A JouR NEy To THe
HAMEURS HenTH'


A JOURNEY TO THE HAMBURG HEATH.
MAURICE ROWDON.
5000 words
We drove to Rotterdam and ate there. I was surprised at the
hugeness of the sky, like a blue and white dome stretohed over the
earth, as I'd never seen it before. I The flatness and lack of trees
makes the sky so important in Holland; everything is contained in
the sky and touched by it, made gloomy or radient by it; and you.
lsee it in people's eyes e There is a wonderful emerald gmality in
the light as you sometimes see. it on the east ooast of England,
1like. an early-morning sunlight on sànd, suggésting endless spaces. e
There was a pale evening sun with high, white cl ouds, and
people were cyoling home from work along the banked roads that
went above the fields. Rotterdam was strange, with doloured
buildings shining like objects in a machine so vast that it turned
you into a kind of squalid midget. The biting wind swept through
the streets. Nearly everything was new. A few of the old
- streets remained, their houses squeezed close together. The roads
had a gloomy hollowness but sometimes there was a bright oorner
with café-tables and coloured ohairs, and restaurants wi th walls
of glass, such as you see in German towns now. * The inn where we
ate belong ed to older times, like a German bier-stube, the seats
wooden with tall backs, the tables thick and sturdy, with a massive
tiled stove reaohing tb the oeiling, and painted dancing figures
on the panelled walls, and newspapers in wooden clips hanging from
pegs, everything dark with cigar-smoke. We' asked for wine and
the waiter, dark and Italian-looking, told us that they stooked
a good young' Bordeau 'loose', which we ought to try. It tasted


of grapes, anyway. We refleoted to each other that in an
ordinary wine less than a year, old you stood a better chance of
getting something pure than in nine out of ten so-oalled vintages.
We pride ourselves on what. we know about wine, whioh isn't much.
It was the first wine we 'd had for a long time and it made us
feel delightfully tired and heavy, so we deoided to go to the next
small : town and stay there for the night. The familiar bensenof
being foreignérs grew on us again. After a lot of travei I suppose
the feéling grows of being a natural visitor-a-everywhere: à
visitor to lifé, almost. : Ydu enter the warmth a moment and then
gos There is the utmost freedom of self, you are stripped for
a moment of age, moods, even bitter personal struggle, in a
perilous anonymity; and the challenge is * how to learn to be a
visitor gladly, to really be a. visitor in yourself, 'as we all are
in the énd.
We asked. the. waiter how far. the next town was, on the way to
the German frontier, and he told us Gouda,: about half-an-hour away.
That was perfect. He added with'a smile that the people there
probably went to.bed early, so we should hurrys
We reached Gouda soon after ten, when everything was deserted.
The outskirts were barren as parts of Rotterdam had been, with
identical, treeless streets on rising ground. The sun had just
gone down. First we had to cross a canal and wait for the bridge
to be lowered, as a barge was, passing underneath. - There was this
wonderful silence of Holland, coming from the flatness of the
earth. The barge, clean and polished, with.no cargoin the hold,
stole through the night silently, gliding underneath us with a
perfect motion, her engines making only the. faintest. throb in her
bowels while the water trickled and ebbed along the sides. A
man was at the helm and after the bridge had been passed he' handed


the wheel over to his wife, in atiny, glowing oabin where
the brass and pa: intwork shones. Then : the bridge was lowered
again, mechanidally from inside the bridgehouse, and we went on
into the town.
There were further dry, ugly outskirts', all the windows
with their curtains ' open : in the - Dutoh mannér , showing néat
rooms inside, some of them with polished, sideboards and televisions,
others I with the signs of a meal, Bolid and scrupulous. Thén
to our surprise we came to the heart of an old town with danals
running through,it and a tall church; a tall late-mediaeval
town-hall.stood alone in. the "middle of the cobbled square, its
shutters bright red, its walls sloping massively, taller than all
the houses round - the square but at the same time wonderfully
unassuming, everything flat and still all round it like a lake..
When.we saw. it,a blaok shadow in the dusk three storeys high,
with its neat red shutters and spire, wé félt à sudden rélief,
as if we'd found a.real home for the night. Towns were made for +
travellere once.. They had a special humble touoh that oonsoled
and proteoted.
The.shops and hotels round the equare glowedcand. trdnkled,
tiny - C ompared with thegleaming shadow in-the midale. We found
a hotel in a sidestreet, with a canai running by it. The stairoase
to the rooms was so steep; and the steps so high, that it.was like
climbing an endless tower: the owner, a pale, thin, ilined man
with still eyes, told us with a quick, jérky smile, in a breathless,
wày, that many sailors had. slept in these rooms over the centuries,
and thet they'd climbed to the 'crow'B neat', as theyta called
these rooms i in every Bort of state, but ust ually drunk. 7 And he
smiled at us co nstrainedly. The place was simple, clean and
bare. First he showed us a tiny double room with a balcony 1


overlooking the oanal, but that was noisy because of thé trucks
and motor-oyoles that roared
past below, and wè asked for two
singlé rooms instead. One of these gave out on to the courtyard
of 'a hospitai, and the other had no window at all, onlya fan-
light, which he said would supply us with all the air we needed
'for the night'.
We went downstairs again, to sit in' the café for a : few i
minutes before going to bed, and I ordered a beer. No, it was
a, temperence-hotel; and the man nodded his head as he told us
this, his eyes pale, as 'ir defending 'an attitude which we'd just
phallenged. His voice and the way he looked at us were mild but
at the same time' he was emphatic, with a puritan implabability
whioh showed in the way he at once returned to the book he was
reading, concentrated on it palely and bloodlessly. He added,
looking up for 'a moment, as i if to leave us free to sin if we wanted
to, that other hotels in Gouda did serve beer and' that. this one
was the only one that didn't. He then put his book aside, see-
ing perhaps that beer didn't mean so very.much to us, and asked if
we were English. I was about to explain that I was English while
my wife was German by origin, Austrian, Swedish and Amerioan by
upbringing, and English by marriàge, when the opportunity passdd,
as it usuaily does. He spoké again, this time to my wite. only,
as 1f he thought me a trifle hot-headed to start rambling "on.about
nationalities, and told her that if we had time the following day
wé should visit the dhurch', only a few yards awey, whioh had, the
most' wonderful stained-glass windows imaginable. Ànd: he made nit
seem that there was something moral about going to the ohuroh, jand' t
that we'd secrètly determined to shirk it: for hé nodded in a
quiok, emphatic way, his 1ips pursed as if he'a just finished es


reprimanding speech, and returned' to his book, seated by the
bar where there was a ooffée-urn steaming: The room was bare,
with a: front window like that of a: shop, and the tables had :
gloomy plastic tops.
But' morality doësn't intérferé with your sleep, not if you've
given it as little offence as we had that day, and wé slept soundly
all night, both of us, my wife with' the hospital outside her window
and me with a fanlight overhead.. In. the morning we : went down to
breakfast and weré amazed to see that. another part of the long
bare room, which. we thought had been' given over entirely to'tempa
érancé, consisted of a snug dining-room with a carpet and pleasant
oloth-dovered tables: for the hotel-guests, while the daily custom-
ers. - sat next door drinking doffee and smoking cigars.
I had had a strange dream in whioh S omeone offered us a
house as a lodgings, oonsistingonly of one room, built in a
perfect square with frenoh windows and rather orne te brickwork in
the pseudo-Gothic style, and slanting in the most peduliar way
like the tower of + Pisa. Next to it was the owner's house, whiah
deemed quite normal. And both stood in a bright-green, oarefully
kept lawn with oypress-trees and clipped bushes; dlose to 'a wide
desérted roadway. The room itself reminded me of houses where
I'd stayed in Austria---bright, with heavy curtains and plenty of
wood, and glowing lamps, and fat, shining, tiled st oves. + In this
square, leaning room I was questioned by the police, who wented
to know---of all thingsi-4-whére my ideas came frome. I seemed
to understand what. they. memn t because Iwas about to reply; but
they interrupted me, picking up the book i was reading, and said
that they noticed I had once expressed an idea. from that book,
and didI know. the author? - To which I said, Yes, I'd met him.
And there the dream ended. It was a troubled dream whioh left


