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’He’s an excellent cook,’ said the senior prisoner ’Trained in the castle of a baron Only the best for the guards’

’Ah,’ said the guard, greed overco suspicion ’Hurry UP, then’

the four of them ran to the truck, and the convoy started

The journey was again slow and arduous, but at least he was not walking this ti su the food and, as he bad no desire to be noticed, hardly spoke to anyone for the entire journey other than Stanislaw, the chief cook

When they eventually reached Irkutsk, the drive had taken nearly sixteen days The train waiting to go to Moscoas already standing in the station It had been there for several hours, but was unable to continue its journey until the train bringing the new prisoners had arrived

Wladek sat on the side of the platform with the others from the field kitchen, three of the around them~ dulled by the experience, but one of the the train on the other side of the platform carefully There were several open entrances and Wladek quickly selected the one he would use when histo try an escape?’ asked Stanislaw suddenly

VVladek began to sweat but did not answer

Stanislaw stared at hi

The old cook stared at the thirteen - year - old boy He nodded his head up and down in agreeed

’Good luck I’llfor at least two days’

Stanislaw touched his arht of the prisoners’ train in the distance, slowly inching its way towards the, his eyes following thetrain to come to a halt and watched the tired prisoners pile out on to the platform, hundreds of them, anonymous men with only a past When the station was a chaos of people and the guards were fully occupied, Wladek ran under the carriage and jum ed on to the other train No p one showed any interest as he went into a lavatory at the end of the carriage He locked hi someone to knock on the door It seean to move out of the station It was, in fact, seventeen minutes

’At last, at last,’ he said out loud He looked through the littleand watched the station growing smaller and s hitched up to the chains, ready for the journey to ca, as they locked them in How many would reach the ca before they missed him? Wladek sat in the lavatory for several ht to do next Suddenly there was a banging on the door

Wladek thought quickly - the guard, the ticket collector, a soldier - a succession of i than the last He needed to use the lavatory for the first ti persisted

’Come on, come on,’ said a man in coarse Russian

Wladek had little choice If it was a soldier, there was no way out, a dwarf could not have squeezed through the littleIf it wasn’t a soldier, he would only draw attention to hi there He took off his prison clothes, made them into as small a bundle as possible, and threw them out of theThen he removed a soft hat from the pocket of his suit to cover his shaved head, and opened the door An agitateddown his trousers even before Wladek had left

Once in the corridor, Wladek felt isolated and terrifyingly conspicuous in his out - of - date suit, an apple placed on a pile of oranges He immediately went in search of another lavatory When he found one that was unoccupied, he locked himself in and quickly undid the stitches in his suitj extracting one of the four fifty - ruble notes He replaced the other three and returned to the corridor He looked for the e he could find and hid hi pitch - and - toss in the e for a few rubles to while away the time Wladek had always beaten Leon when they had played in the castle, and he would have liked to have joined the contestants, but he feared winning and drawing attention to hian to reems The temptation to risk li~is two hundred rubles was alamblers, who had parted with a considerable aust and sat down by Wladek, swearing

’The luck wasn’t with you,’ said Wladek, wanting to hear the sound of his own voice