"The bars were flatish held together by a traversed pair palming the vertical ones. There was also a wooden box, trapped in front of it, preventing the prisoners from looking down as well as drawing attention to a little light coming in from the sky.
The cells were similar to the underground vaults reminding me of old casemattes we had once found in the woods around Ostend - left by the Spanish to stall their horses. Flush french toilets were added, a convenience not available at Caserne-Boudet. Once a week, we also had communal showers in the old tower, we had to walk in a circle as we showered.. There were lots of guards, a small army around us and within the fort itself.
The first cellar allocated was on the ground floor and was intended for use by select hostages according to the coloured strips on our doors, we found that out later ...
Sometimes, we could hear prisoners being taken away early in the morning. We often heard brave women patriots singing the "Marseillaise". These women helped to boost our moral and pride in the cause, which was all we had left!
One of the inmates of my cell was a tall, thin, broody southerner from the "Midi" Toulon or Marseilles. He had a grey patch in his forelock inherited from father to son from generations back. He had been at "Mers el Kebir", near Oran when the fleet he was aboard had been scuttled by the British, resulting in a lot of wounded and dead. He wasn't very glad about the treatment he was getting but everybody thought it necessary not to fall into German hands with Darlan! Sacrifices had to be made, this was going to be our epitaph, unavoidable circumstances!
During the next weeks, I was taken to the next floor and lost my brooding companion and most of my former inmates. I made new acquaintances and met again with Maxwell, an old Spanish Republican captain, The Gypsy; Reiss, the young Pole, Janeck Paderwski and the last new member Zin Zzn, a most unusual name. Zin Zzn came from Eupan-Malmedy, the small German canton ceded to Belgium after the First World War. Zin Zzn was an unknown factor, a homosexual and we suspected, a ferret, planted amongst us. We were careful not to say anything that would incriminate us when he was around.
The food was worse and I don't know what happened to the Quaker parcels that had been regularly sent to us. We had cheese biscuits at the weekend that must have been donated by the Red Cross. One weekend, due to bad storage, they were hardly edible and stuck in your mouth and could have choked you if one didn't swallow lots of water. The only thing we could do was to stack them behind the box put in front of the bars where we got fresh air. Having forgotten about the biscuits for a few weeks, "Reiss" The Gypsy, tried them again and announced they were okay.
Probably the air and the draught at the bars had taken the badness of the mold out of them. It was like Mana from heaven to us, a miracle! For now, we had so many biscuits, this helped to alleviate our constant hunger,
a bit ....
One day, Maxwell suddenly left us, he was dragged out of the cell and after that we never saw him again, he wasn't released either ....
To be continued ...
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