me with' the feeling that my iife-e-and that of' my wife, who'd
been questioned before me, 4 ànd not allowèd to warn mé - in timehee
was under surveillance: and on account of the thoughts that
passed privately'and silently through my head.
But the sun was shining, and outside everything looked
olean and gleaming. I can still rémember the policemen in that
dream---dark, rather reticént, methodidal, concentrated on : their
note-taking, without offenbej abstracted from us, with_blue
uniforms and peaked caps.
When we'd had a breakfast of eggs, ham, cheése and coffeè 1
we went to the square and found a vègetable and' fruit market,
with women crowding' round the stalls. On one side 'of the square,
squeezèd in bétween houees, stoof the weight-houée às it was,
called, wit'th a fresoo above showing the round Gouda cheeses being
weighed. There were réd-ourrants to buy,and' soft, pink péachés.
We bought fruit and half a Gouda oheese, then deoided to obey the
moral impèrative from the night before and visit.thé ohurch.: It
lay behind the aquare'with houses and canals all rouna it, hugging
its massive walls.' All morning the bells had béen ringing,
rather like thè Salzburg afookenépiel, only less. dàinty.and
baroque: these' played with a mild, haunting little tunë again
and again, floating over the town, high-up in a tower, vieible from
the'ground as they swung to and 'fro. To get. into'the ichurohiwe
had to ring at the sexton's house olose by, 'opposite the side-
entrandé, buy tickets at hits little office and then be'escorted
aoross:' the door was opened with a kéy, and wè werë told that
when we wanted to leave again we should ring: a beil by the door
ins ide; - then'we were olosed in with sevéral otherpeople, captive
inside a great semicirole of'stained glass,. : The windows were


huge; depioting all sorts of: subjects from the: Last Supper
to the independence of Hollend. € The.1 biggest was over: twenty
yards. high; and there were sixty-four windows in - all. A '
wonderful silence hung over the church, with the sound of.the
bells. high in the air outside:and drifting down sometimes, muffled
. and gentle. - The pews were in the form of a raised auditorium
- round the pulpit, rather like a lecture-room or a political
assembly, the seats rising in tiers, with a
table
long
below,
as if for clerks to make their notes : And there were doors lead-
ing from. it,.out into the ohurch; the altar was far av way, - outside.
My impression was of a civic, moral religion which was discussed
and hamnered out inside this: closed, wooden, intimate, even
festive structure from the baroque ages It was. put there. in the
middle of the Catholio church, which wàs spacious and flat,
without an air of discussion. It reminded me, of the Sheldonian
theatre in Oxford; the dark wood suggested people doing things
in community; one could imaginè the mysteriousness of. the silence
outside inthe evening, with. the orisp.air, and the glow of lights
inside, dulled and. rendered intimate by the wood. That has gone
out of our. lives; we. glimpse it in childhood perhaps---We may
bring it with us---but. the - sénse of the silence outside being
joined to. us in a: glowing mystery, at Christmas, Easter, Michel-
mas, as if what we did, was known to the vast silende
outside,
making, its vastness proteotive and exciting, has gone., At
one time: our seasoné went right through the universe, so to
speak; and this is finished in us for a time.
Se .stood at the top of the auditorium looking down. This
sense of intimaoy is always, nowadays, a sense of the past.
I remémber feeling ib in. Lucoa once---in a hotel that has sinoe
béen removed; and in Palestrina, near Rome, walking along the


ma in - street, narrow and cobbled, with lighted shops on either
side full of dusty objeots; : at: Leoben, in Austria, in the di ning
room of a hotel with panelled walls, everything in it. intact from
before the war, with heavy, solid-looking cutlery and plates,
and thiok velvet oloth on the tables and old pistols and rifles
and swords hanging on the smoky walii
Most of the windows in the Gouda ohuroh date from the seoond
half of the sixtéenth century, during the Dutoh war of indépendence
that went on for eighty years 4 When the present dhurch was
built the citizens. askèd all the princes and dhurohmen known to.
them'to contribute a window; and this was the result. The
first window. - was given by the Bishop,of Utrecht, répresenting the
baptism of Christ; Philip 11 of' Spain also gavea W indow, in
whitch he and the English Mary Tudor, his queen, are represented---
hewas then Hollandts ruler. The last windows were put in after
Gouda had bec ome proéestant,' at the end of the sixteenth century,
and one of them represénts 'freedom of conscience'. - You see
that in the handsome wooden auditorium, carefully civio, humped
in the middle of the vast ohurch perhaps ra ther defiantly and
self-consoiously.
We.spent therest of the day on the road; on the Dutch
side of the German frontier we stopped and wrote a few.cards : to
England. - It was Saturday and we were told-at the local shop.
that wé ' would only findst tamps on the German side of 1 the barder
and had better post the oards from there; but we wanted to post
them on thé Dutch side beoause it was the first time'we'd been
to Holland and our cards showed windmills, children in ologs and
the typical Dutch muslin hats, standing against a background of
tulips and daffodils. So the S hopkeeper said he would. post


them himself on Monday if wè left the money, vh ich we did.'
In Germany, not many yards, across the border, we stopped for
a coffee. Already there was -the German emphasis and downright-
ness; it was in the shape of : the road evên, the way people
walked, their clothes, the signposts; the mildness of Holland'
and England was gone; everything had a olearer and darker and
more immense look, with : tall, shadowy trees on either side.
There had been no sunlight since the morning, and it was. bitterly
oold with heavy clouds, though the month was July. For a few
hours we drove along quiet, straight roads, then.t there was the
autobahn for. the last stretch of two hundred kilometres, ebefore
we reached the heath near Hamburg where we were to stay.
Our friends had provided a map, péncil-drawn, which showed
the local church, a hunting lodge, the woods, and several tracks
going through the woods. - We. were to take one of. the tracks.
And the house, they wrote at. the bottom of the map, had a cement
post outside 1t and a painted wooden gateway. It sounded very
simple. - Àfter leaving. the autobahn we, had ten or. didteen minutes
driving, then we came to it-wa ohurch, which wasa clean, modern
building, with. a wide sandy track at the side of it; then a hill,
dense with trees---olearly. the woods marked on the map. - So we
took the. traok. Sometimes. thè sun dame through, and made the
houses and sandy track gleam; then a dark oloud would pass and the
shadows under the trees would.seem to be drawing everything into
them. We.saw nonhunting lodge, though. - Up we. went. over thick
tree-roots, as the path got narrower and narrower; but instead
of à cement post and a painted gateway at the top there wa S more
densé pine-forest, and tiny house's half-hidden in the shadows.
We came out at the top of a hill, whére the path ended, and found
two houses on either side of a courtyard, built of brick and st one,


