Do the Birds Still Sing in Hell? (14 page)

Horace would learn that it was possible to escape – but then where could the escapee go? The camp was situated on
the edge of a huge forest. Perfect cover, thought Horace. But there were no maps, no compasses. They were surrounded by German-occupied countries for at least four hundred miles in every direction. In which direction would he run? West into Germany wasn’t an option and his knowledge of Czechoslovakia and Poland was sketchy to say the least. Oh, how he’d wished he’d taken more notice in geography lessons at school. The Germans weren’t stupid; that’s why the camps were situated there.

Every night, in the dark, Horace wrestled with his conscience. Surely he owed it to his family, his country, to at least try to escape? The prisoners formed escape committees; they talked hour after hour about their chances, made plans and fantasised about what lay beyond the forest. But that’s all it was… fantasy. They were stranded in the middle of nowhere, with no papers, no grasp of the Polish or Czech languages, no money, no food, no weapons, nothing.

Horace knew escape was impossible and the Germans did too, that’s why the guards were few and far between. But it gave the men a chance to talk with the women from the camp. The women were from the local villages on the border of Poland and Czechoslovakia. Middle-aged and hard-faced, their stocky muscle-bound bodies bore testament to years of hard work, their faces etched with lines and scars. The border towns had a turbulent history and had changed hands many times over the centuries. Although some of the villages were in Czechoslovakia, many of the residents classed themselves as Poles and were fiercely patriotic, despising the Germans just as much as the POWs did. The women were paid wages and allowed back to their villages each night but were no more than slave labourers and treated as such by the Germans.

The ladies told of a girl who had worked there, fraternised with a French POW and ended up pregnant by him. Somehow
the Germans had found out and neither the girl nor the POW were ever seen again. The Frenchman was shot by firing squad the next morning and the girl sent to prison. The ladies crossed their chests with their hands each time they mentioned her name, a clear reference to what they thought had happened to her.

As the days passed, a few of the female workers smuggled food in for some of the prisoners – a stale bread sandwich, mouldy cheese or a scrap of ham. No one cared how fresh or otherwise it was; it supplemented their meagre rations and tasted like heaven.

Horace had been in German captivity for over a year and had managed to pick up a basic understanding of the German language. Herr Rauchbach, the quarry camp owner, singled him out and they managed to hold a conversation of sorts. Rauchbach seemed different from the other Germans, especially when the guards weren’t around. He was almost sympathetic to the plight of the prisoners, and on more than one occasion Horace noticed a certain hostility towards the guards. He asked Horace about the food and the general conditions back at the camp. He promised to get the POWs’ rations increased and sure enough, as the prisoners finished their day’s work one evening, an argument of sorts took place between the camp commandant and Herr Rauchbach. The commandant had raised his voice, stating the prisoners were getting sufficient quantities of food. Rauchbach argued that more food meant more work, and said that several men had fainted during the morning shift on account of empty stomachs.

Later that week the prisoners were given a cup of lukewarm water and one tasteless biscuit at breakfast time, and a few more potato pieces made an appearance in the stew. Production in the quarry increased and the camp commandant
was happy. The increase, however, was not on account of the extra rations, but because Rauchbach had told the men the marble was needed for headstones on German war graves.

One morning Rauchbach announced to Horace that the following week he would be bringing his daughter to work as an interpreter at the quarry. He had cleared it with the camp commandant, who allowed her to attend once a fortnight as she was keen to practise her English.

Rauchbach walked over to where Dan Staines and Horace were working on a warm but wet August morning. ‘Jim!’ he shouted and Horace looked up.

She stood like a goddess.

Horace drank in inch by glorious inch as Rauchbach introduced his daughter Rosa. She nodded her head shyly and blushed. Horace felt a nervous tremor well up inside him and realised just how long it had been since he’d seen anything so appealing. There were no magazines or newspapers in the camps, no pictures or Pathé news footage. He didn’t even possess a photograph of Eva. His memory of a pretty girl had been wiped clean… until now.

Horace nodded back and greeted her politely in German. Rosa smiled and looked to the ground. Eventually she looked up and spoke nervously.

