“We must be getting near the border, mustn’t we?’ I cast about in my dimly
remembered geography lessons for the relationship between the various north
European countries. “Yes, we’ll soon be in Germany, but the German customs
people are very fussy with loads like this. It may take some time at the
border post.’

He was right. He disappeared into the customs office with a sheaf of
documents, including my passport, and left me to my own devices. I couldn’t
leave the border area, of course, so I sat around, stood around, tried to
read all the notices in French and German on the walls, and finally settled
myself as comfortably as possible in a delapidated old armchair in a corner
and fell sound asleep.