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In the distance he heard the whistle and the train moved slowly across what I sounded like an iron bridge and came to a halt. It was a sixth stop since they had left Berlin.
Billy Fenwick lay very stiffly in his upper berth of the sleeping compartment and he knew that it was the sixth stop because he'd counted every one of them. He also knew that the time was exactly twenty-five minutes to two and that they should be almost half-way to the border by now. Every other minute he glanced at the luminous dial of his wristwatch, a treasured possession given to him on his ninth birthday. Anything to pass the time, to stop him from falling asleep, to keep him from starting at the blind which, in the blue light of the bulb over the door, looked like a sheet of shiny metal.
But he shouldn't be frightened because he was nine years old now. A great big boy, as they kept telling him. Mummy had promised him that there were no monsters outside, it was just his imagination. Robin wasn't frightened and he was only five and a half. Billy leaned over and looked down at his brother, who was curled up fast asleep with his head buried in the pillow. He looked so still he might have been dead.
No, Robin wasn't frightened, but why should he be? Robin was too young to know why the blinds were pulled down so tightly. He couldn't picture the cold desert outside with the white-faced people who stood and watched the trains. Robin didn't realize that at every stop there was danger, that at any moment the people would start coming towards them and, if the train didn't start again soon, one of them might raise his hand, open the window and begin to climb in.
And two of them were there now. Sweat ran down his forehead as he listened. Yes, footsteps were coming across the tracks, somebody was speaking in a low voice, somebody laughed, and there was a tapping noise just below the window. He pulled the blankets up tightly to his chin and tried not to scream, though at any moment he knew the window would come down and he would see a hand in under the blind. The tapping stopped, there was another deep laugh and he could picture fingers feeling for the window catch. Then the carriage creaked, the wheels started to turn. They were on their way again and he was safe.