with-tiled"roofe; but a notice-board outside annouroed that
it was a dlinic.
Wetd taken the wrong traok, that was clear. : But there were
too many. others for us 'to choose from. A few girls " came running
out, then an older woman. : They looked at our, map and couldn't
make head or gail of it. They suggested that we return to the
bottom of the hill where the church was, and gein again from. there.
No one'had heard of our friends," nor of their houses, though they
were certainly not a hundred yards away from this point. On
second thoughts they dedided that one of the girls should go with
us, as she - lived at the bottom of the hill and mist return home
in any case. She was a plumps smiling girl of isixteen and
squeèzed in beside us, turning the car suddenly into a sort of
merry-go-round for us, and the journey into a spree. She laughed
and exclaimed as we bumped over the roots. She would show us
the hunting lodge---wie ulkich that we hadn't found it! Yes,:
we had taken the wrong track. There was the hunting lodge, a
simple building standing alone at the foot of the woods, closed,
its windows ourtainless; and close to i$ was a track---it was -
this . one wè had to take. And she got out again, waving us/an 1A
energetic goodbye.
Up 'we went again. The path narrowed iikè the other on'e,
going : into the darkness of the woods, its.roots getting thioker
and thicker, like boulders; and---aga in like the other onesit
came out at thé top of a hill, preumably the same hill. stszi
there wa S neitler cement post nor painted gateway, only tiny
shacks half-hidden. . among the trees. Buti this - t ime there was an
open space, at least: the track led into several otljers, some of
which looked promising, with houses on either side. Disregarding
the map, which now told us nothing, we took the middle one, where


we saw two men walking along in a leisurely, Saturday-afternoon
way.
We stopped and asked them. 'Who?" they oried, as if the
name---a perfectly ordinary German neme---Bounded outrageous,
1ike hobgoblins in the woods. We repeatéd it. No, they'd
never heard the name... What were the houses called? Nooh'n
- Gedioht (Just One More Poem) and Unser Paradies (Our Heaven)--
wé felt a little silly saying it. They nodded---this didn't
seem outrageous or odd to them at all! No, they'a never héard
of'these houses. They studied 'our map. Yes; they knew the
church of course, at the foot of the hill. 'And there was the
'hunting lodge---ya, yat they cried, spotting the hunting lodge.
And here was the path' leading up from the hunting lodge-ma
murmured ya, ya, as they pored over it, grim and. intent. We'd
oome too far, perhaps. The cement post and the pal nted gateway?
we asked. No, they knew of no oement post or painted gateway;.
and from the way they shook their heads you would think that
cement posts and painted gateways were not only not there, or
near there, but impossible anywhére. So perhaps we hadn't
oome too fari Perhaps the post and the gateway were ahead.
No,, they oould assure us of. that, they weren't ahead. And
when they said this you would have thought they had them in thet r
pookets, and were therefore quite certain'about where you
wouldn't find them. Then the, map was wrong. We all bore down
on the'r map in a vengeful way---the map was wr ong! of oourse!
what a silly mapi The best thing was to,go by a description of
the people we were arter, and the kind of house théy lived in.
Well, they were called Wone, and he, the husband, was a dootor;
they had four children,, twof of them quite grown-up; and the
wife we described in some detail---blonde, er robust-looking,


handsome, blonde, blonde! No, théy didn't know anyone like that.
(Surely, you felt like saying, you must know somebody in the
world like it, especially in Germany, where blonde,, robust-
looking women abound?)
Baok to the maj po And we suddenly see, in tiny
writing,
that the owner of the plot of land next door is a Dr. Shhach.
Ah, Doctor Sohacht Yesi Schacht Sohacht They-spat the: :
word out, beaming, with the tremendous German enthusiasm that is
like a hurricane and as dangerous. Yes, now he lived further
along the track, not this way, which leads further into the woods,
but the other way, so that---here they got philosophical-a-having
reached the top of the hill as wetd done just now, our correot
move ought to be to turn left instedd of right, whereas we had
not only turned right but taken the subsidiary of the two traoks
etc eto... We nodded in a daze. So like a dream!
And. now they came to think of it, surely they did know the
gentleman wé were looking for? Dr., Wmm? Yes; that was a well-
known name on this hillside, but they couldn't think in what
connection: Yes, two doctors lived side by side; it had often
been remarked by people looally, as a phenomenon. We should
certa inly find the house if we went àlong this path,, only in the
other directibn.
We turned round and waved them goodbye; and' théy went on
with their ggiet Saturday-afternoon walk, à dog running between
them. The map was hopeless, wectold each other---better not
use it. This time we travelled along the brow of the hill,
without trees on either side, : only heather. Then we came to a
fork: one path led downwards, back to the area we'd just left,
and the other went further into the woods. a The men hadn't
mentioned this in all their philosophy! It was like having.
ploughed all the way through the Deduction of the Categories


without being told about Spade and Timet The path into the
woods seemed to end in darkness, a sort of- Kantian hole where
you might expeot to find the: noumènon, after all these years;
and the other went into a further maze of tracks like themes in
Wagner---God alone knew where, they might lead!
So we turned round again.and once more found ourselves with
the. two men and their doge What, we. had found no houses at all?
This was a new development--86 if we'd swiped their houses in some
way and sent them somewhere elset : Then, one of them said,
apparently rejecting this idea, that wé must have taken the path
'into the woods: and his philosophy had expressly forbidden" that.
Now: alsol---meaning action? The man with the dog--a
.slim man with genial, reflective eyes---will come with us. The
wind begins to rise, armies form up, ultima tums to be sent,
officials. ealled into ante-rooms and seoret chambers, bands to
play, the, flags to be brought out, marching orders to be distributed---
achtung' alles verboten! himmelfaht und- gute Reisel'steigon Sie
ausi Rumpf, stumpf und humpft
Could we- squeeze him in? Indeed, we could, by aqueezing
our front-line battalions up on the left axis and: passing his
companies through on the right. But his dog? what: about his
dog? is he . allowed, too? Yes, yes, consider him as. B Echelon,
along with the heavy armour! - So we were all in.: The door
slemmed---gchtungt wir gehen nach Englandt let the English king
and the English business men in their top hats and hunting boots
shiver in their ti imbers, we're on our,way! The man outside.
looked forlorn-4-the army had lockèd him out---and he was minus
not only his afternoon's Kameradschaft but the dog as weil.
Offi---the dar sounded like a tank, or 'at least a truck with
caterpillar-traoks, And I swear we manoeuvred those tree-roots


better than we had done before. We rode . them-meup! wi th a.
swinging motion---and down againt I - oould have sworn there was
a war ons Just driving along a traok in thé woods it certainly
was not: the noise, the rising and falling, the bumps we took in
descent, were muoh too momentous for that:
The dog was tiny, a little white fellow with a fluffy tail
and bright eyes rather like his master's; he sat on the floor
at the man's feet.. The man we left behind---he nodded to us as
iwe.drove off, with a perplexed - Smile--was apparently a week-end
guest. Were we Dutch? the dog-owner asked my wife. He had
heard us talk a foreign language together? No, English. Ach,
soi A brief silenoe. But the féct that he'd found himself
in an enemy vehicle instead of the fatherland's didn't make any
differenoe---he would gight on our sidet So on we went.",
This-time the map really came in for it. Who had drawn it?
The lady?. Yes. Ach, ach---a11.thrèe of us ach-ed as hard as we
could. v. Women shouldn't draw maps! They don't make allowances
for -the way -the thing will be.seen at the time, in the given sit-
ationt Thé map was blod, dumm, ganz falsch.end.a-hell of a lot
else besides. I felt like screving the thing into a ball. We'd
certainly given it as effective a Blitz as a map ever got.
Now there was the house. ,He nodded towards it quietly,
beaming. But where were the cement post and the painted gate-
way? Then it couldn't be: the - house: these things weren't to
be seent But there was a blonde woman, standing by the path.
Admittedly, you couldn*t call her robust-looking---she vas on the
slim side, butews? No, it wasn't her, my wife said. He looked
at my wife doubtfully as 1f to say, Are you sure she hasntt been
taking slimming cures?* No, it wasn't her. And he shrugged,


