CHAPTER 9

For the next three days, Whitlock and the other Americans were in a kind of limbo. The Russians kept them locked inside the barracks. At first, it was possible to believe that the Russians were simply trying to maintain some order. It made sense that they did not want or need former POWs wandering around a combat zone. But what Whitlock and the others witnessed began to change their minds.

Through the window of the barracks, they saw the Russians let all the French go. The French marched out like a kind of rabble, still squabbling among themselves, but at least they were free. Whitlock began to regret not getting out of the camp at the first opportunity, as some of the other officers had done. There hadn't been much concern then about the Russians, who were supposed to be their allies, after all.

Next, they saw the enlisted Americans and British being released. It was only the officers who were still being held.

"What I would like to know, is what the hell is going on?" Ramsey asked, giving voice to the question that was on everyone's mind.

"I studied French in high school, but a fat lot of good it did me," MacDonald said. "What I should have studied was Russian."

In part because of that language barrier, there was little interaction with the Russians, except when they brought the Americans water and food. When questioned, their new captors simply shrugged, or muttered meaningless responses in broken English about "security."

In the end, it was what they saw the Russians doing to their own kind that made them most anxious. The former Russian POWs were not greeted with open arms by their liberators. Instead, they were contained in their old prison quarters. Then, on the morning of the third day, individual Russian officers who had been the prisoners of the Germans were led out and lined up in the prison yard.

"I believe they're going to shoot them," MacDonald said in disbelief.

From inside the barracks, they watched as a handful of Russian soldiers with machine guns faced the line of officers, who stood glumly, knowing full well what was coming next. One of the NKVD officers, in his tailored uniform, read some kind of pronouncement from a sheet of paper that threatened to fly away in the breeze. Then he stepped back behind the line of machine gunners, raised his arm, and brought it down in a chopping motion.

Whitlock jerked back from the window, both horrified and fascinated by what he saw. As the guns opened fire, the bodies jumped as if on puppet strings as the bullets pumped into them. In moments, there was only a heap of bodies on the ground. The NKVD officer moved forward with a pistol, and shot the ones who showed any sign of life.

"I hate to say it, but things are about to get ugly around here," Ramsey said.

They had a glimmer of hope the next day, when the Russians rousted them from the barracks and marched them out of the camp itself. They could only think that the Russians were marching them to rejoin the American forces.

Whitlock looked around at the German countryside and marveled at what he saw. Everywhere he looked, German civilians seemed to be on the move, carrying whatever they owned. Some pushed handcarts loaded with suitcases, pots and pans, and small children. One burly man carried an elderly woman on his back, in the same way one might give a child a ride. All the Germans were headed to the east in a slow, steady tide. The Russians showed little interest in the refugees, unless any of them looked like they might be former German soldiers. Anyone seen wearing even part of a German uniform was doomed.

"Where are they going?" Whitlock wondered.

"They're getting the hell out of Dodge," Ramsey said. "If what we've seen so far from the Russians is any indication, I'd say these people have the right idea."

There were now sixty-three American officers remaining. Some still held out hope that they were being marched to be turned over to an American unit, but instead, they reached a railroad siding. On the rails was a battered troop train, pocked with bullets where it had been strafed by Luftwaffe planes that were now just a bad memory. The locomotive faced east — toward Poland and then Russia beyond.

From the sounds within the other cars, it was clear that the train was loaded with human freight. Any mystery about who might be inside was settled when a detachment of German POWs marched up and was herded into a car. The entire train seemed to be filled with POWs. Whitlock thought there must be hundreds of men jammed into the cars.

Then it was the Americans' turn. This time, there was nothing jovial or subtle about their captors' intentions. The Americans were forced aboard the train at gunpoint, crowded in like sardines. Then the doors rolled shut with a thunderous clang.

The POWs were now enclosed in what was essentially meant to be a rolling prison. Inside, it was nearly dark, with the only light coming from rectangular, uncovered openings high above their heads. To call these windows wasn't quite right, considering that there was no glass, and they were not wide enough for anyone to crawl through. The latrine facilities consisted of a hole cut into the floor, about one foot square. It was enough to step into and break a leg, but not large enough to escape. The floor beneath them lurched, causing the men to sway and grab one another for balance. Then they could feel the train begin to move.

Toward the east. Toward Russia.

• • •

The atmosphere inside the rail car could be described as one of indignant anger mixed with disappointment. After months of German captivity, the Americans had expected freedom. It had been stolen away by the Soviets.

"That does it," MacDonald announced. "We have to get out of here. Ramsey, you and Whitlock stand under that opening."

MacDonald found the smallest man there, a skinny lieutenant who could have been a jockey, and had him clamber onto their shoulders. The idea was for him to squeeze through the opening.

"If he gets out, what is he supposed to do?" Ramsey wondered, grunting with the effort of holding up the lieutenant. "Run around and unlock the doors?"

"He can let someone know we're here," MacDonald said. "The American lines can't be all that far away."

What MacDonald said made sense. Of course, how the lieutenant was supposed to get off the moving train unharmed was anybody's guess.

But escape was a moot point. Not even the skinny lieutenant was small enough to fit through the ventilation opening.

"Does anyone have a paper and pencil? We can toss out a note!"

That seemed desperate to Whitlock, considering that they would need to have the good fortune of some American stumbling across the note beside the railroad tracks. The nearest Allied troops were close — but by anyone’s best guess the American lines were twenty or thirty miles away. Soon, even the effort to write a note proved futile, considering that no one had so much as a scrap of paper, let alone a pencil.

