The Prisoner's Wife

by Maggie Brookes

  Keep calm, Bill thinks. If I can keep calm, I might have a chance to knock the gun from his hand before his filthy cock touches her.

  “Raus, raus,” Kurt urges Izzy, his voice hoarse with excitement and anticipation. Izzy pulls her gloves off with her teeth so she can unfasten her coat. She drops her gloves and coat onto the slushy snow, and Kurt indicates for her to undo her trousers and turn around. He switches the gun to his left hand, but keeps it aimed at her body as he unbuttons his flies and his prick leaps out, stiff and ready.

  Izzy looks away from it and begins to unfasten her trousers, trembling all over. Acid rises to Bill’s mouth, and he holds himself like a runner, waiting for his opportunity, knowing that if he intervenes too soon, she’ll be shot, and if he leaves it too late, she’ll be raped. She pushes her trousers to her knees, leaving her long underwear pulled up, and glances quickly at Bill, warning him not to endanger himself. Then she turns from him and bends over the pile of marble slabs.

  Kurt moves close behind her, holding the gun to her head with his left hand as his right hand pulls down her underwear. For a moment Kurt’s left hand, with the gun, waves wildly in the air, as he concentrates on using his right to guide himself into position. Knowing this might be his only chance, Bill leaps forward, but someone else is ahead of him by half a second, a dark shape from his left, knocking Kurt to the ground. A gunshot rings out, and as Bill lands on top of Kurt and the other man, he sees Izzy fall from the pile of slabs into the snow, lying on her stomach. Bill’s thumping the body he’s fallen on with both fists while turning his head to see if Izzy has been hit. She doesn’t move. If she’s dead, he might as well be dead himself. Then she screams out an anguished “Bill!”

  “I’m here,” he calls, scrabbling across the bodies and through the snow toward her.

  Ralph yanks the gun from Kurt’s hand and sends it spinning into the slush. Izzy is struggling to roll over, hampered by the trousers and underwear around her thighs. Bill still fears she’s been shot, and all thought of Kurt is gone from his head as he rushes to help her, yelling, “Did he get you? Are you hurt?”

  Simultaneously she cries out, “Did he shoot you?”

  He hoists her to her feet as she yanks up her underwear and trousers.

  “Are you all right?” he asks again.

  She stutters, “Yes, all right. You, are you all right?”

  “Yes, yes.”

  They look each other over quickly to check that each is telling the truth, then turn to see Scotty lying facedown on Kurt. Max and Ralph heave his body to one side, and he is heavy and inert, prone in the snow. Bill grabs the pistol and kneels on Kurt’s chest, smashing him in the face with the butt of the pistol, shouting, “You fucking bastard!” But Kurt is completely still. A thin band of moonlight is enough for them to see a red slash has been opened across his throat, and blood is pouring out onto the path.

  Ralph and Max roll Scotty’s body over, and they can all see a huge hole in his stomach, pumping dark blood into the snow. Bill knows it would have been him if Scotty hadn’t moved a second sooner. In Scotty’s hand is the knife he used to carve his chess set, wet with Kurt’s blood.

  Bill aims the gun at Kurt’s lifeless face, but Ralph wrenches it from his grip. “Stop now—it’s done. It’s over.”

  Izzy is shivering violently from shock and cold. Bill picks up her coat and gloves and wraps the coat around her shoulders. “Here, put these back on.”

  Black puddles spread around Scotty and Kurt as Bill helps her push her arms back through the sleeves of her coat. “Hush now,” he says. “It’s over.”

  Lights flashed on in the house at the sound of the gunshot, and now Herr Rauchbach and some of the office workers are hurrying down the path toward them with strong torches.

  “There’s been a terrible accident,” calls Ralph, and he repeats it in German.

  Herr Rauchbach lifts his torch above his head to cast light on the bloody scene. Kurt and Scotty are sprawled in the snow, both obviously dead, with a stream of black gore from each of them now running down the path toward the quarry. Ralph begins to retch and turns aside to vomit into the snow.

  “What happened?” demands Herr Rauchbach.

  Clouds of steam rise from their breath as they wait for Ralph to wipe his mouth with the back of his hand and stand to speak. He doesn’t look again at the bodies.

