“When you come to the Kinzig,” the non-com called to them, “take the road just south of Biberach. Or you will run into another roadblock.”
Dirk waved his thanks as he and Sig mounted their bikes and pedaled off toward the town of Lahr….
Lahr was in the fitful process of waking up. The tree-lined streets were beginning to come alive with pedestrians and bicyclists hurrying to work. Dirk and Sig blended in perfectly.
Sig looked around curiously. He felt a vague, comforting kinship with the old, picturesque, half-timbered houses with gaily painted window shutters and steep, shingled roofs. The town showed none of the usual intrusive signs of industrialization The occasional Nazi slogans painted on walls and the propaganda posters tacked on fences seemed out of place. Even the admonitory query “WAS HAST DU HEUTE FÜR DEUTSCHLAND GETAN? — What Have YOU Done for Germany Today”— seemed irrelevant.
On the eastern outskirts of town where the road entered the forest, cutting through the wooded hills, a road sign read: BIBERACH 12 KM.
It was still early. They were making good time.
Dirk was whistling a German marching song as he and Sig pumped along the road. It had been hard riding on the hilly stretches, and they had been forced to dismount and push their bikes up especially long and steep slopes. They had entered the Kinzig Valley, bypassing Biberach to the south, as the roadblock non-com had advised, and were already more than eight miles south of town. It was close to 0930 hours.
The valley road was quiet and pleasant, snaking through well-cultivated farmland. They had run into very little traffic except for farm wagons and other bicycle riders. Only rarely had they been passed by a motor vehicle — except for a small military convoy on the way toward the Rhine positions. They had dismounted and waited in the ditch for it to pass.
Suddenly there was a rubbery pop and a sharp hiss.
Dirk at once slowed down, wobbling to a halt.
He stared at the flat tire on his front wheel.
“Shit and double shit!” he swore. “So much for that fart Eichler's tubes of first quality!”
He kicked the limp tire.
“That damned rubber wouldn't have held up through a good fuck!”
Sig was secretly pleased. Getting off his bike for a while felt good. His thigh muscles were beginning to pull. His shoulders ached. And the hard seat was chafing his crotch. He needed to stretch a bit.
They had been trudging along the road, pushing their bikes, less than a quarter of an hour when they heard it building behind them — the labored growl of a truck engine approaching in the distance. They looked at one another.
“Why not?” said Dirk. “Germany is, after all, the cradle of hitchhikers.”
They placed their bikes on the right shoulder at a ninety-degree angle to the road and waited.
Presently the vehicle lumbered into view. It was a large, battered farm truck, its paint job scratched and chipped, leaving a splattering of rust spots.
Dirk waved his arms, flagging down the vehicle.
The driver slowed and came to a stop. He leaned toward the open window of the cab.
“Holla!” he called “Was ist los? — What's up?”
“How about a ride?” Dirk asked. “We had a flat — and we lost our repair kit. Just to the next village?”
The driver, a stocky, middle-aged man, contemplated them. He scratched the side of his nose with a blunt thumb. His small, close-set eyes in his weather-worn, stubble-coarsened face shifted back and forth between the two men.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Hechingen,” Dirk answered.
The man nodded. “Hechingen,” he said. “What have you been doing out here?” His mouth suddenly split in an oily leer, exposing bad, tobacco-stained teeth. “Screwing the farmers’ daughters? Or — just scrounging?”
Dirk grinned.
“A little of both. Too little — more's the pity!”
The driver opened the cab door.
“I am going half the way to Hechingen myself,” he said. “Oberndorf. I will take you that far.”
“Prima!” Dirk exclaimed with pleasure.
“Put your bikes and your gear in back,” the man said. “There is plenty of room.”
Dirk and Sig pushed their bikes to the rear of the truck. Dirk jumped up.
The truck bed, crusted with dried manure, was empty except for a large, dented gasoline can lashed to the rear of the cab under the grime-streaked rearview window. Sig handed the bikes up to Dirk and joined him on the truck.
Dirk glanced toward the cab.
“Shifty bastard!” he said in a low voice. “Looks like he'd give you change for a six-dollar bill!”
Sig grinned. “Yeah. Two threes!”
“I don't trust him much,” Dirk said. “But the ride'll come in handy. Watch him.”
Sig nodded.
They jumped from the truck and walked toward the cab. Dirk carried his rucksack. Sig had left his with the bikes and the basket of eggs. They climbed into the cab.
Sig sat next to the driver. The man stank. Sig tried to identify the offensive odor…. Manure, certainly. The pungent-sour smell of old sweat. And — motor oil.
The driver glanced at Dirk's rucksack.
“Why did you not leave that thing back there?” he grumbled. “It is going to be crowded enough with the three of us up here.”
“Do not worry, friend,” Dirk said. “I shall keep it on my lap.”
The driver gave him a flat stare. He started up. He glanced out of the corner of his eyes at his two passengers. He scratched his nose with his stubby thumb.
“You live in Hechingen?” he finally asked.
“At present,” Dirk answered. “We work there.”
“Hummph,” the man snorted.
For a while they drove in silence.
The man scowled sideways at Dirk.
“You could have left that damned rucksack in back,” he grumbled sullenly.
“Well — I tell you,” Dirk said cheerfully, “I have a bottle of huckleberry brandy in there. I thought, with your permission, it might come in handy after a while.”
The driver suddenly looked cheered.
“Ach, so!” he said. “You have good reason!” He began to whistle. Off key.
“I am going to Oberndorf,” he volunteered after a while, “to pick up a tractor. For my farm near Biberach.”
“A tractor?” Sig asked.
“Yes. A tractor! The Widow Schrader is selling it to me. Her husband died and she will go to live with her sister in Nürnberg. She is giving up the farm.”
“She a friend of yours?” Dirk asked idly.
“Frau Schrader? I have not met her.” He grinned at them shrewdly. “But she will sell me her tractor. For little money. She needs money. She does not know the true value of such a tractor!” He looked enormously pleased with himself. “There are not many tractors in the Schwarzwald. Only on the biggest farms. I, Ludwig Brause, will have such a tractor now.”
“Sounds like a good deal,” Dirk commented. He was beginning to dislike the man intensely. He leaned back and closed his eyes. It was one way to discourage conversation….
He'd actually dozed off.
He jerked awake so abruptly that monstrous shadows from a nightmare — Jan; a gouging of flesh, a crimson splatter in a field — were trapped briefly in his conscious mind.
He sat bolt upright, instantly aware.
The truck had come to a stop.
“We are about five kilometers from Oberndorf,” Sig said. “Let me out, will you? I've got to take a crap. This monster rides on square wheels. I think everything's been shaken loose inside and collected at the bottom!”