I sat slumped behind the wheel of the GMC with it’s matt chrome centre boss and wept. I was all-in after labouring all the hours that were from Istanbul. My log book was shot to bits. Even I couldn’t alter it to coherently allow me extra driving time. I had to take about eleven hours rest before continuing my journey and it was now nine-thirty. By the time I had slept I knew that it would be at least nine o‘ clock before I’d be on the road again. Zeebrugge was a good ten hours solid drive away on a warm dry lightly trafiicked day. Technically this was not legally achievable in one shift. As far as I was aware the last ferry out of Zeebrugge would be at mid-day on the 24th. and I had already been warned that this would be fully booked. I had been aiming for the eleven -thirty night sailing on the twenty third which Ken had assured me was already pre-booked. So I had a nine and a half hour legal shift including mandatory half hour rest, then a ten hour rest period, then at least a couple of hours drive which would take me way past the check in time for that ferry and in fact would see me in Zeebrugge for about four on the morning of the twenty fourth. My only hope was to perhaps travel as a foot passenger, spend Christmas at home and then travel back to collect the truck. I was mulling all this over when there was a tap on the door. ‘‘You can not here stay,“ a Deutsche Bundesbahn employee was shouting up at me. I swore under my breath, started the motor and roared out of the goods station complex. Now I was a very angry bunny indeed. ‘■■■■ them.‘ I thought, ‘ I’ll bloody well drive all night. Sod the log book!‘ I drove furiously through the Ludwisgburg suburbs and up onto the northbound A81 towards Heilbron. Traffic was very light indeed and light snow was wafting across the road in the wind and my adrenalin rush was subsiding. By the time I reach the services at Wunnentstein I had to admit that I could go no further. My eyes were drooping seeing double and my reactions were retarded to say the least. So I pulled over and as I came to a halt on the far side of the very modern restaurant facility I suddenly realised that I had not eaten since lunchtime.
I locked up the cab and traipsed across the snow covered truck park noting that mine was the only one parked there. Once in the restaurant, I ordered a Zigeuner schitzel and a beer. With the departure of the adrenalin rush, despondency set in once again and I must have looked a sorry sight sitting on my own by the huge windows overlooking the bleak scene of the snow blown parking area highlighted by the shafts of light from the overhead floods. ‘‘Guten abend,“ a friendly female voice disturbed my depressed reveries, ‘‘Sein Zigeuner.“ ‘‘Thankyou,“ I replied absent-mindedly forgetting that I was in Germany. ‘‘Ah,“ she smiled, ‘‘You are from England?“ I nodded. ‘‘The LKW is yours?“ I nodded again. ‘‘Ein Moment,“ and she vanished behind the counter only to re-appear a few seconds later clutching a glass stein containing a bottle of beer neatly gift wrapped in cellophane and a box of chocolates. ‘‘For you,‘‘ she explained, ‘‘A Christmas present from us.“ She smiled again a beaming, open smile and I couldn’t help but smile back. This unexpected kind gesture broke my depression and I fell to thinking how lucky I actually was rather than how fate had dealt me such a devilish hand. I had my health, I had my lovely family, I had my GMC and a good steady job with a company who did not demand that you ran bent with dodgy permits or that you falsified your log books. That latter was a personal matter! I cheered up considerably and had a couple more beers before turning in for the night leaving the motor on a medium idle.
