لخّصلي

There were still a few trains running from Posen, and Ruth, Edek, Bronia and Jan managed to get on one. It was full of refugees and on its way to Berlin. They were in one of the
open trucks, which was cold but not so crowded. 'I don't like riding in this truck,' said Bronia.

'We're lucky to be here at all,' Ruth told her. 'Hundreds of people were left behind at Posen, and they may have to wait for weeks.

'Edek's doctor wanted to send him back to the Warthe

camp,' said Jan.

'He said he wanted to make Edek fat,' laughed Bronia.

'Like a chicken for Christmas!"

Ruth looked at her brother. His face was white and very

thin. He was sixteen now, and it was two and a half years since she had last seen him, but he did not look like the Edek she remembered.

She looked at Jan. He had helped her with Bronia and kept his sadness to himself after Jimpy's death, but she was

not sure that he felt comfortable with Edek.

'Jan may get jealous of Edek,' thought Ruth.

Her fears seemed to come true later when the people in the open truck began to tell of their adventures, and their escapes from the Nazis. After several other stories, Edek

told his.

'I was taken to work on a farm near Guben,' he said. 'I

tried to run away, but they always caught me - until last winter when the war began to turn against the Nazis. I hid under a train, holding on with my arms and legs, and managed to get back to Poland."

Jan gave a cruel laugh. 'Why don't you travel that way here? Then the rest of us will have more room."
I could never do that again,' said Edek.

"No,' said Jan, looking at Edek's thin arms. "And you didn't do it before. There's no room to lie under a train, and there's nothing to hold on to."

Edek pulled Jan to his feet. 'Have you ever looked under a train?' He described the underside of a train in accurate detail, and everyone except Jan believed him.
Why weren't you shaken off?' Jan wanted to know 'Because the train went through some water, and it began to freeze on me,' said Edek. 'I soon became a piece of ice, frozen to the bottom of the train. Later, I heard Polish voices and knew that we were out of Germany. My voice was the only part of me that wasn't frozen, so I shouted for help. The station master came and broke the ice and carried me out from under the train. It took two hours for the ice to disappear.'

Later, when all was quiet and the refugees lay sleeping under the cold stars, Ruth whispered to Edek, "Was it really true?'

"Yes, it was true,' he said.

She took his hand and held it in hers. 'Nothing like that must ever happen to you again,' she said.

Nine days later, at the end of May, the train reached Berlin. Some of the refugees immediately disappeared into the dusty ruins of the city, others waited with their luggage, hoping that someone would give them food or tell them where to go. But theirs was the second refugee train that day and there was not enough food for everyone.

But the children were happy. They left the station laughing and shouting, on their way to a refugee camp not far away. Only a few weeks ago, they had been in Warsaw; ten days ago, Edek had been missing. But now they were all together and a third of the way to Switzerland.

The camp was an old, empty cinema. It was warm and
dry and comfortable, and there was food to eat. After four bowls of soup each, the children were given blankets and mattresses and taken to a corner of the hall where they found a place to sleep. But comfortable though it was, the camp was to be their home for only a few days.

"Switzerland is still a long way away,' Ruth reminded the others. 'We must go on."

Take the Potsdam road and follow your noses,' the family were told, and off they went, singing a happy song. Russian soldiers marched past them, then lines of women and girls in grey-green uniforms. These were followed by hundreds of carts, pulled by horses.

Next day, the children went across the country towards Bitterfeld and Halle. A British officer had given them some money for food, but this was soon gone and they had to find work to get more. This was difficult because the factories were closed, and the farms were using the freed prisoners of war. Some villages refused to let the children enter because there was no more food or places to stay for refugees.

One camp had a school for Polish children. If they remained there, the children were told, they would receive all the food and schooling and medicine they needed. Edek was very tired when they arrived, and Ruth was ready to stay for as long as he needed to rest. But Edek felt better after a few days, and one look at the silver sword was enough to make him want to go on to Switzerland.

So they came to the edge of the Russian zone. In the first days of peace after the war ended, there were
many places where it was quite easy to move unnoticed from one zone to another. The children did this somewhere in the Thuringian forest. It was only the different uniforms of the soldiers, and the strange
World's on the signs, that told them they were now in the American zone
It was now the middle of June, and Edek was no Each day he walked more slowly, and at night his cough kept Ruth awake. She decided he must rest for a week. They made a camp near a river and planned to stay there

better.

until Ruth and Jan earned enough money to buy Edek a pair of new boots. Ruth took a cleaning job at the local school, and Jan got work on a farm. Edek rested under the to look after him. food kitchens

trees with Bronia There was plenty of food from the army near their camp, but several times Jan came home with tins of meat or fish.

'Where did they come from?' Ruth asked him.

'The farmer,' replied Jan. 'He's very generous.' But there was strange writing on the tins, and Ruth

began to suspect that Jan was lying. It's American food, and I know he's stealing it,' she told Edek. Edek wanted an answer to the mystery. Without saying anything to Ruth, the next afternoon he went alone to the farm where Jan worked. He hid behind a tree and waited.
He saw Jan leave the farm before the day's work was over. Instead of returning to the camp, Jan hurried off the opposite way, and through the town.

Edek followed him to a railway line, where a boy jumped from behind a tree at the side of the road. He waved to Jan, who went across to him.

