If Germany were beaten back in the beginning, if the task she had
undertaken proved too heavy, this was the province that was sure to feel
the first brunt of invasion. Behind him, to the east, Fred knew were the
great masses of Russia, moving slowly, but with a terrible, always
increasing force. No wonder these people were stirring, were sending out
all their men to drive back the huge power that lay so near them, a
constant menace!
But now, though he did not know it, Fred was approaching real danger for
the first time. Many of the motors he saw and heard were going west.
Though he could not guess it, they were carrying women and children away
from the old houses that were too much exposed, too directly in the path
of a possible invasion for the helpless ones to be left in them when the
men had gone to fight. All Germany had to be defended. It happened to be
the part of East Prussia to bear invasion, if it came to that.
And so the people of the great houses were making their migration. The
men went to their regiments; the women to Berlin, and to the great
fortresses that lay nearer than Berlin--Koenigsberg, Danzig, Thorn.
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