The crowds were packed into every street, every lane. Johannes crashed into them and tried to push through, but not even a crack opened to him. As he struggled, a hand grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back, threw him roughly to the ground. A French soldier.

Claus von Rolt’s voice: ‘He’s the one!’

Wesley Lewis Jr stood beside him, hands on his knees, looking up but breathing hard from the pursuit.

All Johannes could see were legs and boots. He tried to get to his feet but was kicked in the stomach, hard enough that all the air was punched out of his lungs. Then he was slapped across the head and dragged along the cobblestones by his coat collar. The coat ripped at the shoulder stitching and one of his shoes came off.

Somebody said, ‘What’d he do?’

‘A rioter!’

‘No!’ Johannes said. He couldn’t believe what was happening to him. He wasn’t thinking of the seashell, of being caught in the house; it was that they’d already tried to sweep him up before, the authorities, gather him in their net, his friends too, for war, for death, for the Fatherland. He was a poet, not a soldier, never!

Johannes was pulled up onto his feet. Two French soldiers had him by the arms and more of them stood around. Some of the crowd had heard the commotion and they turned now to see Johannes in the hands of the French. Their compatriot and the enemy. A whisper began, more heads turned, and then a few people approached the soldiers.

The French, battle-worn but sharp to the changing atmosphere, closed ranks. Muskets were unslung and bayonets pointed. More of the crowd turned, more faces frowned, the whispers grew louder. A young man jumped out and waved his fist.

‘Verdammte Französische fotzen!’

The blow from the stock of a soldier’s musket knocked him to the ground.

Now the crowd hesitated, shocked. The moment shaped itself to each individual fear. The French soldiers, who’d marched hundreds of miles and knew every kind of fear there was, waited, firm, resolute. Johannes raised his head, grimacing in pain, saw his countrymen step back and dissolve into the larger crowd behind them, still waving and cheering for Napoleon Bonaparte.

AGITATOR

Twelve days later, Sous-lieutenant Hubert Pessac, the new prison commandant in Berlin, ran his finger down a list of names written in the ledger open before him on the desk. The list recorded everyone arrested in the city on 27 October 1806. There were twenty-two names in total, written in a slanting script. He dragged his finger down and found the next entry.

Meyer, Johannes, eighteen, Hirtengaße.

Pessac called for the man, and his sergeant went out to bring the prisoner up from the cells.