No Sleep for the Dead

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Like nature’s sugar icing, a thin layer of snow began to dust the runner’s body.

Two hundred metres away, beyond the strip of barren land marking the border between the two Germanys, a watchtower loomed against the sky, a sinister symbol of repression that would, like the Berlin Wall 300 kilometres to the north-east, soon be a ghostly landmark in history. On the tower, a guard in a heavy coat scanned the scene through binoculars. Below him, a patrol vehicle’s engine gave a raucous clatter. A guard-dog yelped eagerly, its cries echoed by others in the distance, each a soulful, lonely message, drifting on the wind across the fields.

Minutes before, the runner had been a living, breathing being, hugging the ground among the thin brush growing in a tangle along the low ridge. He had inched with agonising care past warning markers and stones, checking for tell-tale ripples in the soil indicating a mine, or the hair-thin glint of trip-wires. Ahead lay a field, his route to the West. A US army tower in the distance was a reflection of its East German counterpart. The thick windows showed no sign of movement.

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