he bleated like a lamb when the British military got hold of him after the War. I’m glad for that. I’m glad he got a taste of his own medicine. Quaï maonstre qu’il étaï!
I don’t know where I got my strength from but I held it together. When I did finally start talking I didn’t tell him what he wanted to hear. By then I was fighting back all right. I told them they were wrong and that Pop was a more honest and truthful man than the whole Kraut species put together.
The Weasel shakes his head.
‘You are a good tale-teller, but do you expect me to believe you are working alone? What were you going to do with the information you had gathered? Swim to the mainland?’
I wouldn’t answer him so he got his henchmen to pull me to my feet. Seconds later I felt a sharp pain in my crotch. Those swine knew how to hurt you, that’s for sure. They talked about a ‘secret army’ and I laughed like the village idiot. I focused on different corners of the room, pretending not to understand. They repeated the same stuff over and over, then I decided to turn the tables and started asking questions back.
‘Who sold us out and how much did you pay them? Did they want food or did you give them blood money?’
We went round and round in circles, like a game of cat and mouse, and the only thing that sticks in my head is the Weasel saying I should choose my friends more carefully. Did he say it so plainly? I reckon he did.
I told him I had no friends.
‘And what about your father? Who are his friends?’
‘He has lost them, thanks to his work,’ I replied. ‘My father’s only friends are Germans now.’
The Weasel snorted like the pig he was.
‘And I presume that is the same for your mother.’
I would have answered with my fists if he’d let me.
I’ve since met a good many army types so I know what it can do to a man. In my own opinion, the army attracts the very dustbin of society, people who need a uniform to hide behind and the Germans have that sort in abundance.
I don’t remember the interrogation ending, only that I spat out blood and a tooth. But I didn’t stop asking who it was who’d sold us out. Reckon that was the only thing I clung to.
‘There must be someone with a grudge,’ I said. ‘Father has co-operated with your lot up until now. Unteroffizier Vern will vouch for that. Perhaps it has made some locals bitter.’
Wessel nodded and smiled his sadist’s smile.
‘And who might those locals be?’
Si l’bouan Dju I’l pllais! Ray’s name was on the tip of my tongue. After all, I was only human. But I never uttered it. Do unto your neighbour as you would have done unto you is what I was taught, so I kept my trap shut. If I had my time again I’d do it different, mind, and I wouldn’t think twice about our supposed bond of trust. I should’ve pulled old Ray Le Poidevoin down with me. But back then it was all a fog, what the Krauts claimed to know.
What else can I tell you, Emile? The whole day must’ve passed. By night-time they’d done their worst on me and I was left alone in a cell with only a tin can to pee in. One eye was swollen shut and my lips were puffed up like pigs’ bladders. Even though I was worried for Pop, I was so tired I had to sleep. Hours passed and the next thing I know it was morning time – the morning of 11th December. It was when a young officer came in. I didn’t know him and thought I was being carted off somewhere else. I started kicking but my body was so stiff! I was taken back down the long corridor and into another room. I found old Hubert waiting. There wasn’t a scratch on him, and of course I was glad he’d missed out on a beating, only I had to wonder what he’d said to get off so lightly.
The officer in charge signed us off in a book and said that we were going to be released. We had to show ourselves at the Girls’ College next week, and after that we’d be formally charged and seen by the Military Court. I was chuffed they were letting us go