The plan was simple. A Russian colonel had a package for us

Their proposal seemed simple. There was an asset, a Russian colonel, working for us deep inside East Germany and he had a package that we needed brought out. “There is no question of trying to pass for a German,” they told me, “so no refresher course. Just a question of a British tourist slipping inside and bringing something out.”

Then it began to be not quite so simple. The colonel could get no further than Dresden, which was a long way inside East Germany. It would have to be by car because the package would have to be concealed far from prying hands and eyes. Besides, there was another package for the asset which had to go in. So, a swap. One in and one out.

They knew I had a Triumph Vitesse drophead convertible. Could they borrow it for a day or so? Of course. I had to leave the car outside my apartment with the keys under the floor mat. I never saw who took it or returned it. It just vanished and reappeared, but slightly different.

The battery in the Vitesse sat on a tray beside the left-hand wall of the engine. Two metal clips prevented it moving and a thick rubber pad prevented vibrations. This pad had been removed, slit open and a cavity created.

Peel the rubber pad open and there was the fat wad of papers destined for the asset and the cavity in which his reports (whatever they were I would never know) would ride out of the workers’ paradise.

My cover for visiting Dresden was the Albertinum museum, East Germany’s cultural jewel amazingly untouched by the Anglo-American bombing of February 1945. Graeco-Roman treasures were my new enthusiasm.

IT WAS a long drive across France and West Germany and on to the autobahn through East Germany to the enclave of West Berlin, where I picked up the tourist visa allowing me to cross the Wall and travel south to Dresden.

My Berlin handler, Philip (a pseudonym, of course), secured the final OK from London, meaning the asset was ready and I was cleared to roll.

I had not seen Checkpoint Charlie for 10 years but it was much the same. Foreigners queued as usual by the checking sheds while mirrors on wheels were run under the chassis to scan for contraband. The border guard assigned to me looked around the engine bay but touched nothing. The battery pad had passed its first test.

My small valise had been emptied and searched inside the shed and, that apart, the boot contained nothing so I was allowed to replace it and slam the lid shut.

I had memorised the route through the southern outskirts of East Berlin towards the Dresden autobahn. Of course there was the second border check — the one to get you out of East Berlin and into rural East Germany. Then it was the open road.

I had no doubt that if the Stasi secret police were not going to tail me all the way, there would be checkpoints along the route at which the dark blue Triumph with British numberplates would be “clocked” and noted. And there was just one hotel in Dresden where I was expected and where a reservation had been made.

The hotel was clearly marked on my street map and I was installed by mid-afternoon. Its car park was underground.

There seemed to be no one watching, though I had no doubt my room was bugged, telephone ditto, and that it would be searched while I was at dinner. So I left the package under the battery pad until the morning.

There was no point in going out to wander the streets. My brass-buttoned blazer yelled “Englishman”, so I stayed in and studied the two books I had brought with me on the Albertinum.

Not entirely unnaturally, I slept lightly and woke early. The meet was for two o’clock inside the museum. I breakfasted at eight and checked out at nine.

In deference to Alfred Hitchcock I always called the package the McGuffin, his word for a misleading plot device. At half past nine I ducked down into the garage, waited until another hotel guest drove out, clipped open the bonnet, removed the McGuffin, slipped it into my blazer pocket, replaced the battery, reconnected it and closed up.

Then it was a leisurely walk to the museum. At five to two I was engrossed in shards of pottery and occasionally looking out for a single man with a dark red tie and black stripes. A few seconds after two he turned into my aisle.

Germans usually do not have Slavic features; this one did. And the tie. I saw his glance settle upon my own: dark blue with white polka dots. Sometimes the simplest way is the best way. “Entschuldigung [excuse me],” I asked a curator in uniform. “Where is the men’s room?” He was politeness itself and pointed out the Herren sign.

No eye contact with Chummy standing 10ft away. He should know the “meet” would be in the toilet. So I wandered away towards it, entered, relieved myself and was washing my hands when he entered.

Apart from us it was empty and all the stall doors were open. He too began to wash his hands. So two noisy streams of water. His turn.

In German: “Excuse me, did we not meet in Potsdam?”

“Yes, I was there last April.”

Enough. No one else was talking this garbage in Dresden that morning. I nodded to two adjacent stalls. He took one, I took the other. Under the cubicle partition came a fat package of paper. I took mine and slid it the other way.

I defy anyone to resist the small worm of anxiety in the pit of the stomach at that moment. Is the place about to be invaded by screaming hordes of goons with drawn pistols, handcuffs, clouts about the head? Even the silence seems menacing.

