Letters Across the Sea Genevieve Graham (best inspirational books .TXT) 📖

and jazz. They’re not bad. You might want to come back and hear them sometime.”

“Seems you run a pretty comprehensive ship out here,” Ian said.

“Oh, we’ve got even more than you see here. We have professors from the University of Toronto coming out here to teach the men,” he said, looking proud. “I’ll admit I doubted it at first, but the facility is in great shape, and so are all the men. It works real well.”

My thoughts went to poor Arnie Schwartz with his messy black hair and wide smile, dying of an illness in a filthy Hong Kong camp. “We’ve been reading very different things about POW camps overseas,” I said. “I didn’t expect to see something like this.”

“Well, that’s good old Canadian hospitality for you.” Griffen’s smile faded. “Not all the camps in Canada are as nice as this one, but every one of them is better than what our men are suffering in over there.”

Ian glanced at me, and I gave him a reassuring nod.

“Here we are,” Griffen said as we arrived at the main building. “Now, I must warn you to stay back. The prisoners have armed themselves with sticks and iron bars and whatever else they can find. One of our own men is in hospital with a fractured skull from a flying jam jar. This morning was pretty rough, so we’re taking a break now. Regrouping. We have the situation under control—about five hundred of our own soldiers are here too—but I don’t want you getting too close, just in case. Especially you, Miss Ryan.”

From outside, I could hear a ruckus inside the building, and adrenaline prickled through me. “It must be difficult to make them bend to your will, considering they’ve been given such royal treatment,” I said.

“Yeah. Our men have guns, but the Germans see through that.”

“What do you mean?”

“The guns aren’t loaded. We don’t want to turn this into an international event.”

We stepped through the foyer, then stopped at a set of closed doors. Through the windows in the doors, I saw the prisoners pacing, talking to one another. Griffen asked us to remain there while he went to retrieve a few of the senior prisoners for us to interview. Before he left, Mo spoke up.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said, startling me. He waggled one finger at the closed door. “Can I go in? I’d rather not shoot through the window. I promise to stay out of the way.”

Corporal Griffen hesitated then gave a quick nod. “I’ll have a guard posted to you.”

Mo followed him through the doors, and within seconds I could see his trigger finger shooting away.

I scanned the room, taking in the angry faces, then paused, caught by a flash of red hair. I was staring at a German soldier, about the same age, same build as Richie. Same everything, save for his nationality. And the fact that he was alive. I blinked, remembering that awful fact, and I quickly looked away.

Griffen returned with one of the prisoners. “This is General-Major Georg Friemel,” he said. “He’s the German spokesman.”

Friemel nodded coolly at us. Like Griffen, he was older, perhaps sixty years old, with just a few wisps of white hair covering his head. He stood before us, arms at his sides, waiting. Ian jumped right in, asking questions about the attitudes and health of the POWs, all of which Friemel answered in sharp, disciplined English.

I screwed up my courage. “And what’s your general opinion on the matter at hand? Considering the shackling order has been put into place as a result of your führer’s orders.”

Friemel studied me. “We are in the service of the führer and obliged to follow his orders, not Churchill’s,” he said simply.

I knew what the Nazis were capable of, but with Friemel standing basically defenceless before me, I couldn’t help but regard him and his men in the same light as our own POWs. They’d been following orders, nothing more. Though Friemel said nothing of the sort, I thought about how humiliating it must be for him and the rest of his soldiers, spending the duration of the war in a camp, unable to fight. I know how frustrated my brother Mark had been all along, waiting to join in the fighting.

But at the same time, seeing Friemel in that light brought back the reality of what was happening at other POW camps, and indignation swelled within me. How dare these men complain, when they were being asked to withstand a small inconvenience while basically living it up at the Ritz?

“How long do you think this standoff might go on?” I asked.

Friemel scowled at Griffen before he answered my question. “We will not be surrendering twice.”

Interview concluded, Friemel was escorted back into the mess hall, and Ian, Mo, and I were asked to step out of the building. Griffen informed us that the guards had a new plan and suggested we watch through the outside window. As soon as we were out, the guards rushed in with high-pressure water hoses and soaked the POWs, pushing them to the back of the room. Through the glass, Mo tried to get photos of the soggy prisoners, slumped in defeat. I felt an unexpected pang of sympathy for their humiliation.

“What now?” Ian asked as Corporal Griffen accompanied us back to Ian’s car. “Will they have to wear the shackles?”

“Oh, I think we’ll probably have another day of disagreements, but in the end, they’ll put them on. They don’t have much choice. If our boys have to wear them, so do they.” He handed Ian a card. “You can telephone tomorrow for an update, if you’d like.”

The three of us climbed back into the car, lost in our own thoughts. Ian lit a cigarette, and when he saw me watching, he offered it to me. Still annoyed by what I’d seen, I nodded, surprising us both, then inhaled. I coughed, unfamiliar with the feel of the smoke in my lungs, but then I tried again. Something about the