  “An argument,” stutters Ralph. “A terrible argument between them. Scotty must have had a knife. And look, Bill’s found Kurt’s gun.”

  Bill frowns at Ralph; he was planning to keep the gun. But he hands it to Herr Rauchbach, who drops it in a pocket.

  Thin flakes of snow begin to fall.

  “We can’t leave them here,” says Max. “They’ll be covered in snow by morning.”

  “How about the toolshed?” asks Ralph. “Not very respectful, I know, but away from the wolves until they can be buried properly.”

  Herr Rauchbach nods assent, and between the four of them they carry Scotty and then Kurt. As they lift Kurt, Herr Rauchbach takes in Kurt’s open fly and flailing member. He steps forward and tucks it away. Kurt’s and Scotty’s arms and legs slip from their grip, and they make slow progress, but eventually lay them side by side on the shed floor.

  Herr Rauchbach says something in German and Ralph translates: “A violent man meets a violent death.”

  Herr Rauchbach padlocks the toolshed and they trudge slowly back to the house, shocked into silence.

  For once nobody is hungry, and Bill lies most of the night thinking of what almost happened to Izzy, feeling that he’s failed her utterly. He isn’t the one who saved her, and if he had been, it would be him who was dead, not Scotty. He reaches the painful decision that she might be safer escaping with Berta. These thoughts chase one another round and round his head till he falls into an exhausted sleep just before dawn.

  In the morning Kurt’s family comes to claim his body, and two Nazi guards arrive from Saubsdorf. They instruct the prisoners to lift Kurt onto a cart. His body is stiff as frozen washing now and easier to carry. Izzy doesn’t glance at his face, but Bill looks hard and remembers what Kurt wanted to do to Izzy, what he would have done to others throughout his life if he’d had the chance, and thinks, I hope he burns in hell.

  Herr Rauchbach covers him with a blanket. Kurt’s mother is crying noisily, but everybody else is silent.

  Herr Rauchbach says something in German, and the Nazi guards salute. He repeats it in Czech, and Kurt’s father spits in the snow.

  * * *

  Once the cart has pulled away, the guards instruct Ralph and Max to dig a grave in the woods for Scotty. They clear snow from a patch, but the ground is thick with tree roots, and even with pickaxes, they can’t get down more than a few inches into the frozen earth. Berta and Herr Rauchbach and Rosa and the other prisoners stand around watching as they lift Scotty’s body into the shallow grave. He is barely below the surface of the earth. Ralph lays a handkerchief over his face.

  Bill hunts around for two suitable sticks to make a cross, and once he understands what Bill’s doing, one of the guards cuts off side branches with his bayonet. Berta goes to the kitchen for a length of string to tie the cross together. Then everyone stands around the makeshift grave with their heads bared, even though the snow has started falling again.

  Ralph stutters, “He was a good man, and we’ll never forget him.” Bill’s never seen Ralph at a loss for words before, and Bill takes over. He says the Lord’s Prayer, and Herr Rauchbach repeats it in Czech. Izzy crosses herself, and Bill sees Berta exchange a long, long look with her. Izzy’s going to stay here when we leave, thinks Bill. And the thought is like lead in his stomach.

  Bill and Max shovel soil over Scotty’s poor body, but he’s barely covered by it. The wolves will dig him out before morning.

  “There are buckets of chippings from the quarry,” Ralph says. “We could h
eap those over him.”

  The guards give their approval, and Izzy, Bill, Ralph and Max begin to ferry the buckets of marble chips from the toolshed. Although their fingers have now lost all feeling, they carefully build a cairn with all the white marble chippings. They carry a heavy marble slab between them, then lay it on the top. Bill thinks Scotty’s grave is as good as a Nazi general’s. He remembers Scotty cooking the Christmas meal and knows his death has saved both Izzy and himself. A debt like that can never be repaid. Should he repay it by insisting that Izzy escape with Berta or by refusing ever to be parted from her? They stand quietly until the snow is thick on their hair and shoulders.

  Eventually, “Come on,” says Bill. “We need to pack our things.”

