Jeffrey Archer - The Sins of the Father

When Giles was asked to fill in the camp labour form, under ‘name’, he wrote Private Giles Barrington, and under ‘previous occupation’, sommelier.

‘What the hell’s that when it’s at home?’ asked Bates.

‘Wine waiter,’ said Giles in a superior tone.

‘Then why not bloody well say so?’ Bates said as he tore up the form, ‘unless of course you were hoping to get a job at the Ritz. You’ll have to fill in another one of these,’ he added, sounding exasperated.

Once Giles had handed in the second form, he waited impatiently to be interviewed by someone in the commandant’s office. He used the endless hours to keep fit in both mind and body. ‘Mens sana in corpore sano’ was about the only Latin he could still remember from his schooldays.

Bates kept him informed about what was happening on the other side of the fence, and even managed to smuggle out the odd potato or crust of bread, and on one occasion half an orange.

‘Can’t overdo it,’ he explained. ‘The last thing I need is to lose my job.’

It was about a month later that they were both invited to appear before the escape committee and present the Bates/Barrington plan, which quickly became known as the bed and breakfast plan – bed in Weinsberg, breakfast in Zurich.

Their clandestine presentation went well, and the committee agreed that they should be allowed to climb a few more places up the order, but no one was yet suggesting that they should open the batting. In fact, the brigadier told them bluntly that until Private Barrington had landed a job in the commandant’s dining room, they were not to bother the committee again.

‘Why is it taking so long, Terry?’ asked Giles after they’d left the meeting.

Corporal Bates grinned. ‘I’m quite happy for you to call me Terry,’ he said, ‘that is, when we’re on our own, but never in front of the men, you understand?’ he added, giving a passable imitation of Fisher.

Giles punched him on the arm.

‘Court martial offence, that,’ Bates reminded him, ‘a private soldier attacking a non-commissioned officer.’

Giles punched him again. ‘Now answer my question,’ he demanded.

‘Nothing moves quickly in this place. You’ll just have to be patient, Giles.’

‘You can’t call me Giles until we’re sitting down for breakfast in Zurich.’

‘Suits me, if you’re payin’.’

Everything changed the day the camp commandant had to host lunch for a group of visiting Red Cross officials, and needed an extra waiter.

‘Don’t forget you’re a private soldier,’ said Bates when Giles was escorted to the other side of the wire for his interview with Major Müller. ‘You have to try to think like a servant, not someone who’s used to being served. If Müller suspects, even for a moment, that you’re an officer, we’ll both be out on our arses, and you’ll go back to the bottom of the snakes and ladders board. I can promise you one thing, the brigadier won’t ever invite us to throw the dice again. So act like a servant, and never even hint that you understand a word of German. Got it?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Giles.

Giles returned an hour later with a large grin on his face.

‘You got the job?’ asked Bates.

‘I got lucky,’ said Giles. ‘The commandant interviewed me, not Müller. I start tomorrow.’

‘And he never suspected you were an officer and a gentleman?’

‘Not after I told him I was a friend of yours.’

Before the lunch for the visiting Red Cross officials was served, Giles uncorked six bottles of merlot to allow them to breathe. Once the guests were seated, he poured half an inch of wine into the commandant’s glass and waited for his approval. After a nod, he served the guests, always pouring from the right. He then moved on to the officers, according to rank, finally returning to the commandant, as host.

During the meal he made sure no one’s glass was ever empty, but he never served anyone while they were speaking. Like Jenkins, he was rarely seen and never heard. Everything went as planned, although Giles was well aware that Major Müller’s suspicious eyes rarely left him, even when he tried to melt into the background.

After the two of them had been escorted back to the camp later that afternoon, Bates said, ‘The commandant was impressed.’

‘What makes you say that?’ asked Giles, fishing.

‘He told the head chef that you must have worked for a grand household, because although you were obviously from the lower classes, you’d been well taught by a consummate professional.’

‘Thank you, Jenkins,’ said Giles.

‘So what does consummate mean?’ asked Bates.

Giles became so skilled in his new vocation that the camp commandant insisted on being served by him even when he dined alone. This allowed Giles to study his mannerisms, the inflections in his voice, his laugh, even his slight stutter.

Within weeks, Private Barrington had been handed the keys to the wine cellar, and allowed to select which wines would be served at dinner. And after a few months, Bates overheard the commandant telling the chef that Barrington was erstklassig.

Whenever the commandant held a dinner party, Giles quickly assessed which tongues could be loosened by the regular topping up of glasses, and how to make himself invisible whenever one of those tongues began to wag. He passed on any useful information he’d picked up the previous evening to the brigadier’s batman while they were out on the communal five-mile run. These titbits included where the commandant lived, the fact that he’d been elected to the town council at the age of thirty-two, and been appointed mayor in 1938. He couldn’t drive, but he had visited England three or four times before the war and spoke fluent English. In return, Giles learnt that he and Bates had climbed several more rungs up the escape committee’s ladder.

Giles’s main activity during the day was to spend an hour chatting to his tutor. Never a word of English was spoken, and the man from Solihull even told the brigadier that Private Barrington was beginning to sound more and more like the commandant.

On December 3rd 1941, Corporal Bates and Private Barrington made their final presentation to the escape committee. The brigadier and his team listened to the bed and breakfast plan with considerable interest, and agreed that it had a far better chance of succeeding than most of the half-baked schemes that were put before them.

‘When would you consider the best time to carry out your plan?’ asked the brigadier.

‘New Year’s Eve, sir,’ said Giles without hesitation. ‘All the officers will be joining the commandant for dinner to welcome in the New Year.’

‘And as Private Barrington will be pouring the drinks,’ added Bates, ‘there shouldn’t be too many of them who are still sober by the time midnight strikes.’

‘Except for Müller,’ the brigadier reminded Bates, ‘who doesn’t drink.’

‘True, but he never fails to toast the Fatherland, the Führer and the Third Reich. If you add in the New Year, and his host, I have a feeling he’ll be pretty sleepy by the time he’s driven home.’

‘What time are you usually escorted back to camp after one of the commandant’s dinner parties?’ asked a young lieutenant who had recently joined the committee.