For the next hour the kid stood in various queues behind people with bulging pockets or open bags, looking at them, never buying anything. Sometimes he made contact with the people watching upstairs. Sometimes he spoke to the people with crutches. Sometimes bangs went off - (those cap crystals that you throw at the floor) and everyone looked in the direction of the noise. Now and again the police walked in and various groups of people quickly walked downstairs only to re-emerge soon after. Exactly on the half hour the groups disappeared. Exactly on the next half hour they all reappeared again. There were other suspicious people. One person seemed to be on his own and for all the time from 19:30 to 22:20 he walked around the hall down the stairs and then back again, looking at train times, food and resting. He looked like a British towny one on drugs age approx 22, wearing a thin plastic jacket, school trousers, and he carried a purple polythene bag. As he walked past the light you could see it contained a foot long dagger. The point of it stuck out of the bottom of the bag. One or two people in the hall noticed it and were visibly disturbed. We were worried as we realised how organised the gangs were. We decided it would be safer to stay in the hall as there were many people with rucksacks there, and to get a fast train in the morning (we still believed that rucksacks meant interrailers meant friends). I tried to reserve a ticket for the next morning's train but it was fully booked. There was a fast train going to Krakow at about 11pm but that got there at about 2am but we thought it might be too dangerous to arrive there then.
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At 22:20 we went down to look at the train and assess it. In the dark middle level where the bureau de change and train times were were a lot of the dodgy people. We said 'this is obviously where they do the deeds having sussed the people out upstairs.' John saw a guy with a black and red checked jumper, an evil smile and a couple of books. We went down to the platform. I said that we should find people with rucksacks to get onto the train with as they would be interrailers like us, but everyone had rucksacks and most of them seemed to be Polish. We walked down the platform, the train came in. Its hard to remember exactly what happened next, I think I tried walking towards a couple of different carriages and I remember a lot of bustling, people walking past each other to get to different carriages, strange as there were no reservations and they were all equally busy. We followed some western looking interrailers, plus many others, onto the train. Many people followed us. We got about a third of the way into the carriage. No-one was going into the compartments and the couple we could see into were full (about 8 people and loads and loads of baggage ie rucksacks). We said 'Oh well we knew there'd be some bad journeys like this where we have to sit in the aisle to sleep.' John was behind me getting onto the train. More people came on until we were pushed closer to the centre of the carriage. The person behind him said in perfect English, although he was obviously Polish (he may have told John that he was from Warsaw or some- thing) 'would you like to play my guitar?' John said that unfortunately he couldn't play but it would be nice if the guy played for us. He didn't. I thought that this was strange that someone would want their guitar played by someone else but wouldn't play it themselves. He smiled all the time and was with his girlfriend. We relaxed. We'd left that dodgy station and we were obvi- ously safe as it was a busy train with interrailers, couples and families (the compartment that we were outside of contained 3 girls aged between 7 and 16, father 50, mother 42 and three others I can't remember). The next compartment had closed curtains and the light was off. I pushed up the aisle to the next one which had an open door but the light was off. I saw two seats there (I couldn't see whether the other seats were occu- pied. I wondered whether we could sit there. The Western girls were just outside this compartment. I looked at them wondering why they had chosen to sit in the aisle instead of in the seats. I assumed they had a reason and that there was no point in us trying to sit there.
