[From Time Stood Still by Paul Cohen-Portheim]

XVIII THE SCENE SHIFTS

ABOUT Christmas 1917, I achieved a most cherished ambition ; I got a cubicle to myself. This meant leaving one but for another, a resolution which sounds easy but was very difficult in the circumstances, because any change meant a great effort, because each hut had become almost a separate territory, but chief of all because the year-long habit of having everything decided for one had made one almost incapable of taking any decision. However, I managed to take the great step and I certainly never regretted having taken it. No one can imagine what it means to be able to shut oneself in alone between four walls, even if they are matchboard walls, unless he has had to do altogether without privacy for years. Being alone with the certitude that no one would come in without knocking at the door first was heavenly. One still heard all the noise around, but one felt it did not concern one, it was a rest-cure for one's nerves.

It is remarkable how little can make one happy when one has had less-my 'room ' measured six feet by four, the size of a large bed. That was the space allotted to one man, and I got so used to it that for years I could not see a room without mentally calculating how many prisoners it would hold, how many cubicles one could construct in it. It was very difficult to achieve such single bliss, for so many things had to coincide : one had to be able to get wood, which was not the case very often, and furthermore a permit for this was indispensable, and then the space had to be available and that depended on other people's dispositions. [191]Now all these factors combined at last, and so building began. The chief difficulty was that a window had to be put in, which was severely prohibited, but quite a technique to be employed in such cases had developed. The window was first completed in the 'carpenter's shop ' ; then one had to wait for a fine day, when rugs were normally hung out to dry between the huts, for this prevented the guards outside the wires from seeing the walls of the hut. Then the sawing began and all gramophones were turned on and instruments played to cover the noise. The whole work took no more than a quarter of an hour, but that was one of breathless excitement. Once a window was put in, everyone was prepared to swear it had always been there, but none of these additions were ever noticed. The next indispensable contrivance was very ingenious as well. One was allowed an oil-lamp if one was the happy owner of a single cell because it had to be lighted and there must be no new electric lights ; but one had to put it out when the lights-out signal was given, and the guards saw any light left on. So a frame had to be evolved which fitted tightly into the window; it was covered with cardboard, and not even a shimmer could be detected from outside. This meant being able to sit up or read in bed, another marvellous improvement. I was less lucky about the heating, for though I had got the permission to acquire an oil-stove I could get no oil for it for three or four weeks, the little oil available being needed for my lamp.

It was a marvellous place, my cubicle. If I had not seen it, I should never believe what six feet by four can be made to hold. [192]There was a bed on the sleeping-car system' which went up against the wall in daytime, when a curtain hid it, and a couch, which was a box with cushions on it, was revealed underneath it. The curtain also hid washing-basin and like paraphernalia. Above the bed was a long shelf for books, quite a library, before the window a small collapsible table (again on sleeping-car principles}, and along the other long wall a cupboard for clothes and belongings, only a few inches deep but six feet long. There were furthermore two tiny tabourets, vestiges of my stage-activity, and a deck-chair which could be hidden behind the curtain. But that cubicle was not only practical but handsome as well. The walls were papered in grey-blue, the woodwork was stained brown, the curtain was an Indian print, a red silk hand­kerchief made a lampshade, and there were paintings on the wall where any space remained. It seemed a superb decorative effort and I was very proud of it and very happy in its possession. What a way to have travelled since the paillasse of the first night, even if it had taken three years. and a half ! I settled down to enjoy this new luxury and comfort, and my happiest time in camp began. If I felt pretty weak, I was of greater mental lucidity than ever before (or after), and one thing compensated for the other. I had embarked on my new career of writing, of expressing what seemed to me the truth about all the problems I had pondered over, and I could now have the necessary quietude for working. I was in addition running my ` theatre-club ' and so pleasing others. Contrary to my principle of never laying in provisions, in spite of all alarms, I had bought a little stock of soap when it was announced that that article too was going to vanish, and provided with soap, oil (which I obtained in January), a cubicle and great works to be done I was facing the future more cheerfully than at any time since August 1914..

