The Darkest Hour Read Online Free PDF

morning, a nightmare taking place while the rail workers had sweet dreams. He’d told the Ministry of Railways that he needed the yard in the early mornings so that it didn’t interfere with their schedules, but in reality he knew it was because he didn’t want too many judgmental eyes to see him pushing and prodding Jews into rail cars.
    The freight train was already waiting for them when they arrived. It would have traveled all night, Glasgow to London, stopping along the way at Preston, Liverpool, and Birmingham to collect the Jews who were no longer useful. Rossett wondered when the trains would run out of cargo. He lit another cigarette and rubbed his forehead again, trying not to think about who would be chosen to fill the train the day it ran out of Jews.
    He stayed in the Austin, about forty feet from the blackness of the freight car, watching as the trucks with the Jews backed up to the wooden ramp. Two railway workers quickly made themselves scarce as the police and HDT climbed down from their own transport and formed a human cordon to channel the Jews.
    Rossett looked around the yard: no civilians in sight. He considered whether to pull on his hat but decided against it as a gust of wind shoved the little car and made it rock. Across the yard, the men waiting by the rear of the trucks glanced across for the okay to start work so they could get out of the rain as fast as possible.
    Everyone wanted it to be over for their own reasons.
    Rossett sighed, got out of the Austin, and made his way toward the waiting troops, who were squinting at him through the drizzle. As Rossett passed the other freight cars he could make out shouts and the banging of fists against the heavy timber doors. He’d once made the mistake of stopping and listening, a mistake he wouldn’t make again.
    “We okay to crack on, Sarge?” said the bobby nearest the canvas flap at the rear of one of the trucks.
    “Who’s counting?”
    “I am, Sarge, and Kelly on the ramp,” said another policeman, who held up his notebook.
    Rossett nodded to the first policeman, who started to untie the ropes holding down the canvas. Once the flap was open and the tailgate dropped, the bobby stepped back, expecting the Jews to jump down.
    They didn’t.
    Koehler had once said they were like “rats in a tipping barrel, creeping farther into the dark away from the light.”
    Apart from the wind and the flapping of the newly untied canvas, there was no other sound until Rossett took his cigarette out of his mouth and shouted, “Come on, we’ll be here all day. Get them off!”
    Almost immediately the men came to life and started to shout into the wagon. A couple of them jumped up onto the bed of the truck and disappeared into the darkness. Soon, the first of the Jews, men and women, many of them elderly, started to tumble down like leaves in autumn into the waiting arms of the HDT and police.
    The wind whipped everyone in the yard, almost taking the sound of the count away with it.
    “One . . . two . . . three . . .” as the first three shuffled along, confused and holding themselves with arms folded tightly, two old ladies and a teenage girl, their nightdresses providing little comfort in the rain and wind. Slowly the others started to jump down unaided, the younger ones helping their parents and grandparents. Some were crying, while others just looked around, sheepish and confused. “Fourteen, fifteen . . .” Nobody tried to make a dash for cover; nobody tried to fight back. They just did as they were told, the way they always did.
    Rossett wondered if he would go so quietly. “Twenty-seven, twenty-eight . . .” He liked to think he would fight back, throw a punch or two or make a dash for it. Then again, maybe he’d just do as he was told as well.
    He didn’t know.
    He hoped he’d never find out.
    “Thirty-eight, thirty-nine . . .”
    Along the track, Rossett could see the steam engine reversing to pick up the carriages. It would have