte.” The “please” was good news, still polite. I dropped into Bertie Wooster mode—the hapless, helpless, harmless English tourist, completely lost and very dim. Halting German, awful accent.
The NCO examined the passport page by page by the light of a torch from his pocket. He saw the East German visa.
“Why are you stopped here?”
“It just stopped, Officer. I don’t know why. Just motoring along and it starts to cough, then cut out. I had just enough speed to get here before it stopped.”
The Germans are probably the best engineers in the world, but they know it and loved to be told it. Even East German engineering was enough for its degrees to be acknowledged in the West. So I laid the flattery on with a trowel.
“I cannot understand engines, Officer. So I do not know what to look for. And I have no torch. You Germans are so brilliant at this . . . I don’t suppose you could have a look?”
The senior NCO thought it over. Then he snapped an order at the one who had finished his ablutions and buttoned up his fly. In that crew, he seemed to be the mechanic.
“Guck mal,” he said, gesturing toward the engine bay. “Have a look.”
The urinator took the torch and went into the engine bay. Inside my breast pocket, the fat pack of papers was beginning to feel like a tombstone, which it could turn out to be if I was ordered to empty all pockets.
Then there was a shout of triumph and the engineer straightened up. He was holding up in his right hand the disconnected battery lead, illuminated in the torch beam.
“Hat sich gelöst,” he shouted. “It just shook itself off.”
Then it was all grins of pleasure. Point proved. Germans are better. I was handing around Rothmans, much appreciated. The disconnected lead was replaced and I was bidden to try the starter. It kicked into life at once. Bertie Wooster was beside himself with amazement and gratitude. Bonnet down and locked. Salutes all round. Please, mein Herr, on your way.
An hour further on, I did it again and this time was not disturbed. At half past eleven, I rolled into the arc lights and customs sheds at the Saale River crossing.
And there it was thorough. Boot, engine bay, high-powered flashlights into every crevice. Upholstery patted for hidden lumps, with mirrors and lights rolled underneath.
Inside the customs shed, pocket and body search. I was the only crosser; I had their undivided attention and I suppose they were bored. Excess cash handed over, passport taken to a back room, muffled sounds of phone calls. Eventually, with expressions of disappointment on their faces, the curt nod. Proceed. Valise back in boot, climb in, start up. Roll.
Back then, the East Germans had a trick. Their border point was a quarter of a mile inside East Germany. After the lifting of what looked like the last pole, there was a long, slow cruise at only ten kilometers per hour down the last stretch. It was bordered on both sides by chain-link fence. Unclimbable. And watchtowers with machine guns. Easy to hear the roared bullhorn command “Halt. Stehenbleiben.” Halt, stay where you are.
Finally, at the end, another barrier. Behind it, the West Germans were watching, hidden behind their own lights, field glasses on the approaching car and the East German controls farther back. There were no shouts as front bumper approached the barrier, which finally jerked into action.
Perfect joy? Oh, yes. Perfect joy is the sight of a red-and-white-striped pole rising into the Bavarian night as the rearview mirror fills with the wash of headlights.
I was very late into Bayreuth and found Philip at the only place in town still open for coffee, the railway café. He seemed distraught. He thought he had lost me. I was touched. So I gave him the McGuffin, went to the hotel, and slept like a log.
The next day I filled the tank and drove back across Bavaria, over the Rhine, through France to the Channel port of Calais. Thence the first ferry of the day for Dover and the chance to see once again, standing on the forepeak, the great white cliffs coming through the morning mist.
FRIENDS AND OPPONENTS
There are few experiences that appear so harmless, but turn out to be so exhausting, as the round-the-world promotion tour.
At first blush, it sounds varied and interesting. Just twelve cities in twenty-four days with a couple of “rest” weekends in the middle and first-class all the way. Why not? The reason why not is that after six or seven days, the effects of rapidly changing time zones, s
trange beds, constant airports, and the draining dawn-to-dusk interviews are starting to drag at the nerve ends, exacerbating the inevitable jet lag.
I only did one such, and that was in 1978, to promote the fourth novel, The Devil’s Alternative. Just Toronto, Vancouver, Hong Kong, Brisbane, Sydney, Auckland, Perth, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Frankfurt, and back to London. It was all new to me and exotic. Years later, just two stopovers stand out—Hong Kong and Mauritius, which was a weekend break between Perth and Jo’burg.
By the time the airliner touched down at the small and crowded Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong, I was only a third of the way into my journey and still pretty fresh. The Peninsula Hotel had sent a car, and I had to admit I had never, ever been looked after like this.
I had just been bowed into my suite on the tenth floor of the Peninsula when the phone rang. It was “Johnny,” the Firm’s head of station for the colony and several outstations besides.
“Are you on for dinner tonight?”