PARTISAN REVIEW
parted with everything but a small bundle which one held under his arms
and the other had tied to his back.
The train came to a sharp stop. We asked our spokesman to find out
what was the matter. The Germans, he reported, had reached
Dax
ahead of
us. French flyers had sighted their armed cars on the road. So we now
had to be ready to jump at any minute. Out into the night flew wash
basins, boots, pants, underclothes and torn up letters. One fellow was
worried because he had no tie. How could one meet strangers in unknown
places without wearing a tie? He even offered his typewriter in exchange
for one. Nobody wanted to have it.
In spite of the pouring rain, the door to the river was opened. The
train was just moving along the edge of a canyon at the bottom of which
the water was rustling. No one could hope to escape through that door–
which didn't prevent one man from taking off all his clothes, rolling them
up in an oil-skin coat which he put around his neck, and standing there in
his underthings like one who expected to swim across the river. Many kept
on talking about how bad it was that they never learned to swim in their
youths. Suddenly the reflection of lights appeared on the high road and
we heard the blowing of horns. Believing that
"they''
were coming, many
of us immediately jumped from the train. The only one who left from our
car was a Polish Jew. In the gathering twilight, we saw him walking
across a grain field toward a little wood.
Hour after hour passed on. There we were sitting on that train–
veterans of the German Revolution; young chaps who had fought in Spain
against Franco; people who had never taken any interest in politics, hut
been cruelly persecuted merely on account of their Jewish origin; people
whose thoughts centered around the big question of the liberation of
mankind; and people who thought only of how to find a nook for them·
selves in some remote corner of the world. There we sat, hoping.
A message was brought in from the commander. He had been in
touch with
Pau
and
Tarbes.
No German troops were there. Telephone
connections with
Dax
seemed to be disrupted, but he thought it was safe
to assume that the Germans would not advance in this darkness and rain.
There was nothing to be concerned about now; we should calm down; the
train would soon leave for
Pau.
It was another spoonful of
the
soothing
syrup that he liked to administer to us. "These French officers can very
well afford to talk to us about being calm and unconcerned,'' one of us
sai~-
"They are not in danger of getting their heads chopped off by the
Hitlerites."
At daybreak the train left and
re~ched
Pau
before we were up. But
when somebody yelled terror-stricken, "They are coming," we quickly got
to our feet again. However, it had been a false alarm.
They
were
not
coming.
Back in
Tarbes
we heard about the signing of the armistice with Mus–
solini. Overjoyed by the news, all of us leaped off the train. The whole
station was jammed with our people who talked and gesticulated gayly.
