THE CHINA MAIL, OCTOBER 6, 1989.
This is the most vivid message of the War, sent by J. Cang, News Chronicle Warsaw Correspondent, who was one of the last journalists to escape from Warsaw with the Polish Government. Here is his moving story of
THE
Bucharest.
LAST TRAIN
WE were bombed 14 times before we reached Zaleszczyki, on the Po- Hish-Rumanian frontier, now occupled by the Russinn. I was among the very last of the foreign journalists to leave Warsaw on September 6 in a special train evacuating all the higher officials and the most important State docu- ments and archives:
The entire administrative machinery
which governed Poland was crammed into a single train which was called the "ghost train" because it proved a death
OF WARSAW
saw's fashionable cafes talking about a long war when they learned that they must pack and depart within a
few hours.
4
OUT
"Minister and officials of the Embassies and Legations and others enjoyed a short respite, but soon the German bombers arrived here too. They drop- ped ten bombs, killing 31 people. The bomb which caused most casualities ed at the passengers but were attempt- fell just near the house where I was ing to destroy the junctions so as to sheltering with my family.
Otherwise, not
Unable to obtain other means of hinder transport. few, but all, would have been killed. transport, many people hired plain Our ordeal was, not over. It began peasant carts to take them out of again whch more bombers arrived and Krzeminiec further away towards the hovered over the ghost train. Time Rumanian border. We followed them. after time passengers left the carriages For three days and nights we wander-
in fear of main highways ditches. Once, when the bombers re-
side roads the appeared overhead, women and chil- dren escaped by lying down in swamps planes, Even on the
attempt to bomb us. We met tens of inches deep in water until the planes planes followed us, but making no had passed.
trap for so many. After much wander- saw that it took over an hour to cross in terror and hid in fields, woods and ed by road, keeping away from the
ing in the shade of the German bomb- ers it failed to reach its destination.
The Government's evacuation from Warsaw was decided on within a single hour after the German troops broke through on the front north of Warsaw on September 5.
The Polish high command had failed to notify the Government of the rea position of the front, so that the evacuation that took place was rather panicky. Many foreign diplomats only learned by chance of the Government's departure after seeing boxes carried out from the Foreign Office, loaded hurriedly and rushed off to the train.
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The foreign diplomats, journalists and officials were still sitting in War
CROSSWORDS
(Continued from Page 16) ment, she nodded.
"And now I'm going to tell you it wasn't the name of the man he'd robbed that Galloping Nick shouted from the scaffold," she said. "It was the clue to where he'd hidden the treasure!"
As, speechessly, he stared at her, she stretched out an impatient hand. "Give me that-barker," she cried, and when he had done so, tapped the silver knob that rounded off the base of the stock. "Butt," she whispered. "In other words, the clue is in the barker butt."
With a firm grip of the barrel, her other hand closed about the knob. Olled by the one who had last turn- ed it, it responded sweetly enough, and she thrust a vibrating finger into the cavity thus exposed.
A moment later she was waving a slip of paper. before Larry's in- credulous face.
She took it to the writing-table, smoothed it out. Yellowed by time, the paper wore a few illiterately scrawled lines in ink as yellowed, almost, as itself.
"a score paces south of mabs oke." Armed with spades and picks the two set off for Mab's Oak that stood within measurable distance of what once had been the road between the Four Feathers Inn, that was Gallop- ing Nick's chief hidey-hole, and Francome village, where he was captured.
Burled three feet down they found what was left of a jewel case, the settings of rlugs and brooches, neck- laces and earrings, snuffboxes and shoe-buckles, blackened by time and damp.
"Clean up, too, most of it pronounced Larry: "And once the find becomes known, the collectors will be falling over themselves to buy. And for a good many thou- sands."
"And to think," she said slowly, "that" my old friend should have given me half of an amount ke that!"
A hand searched for, and found, her own.
"He's given you all of it, so far as I'm concerned," Larry whispered,
Her smile was not as tremulous ús she felt.
"And yourself with it, I suppose," she said severely.
Very few managed to take anything with them. My family and myself went at once, leaving everything behind.
So big was the rush out from War the Vistula Bridge towards the Eastern station, where a train was supposed to be waiting for us. It took three hours to find the carriages. The station pre- sented the worst confusion imaginable, mothers shouting in the dark for their children, husbands for wives, children weeping for their parents, all fearing a return of the plants which a day earlier had bombarded the same sta- tion, killing many.
ak
pearance.
