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 . . .
22
‘YOU-COME-BACK-at-six-thirty,’ Terry almost shouted at the German corporal who had escorted them from the camp to the commandant’s quarters.
The blank look on the corporal’s face left Giles in little doubt that he was never going to make sergeant.
‘Come-back-at-six-thirty,’ repeated Terry, enunciating each word slowly. He grabbed the corporal’s wrist and pointed to the six on his watch. Giles only wished he could say to the corporal, in his own language, ‘If you return at six-thirty, corporal, there’ll be a crate of beer for you and your friends in the guard house.’ But he knew that if he did, he would be arrested and be spending New Year’s Eve in solitary confinement.
Terry once again pointed to the corporal’s watch, and imitated a man drinking. This time the corporal smiled and mimicked the same action.
‘I think he’s finally got the message,’ said Giles as they made their way into the commandant’s quarters.
‘We still have to make sure he picks the beer up before the first officer arrives. So we’d better get a move on.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Terry as he headed off in the direction of the kitchen. Natural order restored.
Giles went to the cloakroom, removed the waiter’s uniform from its peg and changed into the white shirt, black tie, black trousers and white linen jacket. He spotted a pair of black leather gloves on the bench that an officer must have left behind on some previous occasion, and tucked them into his pocket thinking they might prove useful later. He closed the cloakroom door and made his way to the dining room. Three waitresses from the town – including Greta, the only one he’d ever been tempted to flirt with, but he knew Jenkins wouldn’t have approved – were laying a table for sixteen.
He checked his watch: 6.12 p.m. He left the dining room and went downstairs to the wine cellar. A single bulb lit a room that had once stored filing cabinets full of archives. Since Giles’s arrival, they had been replaced by wine racks.