seeming to téll himself that of dourse if we were going to
rejeot all the blasted blonde women in the woods we were quite
likely to find ourselves without a bed for the night, and he'
didn't see why he should take responsibility.
Perhaps we should sound our horn? our friends had told us
to sound it four times, as everybody else in the woode sounded it
three times and they would theref ore know it was us e We did it,
four times. And' at once the dog began leaping up and down on the
floor, his eyes gléaming like fires, barking his head off. We
looked down at him,a stoni shed. We'd always thought, until then,
that the thing to.do as a dog was to bark at a'car from the outside
of it when it.made that noise, not from inside. But this aog was
different. His owner explained him to us. This dog of mine,
he said, always barks from inside the car when he hears the horn,
because that'1s how I, the owner, signal my approach to my own
house on week-ends, only three times and not four---everybody sounds
the ir horn three times hére (with a quick sorutinising look, as
if to say, 'Now you know*), and this horn, sounded from inside,
means for the dog a week-end of runs and walks and routing about
in the garden whioh he never gets in the oity, for he's in the
oity all week--l His eyes nearly exploded with gleam, and the
words poured out like steam from a German spa.
The good blonde lady who wasn't our friend bégan walking
towards us, and we decided to put the whole matter to her---I
think he had hopes that after a little quiet persuasion she might
prove to us that she was our friend after all. He jumped out:
achtung, the attack 1s ont Did she know-where Dr. W-om lived?
He said it like a Panzer Grenadier division mov ing forward under
enfilade fire. But she wasn't a bit frightened. In faot, she


was like the enemy waiting under a heavy armoured cover. Shé
amiled---ya, yat (two 88mm shells, bang on their target) e - Yat
(a landmine). Yat (à swift aerial attack to mop.up). She knew
the ladyi In fact---nein, ist das moglich?---we are all danoing
about already, apparently the order has come through that the enemy
has evacuated his positions---in fact, our friend had aeked her to
keep a: look-out in case she found two English friends of hers lost
in the woodst Ah-h-h-h-h! And ach, sot was? Roars, applaase,
laughter; dances---I find I'm flushed in the cheeks already, and
- my'wire looks as if she's béen up a mountain on a ski-lift.
Our friend particularly asked her to ask us to sound the
horn four times when we arrived instead of the oustomary three
because four would denote to her that we were 'new to the woods.
So again---one, two, three,four---end the dog si tarts barking 1ike
mad again, until his master tells him to jump out of the, car,
at which he stops barking abruptiy, the rule being that he only
barks inside, at least on military operations -11ke this one.
Quietness descends on the woods. Nothing haj ppens, * I sound the
horn again---this amazing dog doesn't even look up. And again
no oné omes. Well, then, did our kind friend know where the
Wea family lived by any chance? Yes, she aid. In fact, she
would take us thére---if---could she squeeze in the car? We
looked at the man, and his gog: the answer depended on them;. it
now appeared that with the collapse. of the enemy defences, and.
their evacuation of positions; our own front was as tight as 1t
dould be, and sh ort of opening new engagements on our left or
right, which would take time, we Would have to ask one of the
commanders to fall. into rear-reserve. He obliged"at once, and
said he wa s near his home---he walked off waving merrily, with
his dog, beaming and bursting with happy helpfulnesst


We had to turn round; our new friènd told.us. - We "had
somehowto squeèze past a post in : the middle of the pathway--
that must be the cement posti---and avoid falling fifty yards
into a gully on the. other side, if we oould. So I turned thè
cér round and slowly, gingerly, edged it past the post, having
asked my wife and our guest to walk behind, so as (on the best.
military principles) to keep down the casualty-rate. I got
past, ànd they joined me again. Straight on: And there, at the'
top of the. hill, standing by a painted gat teway, was our friend,
waving frantically, with two of her daughters, and in a moment we
were lost in hugs, kisses, pushes, slams, i playful pinches, hair-
ruffling, squeezes and even, though I couldn't be sure of this,
bites. We'd arrived!


A JOURNEY TO THE HAMBURG HEATH.
Ne got on board the Quéen Wilhelmina at about eleven in
the morning on our way to Hamburg, and watched a pony, grey and
slim, being loaded into a narrow box on the quayside and strapped
wi th various halters until he could. hardly moved: suddenly he
kicked his legs up and tried to clamber over the front; he tried
again and again, pushing his head back, but'douldn't; then the
crane lifted him hagh in the air and lowered him slowly into the
dark. hold of the ship.
ahaxaresstagawasaxengkexbatxugagotamegahanagndefoxadathaex
Agdagxdmmmaketpadr
À party of Englishmen, with one young girl dressed in tight
white trousers and jumper, drove fast bars on board, and behaved
in a jarring and unnatural way, as if something special ought to
be redognised in them by other péople wi thoutbits being in their
flesh, in their eyes or even in the way they were dressed; it
seemed to be only in their engines, which made a threatening roar
as they left the quayside. Théy seemed to be on a. jaunt but
the jaunt wasn't theirs-e-it was an idea they had as to what a
jaunt should be, and only the trappings were there. They were
going abroad' as it might have happenéd in another epoch, when
it was enough of a privilege in itself to be noticed. The girl
had no dépth in her face, her body laoked softness and real sex,
perhaps because enginés and threatening roars can't moge us into
Boftness or séx. She kèpt clasping one of the young men round
the neok **XXI theatrioally, but without affection and even with=
oùt belief in her acting. And the rést 'of the party laughed
uneasily and made abashed jokes. They were keeping something up
which. none of them wanted, none of them believed in and none of


them were made for in any case.
One of the men had a flushed face and a paunohe--they were
the material of jollity wi thout it being there; and he Wore
casual clothes without any effeot of casualness. It was all
like a panic-strioken performande before an invisible-g-perhaps
hostile---audience i : something had to be done, there had ao. be
a laugh, to create what people call vitality, a sort of dana
death-dance. Their nerves were emashed. And nothing : could.be
done until they had each had made a sort of pause in his life,
and colleoted his nerves together slowly*
I've noticed this,again and again since wë left Italy a
few weeks ago---how torn people's nerves ares The first thing
that goes is self-trust: a smilé can put them at ease ss and
a frown can unsettle them, So different t'from Italy where your
face isn't watched as an index of feeling.
When we got to the Hook of Holland 1t was sunny and quite
warm, after à rough crossing, and we stood on the quayside: wait-
ing for our car to be unloaded. The pony was hauled out of the
hold again and we saw that.he'd been in the same box throughout
the voyage, lasting six hours. He came swining down, looking
haggard and worn-out: Apparently the orane swinging above
frightened him, and when 1t brought a car down neër him he, made
a sudden plunge as he'd. done at Harwich, and this time succeeded
in getting his front lege, over the entrande of the box, so that
he xxtkaxt stood there panting, his eyes with an ' exhausted bu-t
astonishiegly dignified and passiona te look, and his hoofs dangling
over the front. Two or three dockworkers tried to ease him
baok again, pushing at his hoofs until they were back inside:
he tolerated this slow pushing and heaving for a time, his head
high, with a flashing look of defiance, then, at the moment when


