Chapter Eight

We returned to the Station. Platform three was crowded with people waiting for the train. The people in the first carriage were still there, sitting smugly in their seats.
The crowd of people suddenly moved. No where in particular. The crowd just moved, it was a purposeful move. A sort of pulse. We looked up to find out why. A train was pulling into the platform with two more carriages. So we moved as well with the crowd. Jostling for position. Not being too pushy, but subtly getting a better starting point to get on the train. The train got closer and slowed down. Already people were climbing on board and blocking the doorways. Meanwhile on the tracks, another crowd of people were climbing through the windows from the opposite side. It was all planned. The blocking tactics and the windows. We didn’t stand a chance. We just stood and watched as sheep and goats were pushed through the opened windows, and whole families climbed in and claimed the compartments as their own. No sooner had they sat down, they opened hampers of food and drink and started eating.
I turned to Gary "We’re doing something wrong here."
"Yeah we’d better change our tactics. Stop playing the nice guy, or we wont get out of Belgrade."
Half and hour later and two more carriages arrived. Determined to get on the train we pushed and shoved. But again we didn’t stand a chance. The big guys blocking the doorways and the families climbing through the windows. People grabbed our rucksacks, and pulled us back.
"This is ridiculous. We don’t stand a chance, there’s only two of us."
There were now five carriages full, and still the crowd waiting got bigger. Finally at nine o’clock, eight more carriages arrived and were shunted into position. We ran for a door. We were going to get on this train if it killed us. Pushing, shoving and generally ignoring all our English training of politeness and reserve, we climbed aboard. But it was standing room only. In the corridor.
"At least we’re on the train." I said.
"Yeah but it’s more than a days train ride to Athens. We can’t stand all the way. There isn’t even room to sit on the floor." said Gary
"Do you want to stay in Belgrade?"
"I never said that." and he grinned at me, "We’re outa here. One way or another."
At nine thirty precisely the train pulled away from Belgrade station. Immediately people started relaxing and settling down. We found then, we had enough space to sit on the floor. But it was hot. We alternated sitting on the floor with hanging our heads out the window. In the compartment opposite us was a family. A peasant family, mother, father, grandmother and Aunty and several children. The women all wore long dark dresses and head scarves. About their feet were wooden crates containing hens. They were opening a hamper of food and passing out chicken legs, bread that was wrapped in checked cotton cloth and opening bottles of wine. I realised then, how hungry I really was. A litre of milk had not been enough.
Months earlier at "The hole in the wall" Waterloo, Gary and I had the idea of deliberately not planning our trip. We had heaped scorn and ridicule on those who had planned every day in detail and had itemised every stop and every hotel. We had decided just to go with the flow. We were not going to plan anything. I guess we were just too lazy to do anything difficult, like actually book a hotel in advance. We were going to go where ever the fancy took us. But so far that had meant sleeping on trains. Climbing onto luggage racks, sleeping in corridors and being woken regularly by people trying to pass.
We spent the day travelling south through Yugoslavia writing lyrics to songs for our next great album "Crud on the tracks", a tribute to Bob Dylan. I was the guitarist and Gary played Keyboard. But we were crap. The only gig we’d ever played in our band was at a village hall in rural Oxfordshire. We were so bad the audience rioted. Letting off fire extinguishers, and climbing on the roof, ripping slates off, and throwing them to the ground. The police were called and the show was over. "The sensational seborrheoic seven." The only punk group to feature songs from Rogers and Hammerstein. It was an angle. We were crazy then.
I thought of Helene’ "Shit shit shit!"
"What’s the matter?"
"I’ve blown it with Helene."
"What’s to blow?"
"She’s fabulous, and I’ll never see her again."
"You never even kissed her. Not one snog. So what are you complaining about?"
"She’s.........." I stopped. I couldn’t find the words to explain. Not words that Gary would appreciate or even sympathise with.
"She’s history. There’s plenty more girls to shag."
"Helene is not just a shag." I said indignantly "She’s better than that."
"Whatever."
"No, really. She’s my best friend. I feel complete when I’m with her."
"So lets get this straight. You are basing this on a few days five years ago, and three days just now, and she is your perfect girl? Get real Mikel. Did she ever do or say anything to give you the impression you stood one iota of a chance?"
"She didn’t have to. It’s just a feeling I have. When I’m with her........."
"You’re kidding yourself."
We sat silent. Swaying with the rhythm of the train. No one would ever understand how close I felt to Helene. It’s true we had never kissed or said anything to make each other aware of each others feelings. But I knew in my heart there was something.
The day turned into evening and darkness fell. We were dieing on our feet. And still the train carried on. The family opposite us were starting their evening meal. I fancied they had never stopped from their original meal. Everytime I looked in their direction the Mother was handing out some sort of morsel to one or the other of the children and family. I was getting more and more hungry. It was torture they were so close, just a sliding door separated us from food. I felt faint. I was in a daze. There was nothing to see out the windows anymore. It was blackness outside. And we were still heading South.
"Hello." said a girls voice.
I looked up. Two girls stood in front of us. They weren’t English. Just that one word told me as much.
"Why are you standing here?" said the taller of the two girls. She had long blond hair, she was beautiful and was very slim.
"There’s nowhere to sit" I said.
"We have our own compartment at the back of the train." said the other girl, slightly shorter with short dark brown hair and a cute round face.
"But it’s full."
"No we really have our own compartment. Why don’t you come and join us?"
"OK."
We introduced ourselves, the tall girl was Sidi and the shorter one Grethe. They were from Norway, doing the same as us, touring Europe on an Interail pass.
