barbed-wire fence at Gurs was smaller and not obviously electrified; and there were no executions, otherwise conditions seemed to be much the same; and it was only after a parade was called in the men's half of the camp and we went in among the prisoners that it was possible to see how things were actually much worse than at Dachau.
The guards were all French gendarmes, each of whom carried a thick leather riding whip, although none of them seemed to own a horse. There were three 'islets': A, B and C. The islet C adjutant was a Gabin type with an effeminate mouth and narrow, expressionless eyes. He knew exactly where the German communists were held and, without offering any resistance to our requests, he took us to a dilapidated barrack containing fifty men who, paraded before us outside, exhibited signs of emaciation or illness, but more often both. It was clear they'd been expecting us, or something like us, and refusing to submit to a roll-call they started to sing the Internationale. Meanwhile the French adjutant glanced over Bomelburg's list and helpfully picked out some of our wanted men. Erich Mielke wasn't one of these.
While this selection was proceeding I could hear Eva Kemmerich. She was standing in our bucket, which was parked on the 'street', and shouting abuse at some of the prisoners who were still held in the camp. These and a few of the gendarmes on the women's side of the wire responded by laughing at her and making obscene remarks and gestures. For me, the sense of being involved in some nameless insanity was compounded when the inmates of another hut – the adjutant said they were French anarchists – began to sing the Marseillaise in competition with those who were singing the Internationale.
We marched seven men out of the camp and into the buckets. All of them raised clenched fists in the communist salute and shouted slogans in German or Spanish to their fellow prisoners.
Kestner caught my eye. 'Did you ever see anything like this place?'
'Only Dachau.'
'Well, I never saw anything like it. To treat people this way, even if they are communists, seems disgusting.'
'Don't tell me.' I pointed at Chief Inspector Oltramare, who was marching a handcuffed prisoner towards the buckets at gunpoint. 'Tell him.'
'Looks like he got his man anyway.'
'I wonder if I'll get mine,' I said. 'Mielke.'
'Not here?'
I shook my head. 'I mean this fellow I'm after almost ruined my career, the Bolshie bastard. As far as I'm concerned he's really got it coming.'
'I'm sure he has. They all have. Communist swine.'
'But you were a communist weren't you, Paul? Before you joined the Nazi Party?'
'Me? No. Whatever gave you that idea?'
'Only I seem to recall you campaigning for Ernst Thalmann in – when was that? 1925?'
'Don't be fucking ridiculous, Bernie. Is this a joke?' He glanced nervously in Bomelburg's direction. 'I think that phosgene gas has addled your brains. Really. Have you gone mad?'
'No. And actually it's my impression that I'm probably the only sane one here.'
As the day wore on this was an impression that did not alter. Indeed there was even greater madness to come.
CHAPTER TWENTY: FRANCE, 1940
It was late afternoon when our convoy took to the road again. We were headed to Toulouse, about one hundred and fifty kilometres to the north-east, and thought that we could probably make it before dark. We took Eva Kemmerich with us so that she might look for her husband when we visited the camp at Le Vernet the following day. And of course our eight prisoners. I hadn't really looked at them. They were a miserable, malnourished, smelly lot, and little or no threat to anyone, let alone the Third Reich. According to Karl Bomelburg, one of them was a famous German writer and another a well-known newspaperman, only I hadn't heard of either of them.
Outside Lourdes, in sight of the river Gave de Pau, we stopped in a forest clearing to stretch our legs. I was pleased to see Bomelburg extend the same facility to our prisoners. He even handed out some cigarettes. I was feeling tired but better. At least my chest was no longer hurting. But I still wasn't smoking. I took another bite off Bomelburg's flask and decided that maybe he wasn't such a bad fellow after all.
'This whole area is full of caves and grottoes,' he said and pointed at an outcrop of rock that hung above our heads like a thick grey cloud.
We caught a glimpse of Frau Kemmerich disappearing into the rock. After a minute or two Bomelburg said, 'Perhaps you would be good enough to go and inform Frau Bernadette that we shall be leaving in five minutes.'
Instinctively I glanced at my watch. 'Yes, Herr Major.'
I walked up the slope to fetch her, calling her name out loud in case she was answering a call of nature.
'Yes?'
I found her sitting on a rock in a leaf-lined grotto, smoking a cigarette.
'Isn't it lovely here?' she said, pointing over my head.
I turned to admire the view of the Pyrenees that she was enjoying.
'Yes it is.'
'Sorry if I was a bitch back there,' she said. 'You've no idea how bad the last nine months have been. My husband and I were in Dijon when war was declared. He's a wine merchant. They arrested us almost immediately.'
'Forget it,' I said. 'What happened back there. You were justifiably upset. And the camp did look bloody awful.' I nodded down the slope. 'Come on, we'd better go back. There's still a long way to go before we get to Toulouse.'
She stood up. 'How long will it take to get there?'
I was about to answer her when I heard two or three loud bursts of machine-gun fire, none of them longer than a couple of seconds; but then it takes only five seconds to empty an MP40's thirty-two-round magazine. The sound and smell of it were still hanging in the air by the time I had sprinted down the slope into the clearing. Two storm troopers were standing a couple of metres apart, their jackboots surrounded with spent ammunition that looked like so many coins tossed to a couple of buskers. As well-trained soldiers they were already changing the toy-like magazines on their machine pistols and looking just a little surprised at their murderous efficiency. That's the thing about a gun: it always looks like a toy until it starts killing people.
A little further away lay the bodies of the eight prisoners we had brought from Gurs.
'What the Hell happened here?' I shouted, but I knew the answer already.
'They tried to make a run for it,' said Bomelburg.
I went forward to inspect the bodies.
'All of them?' I said. 'In a straight line?'
One of the shot men groaned. He lay on the forest floor, his knees collapsed under him, his torso lying back on his feet in an almost impossible position like some old Indian fakir. But there was nothing to be done for him. His head and chest were covered in blood.
Angrily I walked towards Bomelburg. 'They would have run away in several directions,' I said. 'Not all of them down the same slope.'
A pistol shot bored another hole through the still air of the forest and the groaning man's head. I turned on my boot heel to see Kestner holstering his Walther P38. Seeing my expression Kestner shrugged and said:
'Best to finish him, I think.'
'Back at the Alex, we'd have called that murder,' I said.
'Well, we're not back at the Alex, are we, Captain?' said Bomelburg. 'Look here, Gunther, are you calling me a liar? Those men were shot while trying to escape, do you hear?'
