"Of course you wouldn't, dear boy. I don't suppose this thing’s got enough petrol in it to do a hundred kilometres, and here isn't a service station in Germany out of which you could wangle another gallon without me to help you. Even if you succeeded in reaching the frontier you wouldn't stand a dog's chance of getting across it. As it is, we shall have to ditch the truck in half an hour or less because once those swine we left in he wood get to a telephone every policeman in Brandenburg will be on the look out for it. That's why putting both our girl friends entirely out of the question we should be absolutely mad to try to make a dash for any frontier at the moment; and why, even if I were not anxious to find out what has happened to Erika, I should be heading for Berlin."
"I suppose you're right about our having to ditch the van pretty soon," Charlton admitted reluctantly, "but the thought of trying to keep out of trouble in a great city sends cold shivers town my spine."
"Don't let it. There's an old Chinese saying which I've often 'found to be a very true one. `When thou wouldst be secret do by business in a crowd'. If only we can get to Berlin we'll be all right, but the problem is how to get there."
Gorzke proved to be a larger town than Gloine but owing to he late hour it was almost as deserted. They had to pull up for a moment in its central square to find direction signs but on 'reading them Gregory saw "WIESENBURG 8 KILO and under it "BELZIG 19 KILOMETRES". The name Belzig rang a bell in his mind which made him believe that it was on a main line railway, so he decided to push on awards it.
The road now curved to the south east but it was a good main way, wider and with a firmer surface than that upon which hey had been before, and they made better going. In this quiet country district they had not so far met a single vehicle and as they bucketed along Gregory was busy calculating distances. He reckoned that by the time they reached Wiesenburg they would have covered about fifteen miles and, as the top speed of the lorry with the handicap of Ersatz petrol was in the neighbourhood of 30 m.p.h., half an hour would have elapsed between their arrival at that town and their seizure of the lorry from the Nazis.
He had been fairly confident about getting through. Gloine and Gorzke without trouble but every moment now increased the likelihood of their being held up. It was not more than twenty minutes' walk from Hails Foldar's cottage to the home of their late friend, Colonel Baron von Lutz, and it was certain that the manor house would be on the telephone. If the Nazis had set off for the house at once the police all over the district would now have been warned and be drawing cordons across the roads to catch the stolen truck before it could get further afield. On the other hand, if the Nazis had wasted time in argument or, feeling confident that the vast German police network would easily pick up the fugitives on the following morning, considered it more important to patch up their wounded than to make a dash for the nearest telephone, there was a decent chance that no emergency police call had yet been sent out.
Gregory said nothing to Charlton but as they approached the first houses of Wiesenburg he braced himself for trouble. Peering out into the darkness ahead and holding the shot gun that he still had with him ready across his knees he prepared to fight rather than to surrender.
Further into the town a belated roisterers lurched off the pavement and almost under their wheels. For a second Gregory did not realize that the man was a drunk and thought him the leader of an ambush who had jumped out to call on them to halt; but Freddie swerved the van, missing the fellow by inches. and it clattered on.
In the centre of the town a line of light lorries was pulled up at the side of the road and in the half light they could see that a number of soldiers were gathered about them. Once more Gregory tensed his muscles. Perhaps these men had just been dispatched from a local barracks to bar the road; but when he saw that the lorries were all parked in line he realized that his fears were groundless. The lorries would have been drawn across the road if the men were there to stop them. It was only a company of troops engaged on some ordinary night operation.
As they passed the unit some of the men called a greeting and Gregory sang out cheerfully to them in German in reply, thanking his gods that in the half darkness they could not see that he was wearing the uniform of a colonel. Another three minutes and they were out of Wiesenburg on the Belzig road.
The tension was over for the moment and Gregory was able to sit back while the truck rattled on for a few more miles; then he began to peer ahead at both sides of the road as far as he could see in the uncertain light. After another kilometre they came to a wood and Gregory told Charlton to slow down, meanwhile keeping an anxious eye open for any sign of a track that might lead off the road in among the trees. A white gateway loomed up. Leaving his shot gun on the seat, as he meant from this point to rely on yon Lutz's automatic, he jumped down, opened the gate and beckoned to Freddie to drive through.
In the darkness among the trees it was not easy to find the most suitable place to abandon the van; but a few hundred yards up the track they reached a break in the wood which on investigation proved to be a sandy patch sloping downwards at a fairly steep angle.
"This'll do." said Gregory; "we'll ditch the van here. Be careful how you go, though."
Freddie drove over the grassy verge on to the sand and the van bumped its way down until more trees became visible in its headlights. Pulling up he switched off the lights, got out and scrambling up the slope rejoined Gregory.
"It'll be visible from here in daylight, I'm afraid," Gregory said, "but we can't help that; and, with luck, this track may not be much used. There's a sporting chance that no one'll find it for a day or two and in any case it's well out of the way till to morrow morning, by which time we shall be miles from here."
"What's the next move?" Freddie asked.
"We've got to foot it into Belzig and I mean to try to get a train to Berlin from there."
Side by side they set off back along the track and took the Belzig road. Half an hour later they reached the outskirts of the town and taking Freddie's arm Gregory whispered to him to go cautiously. Over an hour had elapsed since they had stolen the truck and he felt certain that by now the police in every town for fifty miles around had been notified and would have special patrols out. Two minutes later a match flared a hundred yards ahead and by its glow the vague outline of two men's faces could be seen as they lit cigarettes from it.
Gregory would have bet his last shilling that they were only two of an armed squad which had been posted there to hold up the lorry should it make an appearance. Although they might not regard two pedestrians with suspicion he was extremely anxious to avoid being questioned, so twenty yards further on he silently turned Charlton off the road down a path at right
angles to it which ran along a garden fence. Where the fence ended they turned again and with subdued curses stumbled across some back lots till they reached a group of buildings and a lane, by taking which they arrived back in the main street at a point well beyond the police picket.
It seemed most unlikely that there would be any trains in the middle of the night but Gregory wanted to find out when the first one for Berlin left in the morning, so their next problem was to find the station. The houses were dark and the streets deserted but presently they came upon a man who was lighting his way with a torch, who Gregory felt certain, from his kit, was an A.R.P. warden doing his rounds. Motioning to Charlton to keep in the background Gregory stepped forward and asked the man the way to the station; upon which he civilly directed them and, ten minutes later, they came to the small, open space on the south eastern edge of the town where the station lay.