The Lion and the Baron

by Simon Brading

  It took a sharp rap on the arse from the sailor’s cane to spur him into action and he glared at the grinning sailor, but nonetheless leant his strength to the efforts of the men and women around him. He seethed inside, not so much from the pain - he’d had much worse from the headmaster at Eton - but rather from the indignity and illegality of the treatment.

  It didn’t take him long to forget all about that, though, as his weakened condition soon had him once again fighting for breath and his world shrank to the wooden bar, the metal deck below and the effort of putting one foot in front of the other.

  The task went on and on, the people trudging round in an endless circle. The only relief coming when positions at the bars were switched around, the men and women on the very inside changing to the outside and everyone else shuffling inwards, all without stopping.

  The sailors guarding them only interjected a few times, mostly to “encourage” those who they considered weren’t doing their utmost, but once they had to drag away a woman who had collapsed from exhaustion. Even though Drake wasn’t doing much more than leaning on the bar, they ignored him, but whether that was because he was on his last legs and they knew it wouldn’t have any effect, or they were under orders not to hurt him, he couldn’t tell.

  It seemed like hours later when a klaxon sounded. Almost as one, the entire crowd of people groaned and the capstan ground to a halt as they stopped pushing. Some staggered off, going towards a doorway opposite the entrance, but most just collapsed to the floor where they were.

  It hadn’t been particularly hard work - the force needed to push the bar round about the same as, say, pushing a drinks trolley - but after hours it had become back-breaking and Drake could only guess at the number of miles the prisoners walked each day.

  He uncurled his cramped hands from the bar and let his legs go beneath him, fully intending to just drop where he fell, when arms went around him and helped him to sit far more gently than he would have. He leaned back against the cold metal of the central cylinder, then looked up to find Tanya smiling down at him.

  ‘Hello Rudy. You look awful.’

  ‘You don’t look too hot yourself.’ Her face was one solid bruise, her lips puffy and cracked, and her gums were once again a bloody mess - it was hard to imagine he looked worse. He was relieved to see that he wouldn't have to pay for any more gold teeth, though.

  He tried to ask her how she was feeling, but a sudden wave of nausea hit him and he squeezed his eyes shut and gulped down deep breaths of the fetid air, trying to prevent himself from losing his lunch.

  Once the dizzy spell had passed he looked up at her again, but before he could ask how she was feeling, a man in a tattered jumpsuit, so soiled that it could barely be described as red anymore, entered his field of vision and bent down to peer at him.

  ‘Ace, old bean? Is that you?’

  The man looked nothing less than a tramp - he was gaunt, with sunken eyes in a heavily lined, dirt-ingrained face, almost hidden behind long, filthy hair, and an equally long and filthy, scraggly beard. The voice was familiar, though, and Drake frowned up at the man, trying to place him. The use of the nickname he’d earned in France was a bit of a hint (he’d been given it jokingly when he’d become the first British “ace” of the war and only his first squadron had ever called him it), but it was the man’s direct, penetrating stare, despite heavily bloodshot eyes, which finally gave him a clue as to the man’s identity. ‘Squadron Leader Askwith?’

  ‘One and the same.’ The man smiled, revealing rotting teeth and far too many gaps.

  ‘Sir! We thought you were dead!’

  ‘I might as well be, for all the good I’m doing in here.’

  ‘We weren’t informed you’d been captured, sir, so...’

  Askwith had been the commander of Drake’s squadron in France. In his forties, a veteran of the First Great War, he was one of many so-called “Flynosaurs” who’d been brought back from retirement to lend their experience to the new generation of pilots. He had gone missing in June, six months before, after a sortie over Prussian-held territory. No word had come from the Prussian army that he had been captured and they had naturally assumed the worst.

