SS-GB by Len Deighton Read Free Book Online

without reporting illness, and you’ve kept your pass. If you read the German regulations that you signed, you’d find that that’s the same as theft, Sylvia. By now, your name and pass number will be on the Gestapo wanted list. Every patrol from Land’s End to John o’Groats will be looking for it.’
    ‘What shall I do?’ Even now there was no real anxiety in her voice.
    ‘Stay calm. They have plain-clothes men watching for anyone acting suspiciously.’
    They were stopping everything and everyone; staff cars, double-decker buses, even an ambulance was held up while the Patrol Commander examined the papers of the driver and the sick man. The soldiers ignored the rain which made their helmets shiny and darkened their battle-smocks, but the civilians huddled under the protection of the Whitehall Theatre entrance. There was a revue showing there, ‘Vienna Comes to London’, with undressed girls hiding between white violins.
    Douglas grabbed Sylvia’s arm and before she could object he brought out a pair of handcuffs and slammed them on her wrist with enough violence to hurt. ‘What are you bloody well doing!’ shouted Sylvia but by thattime he was dragging her forward past the waiting people. There were a few muttered complaints as Douglas elbowed them even more roughly. ‘Patrol Commander!’ he shouted imperiously. ‘Patrol Commander!’
    ‘What do you want?’ said a pimply young Feldwebel wearing the metal breastplate that was the mark of military police on duty. He was not wearing a battle-smock and Douglas guessed he was a section leader. He waved his SIPO pass in the air, and spoke in rapid German. ‘Wachtmeister! I’m taking this girl for questioning. Here’s my pass.’
    ‘Her papers?’ said the youth impassively.
    ‘Says she’s lost them.’
    He didn’t react except to take the pass from Douglas and examine it carefully before looking at his face and his photo to compare them.
    ‘Come along, come along,’ said Douglas on the principle that no military policeman is able to distinguish between politeness and guilt. ‘I’ve not got all day.’
    ‘You’ve hurt my bloody wrist,’ said Sylvia. ‘Look at that, you bastard.’ The Feldwebel glared at him and then at the girl. ‘Next!’ he bellowed.
    ‘Come on,’ said Douglas and hurried through the barrier dragging Sylvia after him. They picked their way through the traffic that was waiting for the checkpoint. They were both very wet and neither spoke as a luxury bus came through Admiralty Arch and into Trafalgar Square. Its windows were crowded with the faces of young soldiers. Softly from inside there came the amplified voice of the tour guide speaking schoolboy German. The young men grinned at his pronunciation. One boy waved at Sylvia.
    A few wet pigeons shuffled out of the way as they walked across the empty rainswept square. ‘Do you realize what you said, just now?’ said Sylvia. Shewas still rubbing her wrist where the skin had been grazed.
    It was just like a woman, thought Douglas, to start some oblique conversation about something already forgotten.
    ‘One of the most important pieces of paper that the Germans issue to
foreigners;
that’s what you said just now.’
    ‘Give over, Sylvia,’ said Douglas. He looked back to be sure they were out of sight of the patrol, then he unlocked the handcuff and released her arm.
    ‘That’s what we are as far as you’re concerned –
foreigners!
The Germans are the ones with a right to be here; we’re the intruders who have to bow and bloody scrape.’
    ‘Give over, Sylvia,’ said Douglas. He hated to hear women swearing like that, although, working in a police force, he should by now have got used to it.
    ‘Get your hands off me, you bloody Gestapo bastard.’ She pushed him away with the flat of her hand. ‘I’ve got friends who
don’t
go in fear and trembling of the Huns. You wouldn’t understand anything about that, would you. No! You’re too busy doing their dirty work