“What do you mean by stopping anybody on a public road?” Kent’s voice amplified my question. I had not noticed that he had turned and joined our group. “This is a public road, you know.”
Tynsdale, who could not speak German very well, kept discreetly behind Kent and me and felt, no doubt, as if he were intruding.
“This isn’t an ordinary public road. There is an English prison camp down that way. Our instructions are to keep an eye on the traffic along here, what there is of it.” It was always the same man who was doing the talking. His statement sounded a little odd to me since neither he nor his companion was conspicuously armed, and neither one wore a helmet, two signs that they were not on duty. “Unless you have a passport or can establish your identity by some other means you will have to come with us, so we can make sure who you are.”
“No, I haven’t a passport,” I said slowly. “You don’t always require one just walking back and forth from your work.” I was trying to think of the right thing to do or to say, and particularly whether to risk about ten years in a penitentiary, if the only move which seemed open to us should fail.
“Oh, anything will do,” the soldier continued, “an envelop addressed to you, for example.”
I had made up my mind. “Right. I’ll give you something. Here’s my passport,” and I handed him a one-hundred-mark bill from my pocket-book.
The soldier looked at the bill, then at me. He poked his companion in the ribs with his elbow and showed it to him.
“See what that fellow calls a passport? Is that all right?”
“That’s all right,” said the other.
“Boy, boy! You are some guys, you are! Say, are you only going for a night in Berlin, or are you not coming back?”