  Askwith sighed and sat down. He groaned as he stretched his legs out in front of him and rubbed a calf as he spoke. ‘I was afraid you’d say that. My wife must be worried sick.’ He smiled wryly. ‘Although, I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised; as you can see, our hosts aren’t exactly playing by the rules.’ He made an expansive gesture. ‘Welcome to the most secure prison camp in the Prussian Empire. Get nice and comfy because nobody has ever escaped.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Well, have you ever heard of this thing?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Neither had I until I got here and I think if anyone had got out, they’d damn well have made sure to tell someone, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘Yes, they would.’ Drake sighed. He knew that the man was right and any hope he was holding out for being able to escape, that Tanya might pull off a miracle, completely evaporated - it looked like his war was over and he was going to be forced to aid Gruber, of all people, in his war against the Misfits.

  At the thought of the Muscovite, he belatedly realised that he’d been remiss in his manners and decided to rectify the situation. ‘Uh, have you met Praporshik Guseva, sir?’

  ‘We ask all new arrivals to tell us what’s going on outside, so I heard her speak last night, but we haven’t been formally introduced.’ Askwith held out his hand. ‘Squadron Leader Edward Arthur Askwith at your service, ma’am.’

  Tanya took his hand. ‘Tatiana Guseva, but you can call me Tanya.’

  ‘Then you must call me Ted.’

  Drake pouted. ‘How come he gets to call you Tanya right away? I had to give you some of my rations before you let me do that.’

  ‘Because I didn’t trust you.’ She pointed a finger at his face and twirled it in front of him. ‘You have that look in your eyes, the one that says you are too used to having your way with women.’

  ‘She’s got you there, Ace!’ Askwith chimed in.

  ‘No she hasn’t!’

  Askwith smirked. ‘Do I really have to remind you about that girl you sneaked off base to meet every night while we were training in Scotland? Or that young governess in Brighton while we were on leave? Or the Comte’s daughter in Nancy? Or...’

  When Askwith made to keep going with his list of Drake’s many dalliances, he waved him to a stop desperately, looking shamefully at Tanya. ‘Alright, alright, that’s enough!’

  As his two friends laughed at his discomfort, Drake sulked, crossing his arms and pointedly looking away from them to gaze around the room.

  The woman who had been dragged away from the capstan had been left where she lay. There were a couple of men bent over her, trying to help, but she wasn’t moving. Most of the others who’d dropped where they were had since picked themselves up and drifted towards the door, but some hadn’t moved since the klaxon and didn’t look like they intended to any time soon. He grimaced as he took in their grey complexions and emaciated features; that was most likely what awaited him in the weeks, months, or even years ahead.

  When he finally tore his eyes away from the horrible scene, he found Tanya looking at him. ‘This is not over, Rudy.’ She reached out and squeezed his hand, giving him a smile, then turned away. Her eyes began darting around the room, taking it all in, following the guards as they chatted in a group near the stairs.

  Drake smiled; it looked like she was already working on a way to get them out. Feeling better than he had since he’d been put to work, he turned back to Askwith. ‘So, who are these people? Are they really all pilots?’

  ‘As far as I know.’ Askwith said. ‘We’ve got representatives of most of the countries the Prussians have rolled over in the last year or so in here. There’s Poles, French, Danes, Norwegians, Muscovites, we even had some Republicans and a couple of Americans from the Iberian thing in here, but they die
d a few months back, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Are there any other Brits?’

  ‘Two chaps from 139 squadron came up in the same transport as me, but we were separated and I have no idea if they’re still alive. And there was one other poor blighter here when I arrived, but he’d been here a few months already and bought it a while back. We tend to wear out pretty quickly: nobody lasts more than eight or nine months and most end up like her in less than five,’ he waved in the direction of the woman, who’d been abandoned, apparently beyond help. ‘I’ve only been here six months or so and you can see how I am.’ He laughed suddenly, the sound shocking in the quiet room. ‘It doesn’t matter, though; there’s plenty of new “slaves” to replace the ones that die and we get a delivery every couple of weeks.’

  ‘But only pilots?’

  ‘Yes. Although, before the war they apparently had political prisoners and people they classified as “undesirables” doing the work.’