Nothing happened. Chummy left the booth and I heard the outer door slam shut. I have never seen him since. I hope he is all right. There were still 18 years of the USSR to go and the KGB had a very nasty procedure for traitors.

There were a few more hours to kill until dusk, for I wanted to motor in darkness. The visa expired at midnight and the way to the West was not back via East Berlin but southwest to the River Saale, one of the few tourist-approved crossing points. Philip would be waiting across the border in Bayreuth.

Back at the hotel I collected my valise with assurances of having had a wonderful time in Dresden and copious compliments on the superb Albertinum museum. Then down to the car park. But there was a large conference party checking in.

Too many people. If I was seen waist-deep in my own engine bay, there might be offers of help, the last thing I needed. I kept the McGuffin in my breast pocket, got into the Triumph, which was attracting curious glances, and drove out. Darkness was descending. I took the signs pointing to the Gera Kreuz, the autobahn junction where the highway turned south to the Bavarian border.

It was pitch dark when I saw the layby in the headlights and, as I had hoped, the road was almost empty. I eased to the right, slid up the shallow ramp until the pine trees enveloped me and stopped. Lights out. Wait, have a cigarette. Relax.

There was a small spanner in the glove compartment. Not enough to arouse suspicion but vital for the nuts on the battery leads. I got out, opened the bonnet and used my spanner to ease the first nut. There was no need for a torch, the sickle moon was enough.

At that moment the layby was flooded with a harsh white light. A car had cruised up the ramp behind me, its headlights undipped. I slipped the spanner into my pocket and stood up.

The car behind was a Wartburg saloon and I could see its livery: green and cream, the insignia of the Volkspolizei, the People’s Police, the VoPos. There were four of them climbing out. The reason they had come off the autobahn made itself plain when one of them faced the woods and unzipped his fly. A comfort break but that bursting bladder might prove to be their lucky night.

The senior of them was a top NCO, what I took to be the Unteroffizier. The other two examined my car curiously while their colleague urinated. The NCO held out his hand. “Ausweis, bitte.” The “please” was good news, still polite. I dropped into Bertie Wooster mode — the hapless English tourist, completely lost and very dim. Halting German, awful accent.

I had first developed my Wooster persona as a young Reuters correspondent loitering in the Parisian bars frequented by men who wanted to kill President Charles de Gaulle. Affecting to speak little French, I was assumed by both bar staff and customers not to understand what they were talking about. The reverse was the case.

In the years since then Bertie had got me out of a lot of trouble. The harmless fool with a British passport is what Europeans want to see and believe.

The NCO examined the passport page by page by the light of a torch from his pocket. He saw the East German visa. “Why are you stopped here?”

“It just stopped, Officer. I don’t know why. Just motoring along and it starts to cough, then cut out. I had just enough speed to get here before it stopped.”

The Germans are probably the best engineers in the world but they know it and love to be told it. Even East German engineering. So I laid the flattery on with a trowel: “I cannot understand engines, Officer. So I do not know what to look for. And I have no torch. You Germans are so brilliant at this . . . I don’t suppose you could have a look?”

The urinator took the torch and went into the engine bay. Inside my breast pocket the fat pack of papers was beginning to feel like a tombstone, which it could turn out to be if I was ordered to empty all my pockets.

Then there was a shout of triumph and the engineer straightened up. He was holding up in his right hand the disconnected battery lead, illuminated in the torch beam. “Hat sich gelöst,” he shouted. “It just shook itself off.”

Then it was all grins of pleasure. Point proved. Germans are better. I was handing round Rothmans, much appreciated. The car kicked at once into life. Bertie Wooster was beside himself with gratitude. Bonnet down and locked. Salutes all round. Please, Mein Herr, on your way.

An hour further on I did it again and this time was not disturbed. At half past 11 I rolled into the arc lights and customs sheds at the Saale crossing. And there it was thorough. Boot, engine bay, high-powered flashlights into every crevice.

Inside the customs shed, pocket and body search. I was the only crosser; I had their undivided attention and I suppose they were bored. Excess cash handed over, passport taken to a back room, muffled sounds of phone calls. Eventually, with expressions of disappointment on their faces, the curt nod. Proceed.

Back then the East Germans had a trick. Their border point was a quarter of a mile inside East Germany. After the lifting of what looked like the last pole there was a long slow cruise at only 10 kilometres per hour down the last stretch. It was bordered both sides by a chain-link fence. Unclimbable. And watch towers with machineguns.

Finally, at the end, another barrier. Behind it the West Germans were watching, field glasses on the approaching car. No shout. The barrier finally jerks into action.

I was very late into Bayreuth and found Philip at the railway cafe. He seemed distraught. He thought he had lost me. I was touched.