Chapter 18 - Finding transport

Gammelnok spots a large lorry with tulips painted on its side. It looks promising, friendly and inviting, but how to get on board?

He seeks cover under a small truck and is able to observe the tulip lorry without being noticed. It looks enormous and impossible to get into. But having set his heart on this one, he waits patiently for an opportunity.

Hours pass and he is beginning to lose hope. Vehicles are leaving and the forecourt is emptying rapidly as the auction terminates.

Then, a side panel opens and steps are lowered from the tulip lorry. What must be the owner climbs down, carrying a bunch of flowers.

While the man heads towards another truck, where Gammelnok can just spot a female driver, this is the moment of opportunity.

Slinging his Haversack over his shoulder, he makes a dash for the steps leading into the large tulip lorry. Parting the plastic curtains he is now inside and discovers that it is bitterly cold. Has he made a mistake? Will he freeze to death in here?

He does not get a chance to change his mind, as the steps retract and the door slams shut. He is now in total darkness and without a means of escape. Far worse than the prison he was in earlier.

As he overcomes his panic and adjusts to the temperature his eyes can vaguely make out cardboard boxes stacked floor to ceiling.

Then there is movement as the lorry engine starts and they begin moving. Soon it feels like they are travelling at great speed. 

Gammelnok manages to lift the lid off two flower boxes and getting into one lid, he covers himself with the other. That keeps him reasonable warm and he soon falls asleep. It has been a long and eventful day.

Dreaming of crossing the English Channel soon to reach his pond in his English garden, he is unaware of where the lorry is actually heading. He is expecting to feel the gentle rocking of a ferry crossing the sea.

Instead he is woken by voices speaking an accent similar to GammelDansk.

"Could you step out of the cab please, Sir. Your papers please." a polite voice is heard through the walls of the lorry body.

Querying what the problem is, the driver is told that all vehicles from Holland are subject to a 'stop and search' routine as they are looking for an escaped convict.

The border police demand to look inside the lorry. The side door is opened and torches are shone over the interior. They see nothing but boxes of flowers stacked floor to ceiling. Although one seems to have fallen from the stack. No big deal, no sign of a fugitive criminal. It seems the border patrol have not been given a description of the escaped prisoner and could not possibly suspect that someone could hide in a flower box.

When Gammelnok hid in the lid, and put the other lid over himself, he realised that two lids do not make one box easily. Tearing the corners of the top lid, they now fit reasonably onto each other.

The border police thank the lorry driver and apologise for the inconvenience. Asked where the lorry is heading, Gammelnok is horrified to hear they are going north to Sweden and Finland. Right back to where he just came from. Not England and a garden pond.

Now he is in real trouble and need to find a way out so he can stop heading north.

The lorry moves on with Gammelnok trapped inside.