"At this point every one of us was being interrogated in sequence and who knows what was going to happen after that - so we all felt a great sense of urgency!
One day we were nearly caught when one of us was being called out; it was with Carlos I think, a sullen looking guard brusquely opened the door without us having heard him coming. We were just having a jolly time with our hoard when the door flew open, everything dropping in front of his boots. He just starred at the hoard as if drugged and as if he couldn't believe his eyes. Lucky Strike Packet, matches and all spread out on the floor beneath his feet.
In the interval of surprise, one of us managed to kick it under the bed and across. As Carlos was going out he covered the whole scene with a wide gesture and sweep of his arms. Either the guard couldn't believe his eyes at all, or he was seemingly hypnotized or didn't know Lucky Strike from anything else. When the door closed behind him we couldn't believe our luck for the moment! That could have been the "mittard" or dungeon for at least three weeks - which would have blocked our ability to escape due to our absence.
The dungeons in a fort built during the middle ages were terrible things to live in, just a deep pit where you were completely forgotten, especially by Richelieu. Carlos came back with the news which we had expected and that was that we had no time to lose and had to be quick with our plans. Shortly after, Carlos came back from his interrogation - it was my turn. This was a dilemma, I knew that, fearing the worst I was led to a room near the street which I noticed because of the noise of the traffic and the sight of some tram lines.
A Gestapo agent with his cap and overcoat filled the room with his bulk. I noticed what appeared to be a hard or very strong character sitting behind a table with a typewriter. He was a thin, raspy looking skeleton of a man, with flat ears - more like a tramp all in all. He was desperately and wildly gesticulating to his strong partner. The scrawny one was in plain clothes and drably dressed at that.
When I entered the wretch withdrew but left the door halfway open thus reminding me of a previous occasion, not so long ago. I had an instinct for symbols or things like that; he was still watching and waiting on orders to jump in, I could sense that very well. It was a set-up, a trap carefully planned by both and it stunk, I also didn't like the way he had sized me up when I entered, giving me a glance full of hatred!
The stern Gestapo man told me to sit down now. He began softening me up and sounded very much like a lawyer, for my benefit, combining clever double talk of accuser and defender. He told me that I had been locked away for a very long time, away from home, parents, family and friends and if I co-operated with them I would be united with them and could re-enter society.
He then said, would I now like to tell him who my contacts were and where I was going, seriously! "By the way" he said, "Your friend told us everything anyway". I knew now that he was lieing because Daniel didn't know anything like that except; that we were going overseas and so did they, so that was too easy. So, I said, ''It was just a mischevious prank by mislead youths and that we were going to shoot lions in Africa".
At that he lost his temper and smacked me in the face. "You mean shooting German soldiers", he said. I didn't reply to that, that was a bad moment. I heard a slight movement behind me, probably the other one. He was tapping madly on the typewriter and I could feel my face tingling from the smack. After thinking for a moment, he suddenly stopped and placed his luger on the table within my reach, that was it, the moment the other one had waited for too.
He now suddenly stood up and acting in an absent minded way turned his back towards me and walked over to the window throwing it wide open so that I could hear the traffic below, hooting cars, trams, bicycles passing with bells ringing and people chattering. Even that in Fort-Du-Ha, I hadn't heard for a long time as it was hermetically sealed and thus closed to outside noise. What a temptation, that was the idea! The devil and the demon: the luger, the chance of a jump, just for the taking, the lamb ready for the slaughter and maybe a coffin and hearse waiting
To be continued ...
No comments:
Post a Comment