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The Little Red Train

Aman

The door of the container opened. The daylight blinded us. We could not see who it was at first.

It was not the police.

It turned out to be the fixer man, and his gang, the same people who had put us in there. They said we could get out if we wanted and stretch our legs, that we were waiting for some other people to join us.

We were in a kind of loading bay with lorries all around, but not many people. We should have run off there and then, but one of the fixer’s gang always seemed to be watching us, so we didn’t dare.

Only a few minutes later, it was too late.

The other refugees arrived, and we were all herded back into the same container, given some more blankets, a little fruit, and a bottle or two of water. They slammed the doors shut on us again and the fixer shouted at us, that no matter what, we mustn’t call out, or we’d all be caught and taken to prison. We could hear the lorry being loaded up around us.

It was a while, I remember, before my eyes became accustomed to the dark again, and I could see the others.

As the lorry drove off we sat there in silence for a while, just looking at one another. I counted twelve of us in all, mostly from Iran, and a family – mother, father and a little boy – from Pakistan, and beside us an old couple from Afghanistan, from Kabul.

It was Ahmed, the little boy from Pakistan, who got us talking. He came over to me to show me his toy train, because I was the only other kid there, because he knew he could trust me, I think – it was plastic and bright red, I remember, and he was very proud of it.

He knelt down to show me how it worked on the floor, telling everyone about how his grandpa worked on the trains in Pakistan. And, in secret, I showed him the silver-star badge Sergeant Brodie had given me. Ahmed loved looking at it. He was full of questions about it, about everything. He liked me, he said, because I had a name that sounded like his. It wasn’t long before we were all telling one another our stories. To begin with, Ahmed and me, we laughed a lot, and played about, and that cheered everyone up. But it didn’t last. I think our laughter lasted about as long as the fruit and water.

I don’t know where that lorry took us, nor how many days and nights we were locked up in the container. They didn’t let us out, not once, not to go to the toilet even, nothing. And we didn’t dare shout out. They brought us no more water, no more food. We were freezing by night, and stifling hot by day.

When I was awake, I just longed to be asleep, so I could forget what was happening, forget how much I was longing every moment for water and for food. Waking up was the worst. When we talked amongst each other now, it was usually to guess where we were, whether we were still in Iran, or in Turkey, or maybe in Italy. But none of this made any sense to me, because I had no idea where any of these places were.

Most of them, like Ahmed and his parents, said they were trying to get to England, like we were, but a few were going to Germany or Sweden. One or two had tried before, like the old couple from Kabul who were going to live with their son in England, they told us, but they had already been caught twice and sent back. They were never going to give up trying, they said.

But in the end the stories stopped altogether, and there was no more talking, just the sound of moaning and crying, and praying. We all prayed. For me the journey in that lorry was like travelling through a long dark tunnel, with no light at the end of it. And there was no air to breathe either, that was the worst of it. People were coughing and choking, and Ahmed was being sick too. But he still held on to his little red train.

The smell, I’ll never forget the smell.

After that I think I must have lost consciousness, because I don’t remember much more. When I woke up – it was probably days later, I don’t know – the lorry had stopped. Maybe it was the shouting and the crying that woke me up, because that was all I could hear. Mother and the others were on their feet and banging on the side of the container, screaming to be let out.

By the time they came for us and dragged me out of there, I was only half alive.