‘I speak English. Father wants me to translate. I need to practise more.’

Her voice was soft and delicate. Accentuated by her broken English, it was sensual and mysterious. This isn’t healthy, Horace thought to himself. He looked across at Flapper Garwood who stood as if frozen to the spot. Flapper spoke quietly.

‘I’d give her one, Jim, wouldn’t you?’

‘Two or three, Flapper,’ he whispered quietly.

‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I did not hear that.’

Horace stuttered and dropped the sledgehammer. ‘I said your English is good.’

Rauchbach spoke in German. ‘Yes, but it needs to be better. We need to prepare for after the war.’ He turned to Horace and grinned, ‘You will give instruction to Rosa?’

‘Yes, yes, certainly, Herr Rauchbach.’

‘And now we must see the commandant and thank him, Rosa.’

Rauchbach and his beautiful daughter left the two men staring in amazement as they walked back towards the workshops. The rear end of the 17-year-old dressed in tight black riding britches was the sole focus of their attention. A whole division of Waffen SS wouldn’t have been able to alter the direction of their stare.

‘Look at that arse, Jim. Look at the way it moves.’

‘I can’t take my eyes off it,’ replied Horace.

‘Imagine it bouncing up and down…’

‘Don’t even go there,’ Horace interrupted. ‘You think I had a big horn the other morning? It will be twice that size tomorrow thinking of that pretty little backside.’

As Horace watched the most perfectly formed rear he’d ever set eyes on slowly disappear from view, he cursed the German nation yet again for denying him another basic human right. But he was right; the visit of the lovely Rosa wasn’t healthy. He simply had to get out of that camp. He needed his family, he needed food, he needed to be able to choose when to come and go, he needed a beer and he wanted sex.

For the next week Horace was in a deep depression. Rosa’s visit had brought back memories of home and of life as a free man. He began to resent the guards as the key was turned in the lock each evening. He was on a short fuse and the rest of the prisoners seemed to sense it and kept out of his way. He took his aggression out on the slabs of marble and for every
lump smashed out of the slab he envisaged a dead German. Oh, how he hated them. He returned each evening physically and mentally exhausted and no matter how many times Garwood or John Knight told him to slow down he just wouldn’t listen.

But as he counted the days until Rosa’s next visit his mood lightened. He counted the days off on a scrap of paper and kept a secret diary – one that if discovered would almost certainly result in an appearance before the firing squad. In it he fantasised about sex. Sex with a German girl. Sex with the young daughter of the owner of the quarry camp. It was a chance he was prepared to take. Another two fingers up to Jerry, another little victory.

CHAPTER
EIGHT

O
n her next visit two weeks later Rosa looked even prettier. It was a sunny day and she’d dressed accordingly. Gone was the heavy waterproof coat. Instead, she was dressed in a tight-fitting, plain white blouse that emphasised her breasts and a thin loose skirt that hung just above her knees. Her cheeks had more colour and was he just imagining it, or did her lips look fuller and a deeper colour of red? And she smiled more. She smiled at Horace – not Flapper or John Knight – Horace.

Flapper Garwood noticed too. He made a comment that could be loosely construed to suggest the young girl might just have a little affection for Horace.

‘Make no mistake, Jim, she wants that big cock of yours inside her,’ he said, grinning.

Over the coming weeks their relationship developed and Rosa’s father seemed happy with his daughter’s progress in the English language. So much so that he was quite comfortable leaving her on her own in the company of the English prisoners.

It was on her fourth visit that Horace asked her what sort of work went on in the workshops. She explained about the
lathes and the grinding machines and how frustrated her father was at not having the men to utilise them.

‘My father and Ackenburg the foreman are the only ones ever in there. The truth is, all the skilled men are either dead or fighting in the war.’ Rosa threw an expression that Horace remembered seeing in Ibstock and Torquay and at the dances in Leicester. It was an expression of interest. ‘My father says there’s a real shortage of good men in these parts.’

