The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared

Allan was already standing there, and with a sigh he gave Herbert a friendly push in the direction of the clothes depot. But that didn’t help, Herbert went the wrong way again and before he knew it he found himself in the laundry room. And what did he find there, if not a whole pile of newly washed and ironed uniforms!
    He took two uniforms, hid them inside his coat, and then went out around the barracks again. The soldier in watchtower four saw him, but he didn’t even bother shouting. In fact, the guard thought that it looked as if the idiot was actually on the way to his own barracks.
    ‘A miracle,’ he mumbled to himself and returned to what he was doing before, which was dreaming that he was somewhere else far away.
     
    Now Allan and Herbert each had a uniform to show that they were proud recruits in the Red Army. Now it was just a matter of carrying out the rest of the plan.
    Recently Allan had noticed a considerable increase in the number of ships on the way to Wonsan. The Soviet Union wasofficially not in the war on the North Korean side, but lots and lots of war material had started to arrive by train in Vladivostok where it was then loaded onto ships that all had the same destination. Not that it was actually advertised where they were going, but Allan had the sense to ask the sailors. Sometimes you could also see what the cargo consisted of, for example rough terrain vehicles or even tanks, while on other occasions they were just wooden containers.
    Allan needed a diversionary tactic like the one in Tehran six years earlier. Following the old Roman maxim of keeping to what you do best, he thought that some fireworks might be just the thing. And that was where the containers to Wonsan came into the picture. Allan couldn’t know, but he guessed that several of them contained explosives and if such a container were to catch fire in the dock area and if it started to explode… Well, then Allan and Herbert would have the opportunity to slip around the corner and change into the Soviet uniform. And then they would have to get hold of a car – which would need to have the keys in the ignition and a full fuel tank – plus no owner in sight. And then the guarded gates would have to open on Allan and Herbert’s orders, and once they were out of the harbour and Gulag area, nobody would notice anything strange at all, nobody would miss the stolen car and nobody would follow them. And all of this before they were even in the vicinity of problems like how they would get into North Korea and – above all – how they would then move from north to south.
    ‘I might be a bit slow,’ said Herbert. ‘But it feels as if your plan isn’t entirely ready.’
    ‘You aren’t slow,’ Allan protested. ‘Well, perhaps a little, but when it comes to this, you are perfectly right. And the more I think about it, the more I think that we should just leave it at that, and you’ll see that things will turn out like they do, because that is what usually happens — almost always, in fact.’The escape plan’s first (and only) step thus consisted of secretly setting fire to a suitable container. For that purpose they needed 1) a suitable container, and 2) something they could set it on fire with. While waiting for a ship with a suitable container, Allan sent the notoriously stupid Herbert Einstein out on another mission. And Herbert showed that Allan’s faith in him was not misplaced by managing both to steal a signal rocket and hide it in his trousers before a Soviet guard discovered him in a place where Herbert had no right to be. But instead of executing or at the very least searching the prisoner, the guard just shouted something about it being not unreasonable to expect that after five years prisoner number 133 should be able to stop getting lost. Herbert said he was sorry, and tiptoed away. For the sake of the charade, he went in the wrong direction.
    ‘The barrack is to the left, Einstein,’ the guard shouted after him. ‘How stupid can you get?’
    Allan praised Herbert for a job well done and for acting the part well. Herbert blushed, while dismissing the praise, saying that it wasn’t hard to play stupid when you are stupid. Allan said that he didn’t know how hard it was, because the idiots Allan had met so far in his life had all tried to do the opposite.
     
    Then, what seemed to be the right day turned up. It was a cold morning, 1st March 1953, when a train arrived with more wagons than Allan, or at