‘Because he’s not who he says he is. I don’t even think he’s French. He turned up in the camp a few weeks ago…’

Prince told the SS officer he’d never heard anything quite so ridiculous. He’d been here for over a year, he said, and was as French as the next man.

At first the SS officer looked inclined to believe him, or at least to let the matter go: frankly, there were much more important things to worry about than two French prisoners bickering. But the other man from Blois wouldn’t give up.

Go on then, find out if he’s French!

I’m telling you he was smuggled into the camp a few weeks ago.

The others in his hut were all communists. Dead communists now – the best kind.

I bet he’s got something to do with this bombing.

A more senior SS officer walked over and asked what the hell was going on. ‘Can’t you see there’s work to be done?’

‘Yes, sir, but one of the prisoners says this man isn’t French and was smuggled into the camp a few weeks ago.’

‘Well, go and find Sturmbannführer Roux then, and stop wasting time.’

It was Richard Prince’s bad luck to be in the vicinity of an SS officer whose father was French and who was a native speaker. It took Sturmbannführer Roux less than two minutes to be certain that whatever and whoever Pierre Breton was, he wasn’t French.

He was marched to a makeshift prison, where he joined a couple of dozen slave labourers suspected of being responsible for the bombing. As the day progressed, the number of prisoners increased to nearer one hundred, and more were being brought in each hour. Prince hoped there’d be a certain safety in numbers; certainly the area where they were being held became increasingly chaotic, and when he was finally questioned by an SS officer, it was a hurried interrogation.

He stuck to his story: I’m Pierre Breton, from Lyon. I’ve been here over a year. My French is poor because I spent much of my life in Italy… He didn’t know whether they’d believe him, but he didn’t get the impression they thought he was an enemy agent or a saboteur – not yet, anyway.

He was thrown back into a cell, and it was another twelve hours before he was hauled out of it along with a dozen others. He’d heard rifle shots during the night and was sure he faced summary execution. He tried to suppress his fear and rising panic; his main concern had to be getting a few minutes to write a letter to Henry, maybe the Red Cross…

‘You, come here!’

Now resigned to his fate, he walked towards the SS officer who’d shouted at him.