they thought they'd succeeded, he made a plunge again, with a
vivid movement of ferooity; and pushed his hoofs ' out exactly as
bef ore, Again the slow pushing back took place ànd again,
with even gréatér ferooity than before, nearly striking oné of
the dockers in the à head, he made a leap that shook the whole box,
and this time he got his legs right out, and NEÉ had freed his
chest., Then a clerkly-looking mân came along and calmly directed
the halters to be lossened; apparently, he was used to horses,
The pony; understanding, pulled baok his hoofs and stepped out of
the box like a guest, quietly and delicately, his head bowed
rather wretchedly, his tail and mane bedraggled; he was : dusty
all over and his eyes had a look of infinite relief* Someone
led him. by the halter along the quayside where we were standing:
we were surprised how small he really was, his thrusts had been
BO mighty.. He stood no higher than my chest.. We asked where
he was bound for and the mên looked at the label on his halter:
it was a village néar Rotterdam, Was he for killing---murely,
no? No, certainly not; the man said, shéking his head with a
smilé. Perhaps for children, He now had a train Journey before
him, of two or three hourss
The pony was still hardly rec overed; his head was hanging,
and we fed him a: whole apple, forgetting to break it up; he showed
some interést 'in this and chewed for a long time without swallow-
ing, froth pouring out of his mouth on to the cobbles, Hetd clearly
1 been siék during the voyage---he was now, aocording to the man,
oleaning his stomach out. He frothed over the man's trousers
and shoes, and coughed, then he was led away. But he came back,
this time with a tall, peasant-like man who had a ruddy faoe and
musoular bare arms. * This time we gave him aorrots, breaking them
up, and he nudged his head against us, reviving, and made a long
groaning noise to arouse our sympathies: he. was waking up and blew


loutdly down his nostrils.. When he oontinued the walk he
went a few paces and stopped, pulling at the halter, then deliber-
ately shook his doat free of the dust; alreadg he was looking
smarter; though his tail still hung down like pieces of old grey
iclotha His walk was steady.and delicate like a young girl's,
especially as he had no shoes and:so made only the slightest
thumping sound on the cobbles; ' and now' and then he would. give the
huge : man at his side an intimate nudge as" if he could smell the
countryside in hims There was a simplicity about the man which
we noticed when we talked to him--ehe waited patiently while we
fed the animal carrots, and returned. when we pulled another one
out of the bag, with an expectant smile on his face. that seemed
ke Pony's
to speak on/ behalfo ofthe eEE
Animals. know these things, and
it looked as though they were talkign to each other quietly as
they walked. along; the pony was telling him.about.the awful voyage.
The party of would-be boisterous people drove off with a
roar as they'd driven on at Harwich; it vas strange, each oné
of them. was a quiet person, really; it showed in their facese
they. had more delicacy than they. were willing to show; and their
pecuiiar distorted gestures and false laughe had grown up between
them like a third person,
We drove to Rotterdam and ate there I was : surprised at the
hugeness of the sky, like a blue and white dome stretohéd over
the earth; as I'd never seen it before.. The flatness and lack
of trees makes the - sky so important in Holland; everything is
contained in the sky and touched by it, made gloomy or radiant
according to it; and you esten see it in people's eyese: There
is a wonderful emerald quality in the light' as you sometimes see
it on the east odast of England, like an early-morning sunlight
on sand, suggesting. endless spaces. a


There was a pale evening sun with high, white clouds, and
people were oyoling home grom work along the banked roads that
went above the fields. Rotterdam was strange, with vast doloured
buildings shining like objécts in a maohine Bo vast that it turned
you into a squalid kind of midget. The biting wind swept through
the streets. Nearly everything was new. A few of the old streets
remained, their houses squeezed olose together. The roads had
a gloomy hollowness but sometimes there was a bright corner with
caré-tables and ooloured chairs, and restaurants with walls of
glass, suoh as you see in some German towns now. The innwhere we
ate belonged to older times, like a German bier-stube, the seats
wooden with tall backs, the tables thiok ana sturdy, with a massive
tiled stove reaching to the ceiling, and painted danding figures'
on the panelled walls, and newspepers in wooden clips hanging from
pegs, éverything dark with digar-smoke. We asked for wine and
the waiter, dark and Italian-looking, told us that they stocked
a good young Bordeau 'loose', which we ought to try. It tasted
of grapes, anyway. We refelected to each other that in an ordinary
wine lees than a yéar old you stood a better chance of getting
something pure than in nine out of ten s09dalled vintages. We
pride ourselves on what wè know about wine, which isn't much.
It was the first wine we'd had for a long time and it made us
feel delightfully tired and heavy, 80 we decided to go to the next
small town and stay there for the night. The familiar sense of
being foreigners grew on us again. After much travel you have
the sense of being a natural visitor--everywhere: a visitor to
life. You enter the warmth a moment and then go. You have
the utmost freedom of self, you are stripped for a moment of age,
moods, even bitter personal struggle, in a perilous anonymity
which makes 'it diffioult to grasp life again, since it dan take
away all' the illusions of looality---they bec ome illusions;


there isn't a place you can go baok to; all places have become
gestures made in a thousand different ways amid trees and fields,
in the silence of the weather; this is the sadness, the growing
inability of things to exercise their charm over. you, especially
if they come from men; ' there remains the ewather, and fade after
unknown face; and the challengé is hot to learn to bè a visitor
gladly, to réally be a visitor in yourself, as we all ere at the
end.
We asked the waiter how far the next town was, on the way
to theGerman frontier, and. he : told us Gouda, about half-an-hour
away: That was perfect. - He added with'a smile that the people
there probably went to bed early, so we should hurry.
We reached Gouda soon after ten, when everything was deserted.
Thé outskirts were barren as parts of Rottérdam had been;with
identical, treeless streets on rising grounde. The sun had just
gone down, First we had to oross a oanal 'and wait for the bridge
to be lowered, as a barge was passing undernea th. There was this
wonderful silence of Holland, coming from thé flatness of the.earth.
The bargé, clean and polished; with no aargo in the hold, stole
through the night silently, gliding underneath us with a perfeot;
her
smooth moti on, ** engines making only the faintest throb in hér
bowels while the water trickled ànd ebbed along the, sidess A.man
was at the helm and after the bridge had been passed he 1 handed J the
wheel over to his W: ife, in a tiny-glowing,cabin where the bness
and paintwork shone's : Then the bridge was lowered again, meche
VIT
anically from inside the bridgehouse, and we. wént ' on into the'
town
There were. further dry, ugly outskirts, all the.windows
with their curtains undrawn in the Dutch manner; showing'i neat
rooms inside, some of them with polished sideboards and télevisions
others with the signs of a meal, solid and sorupulous. : Then to


our surprise we oamé to the héart of an oid town with canals
running through it and a tall ohuroh; a tall late-mediaeval
town-hall stood alone. h the midaie of the cobbled square,
its shutters bright red, its walls aloping massively, taller
than aii the houses round the square but at the same time wonder-
fully unassuming, éverything flat and still 'ail round it iike a
lake, When wè saw it, a black Bhadow in the dusk three storeys
high, with its neat réd shutters and a spire, we felt: a sudden
relief,.as if we'd found a real home for the night. Towns were
made for travellers then. They had a special humble touoh that
consoled and proteo ted.
The shops and hotels round the square glowed and' twinkied,
tiny compared with the gleaming shadow in the middle, We found :
a tiny mxd CRXa*A*Xar hotel in a sidestreet, asth a 'canal
running by it, The stairoase to the roons was so stéép, and the
steps s0 tail, thét it was like oiimbing an endiess tower: the!
owner, a"paie; thin, lined man, with still eyés, told us with a
quiok, jerky smile, in a breathless way, that many sailors. has
slept in these rooms over the'oenturies, and that. they td olimbed
to theterowts nestt, as they called these rooms, in aXXortXER
atatonxaxnk every sort.of state, sometimes. worn out" "after a
rough sea, but usually drunk. The place 'was simplé, clèan and.
bare. Firet we were shown a tiny double room with a balcony
overlooking the canal, but that was noisy because of thé truoks
and motor-oycles that roared past. beiow, and Re asked for two
single rooms instead. One of these gave out on to the courtyard
of a. hospital, and. the other had no window at ail, only a fanlight,
whiah he said would supply us with all the air wè needed Yfor the
night'. We went downstairs again, to sit in the oafé for a féw
minutes before going to bed, and I ordered a beer. No, it was


