Gruen has a last look down at the glass box with his enemy, the fat sergeant. He is feeling a little confused, he doesn’t yet know what he wants to do, but he has seen what’s going on at the gate. Even if they think he’s a little bonkers, he knows they’re putting one over on the farmers, there’s some sort of Red plot, like there was then, when they stood him against the wall.
He very quietly slides back the bolt on # 357. Then he peers through the spyhole: the prisoner’s lying on his bed asleep. Gruen nods to himself and laughs. He turns the key, once, twice. Then he opens the door.
Now he can no longer see the sergeant, but if he hears three raps of a key on the iron rail, he’ll know that he’s been seen unlocking the cell door in spite of the ban on doing so.
All quiet. It’s as though the building were calmly breathing and sleeping. Gruen laughs again, enters the cell and quietly pulls the door shut after him.
Outside the prison there’s been a lively coming and going all morning. Yes, Feinbube, and Rehder and Rohwer, and Benthin and Bandekow have passed on the word in the bars: Reimers is no longer in Altholm, the demonstration outside the prison is off.
But there are farmers who are curious, who want to see the building where their leader was languishing before. And then there was a farmer from other parts, from around Hanover way, with top-boots and a chamois tuft on his hat, a delegate and confederate, someone who was clued in to the details of the farmers’ organization, who whispered behind his hand: It’s all a lie, Reimers is still in Altholm, and they’re keeping him locked up like a dog.
A few of the farmers just rang the bell and demanded to speak to Reimers. Others stood on the street and stared across to where the grey cement front of the prison rose up behind the tall red perimeter wall, a smooth, sheer and cheerless wall, punctuated only by the monotonous barred windows.
They discussed which of those hundreds of holes might have their Franz locked behind it. Then the prison gate creaked open, and an official came out with his pot of coffee under his arm, at the end of his shift, or a pale, half-starved prisoner with a cardboard box on a string, containing all his worldly goods.
Right now there’s another group of farmers looking silently up at the grey wall. It all looks so dead, impossible to imagine there’s any life going on behind it at all, behind each hole a man who misses his freedom.
The great locks in the gate crack open, the farmers look to see a man come out, a big raw-boned man in corduroy clothes and greased boots. He exchanges a few words with the sergeant who escorts him out. Then the gate closes, and the man stands there with his brown cardboard box on a string, and looks out at the wide square basking there in the hot sun of a July afternoon.
He wedges his box under his arm, takes a few steps, looks round, and notices the farmers. He hesitates briefly again, and then makes straight for them.
‘G’day to youse farmers,’ he says, and doffs his cap, ‘any of youse be needing a hand on your farm?’
The farmers look at him in silence.
‘Don’t think,’ says the big raw-boned fellow, ‘that I don’t know what work is. I’ve mowed the vetch on Count Bandekow’s estate, and I pick up my couple of hunnerdweight like a feather.’
The farmers don’t say anything.
‘Don’t think I’m a thief either,’ says the man, ‘that would be a mistake. I don’t steal. It was over a little girl. She were willing. But because some other people happened along, she started to screech. And then she pretty well had to stick to her story that I forced her.’
‘You must,’ asks Farmer Banz, ‘have spent a long while in the slammer?’
‘Quite a bit,’ says the man. ‘Nine months. Now, how about it, don’t any of you want a strong man to help bring in the rye?’
‘You must know everyone in there?’ asks Farmer Banz again.
The man laughs uproariously. ‘Everyone? You’ve got a strange notion. I don’t even know everyone on my station.’
‘I don’t know about such things,’ says the farmer in confusion. ‘But would you know one Franz Reimers?’
‘Reimers?’ asks the man. ‘Hang on a minute. There was so many. He wasn’t in for long, was he?’
‘Isn’t he there any more, then?’
‘Now I’ve got him. Big tall fellow, clean-shaven, hair starting to grey?’
The farmers nod eagerly.
