Word: rucksacks
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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DeCarlo was the kind of sailor who would have given Conrad a Bronx cheer; that is, if DeCarlo had read books. He had sailed a lot, but had really "never traveled." He had "America lashed onto him like a rucksack and he spread it out in the handiest spot." He had smuggled 1,700 cartons of Pall Mall cigarettes aboard ship, and he was going to spread them out on the Bangkok black market. His modest objective: enough cash to start a used-car business back in the States and quit the sea for good...
From this tough base Maclean set out to enjoy himself. Between 1937 and 1939, dressed in an old suit and carrying a rucksack, he explored thousands of miles of the Soviet Union, all the way from the Urals to the borders of Chinese Sinkiang and Afghanistan. Maclean broke into many a forbidden area by the simple expedient of quietly climbing aboard the appropriate train. Provincial units of the NKVD were often too bewildered by Maclean's sudden appearances to know just what to do about him. When they put agents on his trail, Maclean went complacently about his sightseeing...
...farmhouse and seized Farmer Merkel. He was beaten and kicked until he signed a paper admitting that he was a "saboteur" and agreed to resign his local offices n the Christian Democratic Party. that night, Merkel and his wife and daughter left their snug farm and, carring only a rucksack apiece, set out on foot for the safety of the West...