The others pick up crowbar and hammer numbly. Their arms lack strength because of the food and because of the terrible desecration they are part of. There has never been a place like this in the house before.

Peter watches them as they move about. They drag themselves along, one occupied with this and another with that. Then a man marked with arrows comes hurrying along. A jerk goes through them and they straighten up to greet him. Instinctively. It has been impressed upon them deeply by punishment.

The arrow-bedecked man says something in a loud voice and they stand to attention to listen. Then he goes and they sink back into their stupor, picking up their tools and pails and cloths.

Bread-winning work and creative work: they are both desecrated. But something else is going on as Peter watches. He observes something pass like a streak of relief through the group close to him. One man has joined them, and he is responsible for it: one of the group, dressed in the same clothes and holding a scrubbing pail in his hand. But his face is radiant.

The others turn towards him and, with the exception of those who are completely snuffed out, their expressions come to life. They are waiting for the man with the scrubbing pail to give them some encouragement as he usually does. And he does not disappoint them. Peter cannot hear what is being said, but he can see that it was what they were expecting. And the man with the pail will do this many, many times. He is overflowing with riches.

He goes off again and they turn back to their tasks. But their mood is a little lighter for a while. In every mute corner of this sinister and horrible place there is someone who possesses these overflowing riches, to which the others cling for survival.

Nobody knows where this benefactor comes from. He simply steps forward out of the grey anonymous rows of men standing in line.

Peter watches. The whole enclosure is in numbed, sluggish movement. The faces are bent, looking at the ground. But there is movement here, and air. It is worse for the ones who don’t even have that: those who are never seen, but kept in cells behind the dark wall. None of them are let out to do any work; all they do is sit there with their own thoughts. A sluggish hammer-blow from the enclosure may reach them through the small vent, and they have to live on that for a long time.

The ones shuffling outside look at the dark wall with the narrow vents and are filled with choking anxiety.

That’s where it is, in there.

As Peter is standing there he hears the heavy tramp of many feet at the run. A groan goes through him. He knows what this is.

Here they come.

A group of men come running round the corner of a barracks: a strange group with heavy burdens in their hands, driven in front of a guard. No one may rest or run away. It looks as if they have been running for a long time without pause, for some of them are stumbling and running with their last remnants of strength, running with stuttering jaws and staring eyes. They come so close to the stockade where Peter is standing that he can see them clearly. It is a horrible sight. They run and run, bearing their burdens.