Wolf Among Wolves (95 page)

“What will they do, then?”

“Well, Matzke, Liebschner and Kosegarten are with them. Bright lads who think a bit more about what they do. Their idea is always: whatever we take’s got to be worth it. They won’t break into any farmhouse at the risk of a year in jug at least, just to find some plowboy’s old corduroy jacket, which they wouldn’t even dream of wearing.”

“But they’ll have to obtain clothes somewhere. They won’t get far in prison dress.”

“Of course,” said Marofke, putting his finger to his nose with that old superiority which looked so conceited. “And since they’re cunning and have thought of that, and because they’re prudent and don’t want to steal clothes, what follows?”

Pagel didn’t know.

“Someone will get clothes for them,” Marofke gently explained. “They have accomplices here in Neulohe, one or several. You can take it from me that hard-boiled lads like Kosegarten and Liebschner don’t take a powder without any preparation. It’s all been arranged, and because I didn’t find out how they arranged it—for it was done here by notes or signs, they couldn’t have done it in Meienburg!—because I’ve been stupid, it’s really quite right in the end for everyone to blame me.”

“But, officer, how could they, here under all our eyes? And who in Neulohe would have lent themselves to such a thing?”

The warder shrugged his shoulders. “If you only knew how cunning someone is who wants to regain his freedom! You yourself spend your time thinking of a hundred different things, but a prisoner is thinking all day and half the night about one thing only: how to get away. You talk about our eyes! We see nothing. When a convict goes out to work and starts to roll himself a cigarette and finds he has no tobacco and chucks the cigarette paper down in the mud, right in front of you, you march on with the gang. And three minutes later along comes another in the know and picks it up and reads what’s scribbled on it.… Perhaps nothing—it’s only folded in such and such a way, which means this and that.”

“It seems a little improbable.”

“Nothing’s improbable with them,” said Marofke, now in his element. “You just think of a prison, Pagel: iron and cement, locks and bolts, and chains too. And walls and doors and threefold supervision and guards outside and inside! Yet you can take my word for it, there isn’t a prison in the whole world which is absolutely shut. On one side an enormous organization, and on the other an individual in the middle of iron and stone! Yet time and again we hear that a letter’s gone out and no one saw it, that money or a steel file has come in, and no knows how. If that can be done in prison with all its organization, isn’t it possible out here in our unguarded work gangs, under our very eyes?”

“It’s always possible,” said Pagel, “that they could manage to write a letter. But there must be someone here also who is in league with them, who wants to read it.”

“And why shouldn’t there be someone, Pagel? What do you know about it? What do I? It’s only necessary for someone to be living here who was in the war with one of my lads. They’ve only to look at each other and the glance of my one says, ‘Help, comrade!’—and the plot is on foot. Someone here may once have been on remand, and my chap was in the next cell on the same business; and every night through the cell window they told one another about their troubles—the damage is done! But it needn’t be that. That would be an accident, and it doesn’t need to be that. Women are not accidents; everywhere and always they come into it.”

“What women?” asked Pagel.

“What women, Pagel? All women. That is, I obviously don’t mean all of them, but there’s a certain type everywhere which is as fond of such fellows as many people are of venison when it’s really high. They think a convict who has had time to rest himself is better than an ordinary man, is more knowing, so to speak—you understand what I mean. Women like that would do anything to get one in their bed all to themselves. Harboring felons and so on, they don’t consider that, they’ve never heard of it.…”

“There may be such women in Berlin, officer,” objected Pagel, “but surely not in the country?”

“How do you know, young man, what things are like here, or the women either?” asked Marofke, immensely superior. “You’re a nice chap, the only one who’s been decent to me here, but you’re a bit hazy. You always think things aren’t so bad after all, and that what’s eaten isn’t as hot as what’s cooked. Young fellow, you ought to have grasped early this morning that sometimes it can be even hotter.”

Pagel looked uncomfortable, with an expression like a cat’s in a thunderstorm. And it really was thundering, and uncomfortably so.

