120, rue de la Gare by Léo Malet (Pan Books 1943)

 

Prologue:

Germany 1940-1941

Ushering people in was just the job for Baptiste Cormier. He had the soul of a flunkey as well as a name like a butler.

But he’d lost some of his starch since he left his last situation, and at present he was lolling in the doorway, gazing dolefully at the ceiling and picking at a tooth with a spent match. Then suddenly he abandoned the mopping-up operation and straightened up.

‘Achtung!' he shouted.

We all stopped talking, and with a scraping of benches and clatter of boots stood up and clicked our heels. The Aufnahme officer had just come on duty.

‘At ease!’ he said with a strong German accent, saluting and sitting down at the table that served him as a desk. We sat down too and went on with our conversations. There was still a good quarter of an hour till work was due to begin.

But after a few minutes spent sorting out papers the reception officer got up again and blew a loud blast on a whistle, indicating he had something to say to us. We stopped talking and turned to listen.

This time he spoke in German, then sat down again while the interpreter translated.

First came the usual instructions about the work, plus thanks for our efforts the previous day, when we’d registered a particularly large intake. He hoped that at this rate we’d be finished by tomorrow at the latest. As a reward each man was to be issued with a packet of tobacco. 

Some awkward Danke schons and stifled laughter greets this pleasantry: we were to get what had earlier been confiscated from the chaps we were about to register.

At a sign from the interpreter, Cormier abandoned his teeth and opened the door.

‘First twenty,' he called.

With a rattle of hobnailed boots a group detached itself from the crowd lined up in the hut and the day’s work began.

The entry consisted of men who’d arrived from France a couple of days before. My job was to sit at one end of a table, extract certain information from each of the newcomers, put it down on a sheet of paper, then pass it along to the other eight Schreibers. When the paper and the person it referred to reached the other end of the table, the POW officiating there completed the form and appended a print of the subject’s forefinger.

The dabs-taker was a young Belgian, and his task was lengthier if not more difficult than mine. At one point he asked me to slow down because he was getting submerged.

So I told Cormier not to send anyone to our table for a bit, and went outside to stretch my legs on the not-so-good earth.

It was July. The weather was fine. A warm sun shone on the barren landscape and a gentle southerly breeze was blowing. A sentry paced back and forth on his watchtower, his rifle barrel glinting in the sun.

I lit my pipe, and after a while went back to my table, puffing pleasantly. The Belgian had emerged from his traffic jam and we could get on.