a temperenoe-hotel; and the man nodded his héad as he told us
this, his eyés pale, as if defending an attitude which weta just
chellenged. His voide and the way he looked at us were mild but
at the same time he was emphatic, with a puritan implacability
whioh showed in the way he at once réturned' to the book he was
reading, concentrated on it palely and bloodlessly. He added,
looking up for à moment, as if to leave free to sin if we wanted
to, that other hotels in Gouda did Berve be'er and that this une
was the only one' that didn't. : Hè then put his book aside, sée-
ing pérhaps that béer àidn't mean s0 very much to us, and asked if
wlile
we were English. - I was about to.explain that I was and tat my
wife was German by origin, Austrian, Sewdish and American by up-
bringing, and English by marraige, when the opportunity passed, as
it usually does. : He spoke - again, this time tomy wife oniy,
and said that. if we had time the following day' se should: visit the
church, only a few yards away, Which had the most wonderful stained-
glass, windows imaginable. i And he made it seem: that there was some-
thing moral about going to the church, as if -we'd'already determined
to shirk it: for he nodded in a quidk, emphatio way, his 1ips
pursed ' as if heta just finished a reprimanding opéech, and-returned
to his book, seated by the bar vhere. there was a ooffeo-urn_speatm-
ing. The room was bare, with a front window like that'of ashop,
and the tables had gloony plastié tops.
But marality doesn't interfére with your sleep, not if you've
given it as little offence as wè : hadi that day, and we slèpt saundly
f Le
all night, both OS uf, my wife with. the hospital outside her wind-
OW and me with a fanlight ovérhead. In the morning we went.dowa
to breakfast and were amazed to see that another part of the long
bare room, which had been hidden the previous evening, oonsisted
of pteasaxt a dining room with a oarpet and pleasant olothe
oovered tables andxkEax* for the hotel guests, while the daily


oustomers sat next door" drinking "coffee and smoking oigars.
I had had a strange dream in which someone offered us a
house as, a jodgings, oonsisitng only' of one room, built in a perfeot
square with frenoh windows and rather ornate briokwork in the
pseudo-Gothic style, only slanting in the'most peculiar way likè
the tower of Pisa, . Néxt to it was the ownerts house, whioh was
quite normal. And both stood in a bright-green, carefully kept
lawn with cypress trees and dlipped bushes, olose to a widé desert-
ed roadway. The room itself reminded me of houses where I'd
stayed in Austrid---bgight, with heavy ourtains and plenty of
wood; and glowing lamps, and fat, shining, tiled stovesa In this
square; leaning room I was quéstioned by the police, who wanted
to knon---of all things---Where my ideas came from, I seemed
to understand what they meant because I was about to reply, but
they intérrupted me, picking up the book I was. readings and said
that they noticed I had once expressed an idea from that book, and
did I know thè author? To Which I said; Yes, I'à met hime And
there the dream ended. It was a troubled dream whioh left me
with the feeling that my lifé-smand that of my wifo, whota been
questioned before mè, and not' allowed to warn me. in time-wwan
under surveillance:, and for the thoughts that passed privately
and silently through my head.
But the sun was shining, and outside everything looked alean
and gleaming. ai I. can still remember the polioemen in that dréamd
dark, rather reticent, methodidal, concentrated on their notes
taking 6 without offence, abstracted from ué, with blue uniforms
and peaked daps.
When we rd had a breakfast of èggs, hams oheese and coffee
we went to the square and found a végetable. and fruit market,
sit
with women crowding round the stalls # One one side of the square,
squeezed in between two houses; stood the wieght-house as it was


called, with a fesco above showing the round Gouda oheeses
being weighed. There were redourrants to buy, and soft, pink
peaches, We bought fruit and half a Gouda cheese, then decided
to obey the moral imperative from the night before and vieit the
church. It, lay behind the square with houses and canals all. round
it, hugging its massive walls. All morning the bells had been
ringing, rather like the Salzburg glockenspiel, only less dainty
and baroque: these played with a' mild, haunting little tune again
and again, floating over the town, high-up in a tower, visible
from the ground as the : bells. swung to and fro. To get into the
church we had to ring at the sexton's house ciose bys opposite
the- side-entrance, buy tiokets at his little: office and then be
escorted across: the doar sas opened with a key, and wè were
told that when we wanted to leave again wé should ring a bell by
the door inside; then we were closed in with Beveral other people,
oaptive inside a great semidircle of,stained glass. The windows
were huge, i depicting all sorts of subjeots from the Last Supper
to the independence of Holland. The biggest was over twenty yards
high; and there were sixty-four windows in all.: A wonderful
silence hung over the church, with the scund of the bells high in
the air outside and drifting down sometimes, muffled and gentle.
The pems were in the form of a raised auditorium round the pulpit,
rather like a lecture-room or a political assembly, the seats
rising in tiers, with a long table below, as if for .clerks to
meke their notess And there were doors léading from it,, out into
the church; the altar was far away, outside. My impression was
of a civic, moral religion which was discussed and hammered out
inside this alosed, wooden, intimate, even festive structure from
the Augustan. ager It was put there in the middle of the Cat holic
à churchy which mas spacious and flat, without disoussion. It
reminded me of the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford; the dark wood


suggested people doing things together in community: one could
imagine the mysteriousness of the silence outside at evening-
time, and the glow of lights inside, dulled and réndered intimate
by the wood. That has gone out of our livés; we glimpse it in
ohildhood pernaps---we may bring it with us4--but the XXXX*xt
sense of the silence outside being joined to us in a glowing
mystery, at Christmas, Eas ter, Michelmas, as if what. we . aid was
know to the vast silence outside, making its vastness protective
and. exciting, has gone. e At: one time our séasons went. right
through the universe, so tos speak; and this is finished in us
for à time.
We stood at the auditorium looking down's This sense of
intimacy is always, nowadays, 'a sense of the past. I remember
feeling it innLuoda once---in a hotel that has since been remov ed;
and in Palestrina, near Rome, walking al ong the main XXXXEX street,
narrow and cobbled, with lighted shops on either side fuli of rather
dusty ob, jeots i at Leoben, in Austria, the dining room of a hotal
with panelled walls, everything in it intaot from before the war,
withbheavy, solid-looking cutlery and plates, and thick velvet
cloth on the tables and old pistols and rifles and swords hanging
on the smoky wall,
Most of the windows in the Gouda church date from the sec and
half of the sixteenth oentury,
Heformt ano
during the Dutoh war for indépendence that went on for eighty
years. When the present ohuroh was built the citzens asked
allthe princes and ohurchmén known to them to Contribute a window;
and. this was the. result. The first window was given by the
Bishop of Utreoht; represénting the baptism of Christ : Philip
11 of Spain also gave a window, in which he and the English Mary
Tudor, his queen; : are répresented---he was then Holland's ruler.
The last windows were put in af ter Gouda had b ec ome protestant,


