Do the Birds Still Sing in Hell? by Horace Greasley

Author:Horace Greasley [Horace Greasley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782196419
Publisher: John Blake Publishing
Published: 2013-09-01T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

It was December 1941. The Japanese were about to make a mistake they would regret for many years to come. They were about to bring America into the Second World War. As they eyed up the majority of the American fleet stationed at Pearl Harbor, they figured a quick, aggressive strike would break the back and resolve of the US Navy.

About three times a week Horace was appointed to drilling duties on top of the hill overlooking the camp. His skill with the drill improved almost every time. Once, sometimes twice a week, Rauchbach would leave him to his own devices and every so often Rosa would appear. It was here in the forest above the camp that Horace continued his love making with the owner’s daughter – Rose, as he’d now begun to call her – right through the winter of 1941/42. He had explained that he didn’t want to make love to a German girl and asked if she had any objections to being rechristened. He wanted her to become his English Rose, and she seemed to positively revel in it. It was their secret, their path to a new life.

The winter was not as severe as the year before in that hellhole of a first camp. Horace thought back and wondered how they’d survived. The two of them made love in warm rain and cold rain and several times on a carpet of snow as the winter weather turned, the bitter piercing cold penetrating their bodies and taking their senses to a heightened level of arousal. They laughed as they collected their damp clothing and shivered as they dressed each other and marvelled at their daring exploits just a few hundred yards from the German guards.

Life in the quarry camp was bearable for Horace, especially with his English Rose, but he could not control the guilt and often thought of escape as winter turned to spring. He discussed it with Rose. Always she tried to talk him out of it. She explained the geography and the lack of success of previous escapees and of course it all made perfect sense, but it was something he couldn’t shake from the back of his mind. He asked Rose if she could bring him a map and reluctantly, between tears, she agreed. Horace felt he had spent enough time in the quarry camp, enough time with his captors. The map never arrived. After a few weeks he stopped asking. Without a map escape was impossible. Rose knew this.

The following week Rose approached him on top of the hill as he finished the last of a line of strategically measured holes in a particularly large slab of marble. He noticed her eyes immediately – they were glazed over with tears. Her bottom lip trembled and she quivered all over. The map, he thought to himself, she has the map. And he thought of the danger he had forced her into. He was wrong. There was no map.

Rose was crying now as she delivered the news that her father had told her the night before.

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