Nell liked train journeys. She liked the feeling of being in the no-man’s land between one place and another, and she liked seeing the countryside slide past, and speculating about other travellers and their journeys, and if they were looking forward to reaching their destinations.
It had been a bit of a scramble to catch the early afternoon train, but she had thrown a handful of things into an overnight bag, left the shop keys with the obliging Godfrey, and managed to reach the station with ten minutes to spare.
The carriage was not very crowded, and most people were travelling in twos and threes, all of them absorbed in their travelling companions. Nell found a seat by herself, stowed away her case, and contemplated with pleasure the fact that she had her own travelling companion. Hugbert Edreich.
She had left Hugbert established in Holzminden, helping to organize concerts, making the best of the meagre rations, and dealing with the recalcitrant Iskander, while at the same time trying to help the Englishman with sketching materials.
The letters recommenced with one to Freide written in 1917.
My dearest Freide,
You will think it strange that I tell you how shaken everyone at Holzminden is by an episode of violence, particularly since all of us here have been on active service and seen the nightmares of this war. Mercifully, though, the memories fade, and at times I think the war has even receded a little for some of us.
It did not recede for Stephen Gilmore though.
The name leapt off the page, and Nell stared down at it. Stephen Gilmore. Michael’s elusive, shadowy Stephen. It had sounded likely all along and she had hoped for it, but it still came as a shock to see it written down. Hugbert wrote:
Gilmore took to hiding himself away more and more frequently. Often at meals he would half-close his eyes and murmur the words that had begun to seem almost like a private prayer.
‘Let me not be mad … If I can keep my sanity all will be well … If I can remain sane I shall be safe …’ Sometimes he would make clawing movements at the air, although whether he was fighting off an invisible enemy, or fighting to break free of some imaginary prison, it was impossible to tell.
Hauptfeldwebel Barth still insists Gilmore is perfectly sane, and says he most likely got the idea about clawing the air from the Bible, from the Book of Kings, where David scrabbled on the prison walls.
‘It’s all a pretence,’ he said to me, over lunch. ‘You mark my words. Please to pass me the pickled cabbage.’
If Hauptfeldwebel Barth were not my senior officer I should probably tell him he is a pudding-head.
It all began two weeks ago on a normal morning. I was on breakfast duty – breakfast was a bit sparse because all the eggs had been commandeered for Niemeyer and his brother. (Eggs are a rarity at the moment, anyway.) The brothers had already walked around the camp like two fat, moustached trolls, and a number of the prisoners had jeered at them and shouted rude comments, resulting in their being sent into solitary confinement on bread and water.
Iskander and Gilmore were at breakfast. Iskander is impossible to miss in any gathering, merely because he has such a forceful personality that he makes everyone else seem rather colourless. If he really was a burglar, he must have found it very difficult to pass unnoticed when he was a-burgling. Stephen Gilmore is noticeable as well, not because of his looks, but because he has the air of constantly listening and watching, as if he fears his nightmares are crouching nearby. He is, in fact, what you would call a well set-up young man, fairish of hair and complexion, and with a tiny scar or perhaps a birthmark on one cheek. This mark, rather than disfiguring him, actually draws attention to his good bones, in the way eighteenth-century ladies used to place a beauty patch on their faces to enhance an attractive nose or a dimpled smile. (You, my liebling, have no need of such adornments, being pretty enough to rival any famous beauty in any time and in any country. I know I am not the only one to think this, and I hope you are not succumbing to the blandishments of others while I am away.)
On that morning Gilmore seemed more distressed than usual, but I had to deal with a shortage of soda crystals for washing-up and could not spare him much attention. The men were clearing the tables and carrying plates and dishes to the sculleries – this is a task they all dislike, but we have in place a rota system, and it is important to clear the dishes used for pottage straight after eating.
[Translator’s note: It is likely that by ‘pottage’ Hugbert is referring to a scaled-down version of Bauernfrühstück, a kind of breakfast hash.]
It was not until I returned to the dining room that I realized Gilmore and Iskander were no longer there. This was not immediately alarming, and one does not question too closely where a man might have gone after a large helping of Holzminden’s pottage, for, as well as the ubiquitous turnips, it also contains many onions. But I was just thinking I must make sure of their whereabouts, when the alarm sirens ripped through the camp. They are like giant wailing monsters, those sirens; they tear into a man’s eardrums, and they demand instant action.
We have had a few escape attempts here, and we usually recapture the men. But it means we are not unfamiliar with the screeching clamour of the alarms, which only ever signals one thing, and that is an escaped prisoner.
Well, Freide, I am not a person built for running, even with the sparse rations we have had for the last two years. But when the clamour started, I responded at once, and along with the rest ran around the camp, all of us scurrying hither and yon, searching the perimeters, looking at the walls and gates, and peering into ditches and sewage ducts and all manner of dark and unsavoury places.