A Small Town in Germany Read Online Free

Railway, and drifted contentedly on to the landing to greet the new day. Lingering at the long window, he peered downward for a moment at the spines of the farmers' black cars and the small islands of blue where the police lights flashed.
    'They have this passion for steel,' he observed to Mickie Crabbe, a ragged, leaky-eyed man permanently crippled by a hangover. Crabbe was slowly ascending the stairs, one hand reassuringly upon the banister, his thin shoulders hunched protectively. 'I'd quite forgotten. I'd remembered the blood, but forgotten the steel.'
    'Rather,' Crabbe muttered. 'Rather,' and his voice trailed after him like the shreds of his own life. Only his hair had not aged; it grew dark and luxuriant on his little head, as if fertilised by alcohol.
    'Sports,' Crabbe cried, making an unscheduled halt. 'Bloody marquee isn't up.'
    'It'll come,' de Lisle assured him kindly. 'It's been held up by the Peasants' Revolt.'
    'Back way empty as a church on the other road; bloody Huns,' Crabbe added vaguely as if it were a greeting, and continued painfully down his appointed track.
    Slowly following him along the passage, de Lisle pushed open door after door, peering inside to call a name or a greeting, until he arrived by degrees at the Head of Chancery's room; and here he knocked hard, and leaned in.
    'All present, Rawley,' he said. 'Ready when you are.'
    'I'm ready now.'
    'I say, you haven't pinched my electric fan by any chance, have you? It's absolutely vanished.'
    'Fortunately I am not a kleptomaniac.'
    'Ludwig Siebkron's asking for a meeting at four o'clock,' de Lisle added quietly, 'at the Ministry of the Interior. He won't say why. I pressed him and he got shirty. He just said he wanted to discuss our security arrangements.'
    'Our arrangements are perfectly adequate as they stand. We discussed them with him last week; he is dining with me on Tuesday. I cannot imagine we need to do any more. The place is crawling with police as it is. I refuse to let him make a fortress of us.'
    The voice was austere and self-sufficient, an academic voice, yet military; a voice which held much in reserve; a voice which guarded its secrets and its sovereignty, drawled out but bitten short.
    Taking a step into the room, de Lisle closed the door and dropped the latch.
    'How did it go last night?'
    'Adequately. You may read the minute if you wish. Meadowes is taking it to the Ambassador.'
    'I imagined that was what Siebkron was ringing about.'
    'I am not obliged to report to Siebkron; nor do I intend to. And I have no idea why he telephoned at this hour, nor why he should call a meeting. Your imagination is ahead of my own.'
    'All the same, I accepted for you. It seemed wise.'
    'At what time are we bidden?'
    'Four o'clock. He's sending transport.'
    Bradfield frowned in disapproval.
    'He's worried about the traffic. He thinks an escort would make things easier,' de Lisle explained.
    'I see. I thought for a moment he was saving us the expense.' It was a joke they shared in silence.

    CHAPTER TWO
    'I Could Hear their Screaming on the Telephone...'
    The daily Chancery meeting in Bonn takes place in the ordinary way at ten o'clock, a time which allows everyone to open his mail, glance at his telegrams and his German newspapers and perhaps recover from the wearisome social round of the night before. As a ritual, de Lisle often likened it to morning prayers in an agnostic community: though contributing little in the way of inspiration or instruction, it set a tone for the day, served as a roll-call and imparted a sense of corporate activity. Once upon a time, Saturdays had been tweedy, voluntary, semi-retired affairs which restored one's lost detachment and one's sense of leisure. All that was gone now. Saturdays had been assumed into the general condition of alarm, and subjected to the discipline of weekdays.
    They entered singly, de Lisle at their head. Those whose habit was to greet one another did so; the rest took their places silently in the