Sample

Chapter One

I had to change trains at Perpignan and stop overnight. The Germans had already arrived before me and occupied all the rooms in the hotels.

I had no desire to be picked up in the streets by one of their patrols, so there was only one place to make for, the local whorehouse or bordel, as it is called in France.

I was hardly in the mood to make full use of their facilities, but I was able to strike a bargain and got what may be called 'a room without', where I could get some sleep until my train for Bourg-Madame left early the next morning.

I had scarcely sat down, when a gendarme on the train came through, asking for identity papers and I was frantically re-thinking the story I had prepared, should he ask me why I was going to the Spanish border.

I had obtained the names of the two sisters, my travel companions of the previous day, having decided that the reason for my going up to the border was to welcome them as the ‘fiancé’, whom one of them was actually meeting in Lyons at that moment. It would not matter, I explained to myself, working the whole thing out in detail, that my 'fiancée' could not be there in person, since she was by now already in Lyons, but it would give me a good reason for spending the night in Bourg-Madame, so that I would be able to organise my escape without arousing suspicion.

However, no use putting the cart before the horse. Just now the gendarme was getting nearer and nearer to where I was sitting. I took out my false identity card, the photograph was well fixed, they had made a good job of it, and I knew that my French would stand up to being questioned. Nevertheless, my heart was thumping as I did not fancy being questioned so near to my goal and being handed over to the Germans.

How does one behave in these situations? Look the gendarme straight in the eyes, make a joke, ignore him and speak to a fellow passenger, casually waving the identity card towards him? Or does one make a dash for the loo, or perhaps pretend to have known him as a friend for donkey's years, waving to him in a familiar manner, hoping that he is then embarrassed to have forgotten your name and face?

In the end I meekly tendered my card to him the way you would present your ticket to a ticket-inspector and luckily that worked without any questions asked; so I never found out about the alternatives!

When we got to Bourg-Madame I made straight for my gourd-maker who had his boutique at the end of the village. I was fortunate in finding him alone, as I did not carry any letters of introduction which would have been rather foolish under the circumstances. I hoped that I had been announced by my Quaker friends back in Montauban and would be greeted as a friend and be complimented at having made it so far! In fact, the gourd-maker barely looked up from his work.

'A guide now, with the Germans swarming all over, quite impossible', he said. 'You should have come a few days earlier!' I would not be put off so easily and I told him that I was sure a man so highly recommended, who had helped so many others, would not let me down because of a few Germans. I would now go to the hotel and expect him to arrange something and call on me later in the day. I heard him mumbling something in Spanish and went off to the local hotel, which on arrival I found swarming with German soldiers and French gendarmes. However, no-one seemed to bother with me, even when I settled down in the restaurant where I was the only civilian among all the uniforms!

I rehearsed the story about my fiancée coming from Spain, whom I was to meet at La Tour-de-Carol, the nearby railway frontier station, where I was quite sure she had not passed. I even took the precaution, just before lunch, to walk up to the gendarmes at the station and to enquire from them whether she had passed that day, identifying myself in their eyes as her fiancé, giving them the name of my false identity card, Jean-Pierre Blanvin, and asking them to please let me know at once at the hotel, should she come through. All this appeared to be unnecessary, because nobody questioned me as to why I was there, but attack is better than defence and after lunch I went to my room and fell fast asleep. I think it is only when you are young that you have such 'sangfroid' - going to sleep in the middle of the day, under these circumstances - and I have often since wondered what I would have done had I been middle-aged; probably worried myself sick!

I had been asleep for a couple of hours or so, when a loud knock at the door woke me up. I must admit, I did get a bit of a shock, but somehow I knew it would be my Spaniard, although I was still drowsy when I opened the door. Sure enough, there he stood and he did not waste much time either. We spoke in French, my Spanish being non-existent at that time. As I gathered my wits together, a warm glow of anticipation came over me, surely he would not have come to see me, unless he was prepared to help me over the mountains.

I did not have to wait long. He wanted to know how much money I had. My reply that I had none did not seem to put him off and I offered him the golden fob belonging to the golden watch, both of which my father had given to me when I saw him for the very last time some eight years before. The fob had been given to him by some of his friends, whose names were engraved on it. It almost seemed to me as if he had foreseen such a situation for his son and I knew that he would not mind if I used it to pay my guide to freedom.

As for the watch, I kept it throughout the war - the only personal momento I possessed - and through it I met my wife Lili in 1944, as if my father who had died by then, was still looking after me. But that is a different story!

Back to my guide: to my great relief he was willing to accept the gold fob and now began to give me his instructions. There was to be no talk of how little I had contributed for the guide, as an exiled Spaniard was returning to Spain in the same party and he had paid a lot more. When arriving on the other side of the border I would be staying with the gourd-maker's family and under no circumstances must I leave the house, the guide would take me further inland the following day.

He told me to wait in the bar of the hotel at nine o'clock that night without any luggage or carrying anything at all and to follow him outside when I saw him using his handkerchief. I should then continue to follow him and when he passed a man with a glowing cigarette I would know that he was my guide and I should follow that fellow.

So that was it and he left, having assured me that at 9 o'clock at night it would be dark and the Germans were usually having their dinner and would be very thin on the ground; the chances were that nobody would spot our small party of three who were to make their border-crossing not over the mountains, but at ground level! What impudent confidence!

However, before I continue I must now mention how I reached this point and explain why 'My Journey' was really necessary.

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