And lo, in the distance, at the end of a long and winding slip road, there stood our salvation. The Pidou (which I assume is pronounced as we pronounce 'paedo') cash and carry. Open all hours for truckers looking to pick up a snack or cheap hooch to take back to the UK. We headed straight for the snack option.
Our journey from A to B through torrential rain felt like an eternity
There was bread, which the French are pretty good at, and cheese (which they also have a talent for). I bought a jar of roll-mops to expand the sustenance and some chocolate that reminded me of advent calendars. A tube of Pringles helped get rid of the shitty Christmas chocolate taste. Our feast was well earned. It was the first food since breakfast back at Fiesta in Bow.
Somewhat nourished, we decided to make camp against the front wall of our Pidou. Exhausted, I found myself in little bother or discomfort at curling up under a sleeping bag. Somehow, I drifted off to a peaceful slumber.
THUNK!
Weird voices and noises were present in my sleep, but that last one brought me back to some kind of consciousness. Bleary eyed, I turned to Dunc for some kind of answer. He was sat next to me staring a thousand miles into the distance. I followed the line of his sight and saw about a dozen asylum seekers chasing after a lorry, shouting in whatever language they spoke.
'This is a bit sketchy.' I thought to myself and being a total coward wrapped myself tighter into the sleeping bag in an lame attempt to hide from the monsters. The walk had taken such a toll on my unhealthy body, no amount of fear could keep me from returning to my doze. But it wasn't a complete slumber. How could it be?
The pitter patter of desperate feet returned again. Through my half opened eyes I could see men trying to find entry into a parked truck outside the shop. The driver exited the shop and Dunc warned him of the situation. 'Is that really a good idea?' I screamed to myself, but found no way of communicating this to Dunc. The driver diligent to the fine he'd receive if found with illegal immigrants in his truck scouted around his vehicle before driving off. 'This is fucked.' We told each other.
Another THUNK! hit my eardrums. 'We need to get inside!' screamed Dunc. From my seat, I saw to my left an asylum seeker; Dunc stood up to my right. I was sat in the middle of a stand off and knew little of it. The asylum seeker had squared up to Dunc with a brick in his hand. Dunc stood his ground, hoping to dissuade the man from launching his projectile. It didn't work.
Desperate, we piled into the shop and explained the situation to the night staff. They seemed happy to let us hide for cover. Happy or not; I didn't give a shit. There was no way we were going out there again before daylight.
And so we sat in our cafe collecting our thoughts. Myself trying to piece things together through the blur of fear and unconsciousness and Dunc with an all too clear recollection of the events just gone. When would morning come and let us leave this island, our Somme?
Morning came and with it a bus load of booze cruisers from the Midlands. To interested ears of elderly gentleman we told them of the night before and our reasons for being holed up in a service station just outside Calais. 'We're hitchhiking to Warsaw,' we told them. A younger lad responded, 'That's right near us, Walsall.' They couldn't unfortunately give us the lift we needed to officially start our hitchhiking.
During the night we worked on our destination signs. After about twenty minutes of standing in the sun my patience was already wearing thin. A truck drove past us and slowed down. We chased after it waving at the driver.
'I'm going to Luxembourg if that's any use to you,' we looked at each other and silently agreed. Anywhere but here!
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