Escape from Colditz by Reinhold Eggers

Author:Reinhold Eggers [Reinhold Eggers]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780719816345
Publisher: Robert Hale
Published: 2014-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

(The following three articles by Giles Romilly describe life as a prisoner in Colditz. The first two articles are reproduced by courtesy of the Daily Express)

Search Me!

On the morning of a search one feels thoroughly disorganised. The external disorder created by the searchers seem to reproduce itself internally, in stomach, liver and intestines. Creatures of an unvarying routine, we have become sensitive to the smallest disturbances.

Groups of prisoners of war, released from the search, walk round the courtyard. They are unshaven. The sharp morning air aches on their unwashed eyes. They have a clammy feeling in their shoulders which they manipulate against the roughness of their clothes.

What is happening?

They don’t speak much, because they have seen so many of these things before. Later all will be known. In the meantime each one is guarding his private store of energy and resistance.

Of course there are the sensationalists and attention-seekers, who will tell exciting stories and invent others. They will have some listeners for everything is news in prison, and news is food. But the majority will disregard them.

The common experience of the search makes faces, staled by familiarity, a little more interesting to each other. But the more important question is that of the cup of tea. Where is it, and who is making it? Each person salvages a cup which he keeps in readiness, hoping to hear word or catch sight of the steaming urn.

In bad cases of search tea is the only remedy.

The green-clad searchers appear across the courtyard, walking briskly, with boxes of confiscated goods.

By noon the worst symptoms are over, but the period of convalescence is slow and irritating. Nothing has been cooked for lunch. The rooms are in dreadful disorder. The floors are littered with rubbish, including single torn socks and frayed, dust-coated shoes, dragged from their hiding places under beds.

Disconsolately, the prisoner peels himself an unappetising boiled potato, which he eats with a little salt, accompanied by chopped swede from the rations. Dry biscuits and cheese and a cup of lukewarm and ill-mixed cocoa increase the indignation which his stomach is already suffering.

Afterwards he cannot settle down. He leans against a stove or cupboard, smoking cigarettes without enjoying them and exchanging banalities. The atmosphere is heavy with dust and listlessness.

But the waters of time are obliterating the episode of the search. By tomorrow there will remain no trace of it.

(Daily Express, 25th September 1943)

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