One reader has asked me how Jim Shepard escaped from prison in Bulgaria. I originally had Addy describe it when she is talking about Jim close to the beginning of the novel, 'Patsy'. I deleted it, however, as I felt I was trying the reader's patience a little too far with Addy's long speech. I know Addy is voluble, but there are limits. Anyway if any reader wants to know here is the answer.
Jim was in a rural prison near the mountainous border with Greece. He had been able to work out roughly where he were after the the Bulgarians had taken him off the train and driven him away in a car, because he knew the Germans always kept an exact distance between telegraph poles.He had been able to see out of the car's front window although the Bulgarians had curtained off all the other windows.
Much to Addy's annoyance Jim always kept nails , screws and nuts in his jacket pockets. In those days men had two sections to their pockets, the large one big enough for their hands and a small one for coins. When the car passed a telephone pole Jim put a nail in the small pocket, when they turned a corner he put in a nut.
Jim was kept in a locked room that led off from the guard's room while the Bulgarian guards waited for the German interrogators to collect him.
The guards played cards and drank local wine while on duty. One day in a rush to get back to the card game one of the guards left the room unlocked after delivering a meal. Jim waited until the guards were engrossed in a fierce argument over a card game and slipped round the back of the room and out of the open outside door-(presumably the guards wanted warning to clear up and look busy before the Germans entered the building).
It was only a short distance to the Greek border. Once in Greece, Jim cadged lifts with Greek soldiers and made his way to Athens where he caught the last convoy out before the Germans took over.
