Free Julius by Daphne du Maurier Page B

shrunken and desolate. He was changed from the Père who had shaken Mère like a rat and killed her. There were hollows in his cheeks and his eyes were sunken. It seemed to Julius that Père was only splendid by moments, and at other times he was a poor creature. He understood why Grandpère had despised him. ‘I am a Blançard as well as a Lévy,’ thought Julius, and he wondered how they would be able to get away from Paris by train without anyone knowing and without paying a sou.
     
    It was Julius who nosed his way into the Gare d’Orléans and discovered the departure of a goods train for Dijon was due at two o’clock on Thursday morning. An official was talking to a soldier, and the soldier turned to another official, and nobody bothered to notice a little Jew boy biting his nails.
    ‘There are still blocks everywhere,’ said one of them, ‘the Prussians are holding up all traffic.What time the train will arrive and on what day, no one can tell. We must hope for the best.’
    Julius strolled away, his hands in his pockets. ‘At two o’clock it will be dark,’ he was thinking, ‘and no one would be foolish enough to search every wagon that leaves a station. Besides, people do not travel in goods trains.’
    He went and told his father what he had heard. ‘We shall be discovered and arrested, little love,’ said Père. ‘It is one chance in a million.’
    ‘The first time I caught a rat during the siege I had only a crumb of bread and a heavy stone; that was a chance in a million too,’ said Julius.
    At half-past one on Thursday morning they crouched in the shadow of a deserted signal box amongst a mass of intricate lines, just outside the Gare d’Orléans. It was dark, the lights of the station loomed dimly in the distance.There were trucks blocked everywhere. It was impossible to distinguish letters on any of them. Some might be moving that night, others might be shunted there to remain for weeks. Paul Lévy felt his way along the lines in the direction of the station, Julius creeping at his heels like a dog. There was something a little further on that might be the train destined for Dijon, a line of trucks but no engine. Père dared not strike a match for fear he should be seen. He looked up and down the line, there were no other trucks to be seen on the same line. These must be the Dijon trucks. Suddenly there came a blast of a whistle from the station, and the shriek of steam from a funnel. An engine was coming towards them. Père hoisted Julius on to his shoulder and threw him into the nearest truck, following himself, climbing hand over hand. Julius fell on to his face amongst a heap of stones. They lay side by side, listening for the approach of the engine. In a few minutes it came, striking the last of the line of trucks with a rude jolt. A voice called out from somewhere: ‘We shan’t be leaving until half-past two, there is a delay.’ And another voice answered: ‘Who is certain whether we go at all? Anyway, we shall be stopped at Châtillon by the Prussians.’
    The voices grumbled, they became fainter, and then moved away up the line.
    ‘Lie still,’ whispered Père. ‘At any rate we are due to leave some time. We must stay where we are.’
    They tried to make a position of comfort among the stones, but it was impossible. They were not hard bricks, they were the ordinary small road stones, rough-edged and multitudinous. The minutes passed, interminable, and suddenly there was a grunt and a jolt, a voice called from somewhere, and the trucks began to move.
    They could only have gone three hundred yards or so when the train stopped. Another whistle blew and then there was silence. The delay lasted for twenty minutes.
    ‘What’s happened?’ whispered Julius. Père did not answer, it was useless. How should he know what had happened? And the trucks jolted and clanked, and then moved on again. They were going slowly, making no pace at all. Every few minutes they would stop, the line