Black Camp 21

by Bill Jones

  Across the metal breakfast table, he looked even worse. Around his cheeks the flesh had shrunk, dropping his eyes into dark pits from which deep cracks ran down to the corners of his mouth. What light Hartmann had ever known there was extinguished. The boy’s face was dead, and his eyes had turned grey.

  ‘Stop inspecting me, Max. You look like shit too.’

  Koenig had finished one bowl of porridge and was casting round greedily for more. ‘I’ve been in solitary for a week. Bread and water. I’m due some decent grub.’

  All the tables were full now. Eighty men squeezed thigh to thigh. Most of them had arrived the night before.

  ‘What happened? You’re a wreck.’ Hartmann slid across his helping of bread. ‘I think you need this more than I do.’

  Koenig tore into it greedily. ‘You’ll like it here. It’s more like Germany than Germany.’

  ‘We’re in Scotland. We’re beyond being nowhere. The war might as well be on another planet.’

  Koenig stopped eating and scrutinised his friend’s face. ‘We look older than our grandfathers.’

  Both of them laughed. Koenig had a point. War had drained them all. Apart from Rosterg, there was no one in the room over twenty-five.

  ‘So how come you were locked up?’

  ‘You won’t like it.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Nothing serious. Not really. Sometimes we get the odd newcomer who needs to be shown the way things are, that’s all.’

  ‘The way things are?’

  ‘People who’ve forgotten the oaths we took. Not traitors, exactly, but weaklings requiring some degree of realignment.’

  ‘Realignment? You beat people up?’

  ‘I issue reminders.’ Koenig laughed. ‘Only this time I got caught.’

  Prisoners were slowly drifting out, and a polar blast could be felt from the door. Every plate had been scraped and licked until it shone.

  ‘And for what reason did you issue this latest “reminder”?’

  ‘We don’t build snowmen, Max. Not here.’

  ‘You gave someone a kicking because they built a snowman?’

  ‘We don’t build snowmen who look like Hitler.’

  ‘Do I laugh or do I cry?’

  Koenig smiled. ‘I said you wouldn’t like it.’

  For a little while longer, they caught up with each other’s news. After their adventures in the doctor’s car, Koenig had been questioned and shipped straight to Camp 21, where sketchy rumours of the Devizes plot had been circulating for days, alongside reports of a fresh German offensive and yet more V2 rockets over the Home Counties. Only two recent developments had dampened the mood of patriotic expectation.

  The first was the rapid onset of severe winter weather.

  The second was the deployment – only twenty-four hours earlier – of the 7th Polish Guard Company.

  ‘What difference will that make?’ Hartmann asked.

  ‘I guess we’ll find out later.’

  As he always did, Hartmann killed the day studying people and the clouds. Neither was markedly more interesting than the other.

  A little way beyond the wire, he felt certain he would find the river; the same ice-glazed waters he’d already crossed on his march from the station. Behind that, a broad wood rose steeply to a crest which fanned out in both directions. Pale smoke from the chimneys of the nearby village seemed to have merged with a late afternoon mist, forming a translucent disc which hung over the valley floor.

  By Hartmann’s calculations it was the shortest day – the winter solstice – and a hard crust was already forming where the men’s boots had trodden down the snow. Around noon, the sun had made a token appearance low in the southern sky but there’d been no appreciable lift in temperature.

  Between the compound office block and the wire, a group of prisoners had scuffed away a small clearing on the grass, forming goalposts with piles of icy slush. Almost all the day’s light had gone and a misshapen football had been produced which the prisoners were kicking half-heartedly and without any discernible skill. As Hartmann watched, the ball was booted randomly until it came to rest at the foot of the perimeter fence between two concrete stanchions.

  In one of the guard towers overlooking their compound, a shadow moved; then two shadows, and a furious cry which none of them could understand. For a few moments, the prisoners were too stunned to move. Then one of them started walking deliberately towards the ball.

