Red Sniper

“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.”