At the last I thought I was really done for. The German adjutant got into the boat. He didn’t know me by sight, but I thought it was more than likely that he would suspect me. Mercifully he began to talk to some lady typists from the camp who had just preceded him.
We shoved off eventually, almost full. I continued coughing till we got across. When the boat discharged I went ashore almost last. I gave them a wide berth in front, and as soon as I was clear made off at my best pace for the station. Now I was Karl Stein of Schleswig, carpenter, ex-army man, and recalled for civilian employment, catching the train for his native country. I tore up my “permit” and dropped it in the road—one month off my sentence anyway.
As I expected, I just missed my train. I had no watch, but the clock on the Marianne Kirche showed me I should be late. I reached the station about 6.50; it was rather full of people. I wondered if Gilbert was away in that train ... and then, vaguely, what the chances were of my being nabbed before the next went—this, I noted, was at 6.40 the next morning (Saturday). I think if there had been any outgoing trains that night I should have taken them, even though they led me east instead of west. But as it happened there were none. I went into the men’s lavatory in the station, shut myself in a closet and reflected. I thought at that time to my horror that I had forgotten my matches, so I denied myself a smoke—my matches turned up later and I needed what few there were. I solaced myself with a slab of chocolate.
The position was not encouraging. Our information about trains was correct. Our friends would not be able to camouflage our absence, which would certainly be discovered by 8 p.m., reported by 9 p.m. It was more than likely that they would telephone to the station. I determined not to be in the station at all between 9 and 12. If I was arrested next morning, I was. In the meantime it was good to be free.
It was a beautiful October night in Stralsund. I braced myself up and begged a light for a cigarette from a youngster at a street corner, and then strolled along the streets that led from the station to the Kirche. I knew these now quite well enough not to get lost. I sat on a bench and looked across the moonlit water, which near the station runs right in in a broad and lovely sweep. I lit a pipe from my German cigarette and smoked comfortably. Should I get off next morning?...
I was cooling down now, and wandered down past the Marianne Kirche to a cinema in the Langestrasse. A boy there told me the booking office was shut. I wandered round and round till one o’clock. I sat for a long time on my old bench overlooking the water; at another place I entered a private garden and sheltered for an hour under a wall right on the water’s edge. It was blowing fairly fresh.
About one o’clock I returned to the station and entered the waiting room, full of recumbent figures, mostly soldiers and sailors. I got hold of two chairs and tried to sleep. There was a sailor on the other side of the table.
At 4 o’clock I got up and had a cup of coffee. The waiting room was now fairly full of people, most of them presumably going by my train.
I had by now a two days’ growth of beard and my moustache was fairly long and well down over the corners of my mouth. Moreover, I had had a fairly sleepless night.
In my pockets I carried three large sandwiches of German bread with English potted meat inside, about twenty slabs of Caley’s marching chocolate, a box of Horlick’s milk tablets, a spare pair of socks, some rag and vaseline, my pipe and tobacco, English and German cigarettes, my compass, money, and papers. I had an old German novel in my hands which I pretended to read with great assiduity. Half an hour before the train was due to start, I went to the booking office. I was surprised to hear my own voice. “Fourth to Hamburg, please.” I had no idea what it cost, so I tendered a 20-mark note. The ticket cost only seven marks! I went back to the waiting room, and a few minutes later faced the barrier. No questions, no suspicion. I breathed again and wondered what that Commandant had done. Wired to Rostock perhaps....