A Book of Railway Journeys

by Ludovic Kennedy

  In the afternoon of that second day, the train was stopped again, and the guards came in and gave us some food. After all, they said, we were workers! One small loaf of hard black bread was divided among ten of us. And some oily liquid from raw fish was given out. People gulped down the horrid stuff without tasting it, and then they were nauseated by the salt water and entrails. I did not have any. I ate the thin piece of bread given to me, which only served to make me more hungry and aware of the starvation-shrunken faces about me. The poor people who had eaten the fish oil were sick through the night; the sounds of their retching and gagging continued for hours.

  We spent five days travelling in the railway truck. The last night we stopped at another rail siding. I could hear people tramping about outside. Suddenly, I felt the car shake as explosions rumbled and crashed in the distance. I could make no sense of these sounds for a long time, and then I thought they must be bombs. Bombs! From Allied planes. What if they bombed this train—how could they know it was filled with people? The explosions seemed to come nearer. One bomb falling quickly on this truck: we would all go, Nazis and prisoners alike, all the miserable people in the world. Chanka awoke and we hugged each other.

  “What is it? Are the Germans killing us?”

  “It’s a bomber, I think. It must be the British. The enem—I mean the British—are coming, I’m sure.” To call the Allies the enemy! I was ashamed of my words, but after so many years as a German prisoner, working for them, listening to them, and being told what to believe, I had almost come to think of the Allies as the enemy. I resolved not to make the same mistake again. The bombing passed and the night was silent once more. A day and another night we were by the siding. The engine of the train seemed to have been taken away, for I could hear no hissing steam, no mechanical life of any kind. Aside from the black bread, we had had nothing for about six days, by my hazy count. People were dying at a greater rate than before. Less than half the original seventy remained alive in our car.

  The final solution. Jewish prisoners being taken to a concentration camp.

  The next morning, the doors were flung open and we were counted and beaten in the usual manner. But this time, when the SS men left, the doors were left open. We looked out dully. On the other side of the tracks stretched a wide, flat field. It was a potato field, and here and there the wind had blown away the snow, leaving the hard, brown earth exposed. At the near edge of the field, a small boy was walking through the snow. He was thickly bundled against the February cold, and concentrated so hard on walking that he did not even notice us staring at him. He held a large wicker basket of potatoes in his hand. I thought I was in some kind of odd dream, where even the innocent passing of a child was twisted into the most acute suffering imaginable. We began shouting weakly to the little boy to come over and give us his basket. Cracked voices strained in shrunken throats. The wind sang and blew away our croakings, but at last the boy stopped and turned and looked at us in amazement. We could not realize how terrible we must have looked to him. Frightened by such apparitions from the grave, he dropped the basket and ran across the fields and soon was gone.

  Lying scattered in the field were some potatoes. A huge German guard put his head in the car. “Go ahead,” he smiled. “Go on—get them. You need them.” He waved to us casually. “There they are,” he said, pointing to the potatoes lying in the snow. Vaguely, a warning sounded in the back of my mind, but no matter—we must have food!

  As if moved by the same hand, we started for the wide doors. Just outside, the guards laughed and talked among themselves. I got up, then fell back, stunned by my weakness. I could barely stand. Others were finding the same thing true, and figures wobbled and flopped on the floor, then started crawling and clawing at each other as they fought their way to the door and dropped over the edge to the ground. I was too weak. I dragged myself half-way across the floor then collapsed and could not move any farther.

  About fifteen people were able to get through the doors. They gathered their strength and started running silently across the field, a stumbling group of the dead, intent upon some cold, raw potatoes. I watched helplessly. They would have the food for themselves, and I would go hungry again! Laughing and cackling, they fell on the ground, grovelling after the potatoes and pulling at one another to wrest the food from desperate fingers. And then the machine guns started up. The truck shook and shuddered and filled with acrid smoke. People were crying out again in fear and anguish, and the field was filled with falling bodies and the snow stained with blood. The guards shouted—what, what were they shouting? What was it they screamed so lustily? “Go ahead. Get the potatoes.”

  I looked round wildly for Chanka. She was lying against the wall of the car. She had not seen the potatoes.

  The guards killed everyone in the field. Those who were as weak as I and unable to run for the food barely understood the awful quirk of fate that we should survive because of our own weakness.

  At last, we were removed from the train and assembled. No one, as far as I could see, had survived the trip in the open cars. And less than a third of our car had survived.

  SALA PAWLOWICZ with KEVIN KLOSE,

  I Will Survive

  An escape in Canada

  Franz von Werra of the German Luftwaffe was shot down over Britain in his Messerschmidt on September 5, 1940. After two unsuccessful attempts to escape from a British prison camp, he was transferred to Canada. There he planned to make a further escape from the train that was taking him into the interior.

  Von Werra decided that it would be best to try to escape as late as possible in the journey. This would give a chance for the excitement of any other escape attempt to die down. Above all, he did not want to get off the train in the backwoods. The point where he escaped must be reasonably close to the U.S. border, within reach of main roads, and not too far from human habitation. The obvious choice was somewhere between Montreal and Ottawa.

