'Do you hear me, boNr?'

'Yes,' said Wladek, petrified.

'If you go back to my carriage again, I take this car right off, then you won't be able to hear me, will you?'

'No, sir,' said Wladek.

Wladek felt the point of the knife breaking the surface of the skin behind his ear and blood began trickling down his neck.

'Let that be a warning to you, boy!

A knee suddenly came up into his kidneys with as much force as the gambler could muster. Wladek collapsed to the ground. A hand rummaged into his coat pockets and the recently acquired rubles were removed.

'Mine, I think,' the voice said.

Blood was now coming out of Wladek's nose and from bel - .tind his ear.

When he summoned up the courage to look up from the corner of the corridor, it was empty, and there was no sign of the gambler. Wladek tried to get to his feet~ but his body refused to obey the order from his brain, so he remained slumped in the comer for several minutes. Even - tually when he was able to rise, he walked slowly to the other end of the train, as far away from the gambler's carriage as possible, his limp grotesquely exaggerated. He hid in a carriage occupied mostly by women and children, and fell into a deep sleep.

At the next stop, Wladek didn't leave the train. He undid his little parcel and started to investigate. Apples, bread, nuts, two shirts, a pair of trousers and even shoes were contained in that brown - papered treasure trove. What a woman, what a husband.

He ate, he slept, he dreamed. And finally, after six nights and five days, the train chugged into the terminal at Odessa. The same check at the ticket barrier, but the guard hardly gave Wladek a second look. This time his papers were all in order, but now he was on his own. He still had one hundred and fifty rubles in the lining of his suit, and no inten - don of wasting any of them.

Wladek spent the rest of the day walking around the town trying to familiarise himself with its geography, but he found he was continually distracted by sights he had never log seen before: big town houses, shops with windows, hawkers selling their colourful trinkets on the street, gaslights, and even a monkey on a stick.

Wladek walked on until he reached the harbour and stopped to stare at the open sea beyond it. Yes, there it was - what the Baron had called an ocean.

He gazed into the blue expanse longingly: that way was freedom and escape from Russia. The city must have seen its fair share of fighting: bumt - out houses and squalor were all too evident, grotesque in the mild, flower - scented sea air. Wladek wondered whether the city was still at war.

There was no one he could ask. As the sun disappeared behind the high buildings, he began to look for somewhere to spent the night. Wladek took a side road and kept walking. He must have looked a strange sight with his skin coat dragging along the ground and the brown paper parcel under his arm. Nothing looked safe to him until he came across a railway siding in which a solitary old carriage stood in isolation. He stared into it cautiously; darkness and silence: no one was there.. He threw his paper parcel into the carriage, raised his tired body up on to the boards, crawled into a comer and lay down to sleep. As his head touched the wooden floor, a body leaped on top of him and two hands were quickly around his throat. He could barely breathe.

'Who are you?' hissed a boy who, in the darkness, sounded no older than himself.

Vladek Koskiewicz.'

Vhere do you come from?'

Woscow.' Slonim had been on the tip of Wladek's tongue. Vell, you're not sleeping in my carriage, Muscovite,' said the voice.

'Sorry,' said Wladek. 'I didn't know.'

~Got any money?' His thumbs pressed into Wladek's throat.

'A little,' said Wadek.

'How much?'

'Seven rubles.'

'Hand it over.'

Wladek rummaged in the pocket of his overcoat, while the boy also pushed one hand firmly into it, releasing the pressure on Wladek's throat.

In one movement, Wladek brought up his knee with every ounce of force lie could muster into the boy's crotch. His attacker flew back in agony, clutching his testicles. Wladek leaped on him, hitting him in places the boy would never have thought of. The rules had suddenly changed. He was no competition for Wladek; sleeping in a derelict carriage was five - star luxury compared to the dungeons and a Russian labour camp.

10

Wladek stopped only when his adversary was pinned to the carriage. floor, helpless. The boy pleaded with Wladek.

'Go to the far end of the carriage and stay there,' said Wladek. 'If you so much as move a muscle, I'll kill you.'

Tes, yes,' said the boy, scrambling away.