“It is necessary,” the woman said sternly. “I have had a husband. A good man I have raised two sons. I know what is necessary.” She turned and started into the Bauernstube.
Dirk glanced at Sig. He shrugged. They followed the woman into the house.
Frau Schrader pointed to a bench. “You sit there,” she instructed Dirk. “Take off your boot and your sock and roll up your trouser leg.” There was no doubt who was in charge. “And be sure you sit in comfort. You will sit there for one hour.”
Obediently Dirk began to carry out the woman's orders.
She brought over a large tub and placed it at his feet.
“Put your bad foot in it,” she said. She looked at the swollen ankle marked with puffy rings from the makeshift bandages. She touched it gently. “It is bad,” she said. “But I have seen them worse. It will be better. You wait now.”
For a moment she left the room. When she returned she carried a large pail. From it she poured a heavy white liquid over Dirk's foot.
“Buttermilk,” she said. “Cold buttermilk. It will draw out the swelling. It will take away the hurt. My mother and her mother before her did this thing for their men.” She looked at Dirk. “You sit Quietly,” she said firmly. “And I will get the tractor papers for Herr Brause and give them to your friend.” She looked from one to the other. “You did bring the thousand marks, did you not?”
“We did, Frau Schrader,” Sig said. “All is in order.”
One hour later Dirk lifted his foot from the tub of buttermilk. He stared at it. The skin was wrinkled, but the puffy rings were gone. The swelling had almost disappeared. Gingerly he placed the wet foot on the floor and put his weight on it. It was tender — but the pain was gone. He looked at Frau Schrader, who was observing him critically.
“It is fine,” he said “It is really prima!”
“Naturally,” the woman said.
Dirk wriggled his foot. “It feels much better,” he said. He couldn't quite keep his surprise from his voice. “I am grateful.” He glanced at the buttermilk in the tub. “But it is a shame about all the good buttermilk,” he added.
“It will not be wasted,” the woman said matter-of-factly. “The Polish boy likes buttermilk.”
Sig looked at her, startled. “But—”
Frau Schrader turned to him. “What is not known to him will not hurt him,” she said firmly. “And it is too good for the pigs.”
The social order of the Third Reich, Sig thought wryly. On top the Germans, on the bottom the pigs — and somewhere in between the rest of the world.
Frau Schrader turned back to Dirk. “We will put a nice bandage around your ankle — and you will not walk much on it for a day, is that understood?” she asked sternly.
“Yes, Frau Schrader.”
“Very well. As soon as you are ready, we will go and look at the tractor….”
The tractor was kept in the barn. Adam, the Polish farm worker, threw open the big double doors to let in as much light as possible. The machine had obviously not been used for a while. It was rusty and ill-kempt, and clumps of wind-borne straw had collected in hollow places on it, some obviously having served as nests for roosting hens.
They examined it.
It was a Fordson A grimy plate on it read: HENRY FORD & SON, LTD. CORK, IRELAND. MODEL N. It had two large cast-iron wheels with solid rubber rims in the back and two smaller ones in front. It had a belt pulley and a broad, rigid drawbar. It had probably been built some fifteen years before — although it looked older.
Sig inspected the engine. A side-valve four-cylinder unit that would probably run on either gasoline or kerosene.
“Let's try to start her up,” Dirk said. “I'll work the crank.”
Sure, Sig thought cynically. And if we do get the damned thing to run — how about operating it? They taught us to drive anything on wheels from Italian two-ton trucks to Russian baby-buggies — but nobody thought of a Fordson tractor!
They bent to the task of getting the battered tractor started Miraculously, they succeeded.
Rasping, wheezing, knocking and sputtering — it ran.
But not for long.
With a spastic cough — it quit.
Sig inspected the gasoline tank.
It was empty.
He looked at Dirk. He shook his head. Dirk turned to Frau Schrader.
“Have you any gasoline?” he asked “Or kerosene?”
The woman frowned. “I know nothing of this tractor,” she said. “Emil took care of it. I have no knowledge if there is any gasoline.”
“Could we get some? In the village? Buy it?”
“I think not There is little gasoline for us these days. No one will give up what he has. You must come with your truck and take the tractor away.” She looked at him defiantly. “It is yours now.”
Sig and Dirk glanced at one another. That was that.
Suddenly Adam spoke.
“Machine no run,” he said solemnly. “No petrol.”
Thanks a lot, Dirk thought, we just about managed to figure that out for ourselves.
Man take out,” Adam continued.
Dirk looked at him quickly. “Herr Schrader took the gas out of the tractor?” he asked “Siphoned it out?”
Adam looked puzzled. He shook his head. “Man take out,” he repeated.
“Okay, okay,” Dirk said impatiently. “What did he do with it? Where is it? Where?”
“He hide No one will take.”
“Where?”
Adam didn't answer. Instead he walked over to a row of battered milk cans standing against the barn wall. One of them had a piece of old burlap wedged in the opening by the dented lid He pointed at it “Petrol there,” he said.
Dirk was at the can in two strides. He wrested the lid off. He sniffed the opening.
“Gas!” he said.
With his knuckles he rapped down the side of the can until the hollow, booming sound suddenly became a solid thud.
“Ten, twelve liters,” he said to Sig.
“It will be enough, this gasoline?” Frau Schrader asked. “Enough to get you to your truck?”
Dirk nodded.
“Thank you, Frau Schrader,” he said. “It will be enough.”
The sign said simply.
HECHINGEN
Kreis Stuttgart
Sig and Dirk looked at it. Hechingen. It was more than an ordinary road sign to them. More than a milestone on their path. It was a good omen. They'd made it. Hechingen…
Dirk's foot gave him no serious trouble. Frau Schrader's home remedy and the rest he'd enjoyed riding on the tractor had done the job. They had covered over thirty miles from Oberndorf to the road junction with the Hechingen-Tübingen-Stuttgart highway. They had sold the tractor to a farmer near Balingen before going onto the main road, where it would have been out of place. At first they had thought of simply abandoning it — but that would have led to some sort of investigation when it was found, leading back to Frau Schrader. They could not risk that. But the farmer who bought it had gotten himself a good deal and was unlikely to go around shooting off his mouth. Twelve hundred marks, he'd paid. They had actually made two hundred marks on the transaction! “Just wait till old Corny hears that one,” Dirk had said triumphantly.
Once on the highway, they had quickly thumbed a ride. A truck converted to wood-burning had picked them up. The driver had turned off less than a mile before the town limits of Hechingen, and they had walked the rest of the way, Sig carrying the rucksack so Dirk could go easy on his foot.
Dirk was looking at the signpost marking the town limits. A line… An imaginary line. But — to him — vitally important…