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It was neat and cosy as a dollhouse It had sleeping bunks along the walls arm blankets and a little kerosene stove with a teakettle, and she suddenly realized she would give anything for a warm drink The kettle had water in it She struck a match to the kerosene, and while the water heated she found a tin of tea and another of sugar When she found a jar of blackberry jaht she would cry with happiness

She was spooning the jaaze fell on a map of the railroad system that covered one wall She sahy the route was lonely The tracks ran in a reh Güsten, Wetzlar, and Koblenz to Metz, in Alsace-Lorraine The Berlin-Metzer Bahn bypassed cities like Leipzig and Frankfurt in favor of a direct route This hat people called the Kanonenbahn, the Arrades to transport cannon and soldiers quickly to the border to defend against French invasion Looking east on thefrom Berlin across Poland to hold the Russians at their border

Sipping hot tea, the first warm drink she had had in two days, Pauline traced her route fro way to go Suddenly a train whistle blew It was co from the east, headed toward France She doused the lantern, unlocked a door, ju, and hid behind the caboose in hopes of hopping onto the approaching train She had done this twice already and had survived it only because Detective Curtis had turned unusually talkative one evening when she couldn’t go ho the rails” older hobos had taught hi railroad car, not the rear If you fell from the front, you fell to the side If you fell from the back, you fell under the train

She crouched on the e her eyes so as not to be blinded by the loco too fast, but the instant the loco to catch onto a boxcar ladder She tripped on a tie and fell, rolled down the e by

Dejected, she went back inside the caboose, wrapped herself in blankets, and fell asleep on a hardDeep in the night she drea her, but it stopped Later she drea as it switched tracks The traain

Suddenly she sat up, wide awake The caboose wasShe juhts The caboose was passing through a town at sixty kilometers an hour, attached to the back of a train that was picking up speed

West to Paris?

East to Berlin?

She heard a rattling at the door, louder than the clatter of the wheels The brake the door

Irina Viorets and Christian Se Imperial’s latest film projected on a screen in Se it to their distributors It ended with a bang-up chase involving brewery trucks dropping beer barrels, a puffing locomotive, and a motorcycle that jumped the barrels and landed beside a Pierce-Arrow li dress jumped out of the limousine and jumped onto the motorcycle, which raced off, pursued by beer trucks, careened onto railroad tracks, and was chased by a train

Suddenly Semmler leaned forward and stared ha

rd at the flickering screen

“Who is that motorcyclist?”

“I hope it’s an extra and not a good actor,” answered Viorets “He’s not going to live long”