The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz Read Free Page B

engineering education while I was at still at school. I was uncontainable even then; I had to be the one giving the orders. It hadalways been like that. As a boy I had my own kid’s army and we paraded around shouldering real guns though without ammunition. I was made Head Boy at school and I had the muscle to control the bullying, which I did. Later in life my wife Audrey would tease me that I had become the bully. She was only half joking I suspect. I was certainly fearless.
    I went on to Leyton Technical College in East London and did all right. In 1933, as Hitler was becoming the Chancellor of Germany, I walked up on to a stage in Leyton Town Hall and collected a prize for my studies from a man standing behind a desk. I was just fourteen but he should have impressed me more than he did. He was the First World War soldier and poet, Siegfried Sassoon, then in his mid-forties, his hair still dark, swept across a high forehead. He spoke a few words of congratulation and handed me two wine-coloured volumes embossed in gold with a shield and a sword. I had chosen books by Robert Louis Stevenson and Edgar Allan Poe.
    That seemed a long time ago. On board ship the mainland was slipping into the smoky haze. The civilised world I had known with its rules and customs, its sense of decency, was also slowly sliding away.

Chapter 2
     
    L es Jackson always knew the shortest distance between two points, he was that kind of chap. He walked into our cabin soon after the
Otranto
had put to sea, stepping over the sleeping bodies on the floor and managing to wake them up anyway. He looked at the row of girls I had stuck to the wall, including his sister Marjorie. I was expecting a sarcastic comment at least but none came. He knew I had a soft spot for Marjorie but he had something else on his mind.
    ‘Avey, I’ve got a job for you. You’re on lavatory-cleaning duty.’
    ‘What? You can’t be serious, old boy.’
    ‘It will be worth it.’
    He roped in Eddie Richardson as well. Now Eddie was a public school type who could hardly bear to utter the word lavatory never mind clean one. When he found out the weapon of choice was to be the toilet brush he wasn’t best pleased but Les was right. Half an hour of toilet cleaning every day and we were rewarded with a feast fit for a king. Egg and bacon sandwiches – as much as we could eat. Splendid. More to the point we were excused all other work for the entire voyage. Les was an operator all right. He was always sailing close to the wind.
    Seventeen ships had sailed that day, 5 August 1940. One turned back with engine trouble. The rest of us steamed out into the Irish Sea with our naval escort. We still had no idea where we were going; that information was restricted, even to us. We were barelyout of sight of land when the jarring sound of a warning siren, a U-boat alarm, pierced the air above the steady throb of the engines. The ship erupted into action, men running in every direction. I fought my way through the stream of bodies heading for my lifeboat muster station. Men with ashen faces combed the waves with their eyes looking for a periscope or, worse still, a torpedo. I could see signals flashing from
Otranto
’s bridge to faint grey shapes on the horizon. As time passed so too did the sense of alarm as nothing was sighted. They still left us standing around for hours. Life on board ship soon settled down into a monotonous routine.
    I was woken from a deep sleep by a violent yank on my arm. The cabin was full of noisy squaddies and I was being pulled from my bunk. ‘Wake up, Avey, we’ve got one for you. It’s time to earn your money,’ someone said.
    Before I could properly focus I was being carried along in the throng of uniforms. Men were chanting and shouting in high spirits all around me. ‘This should be one to see,’ someone said. ‘Wait till he gets a look at this feller. ‘
    I knew I was being delivered somewhere and probably for sacrifice. We went along narrow