“I explained to you this morning all my ideas about it,” said Marofke, sighing. “I didn’t believe you could help me much, but I did think, The young man’ll keep his eyes open. But that’s not exactly what you’ve done, Lieutenant; you wouldn’t have got the Iron Cross for that in wartime. But there, it’s all right, I know what a young man’s like. But please do this for me now—do keep your eyes open a little the next few days. I don’t think all the gendarmes together, whatever they say, will catch my five chaps. You’re here, though, and it would be very nice if you could write to the administration in a few days’ time: We’ve got the five and Marofke told us how to catch them.… What do you think?”

“Gladly, officer,” said Pagel obligingly. “And what is it you think I ought to do?”

“Man, have you got cotton wool in your ears?” Marofke jumped up. “Haven’t you any brains? I can’t tell you anything more. Keep your eyes open, that’s all. I don’t ask anything else. No need to play the detective or skulk in corners, nor even try to be cunning—only keep your eyes open!”

“All right, then,” said Pagel, rising. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“You know what to do,” replied Marofke hurriedly. “I’m convinced that they have accomplices in the village, one or more, probably girls, but not necessarily. And while the police are all over the place here, they’ll keep under cover in the woods, in the village, who knows! It’s you who must use your eyes. In three or four days’ time, when it’s a bit quieter, our old pals will set forth, properly, by train, and well dressed.…”

“I’ll look out,” promised Pagel.

“Do it, too,” Marofke begged. “Looking out is harder than you think. And there’s another thing you ought to know. What they have on their backs.…”

“Yes?”

“That’s State property. And every prisoner knows that if he makes away with one piece of it he’ll be wanted for larceny. A missing scarf may mean six months’ penal servitude. So when really experienced lads bolt they take care that their things get sent as soon as possible to the prison. Usually by post—in which case I’ll let you know. If so much as a single piece turns up here, then you must keep watch like a pointer. Don’t think that it’s something I’ve left behind, because I never forget a thing. If it’s only a gray prison sock with a red rim, there’s something wrong. Do you even know what our shirts look like? Or the mufflers? Come along—I’ll show you.”

The principal warder did not, however, get as far as initiating Pagel into these secrets. Down the village street came ten bicycles, bringing nine warders from the prison, all belted, with rubber truncheons swinging and their faces dripping with sweat. In front rode a fat flabby man in a thick crumpled black
suit. His belly almost rested on the handle bars. When the principal warder saw this threatening colossus he stared, forgetting everything else, including young Pagel, and murmured in dismay: “The labor inspector himself!”

Pagel saw the fat man, breathing heavily, descend from his bicycle, which a zealous warder held while he wiped the sweat from his forehead. He did not look at Marofke.

“Inspector,” said Marofke imploringly with his hand still at his cap badge. “Report Harvest Detachment Five Neulohe, a senior warder, four warders … forty-five men …”

“Where is the Manor office, young fellow?” demanded the colossus distantly. “Please show me the way. As for you, Marofke”—the inspector seemed to be interested in the gabled wall of the barracks, on which the stone cross stood out with its somewhat lighter red—“as for you, Marofke, you will soon find out that you’re finished.” He went on looking at the wall, considering. Then, in an indifferent tone: “You will immediately, Marofke, see if the footwear of the prisoners has been greased according to regulations and if laced up in conformity with orders. That is, bow knots and no others!”

One of the warders sniggered. Marofke, the little vain potbellied principal warder, replied, pale: “Yes, inspector,” and disappeared round the corner of the barracks.

Pagel, leading the way to the office, thought bitterly about the little man who, although he had taken the greatest trouble and borne the heaviest anxieties, was snubbed by everybody. No one, however, had cast any reproach at himself … despite all the mistakes he had made. He resolved, if an opportunity offered, to rehabilitate Herr Marofke. He could understand how difficult it was for anyone who looked so absurd to obtain respect—however efficient he might be. Efficiency was not at all the chief thing; it was more important to look like it.

“So this is the office,” said the inspector. “Thank you, young man. Who are you?”

“A friend of Herr Marofke’s,” answered Pagel rudely.

The fat man was not to be put out. “I was thinking of your occupation,” he said, still friendly.

“Pupil,” replied Pagel with fury.

“There you are!” beamed the fat man. “Then you are certainly suited to Marofke. Pupil! He, too, has a lot to learn.” And, nodding, he opened the door.

