of the Fatherland first.’
‘I think you will find that he does what he’s told. And now you are obstructing me in the course of my duty.’
‘I warn you!’ Walter said bravely. ‘You had better follow procedure by the book – or there will be trouble.’
‘Get out of my sight,’ said Macke.
Walter left.
Lloyd, Robert and Jorg were marched outside and bundled into the back of some kind of truck. They were forced to lie on the floor while Brownshirts sat on benches guarding them. The vehicle moved off. It was painful being handcuffed, Lloyd discovered. He felt constantly that his shoulder was about to become dislocated.
The trip was mercifully short. They were shoved out of the truck and into a building. It was dark, and Lloyd saw little. At a desk, his name was written in a book and his passport was taken away. Robert lost his gold tie pin and watch chain. At last the handcuffs were removed and they were pushed into a room with dim lights and barred windows. There were about forty other prisoners there already.
Lloyd hurt all over. He had a pain in his chest that felt like a cracked rib. His face was bruised and he had a blinding headache. He wanted an aspirin, a cup of tea and a pillow. He had a feeling it might be some hours before he got any of those things.
The three of them sat on the floor near the door. Lloyd held his head in his hands while Robert and Jorg discussed how soon help would come. No doubt Walter would phone a lawyer. But all the usual rules had been suspended by the Reichstag Fire Decree, so they had no proper protection under the law. Walter would also contact the embassies: political influence was their main hope now. Lloyd thought his mother would probably try to place an international phone call to the British Foreign Office in London. If she could get through, the government would surely have something to say about the arrest of a British schoolboy. It would all take time – an hour at least, probably two or three.
But four hours passed, then five, and the door did not open.
Civilized countries had a law about how long the police could keep someone in custody without formalities: a charge, a lawyer, a court. Lloyd now realized that such a rule was no mere technicality. He could be here for ever.
The other prisoners in the room were all political, he discovered: Communists, Social Democrats, trade union organizers and one priest.
The night passed slowly. None of the three slept. To Lloyd, sleep seemed unthinkable. The grey light of morning was coming through the barred windows when at last the cell door opened. But no lawyers or diplomats came in, just two men in aprons pushing a trolley on which stood a large urn. They ladled out a thin oatmeal. Lloyd did not eat any, but he drank a tin mug of coffee that tasted of burnt barley.
He surmised that the staff on duty overnight at the British embassy were junior diplomats who carried little weight. This morning, as soon as the ambassador himself got up, action would be taken.
An hour after breakfast the door opened again, but this time only Brownshirts stood there. They marched all the prisoners out and loaded them on to a truck, forty or fifty men in one canvas-sided vehicle, packed so tightly that they had to remain standing. Lloyd managed to stay close to Robert and Jorg.
Perhaps they were going to court, even though it was Sunday. He hoped so. At least there would be lawyers, and some semblance of due process. He thought he was fluent enough to state his simple case in German, and he practised his speech in his head. He had been dining in a restaurant with his mother; he had seen someone robbing the till; he had intervened in the resulting fracas. He imagined his cross-examination. He would be asked if the man he attacked was a Brownshirt. He would answer: ‘I didn’t notice his clothing – I just saw a thief.’ There would be laughter in court, and the prosecutor would look foolish.
They were driven out of town.
They could see through gaps in the canvas sides of the truck. It seemed to Lloyd that they had gone about twenty miles when Robert said: ‘We’re in Oranienburg’, naming a small town north of Berlin.
The truck came to a halt outside a wooden gate between brick pillars. Two Brownshirts with rifles stood guard.
Lloyd’s fear rose a notch. Where was the court? This looked more like a prison camp. How could they put people in prison without a judge?
After a short wait, the truck drove in and stopped at a group of derelict buildings.
Lloyd was becoming even more anxious. Last night at least he had the consolation that Walter knew where he was. Today it was possible no one would know. What if the police simply said he was not in custody and they had no record of his arrest? How could he be rescued?
They got out of the truck and shuffled into what looked like a factory of some sort. The place smelled like a pub. Perhaps it had been a brewery.
Once again all their names were taken. Lloyd was glad there was some record of his movements. They were not tied up or handcuffed, but they were constantly watched by Brownshirts with rifles, and Lloyd had a grim feeling that those young men were only too eager for an excuse to shoot.
They were each given a canvas mattress filled with straw and a thin blanket. They were herded into a tumbledown building that once might have been a warehouse. Then the waiting began.
No one came for Lloyd all that day.
In the evening there was another trolley and another urn, this one containing a stew of carrots and turnips. Each man got a bowlful and a piece of bread. Lloyd was now ravenous, not having eaten for twenty-four hours, and he wolfed down his meagre supper and wished for more.