* *
***
enemy
So terrified became the passengers thousands of refugees fleeing before that the slightest noise caused them the Germans without knowing where to jump from the train. At each sta- they were going. Many frontier.zones tion one saw people unable to bear the were suddenly closed to refugees and strain any longer disappear into the people were running from place to woods and not emerge again. A judge place in search of refuge like mice refugees from -in Poland's highest tribunal, who in a trap. We met The train was composed of 14 car
officials from the travelled in the same carriage with me, Silesia and Galicia who had walked riages carrying Ministry of War, the Ministry of Jus- left the train with his wife, preferring for 500 miles. They were like skele- tice, of the Interior, of Foreign Affairs, to remain in the fields rather than con- tons. They had lost all human ap- Social and Public Works. Education tinue the journey. and the Senate. It was originally de-
After each bombing fewer passen- Apart from the material damage stined for Lublin, which was to be first halt of the evacuated Polish Govern- gers remained in the train, and those they caused the bombers proved that ment. But the direct route was impos- who stayed had their nerves shatter- they
powerful sible owing to the damaged railway ed, particularly the women and chil- psychological effect, spreading panic line at Deblin. We were taken a dren. It was a ghastly experience. Food and placing all in a state of uncer- round-about way, subjecting about and water were completely unobtain-
tainty and fear. 1,500 men, women and children in the train to the worst ordeal imaginable.
The first encounter with a German bomber was about 60 miles north of Warsaw. The bomber flew over the train at a low altitude, causing inde- scribable panic, Passengers jumped out of the carriages and ran into the fields and woods seeking any available shel- ter. But the bomber hurried on to the junction station at Czeremcha in front of us, where, 20 minutes later, we ran
into a real hell.
Three German bombers arrived be- fore we had time to look for shelter, and over 50 bombs were dropped, In- cluding several incendiary bombs. No shelters were available. Women, men and children clung to trees, knelt pray- ing in the open fields, hid in the ditches near the road, whilst bombers came in still larger numbers, attacking fiercely the railways junction. I ain not sure even now which noise was the more demoralising, the cries of the women and children or the explosion of the bombs,
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I saw a mother lying with her baby in a crater made by a bomb during one of the earlier German attacks on the same station. My own little boy, aged four, who had gone through over 30 air raids in Warsaw. clung to my knees weeping, calling: "Daddy, dear, tell them to stop bombing."
Before we left our ditches we were bombed again and again, each time with greater ferocity and determina- tion. Surprisingly, this station linking North-East Poland with the capital was entirely. unprotected, so that the German planes, did their destructive work without risk,
The stationmaster, worn out after enduring about 30 air-rald's, remained calmly on duty and managed to keep- his eye on my little. boy, who was wandering about scanning the sky to see whether the bombers were coming back. Even now when he is safe in Bucharest, thanks to the kind' hospi- tality of the Rumanian Government, he cannot sleep, walking continually at night to ask whether the bombers are coming.
龉
train We finally manoeuvred our out of the damaged railway station, but not all the passengers reappeared. A large number of them, including officials of the Polish Foreign Office, disappeared and were not seen again. The bombers obviously had not aim-
exhaustion. The most pitiable sight
have an extremely
to
able, and people were fainting from Travelling from Krzemieniec was the little white-faced terror-stric- Zaleszeykt we kept near the Russian ken children seeking to hide them- border. The inhabitants seemed every- selves to escape the bombing. Their cries are still ringing in my ears.
German that the where confident bombers would not attack localities For four days the train wandered near the Russian frontler because the agreement, they frontier from place to place unable to reach German-Russian
been maintained, provides for a Lublin because the town had heavily bombed. The train was divert- zone to be an asylum from the war. I saw thousands of refugees going ed to Chelm, Kowel, later to Luck, and finally to Krzemieniec, dropping in the direction of the Russian fron- various ministerial officials on the way, tier as if in expectation of the Russian In Krzemieniec the Polish Foreign move.
Very Dark Blooze
I
Kindly rest on your cars, Timothy. That contraption is getting you nowhere. And it squeaks. And the Eton Boating Song is not in the key of D."
What's up, Peter? Get a head ?!"...
**Like a gasometer. Very pain- ful. And that noise you're making goes through it like a pneumatic” drill.”
"Wam't I 'on the warpath by your side ? And look at me --*** 110 more hangover 'than an innocent little child."!
Well, it's not natural. It just
proves that the Devil looks after his own."
"I look after myself, old son. Last night I took a sizeable sing of Rosa's Lime Juice before hitting the kay. That's how to kill off the aftermath of alcohol.”
“You wouldn't lead me up the garden, Timothý ?”
“Peter, you wrong me, I've seen the light and I'm passing on the sip."
**Then, if you will kindly step. ashore, we will seek out a vendor of Rose's. It's time I fell into good habits.".