  There was no chance of getting out of the lavatory window. The door was wedged wide open and a guard stood near the doorway all the time the prisoner was inside. It would have to be the coach window. But with a guard standing only a few yards away, this looked impossible.

  The attempt would have to be made while the train was in motion. As soon as it stopped, at signals or in stations, the three guards on duty in the coach were immediately on the alert, and other guards kept both sides of the train under observation. The other prisoners would have to stage a diversion at the critical time for the benefit of the three guards on duty; a quarrel farther along the coach might be the thing.

  Owing to the height of the window above the floor, and the narrowness of the aperture, he could not jump out feet first, but would have to dive out, head first. But to do so while the train was travelling at speed would be suicidal. He would have to choose a moment when the train was travelling slowly, preferably just after it started following a halt. He would need the cover of darkness; the best time would be shortly before dawn.

  But how was he to get the windows opened unnoticed? He observed that when the train halted for any length of time, the heat inside the coach partly melted the frost on the inner panes and the ice on the frame between them. After a long stop it should be possible to open the inner window fairly easily. If he opened it just a little way—less than a centimetre would do—the heat from the carriage would melt some of the ice on the frame between the two windows, and make it possible to open the outer window.

  After the next long halt this plan was put into effect. Wagner stood up and kept an eye on the guards while von Werra, hidden by the backs of the seats, knelt down in front of the window and raised it a quarter of an inch. He wedged it with paper in case the vibration of the train closed it again.

  Thereafter, whenever a guard happened to pass by the bay in which they were sitting, von Werra or Wagner would lay his arm negligently along the window sill, thus concealing the opening.

  During the next long halt they had the satisfaction of seeing water fr
om the melting ice trickle from the gap.

  The volume of ice between the windows was greatly reduced in the next twenty-four hours. The process of freeing the frame would probably be accelerated if the coach temperature was raised to maximum. Von Werra therefore arranged with other prisoners to open all heat regulators to “Full” as soon as the train left Montreal.

  There were several other difficulties to overcome: how to keep watch on three guards at once and to open the window when their attention was distracted; how to conceal the open window; how to shut both windows afterwards, for it would make all the difference if his disappearance were not discovered for some time; he must be wearing his overcoat when he dived out, but how, having been sitting in his shirt-sleeves, could he put it on without arousing the guards’ curiosity?

  An escaper must have luck, and luck solved most of these problems for von Werra.

  The train reached Montreal late the following night. There was a long halt during which the heat was cut off while the locomotive was changed. The temperature in the coach dropped rapidly, and thus it was quite natural for the regulators to be fully opened when the heating was reconnected.

  At the evening meal that night they had tomato soup, goulash, and a whole case of dessert apples. The prisoners were starved of fresh fruit, and they ate the lot.

  This surfeit of apples following the unaccustomedly rich and plentiful food of the past twenty-four hours proved too much for their systems. In von Werra’s coach from midnight onwards there was a long queue for the toilet, and some of the traffic had to be diverted to the guards’ toilet at the other end of the coach. The three guards on duty were highly amused. Their attention was diverted, and at times there was only one guard left in the coach.

  In spite of the stifling heat in the coach, one or two of the prisoners, white-faced and shivering from sickness, wrapped their coats or blankets about them, and sat hugging their stomachs. Von Werra was able to put on his overcoat without arousing the slightest suspicion. Afterwards he sat with his head in his hands. The guards were not expecting any of the prisoners to escape in their present condition.

  But the train would not slow down. It went on and on exasperatingly at high speed. It was hours before the brakes were applied with a gradually increased pressure that indicated a coming halt at a station.

  Through his fingers von Werra glanced at his three companions. All were wide awake and looking at him questioningly. Manhard and Wilhelm sat facing one another in the seats beside the gangway, each watching a guard. Their thumbs protruded from the blankets above their knees. Von Werra watched those thumbs. One thumb was horizontal, the other vertical.

  Now both were sticking up. Von Werra stood up, opened out his blanket and shook it. Wagner knelt down behind it in front of the window. A second later he was back in his seat. Von Werra finished folding his blanket and sat down again.

  The inner window was wide open. No word had been spoken.

  The train stopped at a station. The remaining ice on the window frame and the frost on the glass were now fully exposed to the heat of the carriage. The guards stretched their limbs on the platform. The frost quickly melted on von Werra’s outer window; through it he could see their silhouettes, massive against the station lights. If he could see them, they could see him. All the other windows were pearl-grey and opaque from frost. His was black and must be as noticeable as a gap in a row of teeth!

  Would the guards spot it? The minutes dragged interminably. The halt was much too long.

  A bell clanged, the engine whistle sounded. The guards climbed aboard, banging the snow off their boots on the steps. Two of them got in the prisoners’ end of the coach and had to walk back down the gangway to their seats. They would have to pass the defrosted window. Von Werra held his breath, keeping his head in his hands, peering between his fingers. The train was already moving. The first guard passed by looking straight ahead. The second approached more slowly. He was feeling his way. His spectacles were misted and he was squinting over the rims. He passed by.

