shut, and they helped each other blindly to the floor.
It had to be at least half-past seven. They had two and a half hours to wait.
'Who'd have guessed it would end like this,' Effi said after a minute or so.
'My grandmother once told me I'd come to a bad end,' Russell admitted. He hadn't remembered that in years - his father's mother had died when he was eight years old.
'What had you done?' Effi asked.
'I ate the cherries off the top of a trifle.'
Her laugh reverberated round the empty van, and he joined in.
'Let's talk about our childhoods,' she suggested eventually, and they did, chattering the time away with what seemed like reminiscences from two other people's lives. Russell was thinking that at least two hours had passed when the floor shook beneath them - a locomotive was being attached to the front of the train. Only seconds later air raid sirens began to wail not far away.
What should they do? Yards like this were a prime target, but the British rarely hit one of those. Would the train leave in the middle of an air raid? If so, they couldn't afford to get off. But then, why wasn't it moving?
For twenty minutes or more nothing happened, no bombs, no movement. Then suddenly there was an enormous bang, and the van rocked on its wheels, as if an army of men had given it a great push. Russell pulled the door open just in time to see another bomb explode, this one beyond the line of the goods sheds, and probably Schwedter Strasse as well. The orange flash lasted only a second, and a column of debris rose up, glittering in the moonlight. At that moment the train clanked into motion, jerking Russell backwards and almost out of the open doorway. He recovered his balance and tugged it shut as two other bombs exploded in quick succession away to his left.
The train quickly gathered speed, violently rolling its way through the switches, as if the driver's only concern was to get it out of Berlin. The bombing continued, but none fell as close again, and the sound of the explosions soon began to fade. They lay entwined on the dusty floor, their bodies prey to each jolt of the wheels, their minds still straining to cope with the fact of leaving Berlin.
The fan in the mirror
It took the train almost nine hours to cover the hundred and twenty kilometres between Berlin and the port city of Stettin. The breakneck pace of their initial escape from the RAF's attentions soon gave way to slow and desultory progress across the rolling Pomeranian fields, with long, frequent and mostly inexplicable stops in what seemed, through the cracks in the door, to be variations on the middle of nowhere. Sleep would have been welcome, but it was soon evident that the appalling suspension and plummeting temperatures ruled out any such respite. They huddled together and shivered.
It was still dark when the wheels beneath them began rattling through points with increasing frequency, suggesting their arrival in Stettin. Easing the door back a few inches, Russell got a glimpse of what was probably the main station, and a few moments later they were rumbling across the huge swing bridge he remembered from his previous visit.
The river disappeared, replaced by the backs of apartment blocks, and the train began to slow. Another long bridge across water, and the tracks began multiplying, with stationary rakes of carriages and wagons stretching into the distance. Their train wove a path through several crossings before straightening itself out in a siding and finally wheezing to a halt. Russell eased the door ajar and stuck his head out. The yard was lit with amber lights mounted on high poles, yellowing the snow which lay across the tracks and casting the whole scene in a sepia glow. The guard was hurrying towards him.
'Stay where you are,' he whispered on reaching their boxcar, his eyes fixed on the distant head of the train. Looking forward, Russell could see a small figure climbing up into the cab, and after a few seconds several bursts of yellow steam rose into the air as the locomotive pulled away. 'Come,' the guard said. 'Quickly.'
They climbed down, wincing as they gripped the icy handrails. The guard examined them closely, presumably to make sure he had the correct escapees, and couldn't suppress a private smile at recognising the film star behind the half-eroded make-up. 'Follow me,' he said, turning back in the direction of his brake van. At the end of the adjacent train they started zigzagging their way across the fan of tracks, keeping as close as possible to the cover of other rolling stock, and finally reaching the side of a goods warehouse. Following this, they eventually came to a road transshipment area, where a line of darkened lorries was parked.
A man loomed out of the dark, making them jump. 'This way,' he said, leading them to the lorry at the end of the line. 'In the back,' he ordered, offering Effi a hand up and briefly illuminating the inside with a flashlight. Large crates took up most of the space, but a passage had been left between them. Effi and Russell ensconced themselves at the far end, and listened as their helpers shifted crates across the opening. 'It's like being a child again,' Effi murmured, mostly to herself. The sense of being completely dependent on others was almost comforting.
The back doors slammed, and a few moments later the engine sprang to life. They moved off, bumping their way across what felt like tracks before finding the smoothness of a real road. From what Russell remembered of Stettin's geography, he guessed they were somewhere to the south and east of the city's centre, close to the main dock area. Where they were going he had no idea, but the journey seemed to take forever, and when the doors were finally opened the grey light of dawn flooded their hiding place. The crates, Russell saw, each contained a single huge glass bottle of some chemical or other.
They climbed down onto a street of working-class apartment blocks and small industrial premises. Lights were showing in some windows, as the occupants got ready for the day ahead. 'Where are we?' Russell asked the driver, who now had a partner in tow, a younger man with pockmarked cheeks.
'Bredow. You know where that is?'
'To the north of the city?'
'That's right. Kurt will take you in. And good luck,' he added over his shoulder as he headed for his cab.
'This way,' the young man told them, heading for the entrance to the nearest block. 'It's the top floor,' he added, almost apologetically.
They twice met men coming down, but neither paid them much attention, and their companion seemed unworried by the fact that they'd been seen. Was the whole block dependable, Russell wondered. He sincerely hoped so.
On reaching the top floor, the young man led them to the right and knocked softly on the nearest door. A woman opened it, beckoned them in, and introduced herself as Margarete Otting. She was about forty-five, with a tired face and short blonde hair. 'We're both working Sunday shifts, and my husband has already left,' she said. 'And I am late. Please make yourselves at home. We shall be back soon after four.'
'Thank you for...' Effi started to say, but Frau Otting was already halfway through the door. 'I must go too,' Kurt told them. 'Someone will come to see you this evening, after Margarete and Hans return from work. In the meantime, please don't go out, and make as little noise as possible.' The door closed behind him, leaving Russell and Effi to share a look of surprise.
They explored the apartment. It was not much bigger than the one on Prinz-Eugen-Strasse, with a small book-lined sitting room and two bedrooms, one of which clearly belonged to Margarete and Hans. The other had twin beds, and showed traces of adolescent occupation. A photograph in the sitting room showed a happier-looking Margarete sitting beside an impishly-smiling Hans, with two serious-looking young men in army uniform standing behind them. The books that lined the walls were a mixture of detective novels and European history, with one thinned-out shelf of philosophy and political theory. Glancing along the latter, Russell reached the conclusion that all the Marxist tomes had been removed.
Effi was standing in the doorway, rubbing her eyes. 'I guess we can lie down in the boys' room,' she said.
Hans Otting arrived home first, and seemed almost over-pleased to meet them. He was one of those truly generous people, Russell realised, with all the joy and heartache that implied for his more practical wife. They were, as Effi put it later, like a goyish version of the Blumenthals. He worked in the docks as a stevedore, she on the local trams, and their one surviving son was serving with Rommel in North Africa. The elder boy had been killed in Russia the previous July.
