The Serbs Chose War, Ruth Mitchel 44. IS IT THE END? AT NOON lunches are handed in at the gate and we are ordered back into the cells. The table on which the lunches are examined by the warders is directly outside the windows. We try to watch, and we see how the best of things, especially fruit and cigarettes, are stolen by the warders and the guards. After he discovered I was there-of which more later-the American consul, Mr. Rankin (to whom and to Mrs. Rankin, for all their trouble, eternal thanks!) used to send me, in my daily basket of food, four cigarettes in a noticeable little box marked "For the Use of His Majesty's Navy." They were stolen so regularly that at last I risked, in spite of the sternest orders, writing on the basket label: "Hide cigs- stealing!" Suddenly about midnight one night when we were fitfully asleep, with great noise the door was thrown open. In the bright light outside stood a glittering array of officers. "Mitchell Ruth!" a voice bellowed. The women were paralyzed with fright: "So your time too has come!" I got up dizzily, fumbled for my coat and shoes. Steady now-l am an American. I must not be less firm than my Serbs. So I had been wrong, after all, in my absolutely unshakable belief that I should come through alive. False, false, all these intuitions. One glance round, one smile at my special friends-dear Katitsa, her face pinched with horror-to try to show how much I love them. Like lightning thoughts dart through my head: Disgusting way to be shot, in my nightie.... My daughter ... her husband's a doctor, she'll be all right.... My son ... my son ... good luck, happy marriage, many children-whom I shall never see.... I am in the corridor, facing the "big noise" himself, chief of the Gestapo for Serbia, Colonel Krauss, a large, extremely imposing man, with two glittering aides and surrounded by the head warders and guards. Instead of marching straight out, they stand and glare at me. I feel very small and lonely-and cold, very cold. Why don't they move? We stand-it seems to me for years. Then Krauss thunders: "You have had the incredible impertinence [unerhorte Frechheit] to complain that something was stolen from food sent to you." I am stupefied. I can hardly hear as he goes on: "That, of course, is impossible. This is a German prison. In a German prison stealing is absolutely unknown, unheard of. Germans do not steal. What have you to say ?" I was prepared for anything-for tragedy, if you like-but this, this is farce! It takes me a moment to readjust my mind. I look around at the head warders, the men who had done the wholesale stealing, had fed on the best sent in for the starving prisoners. White with fear and fury, they stare at me: I hold them in the hollow of my hand. The glaring eyes seem to fill the whole air as in a nightmare. I try to think: if I tell the truth, what will happen, not just to me but to all of us? Dimly I grasp only one thought: if I accuse these vicious bullies, tell the truth, our general misery will only increase, all food will certainly be stopped. Stammering, I say: "No doubt-no doubt the cigarettes were only taken for distribution to-" "What?" shouts Krauss, turning slowly toward the warders. "Cigarettes? Cigarettes? CIGARETTES? What does this mean?" "Well-well," stammers Richter, the chief warder, cringing, "sometimes in the yard the guards-that is, the best prisoners-that is-" "No cigarettes!" thunders Krauss. "Not one cigarette is to enter this prison or any other German prison. Unheard of I UNHEARD OF!" He stamps off towards the office. The hangdog warders slink after him, no doubt to be put through a grilling. I return to my bed of straw. How nice and homelike it feels! How pleased I am to see the look of delight on the faces of the women as they relax with a sigh and a muttered prayer! The door is slammed and locked. I hold Katitsa's warm and gentle hand and dream . . . of woods and long roads winding and the wind blowing-free-on the mountainside.... For a few days, alas, cigarette-starvation and discipline are severe, and the men prisoners look at me as if at last we had a real criminal among us. I feel terribly sorry and ashamed: I have joined the great majority, those who "only meant well." But in three days discipline breaks down again, and the stealing is worse than ever. Cigarettes reappear. Previous Chapter | Content | Next Chapter The Serbs Chose War, Ruth Mitchel