  Von Werra glanced at his friends. They were ready.

  There were several prisoners now with raised hands, for during the halt there had been no visits to the toilet. A guard escorted the first man out. Two guards were left.

  The train clanked and lurched over points outside the station. It was gathering speed rapidly. Manhard’s thumb was up.

  Wagner, holding two corners of his blanket in his lap, looked at von Werra in anxious inquiry. Von Werra nodded. Wagner stood up, and opened out the blanket. Wilhelm slid along into Wagner’s corner seat.

  Masked by the blanket, von Werra stood up, caught hold of the outer window, and jerked upwards. It did not move. Another fierce jerk and then a steady, sustained lift. The window opened smoothly.

  A rush of cold air pressed the blanket against Wagner’s body. He continued to shake the corners up and down, looking up the coach towards the two guards.

  Von Werra felt the icy blast on his face, heard the unexpectedly loud and hollow beat of the wheels over the rail joints. Snowdrifts flashed by at a terrifying speed. The train was still accelerating.

  It was sheer madness. Suicide. He couldn’t possibly do it.

  The next moment Wilhelm saw von Werra’s jack-boots disappear through the middle of the open window. For a split second, which he will never forget, he saw von Werra’s body, rigid, arms straight out above his head, suspended almost horizontally a foot or so outside the coach.

  It dropped back and was gone. There was nothing but the icy draught and the whine and the beat of the wheels on the rails.

  Wilhelm shut the outer and inner windows and slid back along the seat. Wagner folded the blanket deliberately, slowly, and sat down.

  No word was spoken.

  All three were aghast, incredulous.

  A few brief seconds ago von Werra had been sitting there with his head in his hands. Now he was gone.

  The three of them watched ferns of frost sprout rapidly over the window. Inside a minute the glass was completely covered. It was as though the window had never been opened.

  They never saw von Werra again. They had not even had time to wish him luck.

  At daybreak, Major Cramer, who was officer-in-charge of the prisoners in that coach, walked down the gangway to see how the men who had been ill during the night were getting on. When he reached the bay occupied by Wagner, Manhard and Wilhelm, he paused. All three were lying on their bunks. Von Werra’s was empty. He raised his eyebrows interrogatively. Wagner nodded his head slowly.

  Cramer passed on, smiling.

  It was not until late the following afternoon that von Werra’s absence was discovered. The train was then several hundred miles from the point where he had dived out of the window.

  KENDAL BURT AND

  JAMES LEASOR,

  The One That Got Away

  Von Werra succeeded in crossing the border, and eventually reached New York City. He flew back to Europe from Rio in an Italian flying-boat, and on arrival in Germany was received by Hitler. On October 25, 1941, on a mission over the North Sea, he was killed when his plane developed engine trouble and crashed into the sea.

  TROOP TRAIN

  It stops the town we come through. Workers raise

  Their oily arms in good salute and grin.

  Kids scream as at a circus. Business men

  Glance hopefully and go their measured way.

  And women standing at their dumbstruck door

  More slowly wave and seem to warn us back,

  As if a tear blinding the course of war

  Might once dissolve our iron in their sweet wish.

  Fruit of the world, O clustered on ourselves

  We hang as from a cornucopia

  In total friendliness, with faces bunched

  To spray the streets with catcalls and with leers.

  A bottle smashes on the moving ties

  And eyes fixed on a lady smiling pink

  Stretch like a rubber-band and snap and s
ting

  The mouth that wants the drink-of-water kiss.

  And on through crummy continents and days,

  Deliberate, grimy, slightly drunk we crawl,

  The good-bad boys of circumstance and chance,

  Whose bucket-helmets bang the empty wall

  Where twist the murdered bodies of our packs

  Next to the guns that only seem themselves.

  And distance like a strap adjusted shrinks,

  Tightens across the shoulder and holds firm.

  Here is a deck of cards; out of this hand

  Dealer, deal me my luck, a pair of bulls,

  The right draw to a flush, the one-eyed jack.

  Diamonds and hearts are red but spades are black,

  And spades are spades and clubs are clovers—black.

  But deal me winners, souvenirs of peace.

  This stands to reason and arithmetic,

  Luck also travels and not all come back.

  Trains lead to ships and ships to death or trains,

  And trains to death or trucks, and trucks to death,

  Or trucks lead to the march, the march to death,

  Or that survival which is all our hope;

  And death leads back to trucks and trains and ships,

  But life leads to the march, O flag! at last

  The place of life found after trains and death

  —Nightfall of nations brilliant after war.

  KARL SHAPIRO

  Capture of an ammunition train

  I forget which of us it was who found the ammunition train. There were two of them, as a matter of fact, lying forlornly in a railway siding outside the town of Larissa. Larissa in the great empty plain of Thessaly was the main British supply base in northern Greece, from which, in April 1941, we were withdrawing under heavy German pressure.