The Hill & the Hayfield

For 48 hours last week, British and Russian soldiers faced each other from foxholes across the border between East and West Germany (see above), ready to shoot at the drop of an order. With each of the former allies flanked by armed support from the nation they had fought in World War II (Volkspolizei on the East, German frontier guards on the West), the stage was set for a serious clash of arms. But the order never came.

The crisis rose when a detachment of Red soldiers and Volkspolizei rounded up a locomotive, its driver and 40 West German laborers on the British side of the border near Helmstedt and locked them up in a train shed, on the grounds that they were trespassing on Soviet territory. Three bewildered anglers fishing in a border pond were also caught in the net. Major Colin Ball of the British Frontier Inspection Service drove up briskly and demanded their release. "This is the British zone," he said. "No," answered the Russian officer who had stepped out of the woods to meet him. "Look at your map," said Ball. The Russian did so and suggested obliquely that they meet again to discuss matters. Ball turned on his heel and put in a call to the military.

Up to the border in short order rolled two platoons of blue-uniformed West German frontier guards. The following morning they were joined by two squadrons of British Life Guards in armored cars. By that time, the kidnaped workmen had been released. The Russians and the Vopos had drawn back and dug in on a hill just inside the Soviet Zone. Going into position, the Britons rolled across the meadow below in easy range of the Communist guns. The Russians crept to the forward edge of their vantage point and dug in deeper.

As the sun dropped, a British lookout spotted a Russian officer checking Communist positions on the hill. Suddenly the officer fell flat on his face. The British and West Germans guffawed. The Russian glared, stood up and fell again as though it had all been a planned maneuver. The Westerners cheered. All that night the men on both sides remained at the alert for an overt move. It never came. Next day the Life Guards decided the Russians would not invade and rolled back to their barracks. The German frontier guards followed. The Communists climbed out of their foxholes and marched home. On the Soviet side the Vopos resumed their ceaseless patrols. On the West, farmers who had watched the "battle" with bated breath, sighed over a damaged crop of hay, flattened with the wheels of armored cars and the tramp of marching men.

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