‘He did something, something to do with taxes, he told me once during association. Was there oxen involved, or something?’
The farmers nod eagerly. ‘That’s the man,’ says Banz.
‘But listen to me, friends. He’s gone. He’s no longer there. He’s in Stolpe.’
‘Are you sure about that?’ Banz asks after a lengthy silence.
‘If I tell you,’ rebuts the tall fellow. ‘He was in the cell beside mine, only a week ago. Then he was moved to Stolpe.’
‘Did he tell you he was going to Stolpe?’ asks Banz again.
‘“They want to question me in Stolpe,” he told me, “because there was a big bang there. Even though I was already locked up in here,” he said, “when it went off.”’
The farmers look at one another, at the big man, at the bare, grey cement walls.
At that moment there’s a sound from above. One of the windows has been pushed open. Something white appears: a hand, clasping the bars. Something white, bigger, round and white: in the corner, pressed against the wall, a face.
The farmers see it clearly, from below: a hole opens in the white form, a small black hole, and it starts screaming down to them: ‘Help me, farmers! They’re killing me! Help, farmers!’
The farmers take a sudden step towards the red perimeter wall, then they take a look at the big man—the voice above still screaming for help—the big man, who is staring in astonishment.
‘What’s that, then?’ yells Banz. ‘You robber, I ask you, explain that!’
‘That’s not him. That can’t be Reimers. Reimers went away from here in a car!’
‘Yes, it is Reimers!’
‘Who else can it be?!’
‘That’s our Franz!’
‘You liar!’
And Banz suddenly: ‘You spy! You robber! Just you wait, I’ll . . .’
The voice from on high screams and cries: ‘Help me, farmers, help! I did it for you! Help me! Help!’
And suddenly it’s as though the building fizzed up, the dead building. In all the window openings the glass is pushed aside, everywhere white hands, white round faces with black mouth holes, a hellish yelling: ‘Help us, farmers! Help us, farmers!’
Mixed in with it a bell ringing frantically, whistles, shouts, alarms.
The big fellow gathers himself, runs away from Banz’s hands to the prison gate, bangs on it. Two or three farmers chase him, hold him terrified, raise their fists against him.
Two are staring at the wall, at the inmates yelling, and at the white spot that was the first to cry.
‘Quickly, run into town. Everyone has to come out here!’
And Banz: ‘Everyone come! It’s terrible what they’re doing here!’
‘Everyone has to come here! Everyone!’
And, while running along: ‘Was that actually Franz?’
‘Who can tell at that distance! I expect it was, though.’
They run into town.
XIII
Tucher’s is the bar in Altholm with the most space. Hundreds of farmers are sitting there, standing around, drinking, smoking, or leaning patiently on the walls.
A dense group rings Henning and Bandekow, who are in the process of assembling the banner that had been taken apart for the drive. Henning is working with a pair of pliers; not looking up, he tightens the nuts that are holding a tin sleeve round the shaft. Attached to it is the scythe.
‘There. That should do it.’
‘It still looks a bit wobbly to me,’ opines Bandekow.
‘Because I forgot the screwdriver. But it’ll hold.’
‘Excuse me,’ a voice pipes up
, ‘excuse me, I want to introduce myself: I’m Farmer Megger from Hanover district. Near Stade. Meggerkoog.’
In front of Henning is a squat little man in top-boots, green loden suit, and a chamois brush on his hat.
Henning is on the point of introducing himself, when he gets a nudge in the back. ‘What’s this all about, then?’
He turns. Behind him is Padberg, giving him a meaningful look, and with his mouth forming the word: ‘Stoolie!’
Henning smiles. ‘Have you got the screwdriver by chance? Would you tell Friedrich . . . Oh right, yes, sorry, the scythe isn’t fixed properly.’
‘That’s a nice flag you’ve got there . . .’ says the farmer from around Hanover, with a friendly smile.
‘Yes? You reckon? Yes, flag,’ says Henning seriously.
