turned back on himself. When he re-passed the woman who’d handed him the note she looked upset, but gave him a nod of thanks for trying. He was almost at the door as he heard a wail. The French-speaking guard had dragged the elderly woman over the edge of the pen and punched her in the side of the head.
‘Stay back from the edge,’ he roared, as the old woman collapsed in sobs.
Marc felt disgusted as he jumped off the ledge where the trucks backed in and started walking up a ramp. Pretty girls raped, Jews beaten and herded like cattle, bastards like Fischer. It was like the devil himself had been put in charge.
*
While horrors unfolded behind brick walls and barbed wire, Frankfurt didn’t seem such a bad place on this sunny Saturday afternoon. Marc strolled past kids playing football in a park, hanging flower baskets and smart trams rattling down cobbled streets.
The city had only been pricked by minor bombing raids and you’d hardly have known there was a war on, but for the shades over car headlamps and the noticeable lack of young men.
Central Station was a twenty-minute walk if you went direct, but Marc’s paperwork said he was a French civilian worker heading home on compassionate grounds, so he needed to ditch his prisoner jacket.
He’d eyed a dilapidated riverside residential district when he was up on Großmarkthalle’s roof. The reality of it was grim, with six-storey apartment blocks built along alleyways narrow enough for a man’s fingertips to touch the buildings on both sides. Washing zig-zagged overhead. Not much light reached ground level and the smell of drains stood up to any prison camp.
These brick apartments were built to house dock labourers. Walls wore layers of graffiti, where faded communist slogans outnumbered swastikas by at least five to one. Marc stopped in an alleyway filled with stinking pig bins 6 and glanced about furtively before pulling off his jacket and ditching it in an empty metal can.
He immediately saw a problem: his gun had been invisible below the jacket, but it bulged obviously when tucked in his trousers and wasn’t much better when he put it in the cloth food bag. He’d gone less than thirty metres when he spotted the solution – a man’s jacket hung tantalisingly out of reach.
Marc slowed down and checked the next couple of alleyways, eventually finding a stick. He then doubled back and gave the jacket a good whack, expecting it to drop down. Instead, he sent the entire line swinging across the street.
A shout of thief came from high up as he ripped pegs off the jacket and a spare shirt for good measure. Marc raced off expecting hot pursuit, but there was nothing behind when he looked over his shoulder. After a couple of turns he dropped his pace and put on the grey jacket.
A bunch of alley kids eyed him crossly as he stepped through their football game, but moments later Marc was back on the main drag, sweaty but unscathed.
The rest of the walk to Central Station was uneventful, but while the prisoner jacket had given Marc a clear identity he felt less confident in civilian clothes. His near-shaven head didn’t suit a civilian and he decided to steal a cap first chance he got.
The route Marc had chosen involved starting at Frankfurt’s colossal Central Station, which was the busiest in Germany. This was riskier than boarding a train at a smaller station, but Marc planned to buy a ticket to Leipzig, which was in the wrong direction for someone wanting to get back to France.
All being well, Marc would arrive in Leipzig late that evening, kill a few hours in the station and board the overnight Berlin–Paris express, arriving into Paris just before noon on Sunday.
But all wasn’t well when Marc arrived at the station. First off, his train was due to leave in less than an hour and there were big notices up saying, Due to increased security measures, please ensure you arrive a minimum of two hours before your train departs .
Queues stretched from the
‘Stay back from the edge,’ he roared, as the old woman collapsed in sobs.
Marc felt disgusted as he jumped off the ledge where the trucks backed in and started walking up a ramp. Pretty girls raped, Jews beaten and herded like cattle, bastards like Fischer. It was like the devil himself had been put in charge.
*
While horrors unfolded behind brick walls and barbed wire, Frankfurt didn’t seem such a bad place on this sunny Saturday afternoon. Marc strolled past kids playing football in a park, hanging flower baskets and smart trams rattling down cobbled streets.
The city had only been pricked by minor bombing raids and you’d hardly have known there was a war on, but for the shades over car headlamps and the noticeable lack of young men.
Central Station was a twenty-minute walk if you went direct, but Marc’s paperwork said he was a French civilian worker heading home on compassionate grounds, so he needed to ditch his prisoner jacket.
He’d eyed a dilapidated riverside residential district when he was up on Großmarkthalle’s roof. The reality of it was grim, with six-storey apartment blocks built along alleyways narrow enough for a man’s fingertips to touch the buildings on both sides. Washing zig-zagged overhead. Not much light reached ground level and the smell of drains stood up to any prison camp.
These brick apartments were built to house dock labourers. Walls wore layers of graffiti, where faded communist slogans outnumbered swastikas by at least five to one. Marc stopped in an alleyway filled with stinking pig bins 6 and glanced about furtively before pulling off his jacket and ditching it in an empty metal can.
He immediately saw a problem: his gun had been invisible below the jacket, but it bulged obviously when tucked in his trousers and wasn’t much better when he put it in the cloth food bag. He’d gone less than thirty metres when he spotted the solution – a man’s jacket hung tantalisingly out of reach.
Marc slowed down and checked the next couple of alleyways, eventually finding a stick. He then doubled back and gave the jacket a good whack, expecting it to drop down. Instead, he sent the entire line swinging across the street.
A shout of thief came from high up as he ripped pegs off the jacket and a spare shirt for good measure. Marc raced off expecting hot pursuit, but there was nothing behind when he looked over his shoulder. After a couple of turns he dropped his pace and put on the grey jacket.
A bunch of alley kids eyed him crossly as he stepped through their football game, but moments later Marc was back on the main drag, sweaty but unscathed.
The rest of the walk to Central Station was uneventful, but while the prisoner jacket had given Marc a clear identity he felt less confident in civilian clothes. His near-shaven head didn’t suit a civilian and he decided to steal a cap first chance he got.
The route Marc had chosen involved starting at Frankfurt’s colossal Central Station, which was the busiest in Germany. This was riskier than boarding a train at a smaller station, but Marc planned to buy a ticket to Leipzig, which was in the wrong direction for someone wanting to get back to France.
All being well, Marc would arrive in Leipzig late that evening, kill a few hours in the station and board the overnight Berlin–Paris express, arriving into Paris just before noon on Sunday.
But all wasn’t well when Marc arrived at the station. First off, his train was due to leave in less than an hour and there were big notices up saying, Due to increased security measures, please ensure you arrive a minimum of two hours before your train departs .
Queues stretched from the
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