‘The escape was effected by means of the men digging beneath the camp to beyond the walls of the compound,’ wrote one of the contributors, and in somewhat school-masterish fashion went on to describe the means and methods employed by the men. Nell skimmed this; the details of the actual digging and the tunnel’s length, and the home-made bellows system for the air system would probably be of interest to serious students of such things, and they were certainly reminiscent of WWII legends and the films. John Mills being frightfully stiff-upper lip in Colditz, and Steve McQueen bouncing across the terrain on a motorbike amidst a hail of bullets. But they did not get her any nearer to the legendary Holzminden sketches or to the Gilmore family or even to Hugbert.
There was, however, some good primary source material. The Daily Sketch, it seemed, had called Holzminden ‘the worst camp in Germany’, castigating the commandant, Hauptmann Karl Niemeyer, as arrogant, vindictive, given to pilfering prisoners’ food parcels, and unpleasantly devoted to the curative powers of solitary confinement. Niemeyer, thought Nell, pleased to find this link. Hugbert’s commandant, whom he disliked, and who sent him on some kind of task.
As well as this, there was a lively account from an unnamed Russian war correspondent who appeared to have found himself incarcerated in Holzminden shortly after it was opened. He had apparently written a series of articles about the camp, several of which had been translated for the book. In one of the articles, the journalist described the Kommandant, Hauptmann Karl Niemeyer, as a devil, fierce as ten furies, clothed in a Prussian officer’s uniform, swinging the scaly horror of his folded tail as he regarded his hapless victims.
‘As for the camp itself, it was a stone-built, iron-hued devil’s citadel, akin to the evil ditches of Malebolge,’ he had added.
Nell, intrigued by the macabre but powerful imagery of the words, plundered the quotation books on her shelves, finally tracking the sources as Dante’s Inferno and Milton’s Paradise Lost respectively. Could the journalist possibly be Hugbert’s arrogant Iskander who had known about the demons and the Ten Mile Stare, and had then in the same breath complained about inferior sheets and poor cooking? It was probably stretching coincidence a bit.
‘There must never be another war like the one that has just been fought and – mercifully – won,’ the journalist had written. ‘But if there should be, then the cruelties of the kind inflicted on prisoners in Holzminden must never be repeated.’
The next words seemed to jump off the page and smack into her eyes.
‘The sketches made while I was in Holzminden show some of the conditions of the camp very clearly—’
The sketches made in Holzminden … Nell stared at the words. Did that mean this unnamed journalist had been the legendary artist of the sketches? Or did it mean he had been there when the artist created them? The article continued:
—but they cannot convey the misery and the despair. Nor can they convey the madness that entered the souls of some of the men – many of them barely twenty years old, many of whom had witnessed the worst horrors of warfare already. There is something which has come to be called the Ten Mile Stare or even the Hundred Mile Stare, and it is a terrible thing to see. It’s not a wild or even a pain-filled look, more a heart-rending determination to look beyond the horrors – to focus on a faraway skyline or a landscape where the horrors have melted and there is only safe familiarity.
I met one young man at Holzminden for whom that safe familiarity was his home in England.
‘When the nightmares come,’ he said, ‘I try to see the tree-lined carriageway of my family’s home with the lamps burning in the windows at dusk. They would always light the lamps for me – for all of us. We would see them like beacons when we walked towards the house. It’s one of the things I try to remember.’
How immensely sad, thought Nell, closing the book.
She would have liked to be able to tell Michael what she had just read – to see his eyes take on the familiar absorption, and see him tilt his head in the characteristic attitude of intense listening, and to know he was instantly understanding the emotions the article churned up. It was good to remember he would be back the day after tomorrow. Nell would suggest he came to supper in Quire Court; she would cook a really nice meal and while they ate he would tell her about Fosse House, and she would tell him what she had found as contribution to his research. This was a very good thought.
She had not expected to hear back from B.D. Bodkin very quickly – she had not even known if she would hear from him at all – but when she checked her emails, he had sent a reply.
Dear Nell West,
I do indeed remember our association last year, and I’m glad I was able to help with the Victorian watercolours. The rather charming ‘Water Meadows’ sequence, as I recall.
This was unexpectedly friendly, and Nell, encouraged, read on.
I greatly enjoyed compiling and writing Fragments of Great War Treasures, which took me down some unexpected byways and highways. I didn’t read all of the privately printed letters you refer to, but I did have some brief contact with the family of the letter-writer – a nephew and niece, I think – to obtain permission to use the extracts.
I can therefore let you have the title and ISBN number of the collection. I recall I borrowed the book from the Bodleian, and there’s no reason to suppose they don’t still have a copy.
Kind regards and good luck with your research,
Bernard D. Bodkin
The ISBN number for the letters followed, together with the exact title of the letters, which was: The Letters of Hugbert Edreich, 1916–1918. Printing had been in 1955, by ‘Freide Edreich’, in ‘loving remembrance of a dear husband’. There was also a translator’s name, which Nell, who had a smattering of school German, but had not had to call on it for many years, was relieved to see. Altogether, this was very satisfactory, and it was surprisingly amiable of Bernard D. to be so helpful. Nell was prepared to forgive him for his preachy dogmatism over the Holzminden sketches.
Owen might be inclined to spare an hour to accompany her to the Bodleian to help track down Hugbert Edreich’s letters. It was the kind of research that would interest him, and he would be familiar with the loan system, which would make the task easier. But when Nell dialled his number it went to voicemail, so she left a message, explaining what was wanted.