at the end of the sixteenth century, and one of them represents
'fréedom of consciende'. You see that in the handsome wooden
auditorium, oarefully civic, humped, in the middle of the vast
church perhaps rather defdantly and self-consoiously,
stgra
We spent the rèst of the day on the road; on the Dutoh
side of. the German frontier we stopped and wrote a few dards to
England. It was Saturday and we were told at. the local. shop
thêt we would only find stamps on the German sidé of the border
and had better post thè cards from there; but we wanted to post
them on the Dutch side because it was thè first time wetd really
been to Holland and our oards showed windmills, ohildren in clogs
and the typical Dutch musiin hats, standing against a background
of. tulips and daffodils. So the shopke epér said he would post
them himself on Monday if wé ieft the money, which we did.
In Germany, not many yards across the border, we stopped for
a coffeé. Already thére, was the German emphasis and downrightness;
it was in the shape. of the road even, the way people walked, their
clothes, the signposts; the mildness of Holland and England was
gone : everything had a clearer and darker and more immense look,
with tall, shadowy trees on eithèr side. + There had been no sun-
light since the morning, and it was bitterly cold with heavy clouds,
th ough the month was July. For a few hours we drove along quiet,
straight roads, then there was the autobahn for the last stretoh
of two hundred kilometres, before we, reached the heath near Ham-
burg where we were to stay.
Our friends had provided a map, pencil-drawn, which showed
the local church, a hunting lôdge, the Woods, and several tracks
going through thé woods We were to take one of the tracks.
And the house, they wrote at the bottom of the maps had a cement
pos't outside it and a paintéd wooden gateway. It. sounded ' very


simple a After leaving the autobahn we had ten or fifteen minutes
driving, then we cameto itouwa church, which: was a olean, modern
building's with a wide sandy track at the side of it; thena hill,
dense wi th trees---olearly the woods marked on the map. So we
took the tracke Sometimes the/un came through and made thè houses
and sandy track gleam; then - à dark cloud would pass and the shadows
under. the trees would seem to be drawing everything into' thema
We saw no hunting lodge, though. Up we went over thick tree-roots,
as the path got narrower and narrower; but instead of a cament post
and a painted gateway at the top there was more dense pine-forest,
and tiny houses half-hidden in the shadows. We came oùt at the
top of a hill, where the path ended, and found-two houses on either
side of a courtyard, built of brick and stone, with tiled roofs;
but a notice-bpard outside announced that it was a clinic.
we'd taken the wrong track, that was clear. But there were
too mâny others.for us to choosé from, A few girls came ' running
out; then an older woman : They looked at our map and : couldn't make
head ori tail of it.. They suggested : that we return to the bottom
of the hill where . the church was, and begin again from there.
No one had héard of our friends, nor of their houses, thought *
théy were, certainly not a hundred yards away from this pointa
On second though ts they.decided that one of the girls sho ould go
wi th bus, as she lived at the bottom of the hill' and nust. return
hom in any casee She was à plumps smiling girl ofi sixteen, and
squeezed in beside us, 6 turning the car suddenly into a sort of
merry-go-round for us, and the journey into: a sertxir's sprees!
She laughed and exclaimed as we bumped over the rootssi she: isi,
would show us the hunting lodgew-it was -
that welhadn't
found it. Yes, we had the taken the wrong track. ! : There was
the hunting lodge, a simple building standing alone at the foot!
of the woods, olosed, its windows curtainlees; and close to L t


was. a track---it was this one we had to take. And she got out
again, waving us an energetic goodbye.
Up wè went again. The path narrowed 11ke the other one, A
going into the darkness of the woode, its rooté getting thicker
and thicker, 1ike boulders ; and---again 1ike the other one-it
came out at the hop of a hill, presumably the same hill. Stili
there was neither cèment post nor painted gateways only tiny shaoks
balf-hidden among the trees. But this time there was an open
space, 'at least: the track led into sèveral others, some of
which looked promising, with houses on either side. Disregarding
the map, which now told us nothing, we took the middle oné,
where we saw two men walking along in a leisurelys Saturday-
afternoon way.
We etopped and asked them: . *who?* they cried, as if "the
name-a-a perfectly ordinary German name---Bounded outrageous,
1ike hobgoblins in the woodss We repéated it. No, they'a
never heard the neime. + What were the houses called? Noohin
Gedicht (Just One More Story). and Unser Paradies (Our Heaven)--
we félt a little silly seying it, They nodded---this didn't'
seem outrageous or odd to them at allt No, they'd never heard
of these houses. They studied our map. Yes, they knew the
churah of : course, at the foot of the hill, And there was the
hunting lodge---ya, yat they oried, spotting the hunting lodge.
And here was the path leading up from the hunting lodge-a
murmured ya,ya, as théy pored over it, grim and. intent..
We'd come too far, perhaps. The cement post and the painted
gatewya? we asked. No, they knew of no cement. post or painted
gateway; and from the way they shook thèir heads you would.
think that cement pos te and painted gateway.were not only not
there, or' near there, but impossible anywhere. So perhaps 'wé
hadn t come too fart - Perhaps thè post and the gateway were


ahead. Noy they could assure of us of that, they werén't
ahead. And when they said this you would haye thought they
had them in their pockets, and therefore quite certain about whère.
you wouldn 't find thems Then the map was wrong. We all bore
down on the map. in a. vengeful way---the mép was wrong! of : courset
what a silly mapt The best' thing was to go by a description of
the people we were arter, and the kindnof house they lived. Well,
they: were called Weee, and he, the husbands was a doctor; they
had four children, two of them quite grown-up; and the wife wè
described in some detail---blonde, er, robust-looking, handsome,
blonde, blondel Nor they didn't know anyone like thate (Surely,
you felt like saying, you must know somebody in the world like it,
especially in Germany: where bl ondes robust-looking women abound?)
Back to the map+ And wé suddenly see, in tiny Ritst
writing, - that the ownder af the plot of land next door is a Drl
Schachs Ah, Doctor Schachi Yest. Shacht Schaohi They sapt
spat the word out, beaming, with the tremednous German enthusiasm
that is aike a hurricane and as dangerous. - Yes, now he lived
further along the track, not : this. way, which leads further into
Nha,
the woods, but the other way, so that-awhere they got philosophioal-s-
having réachéd the top of the hill as' weta done just now, $ : our.
correct move ought to be turn left. iristead of right, whereas we
had not only turned right but taken the subsidiary of the two
tracks etô etoav. We nodded in a daze. So like a dreami
And now they came to think of it, surely they did' know the -
gentleman we were looking for? Dr Weasw? Yes, that was well-
known name on this hillside; but they coulan't. thinknin. what
connection! Yes, two doctors lived sidé by side; it- had often
been remarked by peoplé locally, as a coinc idencè # We should
certainly find the house if we went along this path, only in the
other directions