Edek went closer, but stayed out of sight and waited. He waited so long that he began to wonder if they had gone. Then suddenly Jan came out from behind the trees and ran along one side of the railway, towards the signal ramp. The other boy had disappeared.
Edek climbed into a tree which gave him a good view of the line. He saw Jan climb the signal ramp, which right across the line, and then lie down flat on the top, above the line. What was he going to do? went

'I must go and find out,' thought Edek.

He jumped down from the tree and went to the bottom of the signal ramp.

What are you doing, Jan?' he called.

Jan did not see Edek until that moment. 'Go away!' he said, angrily.

Then came a noise as the signal changed to green. 'Go away!' Jan screamed at Edek. And he threw himself

at the signal and began to pull it.

Edek heard the sound of a distant train.

'Come down!' he shouted to Jan.

Jan took no notice. He worked quickly with a spanner and a pair of wire cutters. The noise of the train grew louder, and dirty smoke rose above the trees.

There's going to be an accident!' Edek thought, and began to climb up the side of the ramp.

Edek was not strong. Coughing badly, he pulled himself up the ramp to the top. The signal had now changed to red. An angry Jan moved past Edek's face, nearly knocking him off the ramp. He said something, but Edek could not hear him because of the noise of the train. Still worried about an accident, Edek stood up on the ramp and waved at the train. But the signal was at red, where Jan had put it, and the train was already stopping.
A dark cloud of dirty smoke surrounded Edek. When he finished coughing and wiping the smoke from his eyes, he saw someone shouting at him from below.

It was an American soldier.

And the soldier had a gun in his hand.

Captain Greenwood of the American Army sat in the court-room and looked at the boy in front of him.

"You stopped the train and were going to steal food from it,' he said.

'No,' said Edek. 'I mean, yes, I stopped the train. But no, I wasn't going to steal from it."

Why did you do it?' Captain Greenwood did not understand. The boy was ill, and he did not seem the kind of person to play dangerous games with trains.

Before Edek could answer, there was a noise at the back of the court-room. A soldier came forward with a message for Captain Greenwood. There was a whispered conversation, then the captain said, 'Yes, all right. If they can help us, bring them in."

Ruth, Jan and Bronia were brought in and made to stand beside Edek. Bronia held Ruth's hand and smiled. Jan was biting his lip, but his eyes were angry.

'There's been a mistake, and I've come to explain,' said Ruth in Polish. This is Jan. It's all his fault. I want to speak for him.' There was an American soldier who spoke Polish standing near them, and he told Captain Greenwood what Ruth was saying.
Who is the other child?" asked the captain. "My sister. Bronia," said Ruth. She has nothing to do with this. We're on our way to Switzerland and we're

camping near the river." Have you any parents? Captain Greenwood asked Jan.

"No, Ruth is my mother now,' said Jan. Ruth did her best to explain this, and the things that had happened at the railway line.

So, Captain Greenwood said to Jan, after Ruth stopped speaking, "you have no parents. Ruth Balicki is acting as your mother. You say that Edek Balicki did not stop the train, but that you did. Is that right?"

Jan's answer was to make a sudden run for the door. Two guards brought him back, kicking and biting.

"Can you control the boy?' Captain Greenwood asked Ruth.

'He's afraid of soldiers,' said Ruth. 'If you send those guards outside, sir, I think he'll behave himself."

Captain Greenwood was surprised, but he decided to see if the girl was right. 'Leave the boy and wait outside," he told the guards.

After the soldiers left the room, Jan became calm.

Tell us what happened,' said Captain Greenwood.

'It wasn't Edek's fault,' Jan said after a moment or two. 1 changed the signal and he came to stop me. I ran away and he was caught. It was easy to get away, but he's a very stupid boy for his age."

Why did you stop the train?" said the captain.
Because of the food trucks."

You were going to steal from them yourself?"

'No,' said Jan.

'So you were one of several thieves,' said the captain, "Was Edek Balicki one, too?"

'No.'

"Who are the others?'

I've never seen them. I don't know anything about them,' said Jan. 'If I did, I wouldn't tell you."

"What did the other boys pay you to stop the train?" asked Captain Greenwood.

'Nothing,' said Jan. 'Sometimes they gave me some of the food they took.'

'But you say you've never seen them."

'They're clever,' said Jan. They leave the food in a hiding-place, in the forest.'

'But why do you steal food when you can get plenty from the army kitchens?' asked Captain Greenwood. 'It's just a bad habit, isn't it?'

The Nazis stole everything from our country,' said Jan.

'Now it's our turn to steal from them."

"But this is American food you've been stealing, not Nazi food. It's sent here to feed you and all the other refugees. If you steal it, you're robbing your own people. Do you think that's right or sensible?"

Jan began to cry. 'Edek is ill, and we are all hungry. Ishall always steal if we are hungry."

Captain Greenwood moved the papers around on his
desk. "Edek Balicki," he said, 'you can go. Jan, you will pay 200 marks or go to prison for seven days."

Ruth and Jan talked together for a minute, then Ruth said, 'Jan says he'll go to prison. We don't have enough money to pay the 200 marks."

We're saving our money to buy some boots for Edek," said Bronia.

It isn't long, Jan, and you'll be looked after,' said Captain Greenwood, kindly. When you come out, stay with that mother-perhaps she'll be able to teach you not to steal. And remind her to send me a postcard when you get to Switzerland.'