escape.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry…”
“It’s all right. You’re gonna be all right. You’ve got three broken ribs. That’s why it’s hurting so much.” There’s something soothing about an Irish accent even when they’re giving bad news.
I was bathed in sweat and felt a cold cloth placed on my brow. A blessing. I opened my eyes. A round freckled face adorned by a crisp white cap smiled down at me.
“Hospital?”
“In your state, that would be the best place, would you not say?”
My state? I wondered how bad I must look. Every inch, from my head to my toes, was hurting. I couldn’t lift an arm without pain erupting in a dozen unconnected places. Those Nazi bastards had really done me over. And then memory hit me. I didn’t need any scribbles in my jotter to jog this scene to mind.
“Raus! Raus Englander!”
They were in shirt sleeves and braces, their boots shining up to mid-calf. They hit me even as I began to sit up. They dragged me on to the floor and gave me a couple of kicks to make sure I got the message about who was boss.
I tried to keep up the bluff. I gasped out why in French and tried to use my small vocabulary to maintain the pretence. It didn’t work. I knew they were Gestapo, but I couldn’t recall how I knew or how I’d got here, wherever here was. I was already bloody and sore. But I soon found that they hadn’t had their first team do me over.
I saw Wilson’s fleshy face in grey uniform. I heard him shouting at me in German. I don’t know how long they held me or how many times they hauled me out of my cell for a beating or a drowning. It was funny how quickly you dropped the pretence of being tough; they can make you scream like a child. But one day the routine changed. I think it was after they’d gone further than even they intended; a goon got over-excited with his lead pipe. I suppose that’s when they fractured my skull. I was unconscious off and on for a while. No idea how long.
They dragged me from my cell and threw me in the back of a truck. I hoped they were simply taking me out to be shot. I just wanted it over with.
But it was only the start. I saw the great metal arches of a railway station and a big clock, painted green and with cherubs chasing each other round the dial. I smelled the metallic steam before they flung me into a cattle truck. There were others in the smelly box. Too many others. The doors were closed and locked. The one high-up window had barbed wire round it. We had nowhere to shit except one corner. There was no food, no water. We stank, and I felt life ebbing out of me through every wound and bruise in my wrecked body. Though there was little enough room, the men gave me space to lie, curled up in a corner. They were kind, but remote, in the way of men waiting for someone to die and knowing they could do nothing.
Except for one man: Joseph the tailor. He had a couple of needles pinned behind his lapels. He tore the bottom of my shirt and loosened some threads. Then he stitched me as best he could. I was surprised how much the scalp hurt. I guess the skin had separated and he really had to tug at it to pull it together.
Joseph worked on me with great love and attention as though I were a piece of his finest cloth. His round face kept shifting between a beam and a frown for what they’d done to me.
He did well enough, so that a couple of days later I survived the changeover at Paris. The men held me up as we were herded across the platforms. I saw people, ordinary French people, watching us from behind a line of Germans, and doing nothing. The journey began again. If anything the cattle box was smaller. We stopped and started a dozen times. They sprayed the train with water from hoses so that we were left soaking and shivering and still thirsty. I drew into myself. I guess I was unconscious for most of the journey.
Finally we halted in the leafy suburbs of a small German town. We could see the pretty roofs over the watch towers as we were shovelled out of our boxes. The welcoming committee had guns and dogs. Those of us who could walk were made to march to the parade ground in front of the rows of barracks. Those that couldn’t walk were dragged aside and shot. It was a powerful incentive. I got to my feet in a daze and the men half carried half jostled me forward. I suppose Joseph had an investment in me and he got the others involved. In the coming days, when I was given a little food and rest, I began to heal.
None of the guards paid me much attention; there was no interest in roughing me up when I’d been so patently done over by professionals. And half the time – as much as I could recall through the delirium – I was a joke to them. They had weekly fitness tests to cull the numbers – the penalty for failure was a bullet, if you were lucky. You had to run 25 yards. Run for your life. Every time, I forced a terror-filled sprint from my body. But I can remember the guards laughing at me as I kept veering into the walls of the hut. They thought it was hilarious.
I survived too – as I learned later – because Dachau was one of the oldest concentration camps; the Nazis had opened it before the war and filled it with political dissidents. Then they started adding Poles and Russians. It wasn’t yet a factory for slaughtering Jews or gypsies. Though the guards did well enough in their casual way. I met little fat smiley Joseph at some point, though by then he wasn’t fat and he wasn’t smiling much. I don’t know if he made it or not.
Full circle. I was back in an English hospital after a mangling by sadists in uniform. But this time it had been by a good old British bobby. Were we all rotten, deep inside? I was beginning to think I really was capable of murder.
That we all were. I heard voices at the foot of my bed. One was familiar.
“Is he awake, nurse? How is he?” Cassells come to gloat? “He’s not to be disturbed. I told that policeman the same t’ing,” said my guardian Irish angel.
“The police have gone. It’s all right. I won’t disturb him. Just wanted to see how the man is doing. He was one of my chaps, you see.”
“Well, maybe you should take better care of him then.”
I opened my eyes and tried to raise my head. It hurt like hell.
“There you are, Daniel old chap! You all right?” He came to stand beside me so that with a little tilt of my head, I could look up at him.
I tried to speak and managed a cough, which was a big mistake. The sweat broke out all over as the pain fired across my chest.
I finally got out, “Super, Gerald. Just super.”
He had the grace to look embarrassed. “Sorry this happened, old chap.”
“What did they tell you, Gerald? That I fell down the stairs?”
His face reddened. “Actually, they said you’d been resisting arrest.”
I smiled, though my lips were so split it may not have been obvious. “Does that seem likely, old chap?” I asked.
He had the grace to look ashamed. “Had no idea. Wouldn’t have got the boys in blue involved, if I’d known. That’s a fact. You’ve been through enough, for god’s sake.”
Amen to that I thought. “So are they waiting till I’m better before they take me back for round two?”
“No, no! Look, the office has dropped all charges. And I pointed out that they might just find themselves on the spot for being shall we say a little over-zealous? Anyway, they aren’t taking things further.”
“Can you lift me up?” The nurse and Cassells helped me sit up so that I was propped up at forty-five degrees. The process was excruciating, but it felt better than having to talk horizontally.
I gasped out, “What’s the damage, nurse? You mentioned ribs?”
She was about my age, and round-faced. We shared the red hair, though hers was more ginger. A cheery lady, just the sort you need in a hospital.
“Now, don’t you go fussing yoursel’. Whatever’s wrong wit’ you, you’ll mend.”
She saw my look. “All right, all right. Starting at the top. You’ve got bruising and cuts – none as fancy as the old one, mind. But they’re nicer stitched and we’ll have the sutures out in a few days. Arms and hands bruised. Three ribs broken on the left side and multiple contusions on your back and front. Your testicles may be a bit uncomfortable for a day or two till the swelling goes down. And your legs are black and blue.”
I lifted my arms and saw the swollen fingers and the purple and green discolouration.
Cassells looked distraught. “This is too bad, too damn bad! Look, Daniel, I’m not having this. I’m going to press charges on your behalf, even if you did put up a bit of resistance, eh? No need for this level of response. Dammit.” He was genuinely angry. I was almost touched.
“It’s a waste of time, Gerald. My word against theirs. But just to make it clear: I didn’t resist arrest. I got beat up. There’s a certain evil sod who’s got it in for me. In fact, it’s probably not just me. He’s just plain