  As they gather their small belongings together, Bill wonders who else might die because of him and Izzy. Or has she already decided she puts them in too much danger?

  * * *

  Later in the afternoon a truck arrives to take them back to Lamsdorf. As Bill returns from the latrine, he sees Berta by the range, urgently whispering to Izzy in Czech. There’s fear as well as hope in Berta’s face, and Bill knows what a risk she would be taking. For a moment he imagines Izzy hiding in her house, dressing in her daughter’s clothes with a scarf around her short hair, being smuggled by one neighbor and then another until she’s knocking at the door of her farm. Her mother opening the door. And then? What then? What about the Russians? Has Scotty saved her from Kurt only for her to face worse?

  Izzy raises her head to him, and Bill thinks he can’t bear this to be the last time he ever sees her. She looks deep into Bill’s eyes and slowly places her right hand over her heart. Then she’s moving toward their room, stammering something to Berta as she leaves the kitchen with Bill.

  Berta follows with a basket of bread and drops a packet of raisins and a small bottle of plum brandy into Izzy’s pocket, whispering one last thing in Czech and crossing herself. Bill is in a hurricane of emotion—relief and joy that Izzy isn’t leaving him, whirling with anxiety and fear about what they might have to face next. He thinks he can face anything with her beside him. He thinks she is the bravest person he’s ever met.

  Herr Rauchbach, Berta and Rosa stand on the track to watch them leave. Frank, in the back of the lorry with them, is slumped in despair, because Rosa’s eyes are sad but dry. He isn’t the man she loves, and he knows it. Bill hopes she’ll get away before the Russians come.

  The truck is canvas covered, and though that keeps the sleet off them, it does nothing to keep out the cold. They are wearing all their clothes, and wrap themselves in blankets, but are almost frozen by the time they arrive at Lamsdorf. On the road Bill thinks of Scotty and the life he might have had. He swears to himself that he and Izzy will make it home, and one day they’ll tell their children about Scotty, about the man who died so they could live.

  Twenty-two

  It’s late afternoon when we arrive back at Lamsdorf, and there’s chaos in the stalag. Although the guards are still at the gate, there’s none of the usual form filling and bureaucracy. Nobody to look me up and down and tick off Algernon Cousins in their book. We can hear the sound of artillery fire, loud and close.

  “It won’t be long now,” one man says with relish.

  We’re directed to a hut that looks as if a whirlwind has gone through it, with clothing and even tins of food strewn all over the bunks and the floor. There are books, which Max begins to pick up. We’re told that a thousand men were given an hour’s notice the previous night and marched from the camp, out into the snow. The plan is to send the rest of us out in groups of one or two thousand.

  Ralph remembers being told there could be thirteen thousand British prisoners at any one time in Lamsdorf and twelve thousand more out at work camps. “Twenty-five thousand Brits,” says Ralph, “and God knows how many of all the other nationalities. That’s a big evacuation. Though I suppose they had practice with Warsaw.”

  The prisoners who remain are making hurried preparations in case they are among the groups that will leave tonight. We watch as packing cases are torn apart to make sledges. Shirts are buttoned up to make rough backpacks that bulge with tins. Frank meets some of his old friends and plans to march with them. So our old foursome is together again, though Bill and Max don’t look at each other or speak. We drop our kits onto one of the abandoned bunks.

  “We haven’t got much time,” says Bill. I’ve never seen him take charge before, but suddenly there’s a need for his practicality rather than Ralph’s and Max’s book learning. “We’ll need a sledge to take as much food as we can pull. I can do that. We used to make them in the factory at Mankendorf.” He begins to yank the slats from one of the abandoned top bunks. “I’ll take these to the carpenter’s shop. Ralph, can you take Cousins and get food? Max, are you with us?”

  Max looks at all the strangers bustling around us. Ralph says, “Please?” and I lay my hand on his sleeve. Max looks from me to Ralph and nods.

  “Warm clothes and blankets,” Bill continues. “Find anything you can which might stop us from freezing if they really go through with this madness. We should hide our bags up here while we’re all away.”