After a short time John pointed out that we were sur- rounded. We'd learnt what dodgy people looked like in the station. At one end of the aisle was one thug (the black and red jumper, age approx 28) and another one at the other end. Signalling to one another and looking at us. The two western girls looked at them. I made some expression to the girls indicating that I wasn't happy with the situation, they seemed to reciprocate. A few people walked down the aisle so we had to stand up to let them past. A drunk (age 40, with a blue and white hori- zontal striped sailor's tee shirt) came past with his mate (a sober thug aged 28). He pushed against people. Particularly against John. His hands were all over him. John said he was looking for his money belt. John threw the guy off him. There were a lot of angry unintelligible words and hard stares and eventually the mate took the drunk through the rest of the carriage. John burst into the family carriage by us and put our rucksacks in to keep them out of the corridor and away from the thieves. The family were very helpful and seemed to appreciate our situation. I asked the mum and dad where they were going. They said Zakopane (the end of the line). I asked when we'd get there and they said something like 07:30. John asked them when we got to Krakow. The drunk and his mate talked to the thug at the other end. Then they came back and talked to the black and red guy. The black and red guy talked to the people around him. Smiling guitar man looked at us. Most of them seemed to. An old guy appeared. A bit like a drunk, but not drunk. Very thin, aged 50 something, no fat, wrinkled hanging skin, carrying an empty old leather zip bag like a bus conductor might carry. He took the seat we had been sitting on that folded down out of the wall in the middle of the aisle. He put his head across the aisle to the opposite wall and pretended to go to sleep. From now on guitar man only spoke, in whispers, to his girlfriend. Always smiling and looking at us (not smiling at us though.) Now and again his guitar in its soft case got banged. He didn't seem to care. I sat in the doorway of the family carriage. It was very uncom- fortable but I had to make sure that the door stayed open so that they could help us. Over time we decided that getting off at Krakow at 04:00 would be dangerous and that we might wait until Zakopane and get off in daylight with the family. Every 20 mins at the start of the journey lots of people would come past and we'd have to get up. I'm convinced that this was a ploy. Stopping us sleeping so that we'd sleep soundly when required. After I realised this I stopped getting up. When I did get up I always moved into the compartment so there was no excuse for people finding my money belt, but I kept my arm across the aisle to keep my place. I slept for the odd couple of minutes while John stayed awake. It had been a very long day and was probably about 01:00. Then John lay down under the old man's seat, on top of my legs, with his feet touching the Western girls bag. I said this was a good idea to maintain some sort of commu- nication with them. I was worried about them. They seemed be doing stupid naive things like holding their purses loosely in their hands, and both going to sleep (over the week I realised that this was setting an example, a ploy these people often did.) One of the girls, the one with short brown hair, started mouthing something to me. It was Polish so I couldn't lip read it. I climbed over the old man to talk to them. (By now the thugs had moved about. Red and black was right next to the girls, virtually on top of their rucksacks, although they did get sensible at one point and sit on them. He had a 'Lets Go Eastern Europe' book and a note pad. He pretended to make very scarce notes on it. Another thug had taken his place between us and the nearest door.) We established that the girls were from Warsaw, and that we were English. The blonde wavy haired girl spoke better English so I spoke to her. I asked how she was. (All the time I was looking at black+red with visible fear). She said 'alright' but out of his sight tilted her thumb half way down. She asked where we were going. I said it was too dangerous to say. There was a bit of a communication failure but she got the idea that I wasn't going to tell her. I asked where she was going. I didn't recognise the name. It may have been Zakopane but I don't think so. The name was something more like Bergen or Copenhagen. I asked what time they would get there. The blonde girl had difficulty talking. The other one had lost interest in talking. I thought she didn't know how to say the time in English so I told her to show me on her fingers. She was reluctant to do this. Briefly I thought she was afraid of Black + red seeing. I asked again. She spoke to the other girl, who was pre- tending to go to sleep. The girl lost her temper and shouted in perfect English 'nine o'clock' indicating that she didn't want the conversation to continue as she thought it was futile. I took the hint and went back to John. I was confused that their train journey would end a couple of hours after the train was supposed to. I thought a lot, with the following conclusions: They didn't know or care what time the train was getting in. They lost interest in me when I wouldn't say where I was heading, probably the Polish question she originally asked. They had jeans on which Polish girls (aged approx 22) couldn't afford. The jeans were rolled up, and baggy at the thighs, they obviously didn't fit. They had trainers and rucksacks etc which they couldn't afford. They never ever smiled. The only smiles we saw in Poland were the evil smiles of red+black, and guitar man. This turned out to be a good way of determining a nationality, especially if you smiled at them and they didn't return it. The girls lost their interest in me. They stopped going to sleep. They spoke to red+black. They stopped looking concerned. They ate their packed lunch. Actu- ally I did see them smile at one another. The blonde girl took out a passport, a small red one like the British one John's got. She was looking at it and then she practised flashing it at people so they couldn't see the photo in it. Now and again the old man stood up to have a smoke out the window. He left his bag on the chair. This was obviously why he carried an empty bag. John and I chatted very quietly. We were scared. We were constantly realising that all these people who got on separately and had spent hours separately actually all knew each other. There were odd people at either end of the carriage, by the doors that we couldn't see. Starting at the door we came in at; there was a thug, the first compartment which thugs constantly went in and out of, then guitarman and his girlfriend, then me in the doorway of the family, then John, then the old man, then the two Warsaw girls, then red+black. After him there was a very big bloke in a plain white shirt, I wouldn't really say he was fat just solid. About 6ft, aged 40. He had two kids with him a boy and girl aged about 8 and 10. The man showed the kids how to sit with their heads across the aisle. The two kids talked together, looked at us and giggled. I said happy birthday to John (today was his 25th birthday). All the way I had been thinking 'as long as I stop them finding my money belt, containing tickets, passport and travellers cheques, I'll be OK'. I was worried about what I'd do if a ticket man appeared. He did. I saw him appear at the opposite end of the car- riage. |
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