[193]No outer events disturbed me, except once when I was told to go and be examined by the doctor, for which I could find no reason. I was weighed, examined, asked all sorts of questions, and I assured him most untruthfully that I had never felt so well and physically fit in all my life, for I was desperately afraid of being sent to the hospital. But I was dismissed, and as nothing further happened I classed this with the many incomprehensible happenings and commands of camp-existence, and forgot all about it. I had but one wish, to be left alone, and that wish was being fulfilled now at last. I had, it seemed to me, surmounted all prison troubles, and was going to be quite happy and contented there for any length of time.

It was early in February, a week, perhaps, after I had reached that state of complete bliss, that I was ordered to appear before the commandant and told that I was going to be sent to Holland. For nearly a year, I think, a plan had been discussed for an exchange of prisoners in England and in Germany, whose health was bad. An equal number ofboth military and civilian prisoners were to be interned in Holland. I had read about this plan, but it never seemed to materialize and I had long forgotten all about it. Now it had suddenly become a fact and about a dozen prisoners from Wakefield were on the first list of transfer just published. My name was among them, and to this day I do not know how it got there, but there it was. Like all others I had often and often wondered how and in what manner internment would come to an end. When the newspapers were rolled in on a barrow each day, I thought that one day the first man to open one — and what a rush there always was to be the first — would shout : 'Peace ! Peace is declared ! ' for surely it must happen some day, and where should one be then except in Wakefield. Would they let one go at once, would there be more transports ? [194]They might be extremely unpleasant about it or there might be a sort of general handshaking, no one could tell. But the one thing I had never contemplated was another change, and the one eventuality I should have thought impossible was that when my release came I could be anything but overjoyed. And now I was to leave within twenty-four hours, the very next morning, and all I felt was profound anxiety. I was not only not overjoyed, not only not pleased, I was thoroughly miserable and frightened. I felt that I had been cheated out of the fruit of all my efforts. And now a new and great effort was demanded of me and I felt quite incapable of it.

The camp was in a ferment of excitement, hundreds of people congratulated me, all thought that their turn might soon come now. I felt absolutely dazed, incapable of thought or action. I could not grasp or believe in this change. Moving from one but to the next had meant a great strain on one's energy, moving into another camp had long :become too great an effort for anybody to at­ternpt, going out into something absolutely unknown was too much to demand from human nature, I felt. Leave my cubicle, my friends, my theatre, my work, all that existence built up by the efforts of years-it seemed unbearable. I just could not do it, I did not want this, I hated it, I wanted to be left alone. This was just as bad as being torn out of one's life to be interned years ago, ages ago, in another life it seemed to have been. It was worse. One was just as helpless, one was just as much of a parcel to be bundled off, but one was worn out, feeble, incapable of effort. One had vaguely looked for­ward to an end that would come some day, but never to a new situation other than peace. What was this new thing, what was ` being interned in Holland ' ? Why on earth should anyone wish to go and be interned some­where else ? Why on earth did they all congratulate me ? 195]I could see no reason for it at all. A neutral country, they said-well, what of that .This country did not bother me, I did not care what uniform the guards wore. Would Dutch barbed wire look any different? Decent food, yes, that was not to be despised ; but, against that, no cubicle, no friends, no books-a sort of Knockaloe on its first day again. No, that was nonsense, it would be much better, of course ! Perhaps one would not really be interned again at all. It was awful all the same. I began to pack, to unpack, to dismantle ; all was confusion. Some friends helped me. The orders were out : nothing but clothing and personal effects were allowed to be taken, all other things could be sent to any address in England ; they were to be packed and given up with the keys by s p.m. Not a piece of paper of any sort whatsoever was to be taken, and there would be a rigorous search. That was, I suppose, to prevent any communications that might be dangerous. It meant leaving even one's passport and all papers of identification behind, and to me it meant leaving behind all my MSS., my many notes, my books, my drawings and paintings, all my work and all means of continuing it, except my memory. It was a true catastrophe.

I had two boxes, two pieces of hand baggage. The box I was to take was easy to pack, but the other could not hold half of what I had to leave behind. I packed and unpacked, I gave away half my books, I sold all my furnishings (the ` expert ' did that for me), ruefully I gave away my soap (I should not have laid in even that provision — that was what had come of it !), my few tins, God knows what else. The second box consented to shut at last ; that was over and I felt as if I had buried myself. All that was essential lay in that box, all I had left were some clothes. The box was carried out, like a coffin.

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