The screams that rang throughout the darkened cattle car crammed
with deportees, as it jolted across the icy Polish countryside
five nights before Christmas, were Dr. Loch's only means of
locating his patient. The doctor, formerly chief medical officer
of a large urban hospital, now found himself clambering over
piles of baggage, fellow passengers, and buckets used as
toilets, only to find his path blocked by an old woman who
ignored his request to move aside. On closer examination, he
discovered that she had frozen to death. Finally he located the
source of the screams, a pregnant woman who had gone into
premature labor and was hemorrhaging profusely. When he
attempted to move her from where she lay into a more comfortable
position, he found that "she was frozen to the floor with her
own blood." Other than temporarily stanching the bleeding, Loch
was unable to do anything to help her, and he never learned
whether she had lived or died. When the train made its first
stop, after more than four days in transit,