In Presence of My Foes by Gris Davies-scourfield

Author:Gris Davies-scourfield
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783460229
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2013-05-29T04:00:00+00:00

11

A VERITABLE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

Colditz would later become famous through the writings of Pat Reid with a full length feature film being made of his first book The Colditz Story as well as a lengthy television series. This certainly never occurred to me as I tramped up the cobbled road towards the main gate, the jackboots of my escort beating a regular rhythm between the walls.

The nearer we got the more formidable this ancient castle seemed. Later I would read of its history and how it had been the home of the kings of Saxony and the birthplace of Maurice de Saxe (a son of Augustus The Strong) who was destined to become a Marshal of France and who defeated us British at Fontenoy during the war of the Austrian succession.

His father, Augustus, was well-named ‘The Strong’ for he was supposed to have had a fabulous number of wives and children. Indeed one of the prison blocks in the castle still bore the name on its outer wall of Furstenhaus or Princes’ Nursery.

We reached the outer gate, which was unlocked with much clanking and creaking. I was taken before a German officer who listed my particulars, and I spent the rest of the night in a cell beneath the main archway.

Early next morning I was escorted through an inner gate into the prisoners’ part of the castle. No prisoners were about, and I was confronted by an empty courtyard surrounded by high walls and many windows, all barred. I was taken by an armed Corporal across the courtyard to a shower block. Any prisoner arriving in the camp was deloused by being given a very hot shower, while his clothing was taken away and subjected to some form of heat-treatment. Fortunately there was no head-shearing as at Laufen. This was the first decent wash I had had since leaving Warsaw. Even the soap and clean towel which were provided seemed luxury indeed!

While I was drying myself who should turn up, at first a dim, vague figure in the steam but Mike Sinclair, bearing a large slice of bread liberally spread with margarine and real jam! I could hardly believe it.

‘Mike,’ I cried, ‘Thank God you’re still alive. Is Ronnie here too?’

‘No,’ he replied. ‘I’ll tell you about it later. Meanwhile I’ve brought you something to eat.’

‘But I couldn’t possibly take your ration,’ I protested, ‘So much marge and jam! You must keep it.’

I was thinking back to the hungry days of my earlier imprisonment but Mike explained that everything now was different and there were regular Red Cross parcels and plenty to eat. So I wolfed his offering down – the best bit of food since my recapture. I was then turned loose into the prisoners’ compound and started my new life with new people in these new and strange surroundings.

Colditz, some twenty miles south-east of Leipzig, was a small country town on the River Mulde, amidst pleasant rolling country of fields and woods. The castle, which stood on a

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