Do the Birds Still Sing in Hell? by Horace Greasley

lay on urine-soaked straw. The strong smell of ammonia always lingered in the air, as some men were too weak to stand and answer the call of nature. Horace was barely able to move. It was as if the life had been sucked from him. His feet throbbed every few minutes from the exposed flesh on his heels rubbing against his boots. It had been weeks since he had removed them, memories of the pain when he had put the boots back on in a field in Belgium too intense to tempt him to take them off again. He longed for the wet grass poultice his friend had applied.
    The rat still gnawed away at his stomach lining and lice ran across his skin, torturing him each minute of every day. At times, even though he knew they were biting into his flesh, he let them. Let them have their fill of my blood, he said to himself, perhaps then they’ll leave me alone.
    Worse lay in store every couple of days when nature called and he was forced to defecate. The prisoners would put it off as long as they could but inevitably after two or three day’s cabbage soup, their bowels would need to move.
    It was called the toilet block. Horace didn’t know why. He was generally about 30 yards away when the smell kicked in. As he reluctantly got closer the smell intensified and it was all he could do to prevent himself throwing up. He needed to keep the food in his stomach as long as he could. Some of the men couldn’t manage it and grew weaker by the day.
    The block itself was crude. A floor made of wooden plankshad been nailed onto a huge frame over an exposed tank. Two 3ft by 20ft gaps had been left exposed and at waist level, on a separate framework, two long planks had been nailed loosely into place. The prisoner would sit between the two planks and shit through the gap into the tank below. No privacy, no sinks, no running water, no toilet paper. The prisoners cleaned themselves on whatever they could get a hold of, normally a handful of grass. Some didn’t bother.
    At ground level an eight-inch diameter waste pipe poked out. Every few weeks a tanker arrived, connected a powerful suction pipe to the valve and literally sucked out two tons of human excreta. As the pipe sat four feet above the base of the tank, the tank was never emptied completely. Always four feet of shit for the flies to feed on. In the summer months it was simply unbearable – a fly and cockroach paradise.
    Horace was physically weak, but far worse was his mental state. His mind was near to breaking and he dreamed and hallucinated by the hour. Still the nightmares continued: of Germans in his village, Germans in his home, Germans terrorising his mother and sisters. And the dreams continued long after he awoke. Jackboots everywhere. Skeletal bodies littered the floor, some snoring, some moaning and one man on his knees sobbing a prayer to his Almighty.
    ‘Oh Lord, why have you forsaken me? Why do you do this to me? Why do you make me suffer so much?’
    Tom Fenwick’s father had been in the Church of England ministry and Tom was brought up in the way of the church.
    ‘Shut the fuck up, Fenwick,’ a voice shouted close by. ‘He ain’t fucking listening now. Get some kip.’
    ‘Why, Lord? I’m a good man. I pray every day. If this is a test of my faith let it end now. Surely I have passed? Give me a sign, Father.’
    The last few words were said between tears, barely a whimper. He turned to Horace.
    ‘He doesn’t hear, Jim, does he?’
    Horace looked into Tom Fenwick’s eyes. He was beaten: all hope had gone. As a small boy he had followed the Ten Commandments to the letter. He’d believed that good would always triumph over evil, that the man in the clouds would always listen and answer his prayers.
    ‘Thou shalt not kill, Jim. That’s what the good Lord tells us, and yet these men are breaking his commandments every day and he lets them get away with it. Why isn’t he stopping them?’
    Horace shook his head.
    The tears were streaming down Tom Fenwick’s face now as his