"But what did you do, old dear?"
He laughed and lit another cigarette. "I marched into the first cottage I came to, scared the folk out of their lives, and in the name of Kaiser Bill commandeered clothes for a wounded prisoner. They parted like a lamb, and five minutes afterwards I was transformed into a workman."
"But you'd no identification card?"
This brought another quiet laugh. "I worked that all right. There are no asses in the world too bad to bluff if you go the right way about it. My way was to go to the police. I pitched a yarn that I was an aero mechanic and had been sent for to go hotfoot to Ellendorff, a little place close to the Dutch frontier where I knew there was a factory, and that I'd been waylaid and robbed on the road. It sounds thin as I tell it; but I had mucked myself up to look the part, and, above all, I had gone to the police, mind you; itself the best proof that I wasn't a wrong 'un: and I chose the middle of the night, when only one sleepy owl was on duty. He swallowed it all right, except that he thought I was drunk and at first wanted to keep me till the morning; but when I kicked up a fuss, told him he'd get into a devil of a row, and said he'd better call his boss, he thought better of it, gave me what I wanted and was thankful to see my back and go to sleep again. I had no more trouble; was stopped once or twice, but the card got me through; and I reached the frontier easily enough. Luck favoured me there. I ran across a couple of deserters, palled up with them, and—well, that's all."
Gunter's story had made a big impression on me at the time, and in my old student days at Göttingen I had had quite enough experiences of the power of a good bluff on the average German official to know that it was quite feasible, so I resolved to profit by it now.
I had plenty of time the next day to complete all the necessary preparations and added a few of my own devising. These were some "iron rations," in case of difficulties about our food supply; two or three tools, including a heavy spanner which would serve as a weapon at need; and a shabby suit case to hold everything.
I packed everything into this, lifted a board under the lino in my bathroom, and hid it there, lest any one in my absence might take a fancy to go through my luggage.
With a road map and a railway guide the route to be taken was soon decided. The Dutch frontier was to be the goal. It was much nearer than the Swiss; and as Westphalia was the region of factories, it was much more plausible that a couple of mechanics would travel that way, than in any other direction.
Gunter's mention of the one at Ellendorff, a village near Lingen, and close to the frontier, suggested a good objective; and the rough idea was to make the journey in stages, so as to put people off the scent should suspicion be roused. It was safer than risking a trip in one of the through expresses, and also much easier to book from small towns than right through from Berlin.
All this took up a lot of time, especially as it was interrupted by several spells of speculation about the result of Nessa's interview with von Gratzen. This was very important, as it would probably determine the method of our departure; and when my preparations were completed and I was carefully reconsidering them over a cigarette, some one knocked at the door of my flat.