Before the lunch for the visiting Red Cross officials was served, Giles uncorked six bottles of merlot to allow them to breathe. Once the guests were seated, he poured half an inch of wine into the commandant’s glass and waited for his approval. After a nod, he served the guests, always pouring from the right. He then moved on to the officers, according to rank, finally returning to the commandant, as host.
During the meal he made sure no one’s glass was ever empty, but he never served anyone while they were speaking. Like Jenkins, he was rarely seen and never heard. Everything went as planned, although Giles was well aware that Major Müller’s suspicious eyes rarely left him, even when he tried to melt into the background.
After the two of them had been escorted back to the camp later that afternoon, Bates said, ‘The commandant was impressed.’
‘What makes you say that?’ asked Giles, fishing.
‘He told the head chef that you must have worked for a grand household, because although you were obviously from the lower classes, you’d been well taught by a consummate professional.’
‘Thank you, Jenkins,’ said Giles.
‘So what does consummate mean?’ asked Bates.
Giles became so skilled in his new vocation that the camp commandant insisted on being served by him even when he dined alone. This allowed Giles to study his mannerisms, the inflections in his voice, his laugh, even his slight stutter.
Within weeks, Private Barrington had been handed the keys to the wine cellar, and allowed to select which wines would be served at dinner. And after a few months, Bates overheard the commandant telling the chef that Barrington was erstklassig.
Whenever the commandant held a dinner party, Giles quickly assessed which tongues could be loosened by the regular topping up of glasses, and how to make himself invisible whenever one of those tongues began to wag. He passed on any useful information he’d picked up the previous evening to the brigadier’s batman while they were out on the communal five-mile run. These titbits included where the commandant lived, the fact that he’d been elected to the town council at the age of thirty-two, and been appointed mayor in 1938. He couldn’t drive, but he had visited England three or four times before the war and spoke fluent English. In return, Giles learnt that he and Bates had climbed several more rungs up the escape committee’s ladder.
Giles’s main activity during the day was to spend an hour chatting to his tutor. Never a word of English was spoken, and the man from Solihull even told the brigadier that Private Barrington was beginning to sound more and more like the commandant.
On December 3rd 1941, Corporal Bates and Private Barrington made their final presentation to the escape committee. The brigadier and his team listened to the bed and breakfast plan with considerable interest, and agreed that it had a far better chance of succeeding than most of the half-baked schemes that were put before them.
‘When would you consider the best time to carry out your plan?’ asked the brigadier.
‘New Year’s Eve, sir,’ said Giles without hesitation. ‘All the officers will be joining the commandant for dinner to welcome in the New Year.’
‘And as Private Barrington will be pouring the drinks,’ added Bates, ‘there shouldn’t be too many of them who are still sober by the time midnight strikes.’
‘Except for Müller,’ the brigadier reminded Bates, ‘who doesn’t drink.’
‘True, but he never fails to toast the Fatherland, the Führer and the Third Reich. If you add in the New Year, and his host, I have a feeling he’ll be pretty sleepy by the time he’s driven home.’
‘What time are you usually escorted back to camp after one of the commandant’s dinner parties?’ asked a young lieutenant who had recently joined the committee.
‘Around eleven,’ said Bates, ‘but as it’s New Year’s Eve, it won’t be before midnight.’
‘Don’t forget, gentlemen,’ Giles chipped in, ‘I have the keys to the wine cellar, so I can assure you several bottles will find their way to the guard house during the evening. We wouldn’t want them to miss out on the celebrations.’
‘That’s all very well,’ said a wing commander who rarely spoke, ‘but how do you plan to get past them?’
‘By driving out through the front gate in the commandant’s car,’ said Giles. ‘He’s always a dutiful host and never leaves before his last guest, which should give us at least a couple of hours’ start.’
‘Even if you are able to steal his car,’ said the brigadier, ‘however drunk the guards are, they’ll still be able to tell the difference between a wine waiter and their commanding officer.’
‘Not if I’m wearing his greatcoat, hat, scarf and gloves, and holding his baton,’ said Giles.
The young lieutenant clearly wasn’t convinced. ‘And is it part of your plan for the commandant to meekly hand all his clothes over to you, Private Barrington?’
‘No, sir,’ said Giles to an officer he outranked. ‘The commandant always leaves his coat, cap and gloves in the cloakroom.’
‘But what about Bates?’ said the same officer. ‘They’ll spot him a mile off.’
‘Not if I’m in the boot of the car, they won’t,’ said Bates.
‘What about the commandant’s driver, who we must assume will be stone-cold sober?’ said the brigadier.
‘We’re working on it,’ said Giles.
‘And if you do manage to overcome the problem of the driver and get past the guards, how far is it to the Swiss border?’ The young lieutenant again.
‘One hundred and seventy-three kilometres,’ said Bates. ‘At a hundred kilometres an hour, we should reach the border in just under two hours.’
‘That’s assuming there are no hold-ups on the way.’
‘No escape plan can ever be foolproof,’ interjected the brigadier. ‘In the end, it all comes down to how you cope with the unforeseen.’
Both Giles and Bates nodded their agreement.
‘Thank you, gentlemen,’ said the brigadier. ‘The committee will consider your plan, and we’ll let you know our decision in the morning.’
‘What’s that young sprog got against us?’ asked Bates once they’d left the meeting.
‘Nothing,’ said Giles. ‘On the contrary, I suspect he wishes he was the third member of our team.’
On December 6th, the brigadier’s batman told Giles during he five-mile run that their plan had been given the green light, and the committee wished them bon voyage. Giles quickly caught up with Corporal Bates and passed on the news.
Barrington and Bates went over their B&B plan again and again, until, like Olympic athletes, they became bored with the endless hours of preparation and longed to hear the starter’s pistol.
At six o’clock on December 31st, 1941, Corporal Terry Bates and Private Giles Barrington reported for duty in the commandant’s quarters, aware that if their plan failed, at best they would have to wait for another year, but if they were caught red-handed . . .