Today we were told that our Camp Kommandant, Colonel Habrecht, is to be replaced. We shall miss the Colonel, who is elderly but has a kindness for his men (you remember how concerned he was when I suffered from bunions last month?), and he views the prisoners with much humanity. So I was very sorry when there came an announcement that his second-in-command is appointed in his place. This is Hauptmann Karl Niemeyer, and the appointment is of much regret to several of us, for he is a very harsh man and already imposing a strict regime. I take a great risk in writing that, but I know, my dearest Freide, that you will not allow anyone to read it, and I do not think letters to our loved ones are being opened, and anyway I am a trusted staff member and it is known that you are I are affianced. Last evening I showed your photograph to Hauptfeldwebel Barth while we were having supper together, and he thinks you are very fine and I am very lucky. I, too, think so.
Today we had two new prisoners – a young Englishman and a Russian. The Englishman is quiet and withdrawn, but agreeable to the bed and locker he was allotted, but the Russian glared at everything and appeared to consider it all beneath him. I said to the Hauptfeldwebel that perhaps he was an aristocrat – he has that air of thinking himself better than his fellow men – but the Hauptfeldwebel said no, he had been a newspaper reporter – a war correspondent, scavenging the countries of Europe to write about what was happening, and I was gullible and too easily-impressed.
‘He is a man of the people, just as we are ourselves,’ said the Hauptfeldwebel, which is the kind of comment he often makes, his father having been a butcher in Braunschweig and Hauptfeldwebel Barth being sensitive about it. Not that there is anything wrong in being a butcher, and I believe his Bockwurst was the finest a man could eat.
‘But he will be planning to write about us and about the camp,’ said the Hauptfeldwebel, ‘so we should make sure to treat him with care. We do not want people thinking we give out cruel treatment, for that would reflect badly on the German Empire. Also, it would mean I should not be considered for promotion, and nor would you.’
‘And there is the Hague Convention regarding the treatment of prisoners of war,’ I said.
‘This is perfectly true.’
The Russian’s name is Alexei Iskander, and I think the Hauptfeldwebel was right about him recording all that happens here, for within an hour of arriving at the camp Iskander was demanding writing materials.
I found a notepad and pencils, and he sat on his bunk, writing away as if his life depended on it. The Hauptfeldwebel tells me he will not be permitted to send his scribblings out, but does not rule out the possibility of Iskander finding a way to smuggle them out. At worst, he will squirrel them away and arrange for publication after Germany wins the war, so we must not baulk at reading what he writes, and if necessary destroy it.
This is important, so after supper, while the prisoners were all in the bathhouse, I searched Iskander’s locker, which I disliked doing very much, for I am not a Prying Paul.
[Editor’s note: It seems likely that the translator mistook the exact wording here and that Hugbert meant Peeping Tom.]
But everything Iskander had written was in Russian so I have no idea what it says, although I do not think it will be very complimentary. As you know, I am liking to improve my knowledge of all languages, for it is never known when that might be useful to a man. My English is a little improved since talking to some of the prisoners, but I could not make any sense of Iskander’s Russian journal.
He is going to be difficult, that is already clear. He has already denounced the evening meal as disgusting pigswill and demanded better provisions. The Hauptfeldwebel said, in his sarcastic way, that perhaps Russian caviar and vodka would be acceptable in place of the sausage and cabbage dish, to which Iskander, cool as a cat, said certainly it would, but he would specify the caviar was ikra, which was superior to most kinds, and that with it came kummel, since he did not care overmuch for vodka.
I wish only to be with you again, and I am,
Ever your devoted Hugbert.
P.S. My bunions are much improved. You will be glad to know this.
The second letter had been written a couple of weeks later, and it appeared that Hugbert had got to know the English prisoner who had arrived with Iskander a little better.
He is a strange young man. There are times when he sits in complete silence, not moving, staring ahead of him, as if he can see things other people can not. This morning, he suddenly reached for my hand and said, ‘I am not mad, not any more. You must not let them think I am mad now.’
Iskander, who happened to be in the room at the time, told me afterwards that he believed the Englishman had been ill after the battle of the Somme.
‘Mentally ill,’ he said. ‘They told me he would sit in a corner of the room and stare in the same way.’
‘At what?’
Iskander gave one of the shrugs I always find a little theatrical. ‘Who can say?’ he said. ‘He will have seen many horrors inflicted on my countrymen and his.’ A pause. ‘Inflicted by your countrymen.’ He is never one to miss an opportunity for insolence, although somehow he manages to stop short of crossing the line and risking punishment. Before I could think how to answer him, he said, ‘I have heard it called the Hundred Mile Stare— Ah, I see you know of it.’
‘I know it as the Ten Mile Stare.’
‘It means the same, no matter the distance. They stare towards a distant horizon so they will not have to look at the nightmares that lie in their immediate path. Ten miles, a hundred, a thousand, even. The greater the nightmares, the further away they try to look.’
I said (I could not help it), ‘But you have seen nightmares yourself?’
‘Oh yes,’ he said, and for a moment his eyes took on an odd expression and I thought he was going to tell me more of what he had experienced before coming here. But he only said, ‘Yes, I also have the nightmares and the demons – I think you have them, also,’ he said, with a sudden disconcerting look.
I did not reply – there are some things that are not for sharing, Freide, and certainly not with those with whom one’s country is at war.
Iskander appeared to understand this – for all his arrogance and rebellious ways, he has a certain sensitivity. He said, ‘Mine are not nightmares filled with screams of agony as men choke in mud and blood in the trenches of France. Or of men who live for days with legs blown off or eyes shattered, and finally die amid the stench of their putrefying wounds in their nostrils. Those, I believe, are this young Englishman’s nightmares.’