cover was replaced by a student known as the closer. His task, Heinrich said, was one of the most dangerous parts of the operation. The cover, which weighed a hundred and twenty-five pounds, had to be put back quickly and quietly and without leaving marks. To handle the cover, the closer was given an iron hook, and this implement became a kind of symbolic passport to West Berlin; the rule was that the student who closed the sewer one night was the first to leave the next. When the underground travellers finished their journey, several Bureau agents, including Heinrich, were on hand to greet them. Celebrating, Heinrich told me, was considered “superfluous,” and, for security reasons, was not encouraged. It was strictly forbidden after the Bureau’s original sewer route was discovered because a couple of refugees in one group had not been able to resist letting out a few high-spirited noises upon reaching a point just inside West Berlin. The sounds were heard on the street on the eastern side of the wall by Vopos, who pulled up manhole covers and threw tear-gas bombs into the sewer. That group got through safely, but the route had to be abandoned.
A few days later, the Bureau opened a second route, which was nearly twice as long as the first. It was discovered within a week. The Vopos were now installing new metal barriers, with spokes that would not yield to saws. Though the sewers were becoming increasingly hazardous, the Bureau was able to devise still another route, this one through a rain-water channel in the northern section of the city. It was longer and more circuitous than the others, taking about two hours to traverse, but it was the most successful; on one night three groups totalling thirty-five persons came through it. One young married couple, who were students at the Free University, came through carrying their year-old son in a shopping bag; they had given him a sleeping pill to insure his silence en route. One night, Heinrich said, he was waiting at the exit of the third route when he heard noises below. He was sure they could not be coming from any of his group, since, according to the schedule, they had not yet begun their descent, but he removed the manhole cover anyway. Presently, a young man pushed his head out and said, “Is this West Berlin?” It turned out that he had been wandering through the sewer system for hours by himself and had found the Bureau’s exit by chance. Students and others who tried to negotiate the sewers on their own were called “wild ones.” They caused the Bureau concern, because they were apt to give things away. The Bureau’s worries increased when East Germans who were not among the Bureau’s clients began appearing at the East Berlin entrance to the sewer route as an authorized group was scheduled to depart. Finally, agents of the Bureau were posted in a third-floor East Berlin apartment to keep a twenty-four-hour watch on the entrance to the sewer, clock the tours of duty of the Vopos assigned to the area, and take eight-millimetre movies of any suspicious persons or activities in the vicinity. Despite all efforts to maintain secrecy, the third route was discovered around the middle of October, after it had been in operation exactly two weeks.
Since then, West Berlin students have carried out other Scarlet Pimpernel activities—ventures that have come to light only, as a rule, after being discovered by East German security officials. Early last January, a few days before Erwin Becker had built his private tunnel, the S.S.D. uncovered an attempt by students to dig a tunnel under a subway station on the border. “Willy Brandt’s moles,” as the East German newspapers called the students, had failed to shore up the sides and roof of the passage with timbers heavy enough to withstand the vibrations of the trains rolling overhead, and the shaft caved in about twenty feet from the entrance. This caused the platform on the East Berlin side of the station to sag about four feet, which, in turn, led the perplexed maintenance employees to discover the students’ ill-fated attempt to build what