Уильям Николсон - Motherland

Larry glances at her as they walk.

‘You find it hard, don’t you?’ he says. ‘Ed being away.’

‘Yes, I suppose so. Oh, Larry. I’m so afraid I’m forgetting him.’

She feels she’s about to cry and knows she mustn’t. But then he puts his arms round her and it’s so good to be held in a man’s arms that she does cry, just a little.

‘This time will pass,’ he says.

‘I know. I know it will. I have to be strong, for Pamela.’

He kisses her gently on the cheek.

‘That’s from Ed,’ he says. ‘He’s thinking of you right now. He loves you so much.’

‘Darling Larry,’ she says. ‘Can I kiss him back?’

She kisses Larry on the cheek, as he kissed her. They stand still for a moment, saying nothing. Then they part, and walk on to the junction.

Larry’s friend is waiting in his car. As he climbs in the back Kitty says to him, ‘I heard from Louisa the other day. She’s turned into a lady of the manor. She’s practically taking soup to villagers.’

‘Hurrah for Lady Edenfield!’ says Larry.

Then the car is driving away, down the road to Swindon, and Kitty turns to walk slowly back.

After the Dieppe raid, a number of German soldiers are found dead, shot in the head, with their hands tied behind their backs. This is believed to be the work of commandos. In reprisal, the German High Command orders that all commandos held in prisoner-of-war camps are to be shackled until further notice.

A later commando raid on the island of Sark leaves more German soldiers dead, also with their hands tied. Hitler, enraged, issues a secret order known as the Kommandobefehl . Only twelve copies are made. The order states:

For a long time now our opponents have been employing in their conduct of war, methods which contravene the International Convention of Geneva. The members of the so-called Commandos behave in a particularly brutal and underhand manner … I order therefore: from now on all men operating against German troops in so-called Commando raids … are to be annihilated …

The Kommandobefehl does not go unchallenged. Field Marshal Rommel refuses to issue the order to his troops, believing it to be a breach of the code of war. In prisoner-of-war camps its implementation varies with the character of individual commanders. In Oflag VII-B near Eichstätt captured members of commando units are shackled, but they are not handed over to the Sicherheitsdienst , the Security Service; more because of inter-service rivalry than out of any wish to save the men from execution.

However, when news reaches the camp authorities that Lieutenant Edward Avenell of 40 RM Commando has been awarded the Victoria Cross, there is a reaction of anger.

The prisoner is woken from his bunk in Block 5 before dawn by two camp orderlies who are themselves still half asleep. They march him out, handcuffed, into the parade ground. Here they order him to stand before the stony bank that rises to the Lagerstrasse and the kitchen block.

An Obersturmführer arrives from the Kommandantur . He opens a folder and shines a small electric torch on the typed order within. The light reflects off the paper onto his face as he reads the order aloud. Ed understands nothing of the German except that this is how the order for an execution is given. When the voice falls silent, the Obersturmführer draws a pistol and orders him to kneel. Not a firing squad, then.

Ed feels cold. His spirit is indifferent but his body cares. Dryness in his mouth and throat, a hot loosening in his bowels. He should close his eyes but they remain open, seeing nothing. There are rooks in the trees on the hillside across the parade ground, he hears their cries. Light seeping into the sky.

He’s aware of the raw pain in his wrists from the handcuffs, and how any time now he’s going to shit his pants. He’d kill for a cigarette, or at least die for one.

There comes a loud report. The pistol shot echoes down the valley. The rooks burst up in a swarm into the light of the coming day.

The pistol is lowered once more. The Obersturmführer departs. The orderlies march Ed back to his quarters.

‘So what was that all about?’ say the others in his block.

Ed has no answer.

The pantomime is repeated the next day. The pre-dawn summons, the reading of the order, the shot in the air. And then again the next day. The process of repetition brings no lessening of the fear. Each time the game could turn real. Each time his body betrays him. But the failure is secret. To outside eyes he remains indifferent, magnificent.

He understands that it’s not his death they want, but his disintegration. Or perhaps it’s all just a way for bored camp officers to pass the time. There’s a rumour they’re laying bets in the guardroom, so many days before he cracks, at such-and-such odds, paid out in cigarettes. You want your life to have value and your death to have meaning, but in the end it’s all just a game.

The hero doesn’t crack. At least not so you can see from the outside.

In December 1943, after he’s been a prisoner for almost five hundred days, the handcuffs are removed.

In April 1945, after he’s been a prisoner for almost a thousand days, the war stutters to its end.

The American Army is rumoured to be across the Rhine and advancing rapidly. The commandant of the camp calls an early-morning parade of all prisoners and announces that for their safety they will be moving east to Moosburg. The officer-prisoners are issued bulk rations and march out in good order down the road to Eichstätt. Five Thunderbolts of the US Air Force spot the marching column and mistaking them for German troops, dive-bomb the prisoners. For thirty minutes they strafe them with their cannon, oblivious to all the waving arms. Fourteen British officers are killed and forty-six are wounded. The survivors return to the camp.

Ed Avenell is among the party detailed to bury the dead.

‘Fucking typical,’ says one of his companions. ‘Talk about giving your life for your country.’

Ed says nothing. He’s been saying nothing for a long time now.

That night the column forms up again, and under cover of darkness they march south-east. At dawn they sleep in a barn. As dusk falls they resume their march. American planes can be heard high overhead day and night. A fine cold rain is falling as they march through Ernsgaden and Mainburg. The prisoners are growing weaker all the time. In the course of the next seven days and nights, four men die on the march. On the eighth day they reach Oflag V, the giant camp at Moosburg. Here over thirty thousand prisoners of all ranks and nationalities have been herded together. There are thunderstorms that evening, and rumours that Bavaria is suing for a separate peace. American guns can be heard. The Seventh Army is said to be as close as Ingolstadt. The prisoners are packed four hundred to a hut. Rations are pitifully low.

Next morning the commandant goes searching for an American officer of high enough rank to receive his surrender. By noon the camp is liberated. The liberators are C Company, 47th Tank Battalion, 14th Armored Division, 3rd Corps, Third US Army. They raise the US flag and tell the cheering prisoners they will be evacuated in Dakotas, taking twenty-five men at a time, starting as soon as a landing strip can be prepared.

Ed smiles when he hears this, and draws deeply on the American cigarette he’s been given, and fixes his gaze on the far distance.

‘We’re not going anywhere in a hurry, boys,’ he says.

On the first day of May snow falls over the camp. A rumour spreads that Hitler is dead. The men are too tired and hungry to care. All they want now is to go home.