Next morning, the twenty third of December, it was indeed just on nine o‘ clock when I trundled out of the parking area onto the autobahn. Traffic was still light. With two days to go before Christmas I guessed that most businesses were now closed and many had already departed for their holiday break. Past Heilbron I was now on the A6 heading towards the A3 at Frankfurt am Main. I was well aware that at the Aachen border my log book could be checked but the previous night’s sleep had given me some credibility and I was confident of passing that inspection or indeed any that might be thrust upon me by the German motorway police if I had the bad fortune to be stopped and I had to admit that lady luck had not been significant by her presence on this trip. Once over the A5 the road bore right and we were on the vast agriculural plain between Frankfurt and Karlsruhe, normally the warmest area of Germany but definitely not at this time of the year as the Siberian winds were now sweeping unhindered across it, hitting my windscreen with sleet, snow and hail in no particular order. This was, however, a well trafficked road and therefore a well ploughed and gritted one so I was able to maintain reasonable speed until I was well to the west of Frankfurt closing on the hilly region around the medieval city of Limburg with its iconic cathedral built on top of a rock in the centre clearly visible from the road. That was to remain the view from my driver’s window for the next three hours the westbound carriageway having been brouight to a judddering halt by some unknown incident up ahead. I was glad that I was not heading for that late night Zeebrugge because by now my blood pressure would have been off the scale. I still had good time to make the following midday even if only as a passenger but it would have been even better to have been moving and not to have had to worry about my spread hours on the log book.
At about one o‘ clock the traffic started to move in a sporadic, then slow, then up to medium speed fashion and we continued over the packed ice in the general flow. Aachen Zuid was reached by five o‘ clock and I immediately headed for the Frans Maas caravan where I handed in my paperwork. “Ah,” said the bespectacled pimply auburn haired youth as he surveyed my papers, “You have a big problem!” My heart sank. “The customs chief is not accepting these stamps on your rail road permit. We have already five trucks waiting here for instructions. I will submit your papers but you will not be clear to move before the border closes I think.” My heart sunk further and despair was overtaking my normally optimistic outlook on life. Now not only would I miss the ferry but I would not even be able to board as a foot passenger. I asked to use the phone and within ten minutes I was explaining the situation to Ken in the London office. “Steve is also there,” he informed me, “And he was on the train you missed. We are already speaking to the Ministry and our Munich office is doing the same in Germany. Worst way we think is that you will be free to leave first thing in the morning. I’ve now got both of you booked on the 1330 tomorrow from Zeebrugge but also you’re on the wait list for the 1530 out of Ostende. We’ll update you through Frans Maas on the telex. By the way you don’t have to come to the office before you go home!” “Ken that’s not funny,” I said as I replaced the receiver .
“Go and get a coffee,” suggested the callow youth kindly. “Your colleague should also be in the café. We’ll still be here. The border closes at six but we work tonight until seven at least.”
I slunk across the top end of the parking noticing that Steve’s Mack was there and found the small café situated on the ground floor of an old customs house building. There were very few drivers inside and Steve’s bearlike bulk enveloped in a mist of questionable tobacco smoke was seated right next to the counter at the far end. When I joined him he introduced me to a couple of English drivers pulling for LKW Walter and in the same predicament as we were. “The depth of the ■■■■ is now terminal, know what I mean?” Steve solemnly observed. “What they do is illegal,” he continued. “I checked with some Wim Vos drivers who just left. They had same problem but somehow they must have fixed things. Know what I mean?” he mischievously nudged me implying that certain improprieties must have taken place. “Well,” I remarked, “Wim Vos are Dutch so they’ve got a head start and more clout than us.” I ordered coffee and discovered that the LKW boys were going to head for Zeebrugge come what may. “Townsend ships are bigger,” was their reasoning, “Plus there’s the possibility of a freighter late afternoon,” their agent, Gondrand, had informed them. Steve and I decided to reserve judgement on this until the morning if we were overnighted. “Depends on what time we get away,” Steve observed slowly drawing on his hand rolled cigarette, “Know what I mean? These bastxxrds are having a laugh. Playing with us. You know, don’t mention the war and all that know what I mean?”
After coffee we returned to the Frans Maas caravan and the pimply ginger youth. “They already got clearance for you,” he maintained, “But the border is now closed so you must wait until the morning. Your papers are in and I think we will have clearance by eight thirty. Please be here and hopefully you will catch your ferry. I am sorry but someone in customs I think will be in trouble.” Someone in custom in trouble was no great consolation for us. To catch the thirteen-thirty from Zeebrugge we would have to there by midday. The distance was about two hundred and fifty miles which would take four hours minimum. We could not make it in time. “Looks like the wait list in Ostende for us,” I observed through my melancholy as we returned to our trucks to share a cook-up in the GMC which Steve promptly filled with his smoke of doubtful legality. I slept fitfully through the night keen to be in the Frans Maas office on the dot of eight knowing that to have any chance of being shipped across the channel we would have to be out of Aachen sud customs the second our papers were ready. During a sleepless moment I started with the sudden realisation that once we had our papers back from the German authorities they still had to be processed through Belgium customs. Fate was indeed dealing me a cruel blow at this last minute.