As the miles rolled on, their will to escape lessened as reality settled in. Now, the focus turned to surviving these miserable conditions. From time to time, one of the officers crawled up on someone's shoulders and reported what they had seen. The train crossed a river that they guessed was the Oder; soon they would be in Poland. The smell of woodsmoke filled the air from burned villages and blackened forests. The ravaged countryside was punctuated with the empty husks of tanks, both Russian and German.

At nightfall the train stopped, and all up and down the tracks they could hear the sounds of car doors being opened and Russians shouting. When their turn came, a few men prepared to rush the doors.

The sight that greeted them quickly changed their minds about that tactic. Standing well back from the car were several Soviet soldiers with machine pistols, pointed into the packed Americans. If one of the Russians touched a trigger, it would be a massacre. Another Russian brought a bucket of water, and another tossed in a sack of bread. Dinner. Then the door rolled shut again.

MacDonald organized the rationing of the bread before it could become a free for all, seeing that each man received an equal-sized hunk. The water was more problematic because there was nothing to drink it with. Nobody had so much as a cup or spoon. They resorted to each man having to kneel and scoop up water in his hands.

The water was barely enough to sustain them, considering that in the heat of the day the cramped interior of the rail car grew to be as sweltering as an oven. Nightfall brought little relief, because by the chill hours before dawn they were all shivering. No one had so much as a blanket or a spare coat.

Ramsey developed a hacking cough that wracked his whole body. Though he was a tough and wiry man, he was a good deal older than Whitlock, and the poor diet and conditions were taking their toll on him. He had been a prisoner for several months, subsisting on lousy food.

The car rolled on and on. If life in the barracks had been dull, the passage of time was now stultifying. Whitlock found a crack to peer through for a glimpse of the countryside. They passed through cities and towns. He saw tall buildings topped by exotic minarets that must be Russian. It sure as hell wasn’t Boston. Whitlock had only a dim grasp of the geography beyond Germany, so he had no idea exactly where they were.

The steel wheels ground on. Once they reached Russia, the train began to make stops to disgorge POWs. In some places, load after load of Germans from the neighboring cars were marched away at gunpoint.

No one came for the Americans until days later, when the train lurched to a stop after midnight. Whitlock peered through the crack but could see only inky darkness — there was no sign of civilization. Without warning, the car door opened and the Soviets began pulling prisoners roughly out, simply grabbing the ones nearest the opening. But when others got the idea to leave, they were stopped at gunpoint. The door rolled shut again.

That routine continued for the next few days. The train would stop, and the Russians grabbed a few of the Americans. Some men positioned themselves near the doors, just for a chance to get off the endless train.

Almost by instinct, Whitlock shrank away from the doors, ensconcing himself in a corner.

MacDonald and Ramsey joined him. "The three of us need to stick together. I don't know what these Ruskie bastards have planned for us, but it can't be good. Let's see how long we can ride it out."

The train rolled on, stopping every now and then for the Russians to unload more Americans. Whitlock tried to make some sense of it, or to find a pattern. When he mentioned it to Ramsey, he said that it seemed obvious to him: "They're splitting us up, don't you see? A few here, a few there — they don't want us all in one place.”

“Why the hell would they do that?”

“If you’ve got a lot of something to hide, what do you do? Spread it out in different hiding places.”

Finally, it was just half a dozen men left in the car. The empty car grew cold and echoed with every clank and creak. Ramsey’s cough had grown worse. At night, they had to huddle together for warmth. MacDonald took to calling their trio The Three Musketeers. A couple of days sometimes passed before someone thought to bring them food, although now there would be a pail of cabbage soup or even some kind of meat — there were now only three of them to feed so the Russians didn't have to be so stingy.

One night, Whitlock thought he heard a wolf howling. When he persuaded MacDonald and Ramsey to put him up on their shoulders, all he could see was darkness uninterrupted by a speck of light. He thought at first that they were passing through a tunnel until he looked up and saw stars. When he stared out between the cracks in the slats by day, he saw vast empty plains, rolling hills, and thick, wild forests. Where on God's green earth were they being taken?

Two nights later, MacDonald made the mistake of sleeping too close to the door, and got rounded up with three others. He tried to crawl back into the car, but the Russians dragged him out.

"I'll see you back home or in hell, fellas!" he shouted before the door slammed shut. Now it was just Whitlock and Ramsey. MacDonald was gone. The train started rolling again, with both men too heartsick to even attempt conversation.

Then one morning, the train finally stopped for good. The door of the car was opened, and Russians on the ground gestured for them to come out. The soldiers were already wearing winter coats. They carried rifles slung over their shoulders, but didn't bother to point them at the Americans.

Whitlock soon saw why. They were in the midst of a desolate landscape. If Whitlock started to run, the guards could go get coffee and by the time they came back, he would still be in rifle range on that vast landscape.

The only structure visible was a prison camp. Unlike Stalag Twenty-two B, this Soviet camp looked exactly like the prison that Whitlock had imagined and feared. Guard towers stood at each corner. High barb wire fences stretched in between. The barracks were squat, rusting hulks set into muddy prison yard. The impression it made was of a medieval castle, but one built out of barbed wire.

Ramsey said, “Say what you want about the Russians, but they really know how to build the hell out of a prison camp.”

"Where are we?" Whitlock wondered.

“I’d say that we’re in hell, but the sort that freezes over," Ramsey said, then doubled over with a wracking cough as the cold air hit his lungs. When he coughed lately, his chest sounded like an empty paper bag. “We’re stuck so deep in Russia that it’s going to take a corkscrew to get us out. God help us."

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