‘An unusual flag. A symbolic flag. Would you explain it to me? We Hanoverian farmers are anxious to help.’
‘Yes? The best way I can explain it is if I show it.—Make room, you farmers!’
Space is created around Henning. He raises the flag aloft, swings it with one hand, catches it in the other. The cloth unfolds with a loud crash: the white plough, the red sword—gules on sable—on black background.
‘Get in line! Get in line!’ call many voices. ‘We’re on our way! Get in line!’
6
The Storm Breaks
I
The farmers come streaming out of the pubs and bars. The marketplace is full of them, some are running around, but others are already forming into a mass, a column, behind a line of eight abreast outside the entrance to Tucher’s pub.
They form up behind. Villages stick together, for the most part the order takes care of itself; Padberg, hustling back and forth, hardly has to say a word.
Curious onlookers stop and watch on the pavements, not in numbers, but all those who in a factory town of forty thousand inhabitants are out and about on a hot and cloudless July afternoon: unemployed, children, women, a few business people. All the windows facing the marketplace are thrown open, maids crowd into one to watch, in the next one along there are ladies. They exchange impressions and observations.
‘Look! Here comes a flag!’
‘Ooh, isn’t it black!’
‘It’s like a pirate flag!’
They all crane their necks.
‘You can’t do that, Henning,’ says Padberg, ‘the scythe is loose. If it falls off, someone could get hurt, and we’ll look silly.’
‘Herr Haas,’ says Henning to the landlord of Tucher’s, ‘what’s keeping Friedrich with his bloody screwdriver? I can’t tighten the nuts any more with these pliers.’
‘He’s coming, he’s coming. Just wait in the corridor. I’ve got the French wrench.’
Henning and his flag take themselves off.
‘He’s worried about his black rag,’ says an unemployed man.
‘Well, not everything can be as red as the rag you follow around.’
‘Better than your black-red-and-shite banner!’
‘If you—!’
‘Quiet, gentlemen,’ says Perduzke, pushing through the bodies. ‘Why get het up? It’s warm enough as it is!’
All laugh.
In the meantime, Henning is tinkering with his flag.
‘Say, Padberg, what happened with the music?’
Padberg grunts. ‘I’ve forgotten all about it! The fellows will be sitting with Chairman Besen by the pond, drinking like fish, if I know anything.’
‘Send a young farmer round.’
‘Sure.—Hey, you! Will you run and tell the music master of the Stahlhelm band to come right away with his men? He’s sitting with Besen at his pond. You know it? Hurry!’
The young farmer scoots off.
‘The snoop, you know, he just wanted to have your name.’
‘The second you nudged me, and I saw your dirty face, I knew the score.’
‘He almost got the flag in his face.’
‘That’s what I meant to happen.—There, that’ll hold. I can run through ten policemen with it.’
‘You shouldn’t think shit like that.’
‘I don’t. It thinks itself.’
‘Well, we’ve got your word, remember.’
‘You have. More’s the pity. I won’t raise my hand in anger.’
They walk out on to the market square again. The column has become endless, farmers are backed up on to the Stolpe Road.
‘Ah, doesn’t it do you good to see a sight like that.’
‘Three thousand! And how many more still in the bars and pubs along the Burstah!’
‘We’ll take them with us when we move off.—You know you were right, Henning, without a flag it wouldn’t have been anything!’
‘It gives the whole thing a bit of atmosphere!’
They both look up at the flag, which is unfurling in the mild summer breeze. The plough seems to move across the black earth, while the red sword hangs motionless above.
‘Let’s go now, can’t we?’ suggests Henning.
‘Why? What about the band!’
‘People are getting impatient.’
‘Nonsense. Farmers don’t get impatient.’
A whole troop of town police push their way through the people on the pavement, led by a uniformed officer with thick epaulettes and a moustache. The men have the straps of their shako helmets under their chins.
‘Is that all for us?’ asks Henning.
‘Wait and see! I’ve no idea what they want. We’re peaceable folk.’