  From the tower, there were more alien shouts and the click-click of a round being pushed into position by the bolt of a rifle. When the prisoner reached the wire, a single shot rang out. Hissing flaps of wet leather seemed to explode in every direction. Chunks of ice rang down on the metal rooftops and suddenly the footballers were skittering back across the packed snow.

  Everyone had heard the shot. For the duration of its echo, the entire camp seemed to shrink back in puzzled silence, and then, bedlam. From inside every hut, there was a clattering of furniture as doors were flung open and bleary-faced prisoners ran screaming to the fence, scavenging for missiles to hurl at an enemy they couldn’t yet see.

  Somewhere near the main gate, Hartmann could hear approaching dogs, and the swirl of men’s footsteps. Two lines of armed men in green coats had materialised, between which an entire company of guards was suddenly jogging into the compound, firing wildly into the sky. From the watchtowers, spotlights swung on the prisoners, forcing them to swivel away from the fence and head back to their huts, pursued by a phalanx of Polish guards tugged on by yowling Alsatians.

  Everything had been ready for this, thought Hartmann. The football had nothing to do with it.

  ‘I’m thinking maybe we should have stayed out of Poland.’

  Hartmann hadn’t seen Rosterg all day. Now, like everyone else, he was rushing for the sanctuary of their quarters.

  ‘They were only playing football.’

  Out in the darkness beyond their compound, a flare had gone off, illuminating the entire camp in spectral orange light.

  ‘I’m not sure the Poles were causing much trouble in thirty-nine, Max.’

  ‘Well, they’re certainly making up for it now.’

  To Hartmann’s ears, the gunfire was getting worse – as if more troops had entered their compound. Behind the closed doors of their hut, the prisoners were panting in a state of black-eyed expectation. In battle, he’d seen the same look on a thousand faces – ordinary men at the tipping point where adrenaline neutralised fear.

  ‘We could take them if we rushed.’ Goltz’s voice crackled. His fists were knotted, and his cheeks flushed. ‘How many of us are there? Eighty in this hut. Eighty in all the rest? We could take the fuckers. Easily we could.’

  Outside, they could hear the dogs scratching on the iron sheets. There were faces at the window – another disjointed spatter of shots – and then the door was kicked open in a volley of orders and abuse. Underneath their green hats, the soldiers appeared heavy-featured and pale, the exact same look Hartmann had seen on the corpses in Russia.

  Koenig had always said you couldn’t tell one dead Slav from another. Looking at them now – spitting incomprehensible instructions from the thick end of their rifles – the living ones weren’t much different.

  ‘What the fuck are they saying?’

  Goltz was backing off. A dozen armed guards were pushing the prisoners towards their bunks. Behind them, a second mob of younger soldiers was rifling through the blankets and tossing mattresses to the floor. Unsettled by the rush of air, the wood stoves roared, sending a pulse of heat along the length of the hut. One by one, every bed was being stripped and searched.

  ‘Rosterg. You speak their fucking language. What the fuck is going on?’

  In their identical winter coats, it wasn’t easy to know who was in charge. But only one of them had removed his headgear and Rosterg turned towards him. For a few minutes, they spoke calmly in Polish. Every bunk had been violated, and the torn bedding was strewn across puddles of melting snow.


  ‘Nigdy więcej problemów prosimy?’ The Polish captain had pouched his revolver and extended a hand to Rosterg.

  ‘Nigdy więcej problemów,’ said Rosterg, reciprocating with a formal embrace.

  Satisfied, the Pole bowed and gestured towards the door. Along the length of the hut, the guards lowered their rifles and headed for their own barracks. Even to Hartmann, their strut seemed insufferable, stirring a flicker of national humiliation he’d thought long extinguished.

  From the open door, the prisoners could smell the mess left by the waiting dogs and the stink stirred their silent anger.

  ‘What were you saying to each other? Tell me,’ Goltz demanded.

  ‘He asked me for an assurance that there’d be no more problems, and I gave him one.’ Rosterg busied himself hanging a blanket over the hot pipes which ran from the stove along the inside of the roof.