  We shove our kit bags and blankets up into the rafters, while Bill continues to pull timber from the bunks, and then Ralph and I run to the hut where Red Cross parcels are distributed. Normally they’re handed out through the window, but now the door is wide-open and prisoners are taking as much as they can carry. The lazy-eyed guard is at the door, and he just watches. A fight breaks out as two men try to grab the same parcel. The guard steps in and fires a warning shot. Other people are ripping open parcels and selecting food. One man is stuffing his pockets with cigarettes. I carry three parcels and Ralph carries five, piled up in front of us. They are heavy and awkward.

  Back in the hut Max is saying good-bye to his little library of books. He’s managed to find us an extra blanket each, an assortment of other clothing from the stores and a pile of coats.

  “They were issuing Dutch and Belgian greatcoats,” he says. “Must have had them there all the time, the bastards. I brought us one each. They aren’t waxed like ours, but might do as extra blankets.”

  He addresses Ralph. “They say that men who aren’t able to walk are to be left behind and taken by train. Do you think . . . ?”

  Ralph shakes his head. “I know my foot is bad, but I’ll keep up as long as I can. I’d rather take my chances with you.”

  I wonder how far he can possibly walk on his damaged foot, and think perhaps we could pull him on the sledge.

  Max says, “The guards have been making the prisoners here run laps to get them fitter. They must be planning a long walk.”

  “We’re fit,” says Ralph. “Think how we’ve been working in that quarry. And we’ve been better fed than the prisoners here. We’ll be all right.” He doesn’t even sound convinced himself.

  Bill comes back, triumphant, with a well-made sledge. I’m so proud of him, and clap my hands spontaneously. Even Max looks reluctantly admiring.

  “One bloke offered me a hundred fags for it,” Bill says. “And someone else tried to steal it from me. I had to smack him one.”

  “So much for universal brotherhood,” mutters Max.

  “We shouldn’t try to carry too much,” cuts in Bill. “We aren’t strong enough, and the weather’s terrible. It’s going to be hard enough just to walk. Let’s get everything we can on here, and then have a brew.”

  As we pile the parcels onto the sledge, Max asks Ralph, “Did you hear anything about where they might be taking us?”

  Bill says, “One guard says it’s direct orders from the führer. They don’t want to leave us behind to join up with the Russians.”

  “Blimey,” says Ralph, “I don’t want to fight for the Russians.”

  “You didn’t hear the other rumor, then?” asks Max. We all look up and he hesitates. “I’m not sure
if I should say.”

  “We’ll hear it sooner or later,” Ralph points out.

  “OK, well, they’re saying Hitler plans to use us as a human shield for his last stand. All the Allied prisoners from here and the work camps and the other prison camps. Sixty thousand Russian prisoners, they say. That might make three hundred thousand prisoners in all. That would be quite a shield.”

  We work in silence, tying our kit bags to the sledge with some rope Bill found. It makes sense, of course, but I’m flooded with despair and fear. Have I really come this far with Bill for us to be used as a human shield?

  Max continues. “They also say Hitler issued an order that we should march without trousers, to stop us trying to escape, but the camp commandant’s defied that.”

  “Thank God for small mercies,” says Bill.

  Once the sledge is full we cover it with our blankets and the spare greatcoats Max found, and tie it all tightly. Bill uses the last of the rope to form a long cord for us to pull it by.

  Each of us will carry a kit bag containing the blowers, a day’s rations, some fags and soap as currency, some toilet paper and any personal items. We’ve left out some food to eat tonight: the last of Berta’s bread from the quarry, some margarine and some tinned sardines. I put Berta’s plum brandy and the raisins in my kit bag.

  “I never liked sardines,” says Ralph, “but we’ll need the protein.”

  Bill raises his tin mug of tea. “To Scotty,” he says. “And to us.” We all drink.

  Ralph adds, “I hope Rosa gets away and finds the bloke she loves.”

  “Did you notice?” says Max. “They were Jewish. The Rauchbachs.”

  We all look astonished. “On the back door of the house,” he says. “They’d sanded it down and painted over where it’d been, but it was the shape of a mezuzah.”

  “A what?” asks Bill.

  “Mezuzah. A finger-sized scroll with verses from the Torah. Fat lot of good it’s done.”