  ‘Like bankers and lawyers?’ Drake smiled, knowing that Askwith had been a lawyer between the wars and his family owned a bank.

  ‘Watch it, sonny!’ Askwith chuckled, shaking his head. ‘Actually, I don’t rightly know who they were exactly; they were all dead before I got here.’

  ‘What the hell is Gruber playing at?’ said Drake. ‘Pilots aren’t exactly the most physically fit or strongest of people - he’d be much better off with captives from the army and I’m sure there’s a hell of a lot more than them. And while he’s at it, why doesn’t he just put a machine in here to do this. Whatever this is.’ He frowned as he looked up at capstan. ‘What the hell is it we’re doing anyway? What is this for?’

  ‘They had a bloke in here right at the start who’d been on the design team, an artistic type who had then been labelled an undesirable for some reason. He told everyone who would listen about this thing we’re on. Bertha.’ He spat the name, disgusted. ‘We’re winding the springs that power the propellers.’ He patted the floor. ‘There are two springs right beneath us, mounted one on top of the other. They can be removed for replacement or repair apparently, but we’ve never landed so I guess they don’t do that very often. Anyway, they switch from one spring to the other every morning and we wind the one that’s not being used until it’s at full tension again. However long that takes. And if we don’t finish on time they punish us.’ Askwith shrugged. ‘As for Gruber only using pilots, who knows?’

  ‘Actually, Come to think of it, I might have an idea.’ Drake grinned when Askwith looked at him in surprise. ‘I’ve spoken to him quite a lot recently and I can safely say the man is a few cogs short of a logic engine, so it’s probably just some ego thing - trying to prove he’s the best pilot in the world or something.’

  ‘You’ve spoken to him? How? When?’

  ‘He brought me here in his private transport. He’s been taken off of the northern front and reassigned to Italy. We’re on the way there now.’

  ‘Ah.’ Askwith nodded in understanding. ‘That explains a lot.’

  ‘Explains what?’

  He jerked his thumb at the clock on the wall over the door Drake had come through. ‘For a month or so we had it fairly easy and only needed to work for seven or eight hours a day, but the last few days we’ve been hard-pressed to keep up, doing sixteen, seventeen, or even eighteen-hour shifts.’

  ‘Which means that for a while they were just keeping station somewhere, but then they began to go somewhere.’

  ‘Exactly. I just hope we get wherever we’re going soon, we’ve been dropping like flies and the replacements aren’t coming fast enough, soon there’ll be nobody left to wind their bloody springs for them.’ Askwith struggled to his feet. ‘Come on, enough chit-chat, we should eat something then get some sleep.’

  Tanya helped Drake to his feet and they followed the man as he limped slowly towards the door at the back of the room. Half-way there he glanced over his shoulder at them. ‘We’ve got plenty of food and water, but no tea, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Well, that’s just not on,’ said Drake. ‘I’ll have to complain to the manager.’

  Askwith laughed. ‘Same old Ace. I always liked you, I’m damn sorry the bastards got you.’

  Drake chuckled, then glanced sideways at Tanya. She was limping heavily and he was supporting her almost as much as she was him. She also wasn’t smiling anymore. ‘You’re very quiet all of a sudden. Are you alright?’

  She only shrugged in reply.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘I don’t like this place; I don’t know how we’re going to get out.’

  After they had gorged themselves on a stew that didn’t taste nearly as bad as it looked and black Prussian bread, Askwith showed them around the living quarters - an extremely short tour, seeing as they consisted of just two rooms.

  The main room, where they had eaten, was about the size of the room with the capstan, which the prisoners called the “winding room”. It was for both eating and sleeping and was divided in two, half of which filled with long metal tables lined by metal benches and the other half by hard mats, like those used in a gymnastics class. Everything was dull grey and bolted to the floor and everything was soiled with use, but no more than the people themselves were. There were no sheets or blankets for the mats and it was not nearly as cosy as it had been in the adjacent guard room, but according to Askwith it wasn’t too uncomfortable when everyone was bunched up together on the floor.

