Death In Captivity Read Online Free
paled even the arc-lamps round the perimeter, the camp lay black and sharp. Every few minutes a searchlight from one of the guard platforms blinked its frosty carbon-blue eye and swept across the enclosure.
Baierlein lay safely in the long black shadow of the parapet. His eyes were on the gate sentry. He saw exactly what Tony had meant. The chap was too slack to stand his post properly. He preferred to lounge in the comparative comfort of the box. Only, every half-hour, just before the Sergeant of the Guard announced to the world the start of his rounds by throwing open the guard-room door, the sentry left the box, crossed the gateway, and stood facing the Punishment Block.
In that position alone was he a danger.
Baierlein glanced at the watch face, and made a meticulous note in his book. It was for moments like this that he lived – and was nearly to die, once or twice, before he finally hobbled across the Swiss frontier at Gottmadingen eighteen months later.
7
On the guard platform on the north-east corner Ordinary Soldier Biancelli stamped his feet and prayed for his relief. He hated guard duty at the best of times but he hated it still more now that, in place of his friend, Moderno, he had this unspeakable, unsociable, Marzotto beside him. His dislike was not personal. It was the dislike of a member of the ordinary corps for the member of a privileged corps. He, Biancelli, was a soldier. A soldier of the king. Marzotto, although he styled himself ‘of the Regiment of Carabinieri Reali’ was a policeman. He took his orders from Captain Benucci, who took them from some Colonel of Carabinieri at District Headquarters, who took them, in the long run, from II Duce.
Biancelli was distressed both by his discomforts and his responsibilities.
In the old days it had been simple. If you saw an English prisoner escaping you shot at him. Now things were more complicated.
He looked sideways at Marzotto, who avoided his gaze.
As an ordinary soldier he was not told much about how the war was going, or what was happening in the camp he was guarding. But he could not help being aware of certain undercurrents of feeling, certain possibilities.
He stamped his feet again and watched the sky lightening imperceptibly towards morning.
Chapter 2
The Camp – Morning
1
The camp came to life slowly. In Hut C the first sound was usually the clatter of the orderly cook as he hurried along the passage to light the kitchen stove and heat the coffee which, with a slice of Red Cross biscuit, made up the normal prisoner-of-war breakfast.
At eight-thirty the Italians were due to open the huts and conduct their morning roll-call. It was an operation which might take anything from fifteen minutes to an hour according to the temper and efficiency of the Italian officer conducting it and the degree of co-operation which he succeeded in obtaining from his charges. During roll-call no one was allowed to leave his room.
Opinion varied from hut to hut as to whether it was better to heat the breakfast coffee before or after roll-call. There were advantages either way. In Hut C, at that time, for reasons which will appear, the cooking was done as early as possible.
Immediately roll-call had been concluded and the last Italian had left the hut, quite a lot of things happened. None of them, in themselves, was significant or suspicious; but the total would have added up to the same answer in the mind of any experienced prisoner.
Certain officers, lying on their beds beside windows, hung out towels to dry. One prisoner fixed his shaving mirror to a nail beside the window and seemed to be experiencing some difficulty in tilting it to the exact angle he required for the mirror could be seen, for some minutes, winking like a semaphore in the morning sun. In a room in Hut C a tall Major, wearing the green flashes of the ‘I’ Corps, sat at a table filling in what appeared to be a chart of the inter-related Royal dynasties of England
Baierlein lay safely in the long black shadow of the parapet. His eyes were on the gate sentry. He saw exactly what Tony had meant. The chap was too slack to stand his post properly. He preferred to lounge in the comparative comfort of the box. Only, every half-hour, just before the Sergeant of the Guard announced to the world the start of his rounds by throwing open the guard-room door, the sentry left the box, crossed the gateway, and stood facing the Punishment Block.
In that position alone was he a danger.
Baierlein glanced at the watch face, and made a meticulous note in his book. It was for moments like this that he lived – and was nearly to die, once or twice, before he finally hobbled across the Swiss frontier at Gottmadingen eighteen months later.
7
On the guard platform on the north-east corner Ordinary Soldier Biancelli stamped his feet and prayed for his relief. He hated guard duty at the best of times but he hated it still more now that, in place of his friend, Moderno, he had this unspeakable, unsociable, Marzotto beside him. His dislike was not personal. It was the dislike of a member of the ordinary corps for the member of a privileged corps. He, Biancelli, was a soldier. A soldier of the king. Marzotto, although he styled himself ‘of the Regiment of Carabinieri Reali’ was a policeman. He took his orders from Captain Benucci, who took them from some Colonel of Carabinieri at District Headquarters, who took them, in the long run, from II Duce.
Biancelli was distressed both by his discomforts and his responsibilities.
In the old days it had been simple. If you saw an English prisoner escaping you shot at him. Now things were more complicated.
He looked sideways at Marzotto, who avoided his gaze.
As an ordinary soldier he was not told much about how the war was going, or what was happening in the camp he was guarding. But he could not help being aware of certain undercurrents of feeling, certain possibilities.
He stamped his feet again and watched the sky lightening imperceptibly towards morning.
Chapter 2
The Camp – Morning
1
The camp came to life slowly. In Hut C the first sound was usually the clatter of the orderly cook as he hurried along the passage to light the kitchen stove and heat the coffee which, with a slice of Red Cross biscuit, made up the normal prisoner-of-war breakfast.
At eight-thirty the Italians were due to open the huts and conduct their morning roll-call. It was an operation which might take anything from fifteen minutes to an hour according to the temper and efficiency of the Italian officer conducting it and the degree of co-operation which he succeeded in obtaining from his charges. During roll-call no one was allowed to leave his room.
Opinion varied from hut to hut as to whether it was better to heat the breakfast coffee before or after roll-call. There were advantages either way. In Hut C, at that time, for reasons which will appear, the cooking was done as early as possible.
Immediately roll-call had been concluded and the last Italian had left the hut, quite a lot of things happened. None of them, in themselves, was significant or suspicious; but the total would have added up to the same answer in the mind of any experienced prisoner.
Certain officers, lying on their beds beside windows, hung out towels to dry. One prisoner fixed his shaving mirror to a nail beside the window and seemed to be experiencing some difficulty in tilting it to the exact angle he required for the mirror could be seen, for some minutes, winking like a semaphore in the morning sun. In a room in Hut C a tall Major, wearing the green flashes of the ‘I’ Corps, sat at a table filling in what appeared to be a chart of the inter-related Royal dynasties of England
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