Bright and early Steve and I had entered the Frans Maas caravan and, by eight fifteen to give them their due, they were presenting our paperwork to Belgian customs. By nine we were checking through the returned paperwork, the permits, the tanksheins, the tryptychs, the GV60’s, the c of o’s, the invoices and the laufzettl stamps. Miraculously all appeared to be in order. “You also very lucky,” the youth interposed, “No tank dips.” Joy of joy I had got away with an exit tankshein for four hundred litres. “What are we going to do Steve?” I asked, “Zeebrugge or Ostende?” We pondered the fact that we both had bookings on the Townsend thirteen-thirty and that if we were slightly late they might put us on the freighter. “If it exists,” Steve pointed out. On the other hand we could reach Ostend, traffic permitting, quite comfortably for the fifteen-thirty. We asked the youth to telex Ken and ask him to use his best offices to cajole Belgian Marine into carrying us on that fifteen-thirty and upgrade us from the wait list and so we left the customs area by nine-fifteen gunning our engines as we swept back out onto the A3 towards Liege and Brussels. This was a good road, hilly to start as we were traversing a corner of the Ardennes but once we had pushed through the traffic on the Liege ring road the terrain eased to the flat lands of the low countries, the traffic all but disappeared and our only perceived blockage would be coming off the autoroute to pick up the Brussels ring road. Today we were lucky and even the stretches of backbreaking Belgian pave in the Brussels suburbs failed to halt our progress.
By twelve the two trucks, black smoke streaming from our exhaust stacks, were out onto the A10 heading for Ghent, Bruges and then Ostende. Nothing could stop us now I thought, as we passed the turn for Zeebrugge and continued on towards our assignation with Belgian Marine. The A10 came to an abrupt end and we entered Ostende on the main road system arriving at the port basin by two o‘ clock. Papers were lodged instantly with Frans Maas. With my most pleading look I almost begged the clerk behind the window, “Will we make the fifteen-thirty?“ He looked at me, paused, rather too deliberately I thought, playing with us like cat and mouse perhaps. “You may be lucky,‘‘ he said, ‘‘Normally they are running the ’Prins Phillipe‘ on this service but right know she has engine problems. Soon they will tell us what they will do. If they put on ’Prins Laurent’ you will be O.K as she carries many more trucks but we have to wait and see.“
With that bit of doubtful news he disappeared to lodge our papers with customs telling us to return at two forty-five to learn our fate.
In short, Prins Phillipe was substituted by Prins Laurent, Steve and I enjoyed the trip with the free driver’s meals and free wine and we reached Dover Western Docks and disembarked by eight thirty. I handed in my paperwork to George Hammond’s, dropped my trailer in the parking area, said goodbye and Happy Christmas to Steve and hotfooted it up to Whitfield arriving home at about ten.
I was surprised they they were actually expecting me but of course Ken had been phoning and had already told them that I was on the ‘Prins Laurent‘ My wife had managed to keep the children up and the welcome was well worth all the trauma I’d been through. We tucked their sleepy little heads into bed warning them that they had to be asleep when Santa arrived and repaired to the lounge for a nightcap or two as I unwound. I apologised profusely to my good lady who luckily was in an extremely forgiving mode and so to bed. Would I do it again? Absolutely no bloomin‘ way!!!
) I was in Zeebrugge waiting to get on a Townson Thorenson boat which left about 1 a.m. and after clearing in Dover and tipping in Dudley I arrived in the yard in Stockport at 7 p.m. I still managed to make last orders in my local pub as well as a bit of extra time