Wodehouse in Exile Page #3

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the rest nut chocolate.

"Repeat monthly."

"Am quite happy here

and have thought out new novel.

"Am hoping to be able to write it."

Isn't he your perfect author,

Mr Reynolds?

The Germans shove him

behind barbed wire

and all he can think about is

the next Jeeves book.

We have to try and get him

out of there.

"The great advantage here is that

the authorities leave you alone

"for most of the day,

so I have time to write.

"It's all quite fun, actually.

"If you see a German officer,

you are supposed to shout, "Achtung"

"and stand to attention.

"Plenty of scope for practical jokes

"on the lines of the old

game of Beaver!

"I do miss you, Bunny darling."

What are you writing now, Wodehouse?

A letter to my wife.

Where is she?

My stepdaughter got her some money.

She seems to be still

stuck in France.

I never married.

Never found the right woman.

I admire you, Wodehouse.

You manage to keep so calm.

How do you do it?

I write. Anything.

Novels, letters, anything.

Actually, I am writing a sort

of diary of the life of an internee.

I bet it's a laugh.

Can we hear a bit?

It's awfully rough at the moment.

Oh.

But...

Well, er...

Well, this is one of our many stops

on the way to this holiday camp.

Loos prison.

For those who remember it.

"Owing to having led a blameless

life since infancy, I had never seen

"the inside of a calaboose before

"and directly I set eyes

on the official

"in the front office of Loos Prison,

I regretted that I was doing so now.

"There are moments, as we pass

through life, when we gaze

"into a stranger's face and say to

ourselves, "I have met a friend."

"This was not one of

those occasions.

"There is probably nobody

in the world less elfin than

"a French prison official. And the

one twirling his moustache at me

"looked like something

out of a film about Devil's Island.

"When I got out into the exercise

yard next morning

"and met some of the men who had

been in the place for a week,

"I found that they, on arrival,

had been stood with their faces to

"the wall, stripped to their BVDs,

deprived of all their belongings

"and generally made to feel like so

many imprisoned pieces of cheese."

More!

Yes, come on, Plum.

Why is cheese a funny word?

It is though, isn't it?

Cheese!

Always good for a chuckle is cheese.

I'm er... I'm 60 next month.

They're going to let me out.

If you need any money, my agent

is sending me food parcels

and trying to get my royalties from

German translations of my books.

You're too good for

this world, Plum.

Achtung, chaps.

Prisoner 796! Whitehousen!

To see the Lagerfuhrer!

Oh, Lord! What have I done now?

At ease!

Your English is frightfully good.

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