  ‘On whose authority? Not mine. Nor theirs.’ Goltz indicated the crush of men packed around to listen. ‘You shouldn’t have done that. They’re our enemy. We’re at war with them. Look at me when I’m speaking to you, for fuck’s sake.’

  Rosterg turned. His voice sounded perfectly calm. Neutral. ‘You’re right, but they’d have torn this place apart if I hadn’t. So forgive me, but I took the liberty of assuming you’d regard that to be a bad thing.’

  A stray thought seemed to tug in Rosterg’s brain, drawing a smile to his face. ‘There were some new house rules too. No coats in bed. No visits to the toilet block after nine, and regular unscheduled visits along the lines of this one. If anyone is found wearing coats in bed, we all – all – get dragged out in the night for a midnight roll call. Sounds like we’re going to get along just fine.’

  ‘You’re a fucking arse-licker, Rosterg. Do you know that?’

  ‘They’re not my rules. They’re his. You remain absolutely free to violate them.’

  ‘Who the fuck are you, anyway?’

  ‘I’m the person who tells you things. I’m the person who warns you about things. I’m the person who can find out what you’ll never know. Beyond that I am utterly useless and whether you like me or not is a matter of absolutely no concern to me. Do you understand?’

  But Goltz had lost interest. ‘You bore me, Rosterg.’

  For a half-second, Rosterg stared back, before removing his glasses and polishing them on the little that remained of his monogrammed handkerchief.

  ‘Likewise,’ he muttered, and then left.

  The next day was December 22nd. Hartmann was almost certain of it. It might even be Christmas Eve, but if it was, no one said so. Back in Devizes, there’d be rousing concerts and home-made decorations. Here, every first conversation was about the war and every second one was about loyalty.

  Although not all the inmates of Black Camp 21 were SS – he’d seen fliers and submariners, even a scattering of officers – every one of them wore the black mark, and tinsel would be regarded as a sign of suspect deviancy.

  On Christmas Day – if they got that far – ‘Deutschland Über Alles’ might be as good as it got.

  Overnight, more heavy snow had fallen, driven horizontally by a lacerating northerly. As the prisoners dressed, not even the stoves could turn the cold round.

  Choosing not to risk the consequences, most had slept without their coats.

  Outside, every footstep across the camp had been filled afresh, and when the men left their huts they found drifts heaped up against their doors. For a few precious minutes, the fuggy heat of the canteen revived them, but once breakfast was done the day yawned out like all the others, distinguished only by the combination of severe weather and boredom.

  No one had forgotten the events of the previous night. Over breakfast, the men had talked of nothing else. But as the light strengthened, so did the storm, pinning them deep inside their huts and hiding the tops of the watchtowers in dizzying clouds of snow.

  ‘We’ve got to go out, Max. I’m going mad.’

  Koenig was lying on his bed by the door on the opposite side from Hartmann’s bunk. Only his face was visible and a cruel wind was shrieking in the gaps around the window.

  ‘We’ll die out there. What the hell for?’

  ‘It’s easing off a bit. Seriously. It is.’ Koenig twisted to look through panes thick with snow. If anything, it was worse. ‘And I’ve got something I want to show you.’

  Outside, nothing but the sky was moving. Even when the snow stopped, the wind didn’t, and the two men were soon dangerously cold.

  ‘My teeth hurt. This is fucking insane.’

  ‘The colder we get, the warmer you’ll feel when we go back in. Just be glad you’re not one of those Polish cunts. They’re stuck out in it regardless.’

  It was true. Ghostly figures were still out there patrolling the fence.

  ‘They could do themselves a favour; stay inside. No one’s going to be causing any trouble in this.’ Hartmann held the corners of his collar and pulled them tight across his neck. ‘Why are the Poles here anyway?’

  ‘These ones got out of Poland just before we went in. Thousands of them. Smart move by the British. Who better to guard a bunch of SS psychopaths than another bunch of bitter, homeless exiles?’ Koenig had stopped behind the corner hut on the northern edge of their compound. ‘Apart from the Russians, there can’t be many people who hate us more.’

