THE PRISONER
by
Derrick R Bickley
The arrest of Joseph Mankowitch stunned the whole village. Those who saw two policemen march him at gunpoint down to the village police station in the early morning sunshine passed on their story in muted disbelief.
Three months had passed since that day. Sitting propped up against the wall, I wondered, like many others, how he had managed to slip his guard and escape. Even more difficult to believe was that he had actually made it to the Channel Islands, this frail, old man sitting opposite me on the floor in a crumpled heap, rumpled, creaseless, black trousers now soiled and frayed, a shabby fawn cardigan that once fitted him now appearing two sizes too big on a body withered with age. Had he really believed he could make it all the way to Britain?
“How did you do it, Joseph?” The question had to be asked. “How did you manage to get so far?”
A face looked up from the heap. “The greatest motivator in the world, Gunther – fear.” He pointed a bony finger at me. “You know what it is to be afraid, Gunther”
“I was a boy then. Now I am grown up and a German. I do not know fear.”
Joseph laughed mockingly. “You will, Gunther, before this war’s over. You’ll get so that you can smell it at thirty yards.”
“The war will be over in a few months,” I assured him. “Have you seen how the British fight their war? They send bombers to drop leaflets. They don’t really want to fight. It’s just a gesture. The British people will welcome our glorious Führer when he lands on their shores.”
Joseph grunted. “Your glorious Führer is a madman.”
“You must not say such things,” I said angrily. “He has restored our pride, given us hope, given us a future. Once more we are a great power in the world.”
“He will be the ruination of Germany.”
“I thought you were a patriot, Joseph.”
“A German patriot. Not a patriot of the Nazi party.”
The two were inseparable now. Germany was the Nazi party. A new beginning.
“Why did you run, Joseph? Surely the charges would not stand up in court.”
“A child molester, they called me,” he protested loudly. “They said I enticed young girls on their way to school. At my time of life!”
The charges were impossible to believe. I had known Joseph for as long as I could remember. A kindly, caring man, he had been like a second father to generations of kids in the village. He once saved my life. And had been prepared to sacrifice his own to do so.
“The charges were no more than an excuse to make the arrest,” he went on. “There was never going to be a trial. I’m a Jew, that’s my real crime. A Jew in Hitler’s Germany. For that there is no trial. I shall be sent to one of the camps.”
I had heard the rumours about the camps. Vicious propaganda put about by the Communists probably, or may be even by the Jews themselves. This was twentieth-century Germany. How could such places exist?
The boat had begun to pitch more noticeably, the weather up top obviously deteriorating. Thankfully, I had a strong stomach.
Tucked comfortably into a small alcove alongside the engine-room of an ageing, creaking cargo vessel taking us back to the French mainland, it became increasingly hot and clammy, so I was glad to loosen the top buttons of my uniform, the official dress of the Hitler Youth, the great national movement that had brought together Germany’s young as a mighty power in itself. The rifle cradled in my lap was loaded with live ammunition. Bringing Joseph Mankowitch back was a big responsibility.
In a few weeks I would be old enough to wear a different uniform and the prospect of joining the German army excited me greatly. Perhaps I might even be in the invasion force, one of the first on British soil. Who knew what glory lay in store?
Joseph appeared to have fallen asleep, a victim of the stifling atmosphere and the soporific, rhythmic throbbing of the huge pistons. Poor Joseph, how had it come to this? There were such happy memories of him, my childhood and life in the village. I owed him a debt I could never hope to repay.
My mind wandered back, as it often did, to the day after my seventh birthday, when there seemed no escape from the quicksand tightening around my chest, sucking me down. Despite warnings about quicksand, the children of the village could never resist the lure of the quarry workings. To us it was an ideal playground.
Joseph was first to hear my screams. Unable to reach me from firm ground, without further hesitation, he plunged in beside me, somehow finding the strength to push me upwards and clear of the clinging, deadly mire.
But I could do nothing for Joseph. If the others hadn’t arrived with a rope he would have died. That I should live.
The boat was rolling heavily, bringing me out of my waking dream. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Joseph was gone.
Panic-stricken, I raced up the steps into what was now a cold, storm-lashed night, my uniform soaking through to the skin instantly. He was making for the stern. My shouts drowned out by the howling wind. I threw aside the rifle and ran after him. Although slipping and stumbling on the wet, heaving deck, I could move much faster, but he had too much of a head start. Even his struggle to get over the rail failed to hold him up enough. I arrived at the very moment he jumped.
His weight and momentum took me over with him as I grabbed his arm. For a moment we were in mid-air, hurtling downwards towards the storm-tossed sea, until my desperate grasping of the rail with my trailing hand brought our flight to a shuddering halt, Joseph wincing with pain as he crashed heavily against the hull.
The violent heaving of the boat, as I clung to Joseph’s wrist, swung us crazily backwards and forwards, a giant pendulum skimming the tops of the huge waves as the reached up, trying desperately to pull us down.
“What are you trying to do, Joseph?” I had to yell to be heard through the roar of the wind, the sea and the unrelenting rain.
“Let me go, Gunther,” he screamed back, “let me die now.”
“How can I do that? I owe you my life.”
“If you value that debt, let me go now,” he cried. “Spare me the camps, Gunther. Spare me the camps.”
Joseph was proved right about fear. I came to see it, smell it, taste it, from the frozen hell of Stalingrad, through the battlefields of Italy, to the last desperate retreat to Berlin. Yet I saw nothing to match the terror in Joseph’s eyes as he looked up at me that night. His was not a fear of dying, but a fear of living.
I released my grasp, allowing Joseph’s frail, old body to fall into the sea.
By the time I pulled myself back onto the deck, he had disappeared from sight, swallowed up by the storm and the darkness. I had no idea how long I stood there. I knew only that I was grateful for the rain and spray that hammered against my face and hid the tears on my cheeks.
Copyright © 1992 Derrick R. Bickley
