When all the prisoners were lined in the corridor a command was given by one of the guards and we shambled forwards towards the exit steps. I was last in the line and was denied, for the moment, the opportunity to look for faces I might know. We passed through the door at the top of the steps and then turned left, along the passage-way through which I had been bundled, blindfolded, on my arrival. I made a mental note of everything. From the outset, and as the only conceivable positive course in the circumstances, I had resolved on escape.
We filed through another doorway, at which guards were posted, turned right, and suddenly emerged into the fresh, blinding air of the Château courtyard. A staff-car, two motorcycles with side-cars and a light truck were parked on the gravel. Sentries were posted at the gateway into the courtyard, and, dotted around the courtyard itself, standing casually but with rifles at the ready, were soldiers of the SS — I counted over a dozen — looking at us with an air of somewhat listless mockery. Doubtless, this was their morning’s entertainment.
I copied the actions of the prisoners in front of me. The line moved along to the left, flanked now by several guards with pointed rifles. We passed in front of a pump, below which was a large, metal-grilled drain. As each prisoner reached the pump he emptied the contents of his can down the drain with the aid of a sluicing from the pump. My lack of a can caused ribald laughter amongst our onlookers. The line then moved on towards a long, low trough, filled with water and fed by another pump. The file broke up and we took up places on either side. The trough itself was not clean, but every man, before washing (that was clearly the purpose of the trough), dipped his face in the water and drank deeply. I did so, without hesitation, myself. I could not help reflecting on the apparent obsession of our captors with a token cleanliness. We were given a full five minutes to scrub and rinse ourselves, and the touch of the water, though it stung and stabbed at bruises and scars, gave a sort of bitter pleasure.
I had an opportunity now to study my comrades. They were a pitiful sight. Dressed in ragged clothes, hollow-eyed, unshaven, and bearing, without exception, the marks of heavy beatings — if not of more precise and calculated injuries. Some seemed so feeble it was a wonder they had made it to the courtyard. One, in particular, was unable to wash himself and had to be helped by his neighbours. His nose had been sliced and all the fingers on his right hand systematically crushed.
As we bent over the washing trough the guards encircled us and it was obvious that talking was forbidden. But while stooping low, and with the noise of slopping water and the pump, it was possible to exchange a few words that went unnoticed. French was the only language I heard amongst the prisoners; as far as I knew, I was the only Britisher at the Château. I found myself opposite a stocky figure with a ragged beard whom I vaguely recognized as one of the group from Dôle. Without any preliminary introductions, he whispered through the cupped hands with which he washed his face:
‘You shouted last night.’
‘Shouted?’
‘When they brought you in — “Il n’y a personne?” If we make a noise in the cells we get no food. That is the rule. We will not eat now till tomorrow.’
He spoke without the slightest trace of friendship. I was beginning to realize that in prisons there is as much suspicion and enmity between the prisoners as between captives and captors. But I understood at last the odd question of the truncheon-wielder.
‘You are in one of the back cells — in the dark?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re lucky.’
It was not clear to me why being confined in the dark was lucky. But with the slightest movement of his head my neighbour indicated the base of the Château wall on the side of the courtyard where we had emerged. There were tiny, semicircular, barred openings at and (because of a sort of gutter which ran round the perimeter of the courtyard) just below ground level. I realized that these must mark the row of cells on the opposite side of the corridor to my own. While my own cell, perhaps, adjoined the outer wall of the Château, these adjoined the courtyard and were equipped with these small apertures which allowed light to enter.
‘They look in on us like animals in cages. They watch us all the time.’
A guard drew close; we had to cease whispering for a moment.
‘You have visited “le goret”?’
Again, I followed a slight movement of my companion’s head. Our chubby acquaintance from the room at the end of the cell corridor had emerged into the courtyard and was sauntering up and down. ‘Goret’ is French for ‘piglet’. An apt word.
‘Yes.’
‘Too bad,’ he said, without feeling. He was evidently trying to gauge my qualities as a prisoner. I vaguely knew who he was, and he, most likely, had a clearer idea who I was. Many Frenchmen I had met had an ingrained distrust of captured Englishmen. They believed that the Gestapo treated them more leniently.
We spoke no more. My companion’s last remark had been detected. He was seized by the shoulder, knocked with a rifle butt, and when he fell, kicked several times in the ribs. It could just as easily have been me.
After washing, we were made to form into a line again. By this time another ten or so prisoners, with their cans, had been led out from another wing of the Château towards the first pump. So we were not the only ones.
It was clear we were not to be returned to our cells directly. At a command our party was made to parade in single file, several times, round the perimeter of the courtyard. This, perhaps, had the spurious purpose of ‘exercise’, but was really only a sadistic diversion. We were forced to march in mock drill fashion, arms swinging high, at a pace neither too slow nor too fast. One of the guards even stood calling out the time: ‘Links!… Links!’ Any failure to keep in step, to maintain the pace or to hold the head up was immediately dealt with by blows and kicks. For some of our number, who were tottering even as they stood by the washing trough, this ‘exercise’ was torture. I wondered how long it would be before I was like them. In such a condition you would not be able to escape.
But, as yet relatively fresh, I was able to take in, during this bizarre ritual, the scene around me. There was something cruelly incongruous about the Château itself — its solid, creamstuccoed walls, its tall windows capped with rococo scrollwork, its little French corner turrets, its air of tranquillity and gracious, harmonious living. Up above, on the weathered tiles of the roof, which was bathed in sunlight, there were even doves preening and cooing. And, all around, I could sniff (as though I hadn’t been living amidst it for the last four weeks) the tangy, woody, late-summer air of Eastern France. These things seemed impossible. It was the same inside: the carved woodwork, the gilt, the elegant stairways — and, below, the dungeons. As we paraded round, I noticed that four or five officers, one of whom was ‘grey-hair’, had emerged from the portion of the Château which lay opposite the arched gateway. Here there were large glass doors and a series of shallow, wide steps. They stood at the top of the steps or just inside the glass doors, smoking cigarettes and coughing behind raised hand. They looked at the proceedings in the courtyard like inspectors approving some project in hand.
‘Schauen Sie geradeaus!’ I was struck sharply on the side of the face.
One section of the courtyard wall, to the right of the gateway, I could not fail to notice. On it there were smears of dried blood, and on the ground beneath, darker, denser blood-stains. The wall itself was pitted with bullet marks.