We followed Sidi and Grethe back down the train and was surprised to find empty compartments. They showed us to their compartment.
"You can stay here with us." said Sidi. "Look we can even pull the seats to make a big bed." And she pulled out the seat to demonstrate, and it came forward and flattened out to make a huge bed. Amazing. I couldn’t believe it we’d been standing cramped up in that corridor for 15 hours and for God knows how long there had been room at the back of the train. To make things better we had two gorgeous Norwegian girls inviting us to spend the night with them in their compartment. We chatted for a while about ourselves and where we were going and what we were doing. Then Grethe said "I think we’d better go to sleep now."
Oh joy! Sleep. On a comfortable bed. I couldn’t imagine anything nicer. The four of us lay down on the pulled out bed. Gary and Sidi, Me and Grethe. We fell asleep instantly.
02.00am We were woken up. The train guard was in the doorway. He had a gun in a holster. "What?"
Recognising we were English he said "You must get out."
"Why we’re sleeping."
"You must move. Now!" His hand hovered somewhere near his gun.
We didn’t argue. The four of us got up, still sleepy, collected our stuff and moved up the train. Back into the crowded corridors. We had stopped at a station. The engine at the front rumbled gently.
We all stood in the corridor. Waiting for the train to start moving again. Waiting for things to settle down again. Waiting for our place in the new scheme of things. I looked out the window the station was deserted. No one was getting off, no one was getting on.
A guard came into our carriage. Asked to see our tickets. We showed him our international railcards. He wasn’t happy and asked to see our Passports. Reluctantly we handed them over. He examined them carefully, looking at the photographs and then at each of us in turn. He handed back Sidi and Grethe’s passports, and turned to walk away with ours.
"Where are you going, with our passports?"
"They must be checked."
He stepped out onto the platform. And went over to the station master. They stood side by side as the conductor turned the pages of our passports, occasionally glancing over his shoulder in our direction, at which the station master glanced in our direction as well.
"Are you wanted by Interpol?" asked Sidi excitedly "are you in trouble?"
"We have been." I said. "In Yugoslavia, but I can’t think that that’s got anything to do with it."
"What happened in Yugoslavia?" asked Grethe
"We were arrested."
"What for?"
"Sleeping on the grass." replied Gary
"That’s ridiculous. Were you taken to the police station?"
"No we weren’t really arrested so much as kicked and beaten by the Militia." Gary explained.
"That’s worse isn’t it?" said Grethe who had now started looking carefully at us for tell tale bruises and broken bones.
"Well they didn’t know our names, that’s for sure." I said.
I looked out of the window again and the conductor and the station master had gone. I looked up and down the platform. But there was no one to be seen.
The train shook as it slowly started to pull away.
"Shit they’ve still got our passports." Panic set in.
The train stopped again and shook some more as carriages were shunted and our carriage, with our special compartment was taken away.
We sat waiting for another twenty minutes. Eventually a whistle blew. The station master stood at the end of the empty platform with a green flag.
The train started moving again. And the conductor stepped into our carriage.
"Your passports." he said. And walked off without explanation.



Now we were in the same position we were before. Standing room only.
I said I would explore the train to see if there were any seats for us. There weren’t. But at the back of the train I found the luggage compartment open and empty. I rushed back to Gary, Sidi and Grethe.
"We can sleep in the luggage compartment. It’s empty. There’s plenty of room for us. It’ll be like having a whole carriage to ourselves Not just a compartment."
So we picked up our rucksacks, and moved down the train.
"Excuse me........sorry.....can we just get past here."
At the luggage wagon, we laid out our sleeping bags and bedded down again. We went back to sleep. We didn’t even think about sex. We were too tired. But the Norwegian girls were nice to cuddle.
We woke hours later. The sun was up and we were still traveling south. I looked up and the sliding door had been closed while we slept. I got up and tried to open it. It was locked. I turned to the others "We’re locked in."
"It’s not a problem, we’ll just sleep some more." murmured Gary from under a sleeping bag.
But we couldn’t sleep anymore because the sun was up. Beating down on the single skinned metal roof of the luggage wagon, and it was getting hotter. The windows wouldn’t open. Sweat poured down our faces. It was then that I realised how dirty we were because the sweat made little clean tracks on our faces. "Do we keep quiet or do we try to get out." I said
"We’d better be quiet those conductors have guns you know."
So we sat in the luggage wagon. It got hotter and hotter.
"We are going to die in here." gasped Sidi, "it’s too hot."
"We’ve got to get out." added Grethe.
I was terrified of attracting the attention of the conductor with the gun. I’d had enough of being threatened at gun point. So I suggested we tried to find a way out. But it was impossible. As the sun got higher the temperature in the luggage compartment got higher we were being roasted alive. Sweat poured of us. The gorgeous Norwegian girls were looking frayed. Tempers were being lost. We had to get out before we died of heat exhaustion. We started hammering on the door. Shouting, screaming and at the same time terrified that we weren’t supposed to be there.
There was a sound at the door. A key was being turned. Shit! This is it. We’re dead. The door slid open and a large man, stood there looking at us sweating, and burst into laughter. We were in Greece.
"you can stay here it’s OK." he said. "it’s not a problem."
With the door open and the windows of the corridor open the cool morning air blew in. The Greek conductor still laughing went back to the rear of the train and we thanked our luck. The train had already long since passed Thessalonika in the north of Greece and we passed through Larissa and Lianokladion. We arrived at Athens about 10:00am, we’d spent just over twenty four hours on that train. Sidi and Grethe said they had a hotel booked. Goddamned Norwegian efficiency. We hadn’t. So we went our separate ways.