What was she going to do?
Stay in, she supposed. But not in darkness, not for days on end. That really would drive her mad.
She went into the kitchen, put on the kettle, and did an inventory of the food that they'd left behind. There was enough to last her a week, she thought. Maybe ten days. By then, John should be out of the country.
She would have to keep as quiet as she could, and pray that no one realised she was there. As long as she didn't use any lights, no one would notice that the blackout curtains were half open. If the air raid warning sounded, she would simply ignore it - there was no way she could risk going to the shelter in her unmade-up state.
Once the food was gone, she would need to find some way of getting more. But she could worry about that when the time came.
After reaching Dirschau late in the afternoon, Russell endured another long and anxious wait. The Berlin- Konigsberg express finally arrived around nine. Two inspections and three hours later it reached the old capital of East Prussia, where falling snow was visible in the bright arc lights illuminating the yard. Leaving the train, he could see buildings with lighted windows. There really was a world beyond the blackout.
Riga, it transpired, was still two trains and a day away. The first, which wouldn't be leaving until eight the following morning, would get him to Tilsit, where, according to his old history master, Napoleon and Czar Alexander had met on a floating raft in the River Niemen. The second, a local stopping service, would carry him across the former republics of Lithuania and Latvia, which Hitler and Stalin had doomed between them.
So where to spend the night? Appalling weather conditions further to the east had wreaked havoc on what timetables there were, and filled the station platforms with enough soldiers and civilians to hide the odd fugitive. It seemed safer to stay where he was than wander the unknown streets of Konigsberg, so he found himself a gap in the rows of sprawled-out travellers, and laid himself down on the hard platform with his bag for a pillow. He even managed a few hours' sleep.
When the cold woke him for the last time, light was seeping through the station's glass roof. He went in search of food, and found the buffet well stocked with rolls and coffee. Quality was clearly not an issue, because both were awful.
Back on the platform advertised for the Tilsit service, he saw a train of boxcars slowly approaching the station from the north. As he watched the locomotive steam by, his nose was suddenly assaulted by the stench of human waste. There was a hint of movement in the small openings high on the wagon-sides, and yellow-brown liquid was oozing out from under several doors. The train was leaking urine and excrement.
'Russian prisoners,' a voice said beside him. It was a German army captain. There was disapproval in his tone, and in the slight shake of his head, but he said no more. The train cleared the station, but the smell hung in the air, as if reluctant to disperse.
The officer disappeared up the platform, leaving Russell with no expectation of seeing him again; but half an hour later, just as his train was leaving, the man walked into his otherwise empty compartment. He seemed eager to talk, and Russell, after inventing some relatives as his reason for visiting Riga, was happy to let him do so. The captain had been involved in the Russian campaign since its inception, and was on his way back to the front after a week of compassionate leave.
How were things going, Russell asked him, in as a neutral a tone as possible.
Things were difficult, his companion admitted. Really difficult. But the men had been magnificent. People back home had no idea what it was like, but then how could they?
And the Russians? Russell asked.
'They're not like the French,' was the officer's answer.
Russell tried, ever so gently, to draw out his companion on the future course of the war, but all he got in response were pious expressions of hope. Once the winter was over, then things would become clearer. Once the winter was over, changes would have to be made. Once the winter was over, they would do what had to be done.
The possibility of defeat was there in the man's eyes, in his voice and his evident agitation, but it couldn't be admitted. Not yet.
The officer ended the discussion by saying he needed some sleep, leaving Russell to stare out at the snow- dusted East Prussian fields. Riga, he suddenly remembered, was icebound for at least part of the winter. Surely they hadn't sent him several hundred kilometres in search of a non-existent ship?
When the train reached Tilsit in mid-afternoon he discovered that there was only one daily connection to the old Latvian capital, and it left at seven in the morning. He would have to endure another night on a station platform.
There were worse places to spend one. Stuck on a far-off rim of Hitler's bloated Reich, Tilsit and its station seemed sleepy enough for any fugitive. There was only one limp swastika spoiling the sky, and the uniforms on display all belonged to the Reichsbahn. The only evidence of war was the traffic passing through - supply trains moving in both directions, a hospital train and rakes of empty flatcars travelling west, a troop train full of anxious faces heading for the front.
One particular transport caught Russell's attention. A long line of box cars drawn by an old and wheezing locomotive arrived just before dawn, and spent the next two hours stabled in a siding across from the station. SS guards strode up and down beside it, but a prolonged burst of banging was the only sound that reached across the tracks. Someone hammering on the inside of a door, Russell guessed. When the train clanked into motion, the fist fell silent.
His own much smaller train headed out in the same direction an hour or so later, and was soon rumbling over a long bridge above the Niemen. Another twenty minutes and it reached the frontier of the Reich, where the passengers underwent a surprisingly cursory inspection before travelling on into the newly-established
The train re-started, and was soon threading its way through a large and seemingly uninhabited forest. It finally emerged on the outskirts of Riga. There was snow on the ground here, but only a couple of inches, and the sky was partly clear. As the train slowed on its approach to the station, Russell became aware of suitcases left beyond the adjoining tracks, some neatly stacked, some simply lying in the fallen snow. There were hundreds of them. A thousand, he guessed, remembering Strohm's report of the SS prescription for an ideal transport.
Riga Station was the emptiest he had seen on his three-day journey. There was one group of Germans in civilian clothes sharing a joke on the concourse, but most of the other faces had Slavic features, and safely neutral expressions to go with them. The old man who gave Russell directions did so willingly enough, but with a noticeable lack of friendliness. Latvia had been invaded twice in the last two years, and its citizens were probably still having trouble deciding which of the bastards offered them less.
Satekles Street was only a five-minute walk away. No.16 was the Continental Hotel, a three-storey building sandwiched between another, seedier-looking hotel and a seemingly abandoned garage. A heavy front door let him into a large vestibule, where a wide staircase curved upwards over a reception area containing a large oak table, an antique filing cabinet, and the obligatory row of hooks for keys. A grizzled-looking old man looked up from his half- completed crossword with evident irritation.
Russell asked for Felix.
The man got slowly to his feet, visibly wincing at the pain in his knees. 'Wait through there,' he said, gesturing towards a door.
Pushing through, Russell found himself in a smart but empty cafe-bar. He took a corner seat and settled down to wait. Several minutes passed, and he began wondering whether someone in Stettin had been tortured into mentioning Riga. Who would be next through the door - the comrades or the Gestapo? Possible salvation or certain damnation? All he could do was wait and see.
The door eventually swung open to admit a broad-shouldered Slav with thinning brown hair and a broken- toothed smile. 'My name is Felix,' he said in German.
'I have a message from Stettin,' Russell told him.
'Oh yes? I was told there would be two of you.'
'My friend had to go back to Berlin,' Russell said. 'It's a long story.'