Wolfgang Pagel had had another lesson, which was that one should not vent ill-humor on those whom it delights.

VII

Half an hour later Harvest Detachment Five moved off from Neulohe, and a quarter of an hour afterwards the gendarmes set out on their battue through the woods. From the office windows all four—the Geheimrat, the gendarme officer, young Pagel and Frau von Prackwitz—watched the convicts’ departure. It was very different from their arrival. There was no singing, no one smiled; they went away with lowered heads, sullen faces, and their feet dragging in the dust. This dull shuffling along had in it something despairing, an evil rhythm, a “We are the enemies of this world”—that was what it sounded like to Wolfgang.

No doubt the prisoners had been thinking about their escaped fellow sufferers; burning envy had filled them when they considered the freedom of those five who now haunted the woods, while they were to return, under an escort of loaded carbines, to their solitary stone cells—punished because the others had escaped. From them had been taken the sight of distant fields, a laughing girlish face, a hare jumping along the potato furrows—all exchanged for the faded yellow dreariness of cell walls, because five others were scampering about in freedom.

In front of the column went the principal warder, Marofke. On the right he had to push a bicycle, on the left another; he wasn’t even allowed to watch over his men now. And behind the column trod the inspector, with spiky eyebrows and elephant feet, alone. His fat, white face raised, expressionless. Strong white teeth flashed in his mouth. At the side of the road Vi had stood to take stock. Seeing her there, Pagel had been angry.

The Geheimrat spoke to his daughter. “I should advise you, incidentally, not to sleep in the Villa alone with your stupid Räder the next few nights. All respect to our clever gendarme officer—but safe is safe.”

“Perhaps one of the gentlemen would …?” began Frau von Prackwitz, looking from Pagel, who was staring out of the window, to Studmann.

Although Marofke had specifically warned against any playing at being detective, Pagel preferred being free in the nights that followed, to do a bit of looking and hearing around—to keep his eyes open, as he’d been told. So he looked at no one but out of the window—but the convicts had left at last, and the barracks looked like an empty red box.

“I shall be very pleased to sleep with you,” said von Studmann—and flushed terribly.

The old Geheimrat bleated, and looked out of the window, too. Pagel shrugged his shoulders. The awkwardnesses of the adroit are always the worst.
When a completely conventional man like Studmann makes a slip, everyone turns red.

“That’s settled, then. Thanks very much, Herr von Studmann,” said Frau von Prackwitz in her deep, even voice.

“It will cost you a heap of money to restore the barracks to its old condition,” declared the Geheimrat. “All this trellis-work and bolts must disappear as soon as possible, and the doorway be made free again.”

“Perhaps we could leave the place as it is for the moment,” suggested Studmann cautiously. “It would be a pity to tear everything out and have to put it back next year.”

“Next year? No detachment’s coming to Neulohe again!” announced the Geheimrat. “I have had about enough of your mother’s nervousness, Eva. Well, I’ll go up now and see how she is. All these green police coats will have cheered her up, of course! What an upset! And I keep asking myself what you’re going to do about your potatoes.” With this last thrust he left the office. The jealous father had taken a sufficient revenge for Studmann’s flush, for his daughter’s momentary embarrassment (perceived only by him), and for the accentuated indifference with which young Pagel was staring out of the window.

“Yes, what’s going to happen to our potatoes?” asked Frau von Prackwitz, looking doubtfully at Studmann.

“I don’t think that will offer any great difficulty,” said Studmann hurriedly, glad to have found something to talk about. “Unemployment and hunger are on the increase, and if we let it be known in the local town that we are digging potatoes, not paying cash, but giving ten or fifteen pounds in kind per hundredweight, we’ll get all the people we want. We shall have to send, two, three, perhaps four carts into town every morning to fetch the people and take them back at night, but we can manage that.”

“A nuisance—and expensive,” sighed Frau von Prackwitz. “Oh, if those convicts …”

“But far cheaper than if the potatoes are frozen. You, Pagel, won’t be a landed gentleman any longer. You will have to be in the fields all day and distribute tokens, one for every hundredweight.…”