Willem Hermans - The Darkroom of Damocles

Nothing happened.

He went to the window and looked outside. All was quiet. There were a few soldiers idling about, whose boredom was so great that it seemed to affect the entire neighbourhood. The road was littered with scraps of orange paper, the Dutch flags on the buildings hung motionless in the calm of dusk.

He heard footsteps. The sergeant and a soldier crossed from the barracks to the main gate, where they climbed into a jeep. The vehicle started, drove out through the gate and disappeared.

A quarter of an hour later the jeep returned. The sergeant and the soldier alighted. The soldier held a package wrapped in newspaper.

Soon after that the bolts were slid back and the door opened.

‘Is there no end to this?’ said Osewoudt. ‘Are you quite mad?’

The soldier threw the package on the bunk. The sergeant laid a khaki vest, khaki underpants, a khaki shirt and two khaki socks beside it.

‘Take off the skirts and put on this lot. The rest is of no concern to me. Got that?’

They backed out of the room and bolted the door.

Osewoudt undid the newspaper. Out came a rather crumpled suit: double-breasted jacket and matching trousers. They were not new, but had not had much wear either. The fabric was purplish with large blue checks; it looked fairly thin, but was stiff and hard to the touch. It gave off an almost numbing smell of mothballs.

Osewoudt took off the skirts. He flung the nurse’s uniform into a corner and pulled on the khaki underwear. The shirt was also army issue, but the epaulettes had been cut off, and there was no tie.

The trousers fitted him perfectly and stayed up despite the absence of a belt. Straightening the jacket over his chest, he heard something rustling in the inside pocket. He put his hand in and drew out a fairly large sheet of paper. There was the American flag in full colour in the top left-hand corner, and a notice printed in blue:

GIFT FROM THE UNITED STATES WOMEN’S LEAGUE

The Young Ladies’ Circle at Knoxville (Tennessee) congratulates the citizens of all nations oppressed by the German barbarians on their liberation by the Allied troops.

LONG LIVE THE UNITED NATIONS!

It was completely dark outside when two hefty Negroes came to fetch him. They wore gleaming white helmets and blancoed belts hung with hefty revolvers in hefty white holsters. Osewoudt went with them without being told to. They said nothing, merely made chewing motions.

One MP walked in front of him, the other behind.

‘You’re mad, all of you!’ Osewoudt yelled at a Dutch soldier he saw standing in the corridor.

‘Steady now,’ muttered the Negro behind him.

They came to the forecourt. The two MPs now went ahead together, as if trying to distance themselves from him. They made straight for a jeep, which was waiting with the engine running. One of them climbed in behind the steering wheel, the other heaved himself into the passenger seat. He was too massive for the vehicle, and his right leg hung over the side. He waved his thumb over his shoulder, without looking round. Osewoudt understood what he meant and felt his muscles stiffen. Should he get in? His eyes bored into the darkness, hoping for an answer. Then he saw a second jeep. It was waiting about ten metres behind the first one, and it, too, was occupied by two white-helmeted figures. The windscreen was down and a small machine gun had been mounted on the bonnet.

Clambering over the wheel, Osewoudt got in behind the Negroes. The jeep set off at once, drove through the gate and turned on to the road, where it rapidly picked up speed. Osewoudt crouched on the floor. He looked back, the wind tearing at his hair. The second jeep was following closely.

When they reached the other side of town, the second jeep was still following. Now and then the moon shone through rifts in the clouds. It was too dark for him to see where they were going, but he surmised that they would be heading for the Belgian border. The second jeep switched its spotlight on at intervals, and then Osewoudt saw his own shadow playing on the shoulders of the Negroes in front of him.

They drove through unlit villages, they passed armed checkpoints unhindered, they pulled up at a sign saying STOP! CUSTOMS! after which a red-and-white barrier was raised to let them through. The road became bumpy and potholed, the landscape flat and desolate. Afterwards they drove through a wood and finally came to a moor, where a fair number of army trucks, tanks and field guns were assembled. The jeep stopped a little further on. The Negroes got out, signalled to Osewoudt to get out too, and took no further notice of him. He climbed down and stood beside them.

The driver offered a cigarette to his companion, and then also to Osewoudt. He struck a match and had to stoop to give Osewoudt a light. Then both men turned their backs on him. Soldiers sauntered about here and there.

There was not a normal building in sight, but a high tent had been erected, as well as two sheet-metal hangars with small windows, weakly lit from the inside. The muddy ground was covered with strips of metal tracking.

Osewoudt shivered in the cold night air. The jeep that had brought him drove off. From the tent emerged a number of men in civilian suits and overcoats; he counted nine. Helmeted soldiers marshalled them into a line beside Osewoudt, at arm’s length from each other. One of the soldiers held a flat case in front of his stomach, like a tray. With the air of a surgical assistant, he trailed after a sergeant, who stopped behind each prisoner, pulled his hands behind his back, took a pair of small steel handcuffs from the tray and snapped them shut with a loud click.

The dark sky was thick with the roar of engines, and some distance away a plane landed. It taxied towards them over the metal tracking, a spotlight set in the blunt nose flooding its path. It came to a halt, but the engines were still running. The sergeant said something to the prisoner at the far end of the line, then walked to the plane. A hatch in the body swung open. A ladder was fixed to the inside. The prisoner mounted the rungs, followed by the others. Nothing was said. Osewoudt was the last to climb up. The gale from the propellers whipped his thin suit while he struggled not to lose his footing on the narrow rungs.

The plane’s interior was lit by small light bulbs. The hold had been knocked together out of rough planks, like a chicken run. The prisoners sat on wooden benches facing each other. They talked among themselves; no one ordered them to keep quiet. They even shouted to make themselves heard above the roar of the engines. They spoke languages Osewoudt didn’t understand. After a while the man sitting next to him suddenly addressed him, in Dutch.

He was lean and grey-haired, and looked as if he might be a doctor or a dentist. He wore a spotless white raincoat.

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

‘What is it to you?’

The man leaned towards Osewoudt confidentially.

‘I’ve been in this business years. I was already working for the British in the Great War. Never got caught by the Germans.’

‘What are you doing here, then?’

‘It’s all nonsense! As soon as we get to England I’ll get in touch with my contacts. The day after tomorrow I’ll walk free.’

‘Ah, so you know where they’re taking us?’

‘Manchester, of course. Section LI4. Check-up, that’s all. Plain sailing as far as I’m concerned. No problem!’

‘They made a mistake arresting me, too!’ Osewoudt cried.

‘They’re always getting their wires crossed! Especially the Americans, they’re hopeless at this kind of work. Rank amateurs.’

‘It was the Dutch who arrested me. I had just slipped through the German lines in the night, and the first thing they do is arrest me. I only escaped from prison four days ago — the Germans had me locked up for nine whole months. I go straight to the headquarters in Breda and what do they do? Rearrest me. It’s too absurd to be true. But I’ll set it all straight once we get to England.’