The Greatest POW Escape Stories Ever Told by Keith Warren Lloyd

Author:Keith Warren Lloyd
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Lyons Press
Published: 2020-12-23T00:00:00+00:00

“There he is now.” Makowski, standing beside me at the midday break the next day, indicated a prisoner standing a little apart from the rest. “Let us wait here a couple of minutes so that you can look him over.” The man’s shoulders were squared and the shapeless clothes could not disguise that ramrod back.

“You are a cavalry man,” said Makowski at length. “You should recognize the type.”

“Who is he?”

“He’s a Pole. Sergeant of Cavalry Anton Paluchowicz. He’s forty-one, but strong and fit, well-trained, experienced. I’d go anywhere with him. Shall we talk to him?”

We went over and talked. I liked the look of Paluchowicz. He accepted the proposition like a good soldier undertaking a mission of war. He was glad to know I was a lieutenant of the Polish Cavalry. “We shall do it together,” he said. “It won’t be easy, but we shall do it.”

That evening I came up behind Kolemenos. I tapped him on the shoulder and he turned. He smiled. “Oh, it’s you again.”

“Kolemenos, I am getting out of here with some others. Would you like to join us?”

He put one big hand on my shoulder. “You mean it? Seriously?” I nodded. “Yes, seriously. Perhaps very soon.” The big man smiled happily through his blond beard. “I shall come.” He laughed aloud and brought the weight of his hand down twice on my shoulder. “I could carry you on my shoulders if necessary. If we could come all that way from Irkutsk hanging on those bloody chains we can go a long way further without them.”

Now there were four of us. We began to plan with a sense of urgency. It was the end of March and I felt we had not a great deal of time. We began to watch things closely. We noted, for instance, that the starting of the dog patrol around the perimeter at night was always signalled by the yelping and whining of the sledge dogs showing their annoyance at being left behind. That signal came only once every two hours. We discovered the patrol always went round anti-clockwise, covering the long south side first. We decided the escape must be through the southerly defenses and that therefore we must get ourselves established in the end hut on that side.

Paluchowicz brought Zaro into the scheme. Eugene Zaro came from the Balkans, a Yugoslav I think. He was thirty and, before the Russians had caught up with him, had been a clerk. “If you want some fun on the way,” said our sergeant, “Zaro is the man.” Like an inspection committee, Makowski and Paluchowicz and I stood back and watched him in the food queue. He was a well-built man, below average height, and his almost black eyes had a constant gleam of laughter and mischief. The men around him roared in joyous gusts and Zaro stood there, his eyes twinkling in a mock-serious face. “All right,” I pronounced, “we’ll have him.”

“I’ve always wanted to travel, and this sounds good,” was Zaro’s answer to my approach.

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