It was at that moment that Horace decided to set the foundations for their first date. Was he just imagining it, or was she giving off the right signals? He hadn’t seen the signs for so long, but they seemed to be happening right there in front of his eyes. The constant smiles, the flick of her hair, grooming, a gentle brush of the hand and just generally standing too bloody close to him. Then he delivered it. The greatest chat up one-liner in history.

‘I don’t suppose you could show me the machines, could you?’

Rosa paused. She looked over to the workshops then back to Horace. An uncomfortable silence ensued and Horace wanted to say so much. She shook her head and looked at the ground.

Horace wanted to tell her how beautiful she was and how he wanted to take her in his arms. He wanted to tell her how he lusted after her, how every waking moment was spent wondering what she looked like under those clothes and how much he wanted to make love to her. But he kept silent and remembered that she was a German, strictly off limits.

He didn’t want to make love to her… he wanted to screw her, wanted another small Allied victory. He wanted to put a German
Fräulein
on her back and use her for his own pleasure. He wanted to defile her, violate her, and dishonour the German nation. Nothing more, nothing less.

Then something caught his attention: the door to the workshop opened. Rauchbach and Ackenburg walked out. They paused for a moment, studied some paperwork and then walked towards Rosa and Horace. Horace walked away, passed them in the opposite direction and strolled nervously over to the workshops. The door was unlocked and he turned the handle and walked inside. A huge dusty wooden workbench took up half the floor. Bolted to it every few feet was a lathe or a vice, a machine to sharpen the drill bits. Over on the far side of the room, also covered in dust, were two large grinding wheels.

Horace turned round and peered out of the window. The guards were gone, probably on a coffee break. Groups of prisoners went about their tasks unwatched. Rosa stood talking with her father. Ackenburg sat on a pile of broken marble, watching work in progress. How stupid did Horace feel as he lowered himself onto the bench – who was he kidding? The looks and signals were fantasy, figments of his imagination. How could a German girl even entertain the thought of a relationship with an enemy prisoner? The civilian girls would hardly speak of the one relationship that had developed within the camp.

Horace continued to stare out of the window. He eased himself up off the workbench and wondered how long it would be before he’d be missed. The German guards disappeared three or four times every day to brew up a coffee; they didn’t seem to care. He was lost in his thoughts when the door opened. He expected a German guard or Ackenburg; he expected a scolding or worse.

It was Rosa. She stood in the doorway, a fierce glow in her cheeks and as she breathed deeply, nervously, her beautiful breasts seeming to surge up and down. That familiar feeling grew inside him. His eyes took in the wonderful splendour of
her young form. She took a step forward, spoke. ‘I should not be here, it is too dangerous. I will…’

Horace shook his head, moved towards her. Their faces were only inches apart and he could smell her musky female aroma. There was no need for any more words. Their eyes locked and they moved ever closer. And with the greatest natural reaction between man and woman, their lips met. Gently at first. A slow, delicate nervous movement, then more anxious, greedy, desperate. They touched each other’s face, embraced tightly, broke apart and just stared into each other’s eyes. They repeated the sequence again and again. Horace reached for her breast, she moaned in approval. He had forgotten the soft touch as he felt for her stiffening nipple and squeezed. He’d forgotten how the blood flowed and pumped around his body with such a simple touch of the female form.

It was impossible to control the urge. He wanted to stop, wanted to tell her how crazy this was and run from the workshop as fast as his legs would carry him. He didn’t. He couldn’t.

A different feeling welled over him, a feeling he’d never experienced before. His hands moved around to her backside as their kissing intensified and he pulled her into his hardness and pushed rhythmically against her. She gasped, broke the kiss and tried to break free. Horace pulled her in even harder; his battle-hardened rough leathery hands clenched around her tender buttocks and as he kissed her with a gentle yet firm, determined aggressiveness, she responded. Slowly at first, barely a movement, but then her legs parted slightly, she relaxed and she threw her head backwards as she reciprocated and copied his movement. She was clumsy, they were clumsy, but slowly and surely their movement was one. Her hair fell over her face as she began to pant and her mouth fell open as she moaned gently. He cupped his hands in the small of her
back as he took her full body weight and she hung there for an eternity as she pushed and ground her pelvic bone into the unmistakable feel of his erection.