‘It’ll be a fantastic trip,’ I said. ‘I’ve never been farther than Belgium.’

We bought knapsacks and lined our clothes with fur and flannel. We crammed in as many boxes with vitamins as we could, since we had been told to bring them. The call-up notices also instructed us to take camping mugs. Dave was hoping to buy them downtown. I caught up with him just as he was about to turn the corner.

‘I’ll go with you,’ I said. ‘They won’t be easy to find.’

‘You think so?’ asked Dave. ‘We’ll see.’

In the first shop we passed, we saw only ceramic mugs. ‘Those are sure to get broken on the way,’ said Dave. In the next shop they had camping mugs, but he found them too small. ‘They’ll hardly hold anything,’ he said.

Finally, we came to a shop where they had the kind of mugs that Dave had in mind. They were large collapsible red mugs.

‘What do you think we’ll be using them for?’ Dave asked me.

‘All kinds of liquids, sir,’ said the sales assistant. ‘Milk and coffee, served hot, or wine and lemonade. These mugs are of excellent quality, the colour won’t rub off, and they don’t have a funny taste. Moreover, they’re also guaranteed unbreakable.’

‘We’ll take three,’ said Dave. ‘Do they only come in red?’

‘Yes,’ said the assistant, ‘only in red, but that’s very cheerful for camping.’

‘You’re right,’ said Dave. We left the shop, with Dave carrying the mugs that the assistant had wrapped into a neat package.

‘Too bad that cafés and restaurants are off-limits to us,’ he said, ‘otherwise we could have had coffee somewhere in the city and tried out our new mugs.’

‘They should be washed first,’ I said.

On the way home we bumped into Mr Zaagmeier. ‘We’ve bought mugs,’ Dave told him. ‘Three red camping mugs, one for each of us.’

‘Did you get a call-up notice too?’ asked Mr Zaagmeier. ‘Oh dear, my son did as well. I’m on my way to see if anything can be done.’

‘Why bother?’ asked Dave. ‘It won’t do any good.’

‘Come with me,’ said Mr Zaagmeier. ‘Do come with me. I know someone. Maybe he can arrange something for you too.’

‘We’ve already packed,’ I said.

Mr Zaagmeier took us to the man he knew.

‘I’ll help you,’ the man said, ‘provided you do exactly what I tell you to.’

‘Too bad,’ Dave said once again. ‘We’ve already packed, sewn vitamins into every bit of clothing and we’ve just bought camping mugs.’

‘If you go, you’ll never come back,’ said the man. ‘Be sensible.’

‘We’ll get arrested if we don’t report,’ I said.

‘Just do as I tell you,’ said the man. ‘Come to my place at nine o’clock this evening.’

Neither of us spoke on the way home, until Dave finally said, ‘I don’t understand why people are trying to scare us. What else will possibly happen to us?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘what else?’

‘And to think we could have seen something of the world,’ he said.