‘Of course.’
But the town police have already moved on. All of them looked up at the flag, their officer passed some remark, and the people near him grinned.
‘You see,’ says Henning, referring to the flag.
‘You never can tell,’ says Padberg drily. ‘Grzesinski’s a deep one.’
II
A man comes striding across the market square in blue uniform, a pair of spectacles on the bridge of his nose, his service cap somewhat pushed back, revealing a hank of reddish-blond hair.
Commander Frerksen is on his way to his office after lunch. He is calm and resolved to follow the instructions of his mayor, to allow the farmers to demonstrate, and to go off on holiday the next day.
He sees the gathering of people, the onlookers. He stops.
It is an extraordinary mass of people, an army, he never thought there would be so many.
He sees the flag. Slowly, blinking his near-sighted eyes, he comes nearer. It’s a sinister-looking black drape. Something red on it, and something white. Slowly the flag flutters in the breeze, never quite opening out to its full extent, staying half folded.
The commander stops on the edge of the pavement. He looks across at the flag, at the young man holding it, an older man with spectacles standing next to him.
He looks up at the windows crammed with people. Altholm has its big event, its sensation. Someone in the crowd behind him mutters—and he has the feeling it is meant for him—‘A pirate flag like that, they shouldn’t stand for it!’
And another voice, equally aware of being listened to, opines: ‘It’s always the workers that cops it!’
Suddenly his heart begins to beat violently. He can feel himself sweating.
Shame, he thinks, if I’d slept for five minutes longer, the march would be up and away already.
He looks back in the direction of the town hall, with its red gables. I could have been sitting there. Shame. And he thinks of another office, dark, with bullseye panes and heavy oak furniture. Your Gareis is responsible for all this—wasn’t that what he said?
That or words to that effect.
Henning and Padberg are standing on the roadway, ten yards off.
‘Who’s that twat?’ asks Padberg.
‘That’s the police supremo of Altholm. A prize jerk.’
‘He looks it.’
‘He wants something from us.’
‘Well, we don’t want anything from him.’
The commander slowly cover
s the ten yards to them. However slow his walk, his voice still sounds breathless as he says to them: ‘Gentlemen, this flag . . . you can’t have that.’
And Henning, rudely: ‘Can’t have what?’
The commander: ‘Please understand . . . Would you take the flag back to the bar?’
Frerksen speaks slowly, endeavouring to articulate each word.
‘The flag’s part of the march. The flag stays,’ Padberg says roughly.
The commander reaches out his hand to the flag.
Henning with both hands lifts it away from his chest.
One, two, three times.
The nearest farmers move their left legs, and set them down again, take the first step. The column is off and away.
Frerksen sees the distance widen between his hand and the flagstaff. He feels people barging into him, pushing him away. Big, shut faces approach him, shoulders knock into him.
If only, he thinks in his breathless way, if only I had . . .
He finds himself on the roadway.
‘Why didn’t you call us?’ Sergeant Maurer, patrolling about under the trees with his colleague Schmidt, asks reproachfully.
‘Yes, of course,’ says the commander, and gazes at the flag, which is another ten yards further off.
‘Move! At the double!’ he suddenly yells. ‘We have to get that flag.’
III
The column hasn’t advanced more than twenty yards or so when Frerksen and his two men start to run. The farmers stare in mystification at the running policemen. Only the first eight or ten of them saw the incident, and they will hardly have understood what was at issue, so softly did the commander speak.
While running, Frerksen holds the grip of his sabre, so that it doesn’t get caught up in his legs. His uniform bothers him. He has the feeling that everyone is staring at him because he’s running down the middle of the road: the farmers, the townspeople on the pavement, the burghers of Altholm looking down from their windows. He has the feeling he’s looking particularly pale, and while running he tries to feel his face (it’s flushed), it’s cold to the touch. Suddenly he remembers that the whole town hates him, and that the only reason he’s there is because Gareis keeps supporting him.