The Ghost Train

In Belgium, there is a group of men & women who wear a small metal brooch showing a railroad engine. They were passengers on the ghost train of Saint-Gilles. For security reasons, their story was withheld until last week.

Last September the political prisoners of Saint-Gilles passed along a message through their darkened cells: at 8:30 the next morning they would be taken by train to Germany. The Allies were advancing on Brussels.

In the morning 1,500 prisoners marched, singing, to the station. They were squeezed into cattle trucks. But Brussels' Resistance had been busy. The engine would not run. Another was found and coupled onto the train. But the engineer could not be found. A searching party discovered him at home, sick in bed. A substitute, hurriedly sent for, had an accident on his way to the station. Until 2 in the afternoon the train stood in the yards.

Six hours behind schedule, the train chuffed out. Soon the second engine developed mechanical trouble. Water in the boiler ran low. The engineer suggested that there was a water pump at Malines, 13 miles away. He knew, but the Germans did not, that the Malines pump was out of order.

It took eight hours to reach Malines. By 5 o'clock the next morning the desperate Germans decided to start all over again, ordered the train back to Brussels.

Engine and engineer came to life: Brussels was reached in an hour. In the crowded station, the engineer disappeared. Red Cross representatives persuaded the Germans to let the prisoners remain in Brussels by promising to take care of German wounded. A few hours later, Brussels was liberated.

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