Prologue 1941

      A parched twilight began to close in around the unlit prisoner train. For over a week the zeks in Brendan Goold Verschoyle’s wagon had jolted across a landscape they rarely glimpsed, crushed together in putrid darkness. Only those crammed against the wooden slats ever saw the small worms of daylight flicker in through the slight cracks. Little sound penetrated into the wagon either, just the ceaseless rumble of the tracks and very occasionally a more confined echo as they passed at speed through an empty station. Sometimes the long train stopped and prisoners shifted eagerly, yearning for the noise of hammers as guards untangled barbed wire coiled around each carriage and eventually opened the doors. In the stampede to relieve themselves on the dry earth outside, dignity would be forgotten as men and women squatted together under the gaze of the guards and their dogs. But more often these stops occurred for no obvious reason. There would be no sound outside after the wheels came to a rusty halt, no footsteps, no safety catches unleashed, no orders screamed for zeks to get down on their knees and be counted. Instead the train would remain motionless for an indeterminable period during which the zeks inwardly clung to dreams of water and dry bread