by Rosemary Say
That was it. We were going the following night. We sat down to plan our route. We knew from the workmen that there was an early morning train for Épinal, just a few miles away. From the map it looked as if we would have to go further north from there on a branch line to the large town of Nancy. And from Nancy there was a direct train south to Besançon. Our route seemed to involve a lot of travelling and changing of trains. We would have to place our trust in Alain’s assurance that there really were no German controls on the train, even in this part of Occupied France so close to the German border.
How could we make sure that our three room-mates weren’t blamed for our escape? They needed an alibi of sorts for the evening. Penelope, who was organizing the sets and costumes for the Christmas pantomime, suggested that Shula and Olga work in the main foyer helping Sofka to design costumes. She calculated that anyone around would also assume that she was working with them, given that she had made such a fuss about being in charge of the whole thing.
We were right to be concerned about our friends, as the Kommandant did indeed take retribution on them. But, as we learnt some years later, the girls succeeded in turning his punishment into a farce. Once our absence was noticed, they were called to the Kommandant’s office. They claimed ignorance of our movements. Regardless of this, they were escorted by two sentries to a small guard house and locked up with a sentry on duty outside. They were to stay there until they were ready to inform the Kommandant of our whereabouts. There was one outside lavatory, which they used in a constant procession throughout the night, banging on the door to waken the sentry every few minutes. He had to unlock the door and accompany them one after the other to the outhouse. In the morning they hung out of the windows shouting for food. By sheer chance there was a Red Cross delegation due that afternoon and the Kommandant could not afford this unwelcome diversion. They were all let out.
The last thing we needed to work out was how to make sure that our escape went undetected by the authorities for as long as possible. After all, I worked every morning at the Kommandant’s office – my absence there would be queried immediately. We decided that the best thing was for me to take to my bed. The following day after I finished work, Frida would pass the word to the office that I had gone down with food poisoning. That should give me a couple of days’ grace. We also had to have someone to cover for both of us at the morning roll call, which was a bit of a mumbling occasion. I found Shula drawing by the steps of our hotel. She wasn’t particularly surprised at my news.
‘I’ll miss you terribly, Patachoun,’ she said, holding my hand. ‘But you’ll succeed. Forget you’re English once you’re out of here. Talk and think in French. You speak it like a native anyway.’ Paradoxically, her optimism made me feel defensive and defeatist.
‘But we don’t even look French. What about my height? And teeth? I look more German, if anything.’
‘You’ll be fine. Switzerland’s not far.’
‘Oh, I don’t know if we’re doing the right thing, Shula. What about my parents? Should I put them through any more? It might be months before they get any word from us. They’ll be worried stiff.’
I was, in truth, beginning to panic about the escape. Whether we would succeed was all a question of chance: either we would be lucky or we would be dispatched to work in a German munitions factory. After all, we had no false papers and not much money. We weren’t even sure if we could travel on the trains. And my cough! It came in waves – a hard, barking sound. It made me feel very conspicuous.
I went to bed that night dreaming I was a child again, walking over the Norfolk fields and shouting at my family to wait for me. My jacket had caught on a barbed wire fence and I couldn’t move. I woke up in the dark of early morning and lay in bed worrying. I knew that there was no backing down. We had made our decision. We were going that night.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Escape
I had long planned how to get our passports from the Kommandant’s office. I knew I was trusted with routine paperwork and felt I could easily pick them up without anybody querying why I was there and what I was doing. That morning, almost fainting with tension and fear, I walked over to the cupboard in the anteroom and quietly removed our passports. There were hundreds of other documents there. Ours would never be missed until we were well away from the camp.
‘Fräulein Say. Can you file these papers please?’
I turned round. A soldier was staring at me and holding a raft of documents. I must have looked like a dead fish gaping at the man.
‘Are you all right, Fräulein?’
With a huge effort I closed my mouth and smiled. ‘Of course,’ I said, taking the papers and putting them with the passports. I walked out of the room. I couldn’t help feeling that as an escapee I had some way to go in the confidence stakes.
Later that afternoon Alain confirmed to us that as far as he knew the Germans had not, as yet, put any checks on passengers for the Épinal train. ‘You’ll have to settle in the outhouse before curfew,’ he said as he handed us the keys. ‘There’ll be a few minutes for you to get away when the sentries do their changeover.’
I couldn’t help one last moan. ‘Alain, we’re going to freeze lying in there.’
‘Well, with a bit of luck the sentries will think the same way and toddle off to the guardroom for a hot drink and some warmth,’ Frida countered quickly. She grabbed her coat and a piece of paper and strode towards the door.
‘Anyway, I’d better go and see our friend Servais,’ she said. ‘He’d be really suspicious if I didn’t turn up for our daily musical battle. Nothing must seem out of the ordinary on the day we escape. Let’s leave with one more small triumph against Nazi propaganda. See you later.’
With a smile she was gone. Frida had taken it upon herself to provide a daily list of suggested music to be played over the tannoy of the camp. Although Jewish composers such as Mendelssohn were still banned, she tried to get as many Polish or Russian pieces played as possible. Her latest success was Borodin. That Germany was now at war with the Soviet Union had apparently not been noticed by Servais.
