Tjaden thinks of one thing only. “See to it that Himmelstoss didn’t get past me.”

Apparently he would like most to have him in a cage and sail into him with a club every morning. To Kropp he says warmly: “If I were in your place I’d see to it that I became a lieutenant. Then you could grind him till the water in his backside boils.”

“And you, Detering?” asks Müller like an inquisitor. He’s a born schoolmaster with all his questions.

Detering is sparing with his words. But on this subject he speaks. He looks at the sky and says only the one sentence: “I would go straight on with the harvesting.”

Then he gets up and walks off.

He is worried. His wife has to look after the farm. They’ve already taken away two more of his horses. Every day he reads the papers that come, to see whether it is raining in his little corner of Oldenburg. They haven’t brought in the hay yet.