They were driving across the Curragh - you have to cross the Curragh to get to so many places; it's an Irish heartland - when one of them began laughing. He was laughing at part of his experiences in one of those barracks where, a lifetime ago it seems, he had been the German Censor.
The German Censor's duties consisted mostly of reading the incoming letters to and the outgoing letters from, the German internees. They were both airmen and seamen. His first batch of letters to home came almost on his first day in office. A German bomber had been shot up somewhere over England, but they managed to land the plane in this neutral country. The letters were the more vivid according to rank: the pilot being the most cool and probably not wanting to give away too much. One of the crew - a gunner perhaps, our friend didn't remember - wrote practically a novel on the whole episode, with every detail remembered or invented.
The German Censor's duties were not to cut and snip, but simply to give the commanding officer, the Curragh Command head of G2, the intelligence branch of the army, a summary each day. He did not remember any question of withholding or interfering with the correspondence. The Censor came to know the qualities of the various writers, and would look forward to the fertile imaginings of one, the extreme caution of another, wondering if any of the letters contained a secret code. About what? Occasionally copies or originals might be sent to Dublin, where the spider at the centre of the web reigned.
The treats which the censor allowed himself were to walk into Newbridge in the evening for a meal in the hotel, and occasionally, by cycle to Naas, where Mrs Lawlor's establishment served excellent fare. He remembered that fruit was un obtainable, apart from apples, often a superior type of cultivated crab, red of skin and pink of flesh. Otherwise the Censor went meals with his fellow privates, plate and mug in hand.
One of his duties included occasion ally polishing the belt of his Commandant and, every day, cleaning out the fire in the Commandant's office. He served in this job for four or five months and was then told that he was being released to go on a preliminary officer's course. A substitute had been found. One morning, as our friend was crouched with his head in a swirl of turf ash cleaning out the Commandant's fire, the door opened and a man of about his own age marched into the room. "I have an appointment to see the German Censor," he announced. And if he didn't say my good man". it was, our friend thought, implied.
The creature at the hearth stood up. "I'm the bloody German Censor," he said. The poor successor's face dropped. "Wonder how long he stuck it." said our friend.