When she got back we made final preparations alone in our room. We parcelled out our remaining possessions for the others, left them a note saying that we were just about in our right minds and set off downstairs. At the entrance to the hotel we met one of the British women who helped to run the camp. She looked at us with obvious disdain.
‘You realize that it’s nearly seven, I presume? The curfew whistle will be going in a few minutes. Make sure you’re back on time.’
‘We’re just going to get some air, Miss Short,’ I said. ‘We’ll be back.’ We slipped into the Casino where Penelope was already waiting for us.
‘Quick, you two,’ she whispered. ‘The chorus girls are still rehearsing in the hall. Let’s hide here.’
We stayed in the shadows. We had forgotten about the chorus girls. In a matter of minutes they put out the lights and left. We heard the curfew whistle. In pitch dark we tiptoed to the outhouse. Penelope unlocked the communicating door and went inside. We heard her trip and swear quietly.
‘Wait a sec,’ she said. We could vaguely make out her figure as she felt her way around. We heard something shift. ‘Watch out. There’s coal everywhere.’
We hadn’t asked ourselves beforehand what a coal bunker was really like to spend the night in. Now we knew: there were mountains and valleys of the stuff. Frida went in and set off what seemed like an avalanche.
‘Damn, this stuff here’s coke not coal. It slides about if it’s even touched.’
The three of us found an empty bit of floor and sat down gingerly. We daren’t lean against the coal, for fear of setting it off. The floor was too dirty to lie on. So we had to sit bolt upright.
‘We’ve got ages ahead of us,’ Penelope whispered. ‘I don’t know if I can stay like this. The freezing cold will give us cramp.’
But there was no point in complaining – we were going to be here for about ten hours.
Had the sentries heard the noise from the coal? We had to stay still and quiet all night. Somehow this didn’t seem the most heroic of escapes. I began to doze, fitfully waking up as I toppled over in my sleep.
‘Pat!’ Frida hissed. She pinched her nose. ‘You’re snoring.’
I looked at my watch. It was just gone eleven. I didn’t sleep or even doze again that night. I started to get awful cramp in my calves and did some foot-curling exercises to try to get some circulation going. My toes were numb. I started to worry about my cough. Shula had given me a packet of lozenges from the nuns’ pharmacy and I got through the whole lot. I survived the wait without a serious bout of coughing. In retrospect, I think that my worries about cramp and bronchitis helped me to get through the night. They certainly diverted my mind away from fear or boredom.
As dawn approached I was wide awake with my mind racing. This really was the beginning of my journey home. I could see my parents’ front door. I imagined myself walking up the road to Hampstead Heath. Just then I heard the sentries not far off. They were laughing and slapping their arms against their bodies to keep warm. Frida listened intently to hear what they were saying. Their voices faded away. She nodded.
This was our opportunity. We had been banking on the fact that they would go to the guardroom to have a drink and get warm. The handover to their replacements would probably take a few minutes. Frida moved cautiously. She stifled a yell of cramp pain and eased up to the window above her head. She groaned.
‘Damn! It’s all off,’ she whispered. ‘It’s been snowing. They’ll see our tracks leading from the hut.’
I couldn’t believe it. It was just our luck that the first snow of the year had fallen on our escape day. I was so exhausted after a night of sitting upright that I could hardly think. But I knew that this was our one chance. We had to go now.
I clambered up to the window and peered into the murky light. In fact there wasn’t much snow on the cinder track that led from the outhouse to the fence. So perhaps our footprints might not be seen after all.
I gently opened the window and climbed out. I ran the few yards to the fence. To my disbelief I found that the wire had been cut to allow the lorry through and then merely looped back in place. Presumably the driver had to make regular deliveries. He had probably thought that with the guardroom so near there was no risk of any prisoner escaping by this route. I was shaking with excitement as I returned to the window and told them what I had seen.
‘There’s hardly any snow on the path, so we can get to the fence without being noticed. There’ll be people walking on the road on the other side. Nobody will see our footprints. Let’s go.’
We said our goodbyes to Penelope. She squeezed my hand but said nothing. Frida scrambled out of the window and darted over to the fence. She turned to me and I ran to join her. I lifted up the cut fence to let her through. As I did, the edge of the wire I was holding got caught with the wire above. It looked as if it would hold to let me through. Frida waited on the other side of the wire, looking around anxiously. Just as I stepped through, the top wire released its hold and I felt the sharp jaws bite into my coat.
I was caught. Somehow I had known that this would happen. I froze. But Frida didn’t panic for one moment. She eased the prong out of my coat with her long, bony fingers. We heard the sounds of footsteps not far away. She pulled hastily, leaving a piece of coat on the wire. We crouched down. It was about six o’clock and the sky was lightening a little. In the distance a few early workers were stumbling along the snowy road in the direction of the town and the railway station. Frida carefully pulled the piece of my coat from the wire and looped the fence back. We jumped on to the road where the men had been walking. We looked back at the outhouse: a hand waved and the window closed.
