‘I organized this escape,’ said Iskander. ‘Therefore I should take the blame.’ He turned to the soldiers holding him. ‘Well? Why do we wait?’
After Iskander and Gilmore had been taken away, there was much rounding up of various men who would have to explain how the miscreants could have got as far as the gates without being recognized, and how the two uniforms had been obtained. We never did find that out, but thinking about it, I am inclined to give more credence to Iskander’s claim to have been a burglar in peacetime, for only an accomplished thief could have got into the officers’ quarters and out again without being seen.
But now comes the distressing part.
Nell came out of 1917 to a droning announcement that they were approaching Paddington where she had to switch trains. This was infuriating; it was almost as if the rail network was deliberately interrupting Hugbert’s story on the brink of a denouement. But it could not be helped. She stowed Hugbert away, grabbed her bag, and prepared to battle with London’s crowds.
The battle was not, in the event, so bad, and Nell reached the new train smoothly. This time the carriage was almost empty, and she was back into Hugbert’s story before the train had gathered speed.
Iskander and Gilmore were taken to the solitary confinement cells. I was commended for my brave action in entering the gatehouse, which is very gratifying, but was not really brave in the least. I could see Gilmore was not holding the rifle.
We all thought Niemeyer would wait to see if Heinrich recovered before pronouncing sentence, but the following morning, with Heinrich still hovering between life and death, he called for the miscreants to be brought before him. I was ordered to be present as well, along with Hauptfeldwebel Barth. We had a translator there, but I will relay the details to you without the interpreter’s interjections, so as to make a smoother, more understandable account.
Iskander remained disdainfully courteous throughout the proceedings. Questioned, he said that of course he had tried to escape. It was the duty of every prisoner in every prison camp to do so.
‘You would yourself,’ he said, eyeing Niemeyer.
Niemeyer said he would not be so foolish as to be captured in the first place, to which Iskander promptly replied that it was unlikely that Niemeyer would venture himself into any dangerous situations anyway. I wanted to tell him to be quiet, for to enrage Niemeyer was to weave his own noose.
In contrast, Gilmore was in a pitiable state. He was shaking, causing the fetters around his ankles and wrists to scrape teeth-wincingly. Asked to give an account of himself, he said, ‘I am innocent. I was not the one who fired that shot at the commandant’s brother.’
‘Then who did?’
At first I thought Gilmore was not going to answer. Then, in a strange, hoarse whisper, he said, ‘The one who tries to take my mind. I have never seen him, but I know he is there. He fired the shot. I am innocent.’ Despite the fetters he cowered back, huddling into a tiny ball, covering his face with his hands, then making clawing, scrabbling gestures as if fighting something off.
Niemeyer and the others stared at him, then Iskander said, ‘Hauptmann Niemeyer, you must see that Lieutenant Gilmore is not entirely sane. He is certainly not accountable for his actions over the last twenty-four hours. I know it, and I think your soldiers know it—’ He glanced at me, then away again.
But Niemeyer was so incensed at the interruption, he leapt to his feet, overturning the chair. His face was scarlet with rage, and he shouted, ‘Be silent. This man is entirely sane.’
Iskander leaned forward, his expression more serious and earnest than I had ever seen it. Speaking quietly, he said, ‘I will not be silent. Stephen Gilmore is a damaged human being. His mind is deeply wounded by the horrors he has seen. If you would bring doctors to him – men trained in the sicknesses of the mind—’
‘We will do no such thing,’ cried Niemeyer. ‘In Holzminden we do not pander to weakness. Soldiers are not children.’ He glared at Gilmore, still huddled in his own helpless misery. I thought: now he will pronounce the death sentence. They will both face a firing squad, although Gilmore may hang if Heinrich dies.
Hauptmann Niemeyer said, ‘You, Iskander, you will be shot. A firing squad. You, Lieutenant Gilmore, will also die. But your sentence will be a darker justice in line with the darker crime you committed. In one week’s time you will be bayoneted to death.’
Nell felt as if she had been dealt a blow. Bayoneted. Stephen, that gentle, bewildered young man – the boy who had clung desperately to the memory of lights burning in the windows of his childhood home. The frightened boy who crouched in corners, trying to fix his gaze on a horizon far beyond the nightmares of a dreadful war. He had been sentenced to that brutal death.
Bayoneting. Repeated and vicious stabbing of the victim with a long blade attached to the muzzle of a rifle. Over and over again, until the blade finally pierced a vital organ – heart, lungs, liver. Oh, Stephen, thought Nell, leaning her head back for a moment, and watching the landscape slide past. Did they really do that to you? Or did you manage to escape? Did you finally manage to see again the lamps burning in Fosse House?
There was still more than an hour before they reached Norwich. She collected a cup of coffee from the buffet car, and resumed reading.
I do think, Freide, that the cruellest part of the sentence is that it has been set for one week ahead. If Gilmore could have been taken out immediately after the enquiry and executed at once, the matter would have been over and done with. But Niemeyer would not permit it. And that, I think, was when the last rags of Stephen Gilmore’s sanity deserted him.