The Prisoners of Mainz

by Alec Waugh

That settled it.

“Garçon,” I called, “l’addition, s’il vous plaît, et cherchez-moi un fiacre, je suis fort épuisé.”

But the others were either made of sterner stuff, or else they had wearied of the lures of the Stanislas. At any rate they presented themselves duly before the military policeman at 10.50, and a quarter of an hour later they were on their way to Paris, to that city of gay colours and gayer women; while stretched out peacefully on a delightful spring mattress, two renegades slept a coward’s sleep.

Well, the last I heard of those lambent rebels was that on their arrival at Paris they were instantly arrested by the A.P.M., and when we left Boulogne they were still sending urgent telegrams over France, begging for an instant release. Whether this has been since accorded them I do not know, but when I went down to Victoria a week after my arrival to meet a friend, I saw, stacked in a neglected corner, a huge pile of the white wood boxes that were peculiar to the Offiziergefangenenlager, Mainz. And on those boxes were the names of those bright warriors who had defied authority. Their luggage had come on afterwards with us, and had preceded them by many days. They were very gallant fellows, very resolute and proud-hearted, but ... I am glad I went to the Stanislas.

And when we did eventually move from Nancy, it was not in one of the unspeakable leave trains, but in a hospital train, fitted with every possible convenience and comfort. As in the haven of the Pre-Raphaelite, there were “beds for all who come,” and beds, moreover, that were poised on springs, and that swung gently to the movement of the engine. For thirty-six hours we slept solidly.

And at Boulogne we were provided with a hospital boat; indeed, we might have been the most serious stretcher cases, instead of being rather untidy, very lazy, and thoroughly war-weary Gefangenen. It was a royal return.

Twenty-four hours later, with a warrant for two months’ leave in my pocket, I was standing on Victoria platform, a free man. I had often wondered what it would feel like. Would it seem very strange to be no longer under authority, to be able to do what I liked, and to go where I wanted? I had wondered whether the atmosphere of a prison camp would still hang over me, and whether I should see in commissionaires and waiters some dim survival of those whiskered sentries. When I went to a theatre, should I turn rather nervously to the powdered lackey in the vestibule, as if half expecting a thundered “es ist verboten”? Would it take long to drop those habits of subservience?

But when I was once there, all those misgivings were as a dream. It seemed that I had never been away at all. With my old-time skill, I overawed a taxi-driver, and promised to “make it worth his while.” I drove round to my banker, and cashed an enormous cheque; then to my tailors to order a civilian suit. And then—Hampstead.

I lay back against the padded cushion and watched each well-known landmark fall behind me—Lord’s, Swiss Cottage, the Hampstead cricket field. Surely I had never been away at all. Those eight months in Germany, they were merely some old remnant of a fairy tale, ein Märchen aus alten Zeiten; they had no real existence. I felt as though I were coming back from Sandhurst for my Christmas leave. There had been no separation. In the last month I had had one week-end leave and two Sunday passes. It was just a resumption of the old life, a slipping back into the ordered harmony of days.

The taxi drew up outside the door; I knocked on the window with my stick, and the hall was instantly alive with welcome. But I could not make it an occasion for heroics. It did not seem in any way a special event, demanding any exceptional excitement.