So far so good, except for my damaged coat which might look a bit strange. We tightened our headscarves, picked up our few belongings and began to walk down the road. We could see the big gates of the main entrance on our left. We would have to walk straight past them. We kept our heads down. A bicycle silently passed us. It was a German soldier. I had a horrible vision of us stupidly being caught on our own doorstep and taken back to the camp. He turned down a side road.
We walked on without speaking. It seemed to me that we weren’t even moving. I heard someone call across the road to a friend. We were approaching the lighted guardroom at the main gates of the camp. The windows were steamed up. The soldiers inside were eating and drinking with much guffawing. One of them rubbed a clear spot on the window with his hand and peered out. I doubled up in a paroxysm of coughing. It was sheer nerves. Frida put her arm around my shoulder. We walked right by the front gates of our prison.
We reached the station after about ten minutes. We had agreed that I would do the talking wherever possible. Although Frida’s French was very good, it was I who could pass for a native. She was going to be our German speaker if (please God it didn’t happen) we needed to talk ourselves out of trouble. I bought two tickets for Besançon. The man in the office yawned and handed them to me with my change.
The Escape Route
‘You’ll need to get the connecting trains at Épinal and Nancy,’ he muttered without even looking up.
We walked on to the platform. To my horror the first person I saw was the German head doctor from the camp, standing a few yards away on my left. ‘Good God, Frida,’ I breathed. ‘I went to see him just last week. He’s the awful man who’s been treating me for bronchitis. You know, the one who told me that the Germans will be in Piccadilly before I leave this camp. Why did I try to persuade him that I should be sent home? He’s bound to remember me.’
‘No eye contact, that’s the secret,’ she whispered.
Worse was to follow. I nudged Frida in the ribs. The Kommandant’s secretary was deep in conversation further down the platform. She knew us well. We turned our backs to the tracks and gazed fixedly at the worn posters on the platform wall. Time seemed to stand still. Where was the train? We could hear people walking along the platform behind us. Was one of them the doctor? Or the secretary? The urge to turn round was almost irresistible. I stared as hard as I could at the poster advertising Vittel water. If I didn’t look at anyone, perhaps nobody would see me – the ostrich method of escape!
When the train finally arrived we moved quickly down to the other end of the platform. It was getting lighter all the time. We got into a small, closed compartment. The train slowly moved away from Vittel. We looked at each other, hardly breathing. We had done it. Until Épinal, at least.
We slunk off the train about an hour later, looking apprehensively at the disembarking passengers. There were none that we knew. We showed our tickets and walked into the town without speaking. We had the whole day to wait before our connection for Nancy. We felt an exhilarating freedom: for the first time in almost a year we were able simply to wander around a town, drinking in the life. The sounds and the smells were so strange. And the queues! Outside all the food shops were long lines of weary housewives, dressed in shabby clothes and holding huge baskets. It was only after perhaps an hour that we began to worry that the place was full of Germans in uniform, presumably on leave.
Two soldiers approached us. I clung to Frida’s arm, trying to hide my torn coat. The taller of the two took out a packet of cigarettes and offered one to me. He smiled broadly and said: ‘Promenade, Mademoiselle?’
I shook my head and held on to Frida even more tightly. We moved away.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ Frida said. ‘We’re too obvious. No one else is just walking these streets.’
She was right. There were no other civilians sauntering along looking at shops. We needed to get inside somewhere, away from people if possible. It was bitterly cold and had started to snow. By now we were feeling exhausted from the lack of sleep and the high nervous energy of the escape. We slipped into a small church down a side street and sat on the hard pews at the back. At that time of the morning it was totally deserted. Trying to look devout
, we bent our heads and began to divide up our meagre portions of hard biscuits and cold potatoes. Within a few minutes the pews began to fill up for morning mass.
‘Don’t worry,’ I whispered to Frida. ‘I know all the forms of service from my sessions with the nuns.’
She didn’t look totally convinced. As a bell tinkled I nudged her to stand. She shot up, wiping the last crumbs from her coat. The rest of the congregation promptly knelt down. This was clearly no place for us. I started to cough violently. By sheer luck, I couldn’t have done anything better: I became just another person trying to cope with a consumptive cough in that cold church. We made our way out as unobtrusively as possible.
We were still faced with the problem of how to pass the hours before our connection to Nancy. We had to get off the streets. After a while we succumbed to a warm cafe in a bleak, lonely part of town. We made our cups of ersatz coffee last as long as we could, sitting opposite each other in an uneasy silence.
By five o’clock we were back at the station and soon installed in a cold and dark carriage which we had to ourselves. We were by now both very sleepy. Just as the train’s whistle was blowing, the door was flung open and three boisterous German soldiers piled in. Frida and I looked at each other, horror-struck. We quickly put our heads down and pretended to doze. All thoughts of a real sleep had vanished. They kept up a continual chatter. I could just see that one of them was staring at us and whispering to his friends. I felt my body going rigid and told myself to relax. After all, I was supposed to be asleep. I was desperate to move, to scratch. To our great relief they eventually went out into the corridor where they stood smoking.