  The second, much smaller, room, had two long rows of toilets out in the open with no screens for privacy and a dozen sinks with only cold water taps. Askwith told them that it was possible to wash and keep clean, but in practice most people were too tired at the end of a day’s work to do more than eat and use the toilets before collapsing. However, trying to wash their clothes was impossible because there was nowhere to dry them and working in wet clothes was torture far beyond what it already was.

  The tour concluded, they returned to the main room. It had only taken a few minutes, but most people had already curled up on the floor and were fast asleep, wrapped around each other like animals in order to conserve heat.

  Drake couldn’t help but stare as Askwith led them past the mats; there were very few men or women that didn’t look malnourished, despite the plentiful food, and quite a few were trembling, though with the cold or something else, he couldn’t tell. There was an almost constant chorus of coughing and wheezing accompanying the snores and sounds of soft voices coming from the people still eating.

  They reached one of the few free spots on the floor. A man was already asleep there, but he stirred at their approach and smiled weakly up at Askwith who nodded in greeting.

  ‘This is François, he was captured at the same time as I was. We look after each other and I would suggest you find someone to do the same.’ Askwith eyed them and grinned. ‘Although it looks like you already have.’

  He lay down close to the Frenchman and looked up at them. ‘Lights off is in a few minutes. Try to get some sleep, we’ll be up at five, that’s less than four hours from now.’

  With that the man closed his eyes, rolled onto his side and was snoring in seconds.

  Drake exchanged a glance with Tanya, then without a word they settled to the floor and he wrapped his arm around her, the two of them instinctively settling into one of the positions they’d slept in during their journey through Finland.

  Remembering her words and the look of hopelessness on his face, he racked his brains, trying to come up with something comforting to say to her, but sleep overtook him before he got close to finding anything.

  Chapter 14

  The blaring klaxon uncompromisingly woke the pilots the next day and Askwith informed them they had half an hour to snatch some food and visit the bathroom before having to be at the capstan.

  Even though Gruber had told him that they would have a tour after he’d seen to his business, nobody showed up to get Drake, so he joined the others in getting ready for the day.

  Since the bathroom lacked an
y privacy whatsoever, the prisoners had organised it so that the women could use it while the men ate, before swapping over, but even so, Drake felt extremely self-conscious doing his business under the eyes of other men. He learnt straight away that it was imperative not to make eye contact and the best policy was to stare at a point on the floor a few feet away. Thankfully, the Prussians weren’t so barbarous as to not supply toilet paper, but it was strictly rationed to a few pieces each and of the worst quality possible.

  When the thirty minutes was up, the klaxon sounded again, just as insistently, and the pilots reluctantly filed out to the capstan. To Drake’s initial surprise, they weren’t hounded or hurried by the sailors, but then he realised that it really didn’t matter if they were late starting; they would be working as long as it took to wind the spring.

  Drake and Tanya followed Askwith and François over to one of the wooden bars. There were twelve bars in total with room for at least ten or twelve people at each, meaning there was more than enough space for everyone and they didn’t have to worry about being split up.

  Once everyone was in place, one of the pilots gave a shout, then together they started pushing, going the opposite direction as they had the day before because the two springs had been mounted back to back.

  Stiff muscles from the previous day made the going slow at first, but they soon warmed up and got, if not a good rhythm, then at least some momentum going.

  Once they were settled, Drake turned his head to look at Askwith, pushing beside him. He knew he should be saving his breath for the work, but he was curious. ‘Most of these people look like they’re not going to be able to work much longer. Why don’t we slow down or let them sit and rest a bit?’

  Askwith didn’t have any energy to spare, despite it being so early in the morning, and he answered breathlessly, without looking at Drake. ‘We tried that once, a few months back. We rotated the worst people out and took it in shifts, working slowly but steadily. It worked for a couple of days, but then we misjudged it and didn’t manage to wind the spring completely. We got punished.’