What was written up outside your cell before your case came on?’

‘Written? What do you mean? Oh, yes—“prisoner on remand”.’

‘Well, that means Innocent. And what is written there now?’

‘Convict.’

‘And that means Guilty. It’s all quite simple. When you’re in jug, you’re guilty, it’s no use making any fuss about it. A sentence is a sentence. And don’t start any talk about perjury here, it won’t get you anywhere. There’s some of us here that’ll put you through it if you do.’

‘Pardon me, I am innocent, my wife and my secretary will find themselves in jail for perjury. Listen, let me tell you about it . . . ’

But he got no further. A violent jingle of keys came from the glass cubicle. ‘Herr Petrow! Will you please attend to what’s going on. That tall fellow there, Menzel, keeps on talking to Kufalt.’

Petrow dashed savagely up to the innocent convict. ‘Do you want me to pull out your rotten teeth, you big bastard? Do you think you’re in a Jews’ school, eh? Quick march, left, right, left, right, to the cell, and you can talk to the iron door till the doctor comes.’

The door clicked, the bewildered prisoner disappeared, and as he passed Petrow whispered, with a twinkle in his eye: ‘Put the wind up him, didn’t I? Don’t you get pally with that lad, he’s always going to the governor and the inspector and he tells everything he hears.’

Petrow was already ten paces away. There stood two men in brown uniforms by themselves, smart-looking lifers, no doubt on their way elsewhere. And the pair had moved three steps forward, from the linoleum onto the waxed cement floor, to make contact with the other prisoners, probably for tobacco . . .

‘Keep on the brown lino, please—don’t move off the lino, you there!’

The men did not look up, they stared straight in front of them and did not move. Kufalt once more observed that lifers treated the prison officials in quite a different way. Ordinary prisoners jollied them, and tried to get on terms with them; but for these men, an official simply did not exist.

This time Petrow burst into a real fury: ‘Get back onto that lino!’ The pair heard nothing, saw nothing. As though by accident, they each took one step, two steps, three steps—and again stood on the linoleum. They did not so much as look at the warder.

The infirmary door opened, and the infirmary chief warder appeared in a white jacket. ‘Prisoners to see the doctor!’

‘Double file—into the infirmary,’ shouted Petrow.

But at that moment all the carefully maintained discipline and decorum collapsed. With a hubbub of talk and hurrying feet the fifty prisoners jostled along a narrow passage and down some steps into the infirmary. Petrow tried to keep the two lifers at least in view, but they were at once lost among the others; they whispered, hands grabbing.

‘Just you wait, you miserable swine, I’ll have that tobacco off you . . . Now then, move aside you two!’

‘All prisoners in double file, eyes to the wall and back to back. Take off shoes and slippers and place them in front of you,’ ordered the infirmary chief warder.

A name was called, and the prisoner vanished into the doctor’s room, followed by the chief warder.

‘This is going to last for hours,’ sighed Kufalt to little Bruhn, who was standing beside him.

‘I’m not so sure, Willi,’ whispered Bruhn.