  Hartmann peered back into the blizzard. The guards were no longer visible in a whiteout that was devouring their entire world. Nothing was left; no one; just the two of them.

  ‘Why are you stamping your feet?’ he asked.

  ‘Because there’s a tunnel under here.’

  Satisfied that he was at the right spot, Koenig had carefully kicked away the snow around the flap of a large brick coal bunker.

  ‘It was here when I arrived. Finished, but unused. No one seems sure who dug it. Possibly some prisoners who’ve been moved further north.’

  ‘There are worse places than this? That isn’t possible.’

  Koenig smiled. Snow had started to tumble again, thicker than before. ‘Don’t tell me you’re not enjoying it here.’

  Hartmann had wandered closer to the wire. Out in the field, white eddies of crystals were spinning over the lip of a ditch, settling in hard shapes like breaking waves.

  ‘Have you been inside it?’ he shouted back.

  ‘I have. It comes out just short of the river. It’s only fifteen yards or so long but it’s pitch black all the way through. And very wet. Horrible.’

  ‘So why are you still here?’

  ‘Where would I go? And why would I go?’

  ‘That’s not what you said before, back on the hill. Remember?’

  ‘It’s different now. We’ve nearly won, Max. I can feel it.’

  ‘You’re wrong. Completely wrong.’ Hartmann was screaming to be heard above the tearing wind. ‘Too many people hate us. The world fucking hates us. You said it yourself, just now. Do you think these Poles want to be here? They’ve got homes in Wrocław and Poznań and Prague. They’ve got families and kids. Just like everyone else we’ve shat on. No one wants us. No one ever did. We’re on our own now. It’s finished.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be saying any of this, Max.’

  ‘Because what? Because you’ll realign me if I do?’

  ‘Because people don’t – can’t – think like that in here.’

  ‘And if I’m right?’

  ‘You can’t possibly be right.’

  Something colder even than the rising gale seemed to spin in the air. ‘Of course. I’d forgotten. What could possibly go wrong?’

  ‘You should be careful,’ Koenig hissed.

  ‘Tell me. Will it be you, or someone else who comes to issue my reminder?’

  ‘Listen. Goltz doesn’t think it was Bultmann who blew you all out at Devizes.’

  The two men had pulled close to one another. Pearls of ice were clinging to their exposed straggles of hair.

  ‘Does he think it was me, Erich? Does he? Is
this a warning?’

  But Koenig was already walking away, head bent into the storm.

  ‘Why did you show me this? You never said.’

  The words seemed to break up on a withering gust before being tossed in pieces across the camp.

  As Hartmann caught up with his friend, he could feel the fracture. This time there would be no coming back. For years, he had tried to see the world as Koenig did, knowing his life would be easier, yet always secretly hoping that he would fail. And he had failed. Now, in this place, at least, they both knew who they were.

  At the corner of their hut, Koenig swung towards the knot of buildings which included the canteen and the office block. Uncertain what else to do, Hartmann followed. It was nearly lunchtime, and the smell of boiled cabbage was building. In a few minutes, the rush for food would begin.

  Walking past the kitchens, the two men reached a smaller brick building, with a raked felt roof. Looking in at the window, they could see Rosterg smoking a cigarette and reading a newspaper. Through the walls, they could feel the power of his fire.

  ‘It’s the compound office block,’ mumbled Koenig.

  Perfunctory. Indifferent.

  Hartmann nodded. ‘Right.’

  Koenig booted the snow away from around the door and led the way in.

  Inside, there was a small metal desk, two wooden chairs and a stove. Rosterg had pulled one of the chairs close to the fire. Koenig grabbed the second and sat down next to him. Hartmann stood at the back, uncertain why he was there, content with the forgotten draw of tobacco.

  ‘If you’re wondering, Max,’ explained Rosterg, ‘this is apparently where the compound committee meets. Someone has to tell the people out there what we want. Food orders, medical supplies, Red Cross parcels, coal. That sort of stuff. Anything that needs paperwork. Or a translator.’