warningly. Gary turned away, and Willis backed off. 'Just leave him alone, Willis,' Gary muttered. He's not some doll for you to play with.'
'It's all right, Gary,' Ben said.
'No, it isn't. I'm not sure this asshole is even a faggot. He's just dominating you.'
'Maybe so,' Ben said, a bit more defiant. 'But it's, well, it's the way it is. You know. I need a bit of contact. We all do.'
'Better an abusive relationship than none at all? Is that it?'
'I think you're jealous, Corporal Wooler,' Willis whispered spitefully. 'But of which of us, I wonder?'
Gary got to the head of the queue. As he stood there before the trestle table with his balls hanging out, he was examined by a team of three men, all bespectacled, all deadly serious. He was asked for his name and army serial number and stalag identification number, which he gave, and then he was asked about his family background, where he was born, his parents and grandparents, and that information he refused to give. He was also asked about illnesses, any congenital conditions, whether he had any relatives who were mentally unstable, any schizophrenia, manic depression or morphine addiction or homosexuality. More questions he refused to answer.
The SS officers and scientists were clerkish, making notes, going through files, barely even looking at the man before them. Gary's refusals seemed to make little difference, for they had a fat file on the table before them, each page stamped with his name and number. Though the text was German, he made out what looked to be family trees. And he managed to see, stamped on some of the files and papers, an acronym: RuSHA.
Next he was photographed, his face in front-and-side mugshot style, his body full length front, back and sides. The scientists used colour charts to establish the precise hue of his skin and his eyes. Then his dimensions were measured, his height, chest and weight, the lengths of his limbs and fingers and toes – even, predictably, the length of his cock. With great care callipers were applied to his head. They measured the depth and width of his forehead, the length, breadth and circumference of his cranium, the length of his nose, the width of his mouth, the distance between his ears. All this was noted down. And the scientists conferred, referring to graphs and a file of photographs, a kind of compendium of people types, erect and stoop-shouldered, large- and small-eared, clear- skinned and dark. It was all routine, efficient, a bit like an army medical, though conducted with an earnestness that was both sinister and a bit comic.
When they were done, one of the men actually smiled at him. 'Congratulations, Corporal Wooler. Now please go to table number one, on the stage, for final logging.'
He had to climb up on the stage, still stark naked. Here five small tables labelled one to five sat in a row, each manned by two more scientist types. At table number one, Gary again had to identify himself. The scientists gave him another cursory inspection, before nodding, smiling, and filling in a form replete with ticks.
'So,' Gary said, 'you're going to congratulate me again?'
'We should congratulate your parents, or your grandparents,' one of them said, an older man with a strangulated accent. 'Your cephalic index is seventy-seven. We have classified you as a Pure Nordic type, Corporal.'
'What the hell does that mean?'
'Look in a mirror one day. Your long head, narrow face, flat forehead, narrow lips, tall, slender body. These are the required characteristics. And all this is backed up by your genealogy, of course, which shows a pure ancestry dating back to the time your forefathers emigrated from England. Why, if not for the present unfortunate circumstances, you would be eligible to apply for the Schutzstaffel itself!' It appeared the scientist was making a joke.
Gary glanced along the row at the other tables. On table five, the furthest from this destination of the Pure Nordics, there was an orderly heap of yellow fabric stars.
Gary was dismissed, and, escorted by a guard, allowed to file back down the length of the hall to retrieve his clothes. But there was a commotion. He looked back to his line. Ben Kamen was at the testing desk. The researchers there seemed agitated; they looked up at Ben and flicked through more files. Then one of them cried out, and stabbed his finger at a photograph. He called, 'Standartenfuhrer Trojan! Standartenfuhrer!' Ben shrank back against Willis, but guards rushed forward and grabbed his skinny arms.
'I'll get you out of this, Hans!' Gary yelled. 'I'll get you out!'
But now the guards came to grab him too. The hall erupted into chaos.
IX
23 September
Gary found out that Ben hadn't been returned to his barracks that night of the processing, or the next. And he learned that 'RuSHA' was the Rasse und Siedlungshauptamt der SS, the SS's Race and Settlement Office.
By the Tuesday of that week, after the Sunday night-Monday morning of the SS processing, something was clearly up. The afternoon shift on the monument was cancelled, and the work kommandos brought home. There was a quick appell on the football field, where the stalag commander told them all they must make themselves as 'presentable as possible in the circumstances'. There was even to be hot water all afternoon in the shower block.
Then as the day ended, around six p.m., the prisoners were called out to another appell, lined up behind their senior officers.
Gary tried to avoid Willis Farjeon, but the RAF man worked his way to him as the ranks formed up. 'Evening, Dunkirk Harrier.'
'What's going on, Willis?'
'Not a clue, old chap.'
'And where's Hans Gheldman?'
'Ah. Don't you mean 'Ben? Oh, don't look so shocked. He told me his secrets long ago. We have been close, you know. Well, he's clearly been found out. Jewish, isn't he? That cute little circumcised willy is a bit of a giveaway.'
'I don't know why the SS were looking for him particularly.'
'It is a bit rum, isn't it?' Willis sighed. 'Well, I'll miss him.'
'I ought to rip your fucking head off,' Gary hissed.
Willis blinked. 'Well, that would be your privilege. But I didn't harm him, you know. Oh, I pushed him around. That's my way. But he took it, for that's his way. Surely you know him well enough to see that. Submissive type, our Ben! We both got what we wanted, I think. But none of it matters, you know. None of it got in the way of his relationship with you.'
Gary frowned. 'What do you mean?'
Willis eyed him. 'Oh, come, Corporal. It's you he truly loves, poor Ben. Surely you know!'
Gary, shocked, could think of nothing to say.
The senior officers called them to attention. They were swung around and marched out of the camp, maybe two hundred men, most of the stalag's occupants.
They followed the route Gary was driven every day with his kommando to Richborough and the monument site. But tonight they walked the few miles. Trucks topped and tailed the column, armed troopers sitting in the bodies watching the men, and they were escorted by more guards walking alongside them, both Wehrmacht and SS, some with dogs.
The evening was darkling, and the guards had torches. The air felt fresh, the sky cloudy but dry, and Gary thought he could smell the sea.
Joe Stubbs called out, 'How about a song, lads?'
'Pack it in, Stubbsy.'
''The Huns were hanged, one by one, parley-vous…'
The Germans near Gary looked anxious.
'That's enough, Stubbs,' said the SBO.
'Oh, come on, sir. 'The Huns were hanged, one by one, / Every bloody mother's son, inky stinky Hitler