We turned round and waved them goodbye;: and thèy went on
with their quiet. Saturday-afterrnoon walk, a dog running between
theme The map was hopeless, we told each other---better not use
it, This time we travelled along the brow of the hill, without
trees ôn either side, only heather- Then we came toa fork:
one path led downwards, back, to the area we'd hust left, and the
other ment further into the woods. The men hadn't mentioned this.
in all their philosophyt - It.was like having ploughed ail the way
being
through the Deduction of the Categories without XaxxngxREX told
about Space and Timet : The path into,the woods seemed to end in
where you might expeot to find
went
darkness, sort of Kantian hole; and the other kad intoa further
maze of tracks likë themes in Wagner---God only knew where they'd..
leadi : The path into the woods seemed to end in darkness, a. sort
of Kantian hole where you might éxpect to find the noumenon', ef ter
all these years; and the other went intoa further maze of tracks
like themes in Hegner-a-Cod-alone knew where they might leadt
So we turned. round again and once more found ourselves. with
the gwo mén and their dog : What, we had .found no houses at. all?
This was a new development---as if weta swiped their houses in
some way and sent thems omewhere else l Then, one of them sais
(apparently rejeoting this idea), we must have ' taken the. path. into
the woodss, And his philosophy had expressly forbidden that,
Now: also-4-meaning action. The man with the dog-aa slim
man with genial, reflective eyes---will.come with us e The wind
begins to rise, armies form up, ultimatums to be sent, officials
ealled into anterooms and secret chambérs, bands, to play, the flags
to be brought put, marohing arders to be distributed---aohtung:
alles verbotent himmelfaht and gute Reiset steigen Sie aust
Rumpf 1 stumpmf und humpft
Could we squeeze him in? Indeed; we dould; by. squeezing
our front-line battalione up on the left axis and passing his


companies through on the righti : But his dog? what about his
dog? is hë allowed; too? Yes, yes, considér him as B Echelon,
with. the heavy armour! So we were.all in. - The door slammed-im
achtungt : wir gegen nach England! let the English king and the.
English business men. in their top.1 hats. and hunting boots: shiver
in their timbers : we're on our wayi The man outside looked
forlorn---the army had locked him.out---and hé was minus not
only his à afternoons kameradshaft but the dog as well.
off-w-the car B0 ounded like à tank, or at least a truck
with caterpiller-tracks. And I swear we manecuvred those
lofor.
tree-roots better than we had done A We rode Es them---upt with
a awinging moti on-and down againt I could have sworn there
was a war ons Just driving along a track in thr woods it
certainly was not: the-noise, the riding and falling, the *
bumps we took in descent, were much too momentous for. that.
The dog was tiny, a little white fellow with a flurfy - tàil
and bright eyés rather like his masterts; he sat. on the floor
at the man'sreet. The man we left behind-#-he nedded to.us
o88. with
as we drove, E gese as a perplexed smile---was
apparently
Were we
week-end guest. XaExa Dutch? the dog-owner. asked my wife.
He had heard us talk a foréign lanuage tagether? - No, English.
**** Ach, sot A brief silende, But the fact that *k heta
found himself in an enémy vehicle instead of the fatherland's
didn't make any differente---he would fight on our sidet: So,
on we went. *
This time the map réally came in for it. Who had drawn
it? The lady? Yés. Agh, ach---all three of us ach-ed
as hard as wO couldo Women shouldn 't draw, mapst Tney: dontt
make allowances for the way the thing will be seen,at the time,
in the given situation! : The mapnwas blot, dum, ganz unrecht
and a hell of a lot else besides. I felt like sorweing the


thing into a ball. Wetd certainly givén the: thing as effective
a blitz as a map. ev er got
Now. here was the house. He nodded towards it ruietly, 'r
beaming à But where were the cement post and the painted gate-
way? Then it couldn't bes - They- weren't to-be seen, But.
there was a blonde woman, standing:by the path, - Admittedly,
you, couldn't call her robust-looking---she was on the slim side,
but-w? - No, it wasn t her, my wife said. He. looked at: my
hasn't
wife doubtfully as if to says *Are you sure she. Xas been taking
slimming cures?" No, it wasn't her. And he shrugged, telling
himself that of C ourse if we. wére going to rejeot all-the blasted
blonde women in the woods we were quite iikely to find ourselves
without: a bed for the night, andi he didn't see why he Should take
responsibility.
Perhaps we.should sound our horn? Our friends had. tola us
to 'sound it *h*xx** four times, as everybody else in .the woods
sounded it three times and they would therefore know it was us.
We did it, four times. And at once the dog began leaping up and
down on the floor, his eyes gleaning like fires, barking his head
off. We looked down at hin, astonished. We'd always thought,
until then, that the thing to do as a dog was yo bark.at a car '
from the outside of it when it made that noise, not from ins ide.
But this dog was different. His owner explained him to us .
This'dog of mine, he said,-always barks from inside the icar when
he hears the horn, because that was how he,. the owner, signalled
his approach to his own house on week-ends, only three times and
not four---everybody dounded, . their horn three times here (with'
a quick sorutinising look, as if to says Now you know), and that
horn, sounded from inside, meant for thw dog a: week-end of runs
and walks and routing about in the garden which he néver got in
the oity,-for he was in the city all week-wt
His eyes nearly


exploded with gleam, and the words poured out like steam from à I
German spa,
The good blonde lady who wasn't our friend bègan wal king
towards us, and wé decided to put the whole : matter to herww
I think he had hopés that after a iittle quiet persuasion she a
might prove kexastextexhXENr : to us that she wàs our friend aftér
all. He jumped outs achtung, the attack is ont. ' Did she know
where Dr. Wwwe-X lived? - Hè said it like'a panzer grénadier
division moving forward under enfilade fires But shé waun tt
a bit frightened. In fact, shé was : like the enemy waiting under
a heavy armoured covers She smiled---vye.yet (two 88mm shells,
bang on - their target). Yai (a landmine). Yat' (a swift aerial
attaok to mop up). She knew the ladyi In fact---nein, ist
das mbglich?---we are all danoing about already, apparently the
ordér has come through thet the enémy has evacuatéd his positions--
in faot, our friénd asked her to keep. a look-out in casé she found
two English friends of hers lost in the woodst Ah-h-h-h-ht -
Roars, applause, laughter, dances--I find I'm flushed in the
cheeks already, and my wife looks as if she's been up a mountain
for'a skirlge.
Our friend. particularly asked her to"ask us to sound the
horn four times when we arrived instead of the customary thrèe ,
necause four would denote to her that we wére new to the woods.
So again---one, twoy three, four-and the dog starts barking
like made again, until his master tells hiin to jump out : of the
dar, when he stops barking. abruptly, the rule being that he only
barks inside, at least on military operations like this one.
unxts Quietness descends on the woods. Nothing" happens. I
sound the horn again---this amazing dog doesn t even look up.
And again' no one comes. Well, then, did our kind friend know'
where the We---family live by any chande? P Yes, she did, - In


fact, she would take us theresswif--could ( . she squeeze in the
car? We: looked at the man, and his, dog: * the answer depended,
on them: it now appeared that with, the collapse of theenemy.
defences, and their evacuation of positions, our own front was..
as tight. as: it could be,. and short of opening. new engagements F
on our lert. or gight; which would take t ime >. we would have to ask
one of the coknanders to_fall into rear-reserve :. He obligod
at once, and said he was near his home--ho walked off waving
merrily, with his dag, boaming and bursting vi th heppy helpfulness!
We had to turn round, our new friend told us. We had
somehow to squeeze past a post in the middlé of the pathway-
that must be the cement postl--and avoid falling fifty yards
into a gully on the other side, if we could. So I turned the
car round and slowly,gingerly, edged the car past the post,
having asked my wife and our guest to walk behind, s0. that *
(on the best military principles) to keép down the casualty-rate.
I got past, and they joined me again. Staright ont And there,
at the top of the hill, standing by a painted gateway, was our
friend, vaving frantically, with two of her daughters, and in a
moment we were lost in hugs, kisses, pushes, slams; playful
pinches, hair-ruffling, squeezes and even, though I.couldn't be
sure of this, bites* We'd arrivedt