is constantly wondering where he lost the freedom he remembers as a child: When did I lose my freedom? For once, I was free... Free-will cannot be debated but only experienced, like a colour or the taste of potatoes. I remember one such experience. I was very small and I was sitting on the stone surround of the pool and fountain in the centre of the park... The gravelled paths of the park radiated from me: and all at once I was overcome by a new knowledge. I could take whichever I would of these paths... Doctor Halde is the Gestapo officer who interviews Sammy and has him locked in the store-room. Before the war he was a professor of psychiatry. In the last line of the book, the camp commandant, apologising to Sammy for this humiliating treatment, says 'The Herr Doctor does not know about peoples' – which is ironic, as it's clear that Halde is an extremely acute judge of character. Father Watts-Watt is the Anglican priest who adopts Sammy. He has paedophilic impulses which he represses violently and which cause him eventually to sink into paranoia. Johnny Spragg is one of Sammy's school friends. He is a simple, extrovert, cheerful child who wants only to become a pilot. He is killed flying in the war. Sammy envies him for his 'natural goodness and generosity'. Philip Arnold is Sammy's other main school friend. He is subtle, cunning and cynical (the exact opposite of Johnny). Like Sammy, he is driven to understand the world. He wants to dismiss religion as a mere charade, and persuades Sammy to agree to urinate on the local church altar, to see if there is any 'divine retribution'. (Sammy eventually just spits on it.) Beatrice Ifor is the girl with whom Sammy falls in love. She has what seems to him a wonderful calm and self-possession, but eventually it emerges that this is really a result of her mental fragility – she is borderline schizophrenic and eventually breaks down altogether. Sammy, filled with guilt, can never be sure whether their relationship hastened or postponed her mental collapse. Rowena Pringle is the religion teacher at Sammy's grammar school. She is a hateful figure: 'She ruled, not by love, but by fear. Her weapons were no cane, they were different, subtle and cruel, unfair and vicious. They were teeny, arch sarcasms that made the other children