Free Do the Birds Still Sing in Hell? by Horace Greasley Page A

the rising heat of the day. Horace gasped at the sheer numbers; the line of sorry souls stretched at least three miles.
    German trucks and convoys passed every few minutes and the hordes of prisoners were herded with rifle butts into the ditches by the side of the road to allow them to pass. The convoys of German troops, tank operators and drivers jeered and goaded and spat at the poor helpless unfortunates. A shaven-headed German thug hung from the roll bar of a truck with one hand. His trousers were at his ankles, his other hand on his penis as he sprayed urine onto the prisoners below. His friends on the back of the truck bent double with laughter, pointing and gesticulating. Horace thought back to his time on the farm and wondered how his fellow being could stoop so low. An animalwouldn’t behave like that. Horace was beginning to build up a hatred he’d never felt before.
    Later that day the line of tired, hungry and dejected men was made to march across the fields because they were causing congestion on the roads, slowing up the masses of the Third Reich heading west. As night approached, the blue sky faded into a darker hue. A light wind brought a chill to the evening air and Horace felt a desperate hunger. Surely the Germans had made provision to feed the march?
    An hour later several large trucks rumbled into the field where they’d halted. Horace breathed a sigh of relief as the trucks turned and he spotted boxes of food and water containers and a huge pile of French loaves in the rear of one lorry. As expected the German guards took turns and lined up patiently as the starving and thirsty throng looked on. Hope turned to anxiety and then to disappointment and despair as the trucks were made secure and one by one, left under the cover of darkness. Horace settled down for the long night ahead.
    The march left again at daybreak but not before they had watched yet another torturing German feast. The steam rose from the cups of coffee the guards held as they chewed on boiled eggs and bread baguettes.
    For three days and three nights there followed the same routine. The men alongside Horace were now desperate. What were the Germans playing at? They’d been told in the town square in Cambrai they were being sent to work in camps and factories, but what sort of condition would they be in when they got there?
    The men ate anything they could along the way, their eyes continuously scouring the ground for long-forgotten potatoes or turnips left to rot from last year’s winter harvest. They stole the berries from the hedgerows and chewed on the shoots ofany plant they could find, including recently planted root vegetables. It was dog eat dog; arguments broke out between two men over an ear of discarded corn or even a field beetle unlucky enough to cross the path of the march.
    On the fourth day they passed through the small village of Cousoire. A signpost in the middle told the marchers they were 20 kilometres from Belgium.
    A few villagers, mostly elderly ladies, lined the street, their eyes unable to take in yard after yard of stumbling, weary, desperately hungry men. As Horace passed a group of three old women his eyes caught the swift movement of a hand. The youngest of the group, around the same age as his own mother, held out an apple and her eyes made contact with his as she smiled. An apple. A sweet-tasting apple. Horace raised a half-hearted smile and reached out to take the offering. He’d made his mind up to divide it into three for the days ahead. Before it even touched his hand he could taste the sweet juice inside; he could feel the taste exploding in his mouth and the texture of the fruit as he chewed voraciously.
    Horace never got to savour the experience. A young German soldier had spotted the incident and dragged the old woman into the middle of the road by her collar. His rifle butt had smashed the gift from Horace’s hand and it rolled deep into the crowd. A dozen hands clawed for the prize, pulling