War Brothers

by Patrick Slaney

  On the third night after we arrived in Bodmin, we were sitting having a beer in the bar when the landlord came over to us. He bent down to speak to me.

  ‘We have a problem. I overheard some of the locals talking, and they were saying that there was a German staying in the hotel and that they were going to do something about it.’

  ‘Did they say what action they were going to take?’ the sergeant asked.

  ‘No, but they were getting quite excited about it,’ the landlord added. ‘I must go now as I don’t want to be seen talking to you.’

  ‘We’ll find somewhere else to stay and send over for our bags. Thanks for warning us,’ the sergeant said.

  We got up and slipped out of the door into the street, keeping a good look out to make sure that there was nobody waiting for us in the shadows.

  ‘I saw another place at the entrance to the town when I arrived on Monday, so we’ll try there,’ the sergeant suggested.

  ‘I am sorry for creating a problem Sergeant, I had no idea that they would react like that.’

  ‘We will just have to keep a low profile, and they will think that we have left Bodmin. No more beers in the evening,’ the sergeant said.

  Luckily the boarding house that he had spotted was able to accommodate us, and the landlady sent across to the hotel for our bags once it was dark and the pub was closed.

  After breakfast on Friday Sergeant Young came into my room.

  ‘I have a surprise for you today. We are going to do a dummy run for your cross country trip next week. This time I will be with you, but I will allow you to do a lot of the decision making.’

  ‘Will we come back here each night?’ I enquired.

  ‘No we will spend Friday and Saturday nights in the countryside, sleeping wherever we can find some shelter. We also won’t be bringing anything with us to make it as close to a real situation as possible.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like much fun?’ I managed a forced smile. I wasn’t looking forward to this adventure as the weather outside was looking decidedly wintery, and it was raining.

  I was blindfolded as usual and then taken in the car about forty miles away from Bodmin where we were dropped off in the middle of nowhere.

  I thought to myself:

  I started this war as a pilot and had some comfort; look at me now, stuck out in the middle of nowhere, frozen stiff, in driving rain, with an English Sergeant as my mentor. I must be mad.

  The next sixty hours were like a nightmare. We only had food and shelter wherever we could find it, and in the three days I hadn’t been dry once. If we had been doing the task in the summer, it would probably have been tolerable, but climbing around the countryside in the dead of winter wasn’t enjoyable.

  By the time that we returned on the Sunday afternoon to our lodgings the relationship between the Sergeant and me was decidedly strained to put it mildly. I have never enjoyed a bed so much as I did on the Sunday night.

  Chapter 25

  I was given Monday off to recover. At dinner that evening he gave me the news that I was dreading.

  ‘Well Sir, I hope that you have had a good day’s rest and are fully recovered from the three days we spent in the countryside?’ he said to me just after I had sat down at the dining table.

  ‘Yes, I have recovered, but I am not looking forward to having to do it all on my own,’ I replied.

  ‘I am pleased to inform you that you won’t have long to wait. You will be dropped off, on your own this time, tomorrow morning and will have to make your way back here. You will have three days to cover the fifty miles and you will not be allowed to organize any lifts with the local populace.’

  I dreaded the task he was describing to me, but there was no other alternative offered to me. I would have to do it or die in the attempt.

  Tuesday morning I was blindfolded in the usual way and then helped into the car. To confuse my sense of direction, they drove around the county of Cornwall in circles. Finally they stopped, and I left the sanctuary of the car with nothing but the clothes I was wearing. I had till Thursday to get back to Bodmin. In other words, I was expected to spend two nights in the great outdoors with zero luxuries other than a couple of bars of chocolate that were in my pockets.

  The first day and a half went surprisingly well. To my immense relief the rain had eased off a bit, so at least I didn’t have the water deluging down on top of me, running down my neck. The ground was still awash, and in some places I had to make long detours around areas that were completely water logged. On the first night, I managed to find farm buildings to sleep in and even managed to scrounge some food.

  On the Wednesday, I started to have significant problems as the ground underfoot became wetter and wetter. I appeared to be travelling through an unusually large swamp, and it was extremely difficult to find areas that would take my weight without me sinking into the mud up to my knees. To make any progress, and avoid the worst of the clinging mud, I decided to move closer to the road where the ground seemed to be firmer. The problem I now had was that I was in danger of being spotted by someone travelling along the road, and they naturally would wonder what on earth I was up to and might report me. It was riskier walking close to the road, but at least I was making progress.

  It wasn’t long before I approached some buildings where I saw three farm girls putting out some fodder for a flock of sheep and some cattle. There was no way that I could risk staying close to the road as there was no cover to protect me from their view. I would have to go back into the swamp.

  I ducked down out of sight and started to move away from the road. The mud got worse and worse, and I began to sink, but I still managed to keep moving and just hoped that the underfoot conditions would get better.

  Then my greatest fear happened. I sank lower than my knees, and there seemed to be a suction pulling me down. Sergeant Young had informed me that there were areas of bog that were like quick sand and into which you could be sucked to your death. It looked as if I had stumbled upon one of them.

  He had told me that if I ever got sucked into one that I mustn’t move my legs too much as that would speed up the suction process, but what other options were available to me. If I didn’t break the silence and call for help, I was going to be sucked into the swamp, and never seen again. Rather naturally I started to panic.

  I called out in the loudest voice that I could muster, hoping that the girls I had seen feeding the animals would hear me.

  By this stage, the mud was up to my stomach. I only had a few more minutes left to call out. I renewed my shouting.

  I heard the squelch of people approaching and was tremendously relieved to see two girls looking in my direction.

  ‘Hold on, we will get a rope,’ one of them called out. She turned and ran back to the buildings.

  A few minutes later she came back with the third girl, but also with a horse.

  I had now sunk up to my chest, and time was running out.

  ‘Catch this rope and we will use the horse to pull you out,’ she said as she threw the rope towards me.

  Unfortunately, throwing a rope was not one of her fortes and she eventually had to ask one of the others to try.

  The rope came straight across my shoulders, and I was able to grab hold of it. I tied it around me under my armpits and hung on tight. They inched the horse forwards and gradually I was extracted from the swamp.

  As I came out of the mud, hanging on for dear life to the rope, my trousers and underpants were sucked off me and left behind in the mud. I emerged naked from the waist down in front of the three girls. The clothes around the upper half of my body had been pulled upwards by the action of the rope, so I was left very exposed. My rescuers were highly amused by the outcome of their rescue mission.

  ‘Thank you ladies for saving my life,’ I said. Their grins turned to puzzlement as th
ey realised that I had a pronounced German accent.

  ‘Who are you and where have you come from? You sound German,’ one of them asked.

  ‘I am a German, but I am working with the British army,’ I replied. ‘All my papers are in my trousers, which are now in the swamp.

  I had pulled my shirt and coat down as far as I was able, hiding my nakedness, but I was still exposing most of my lower half for them to see.

  ‘Do you think that I could get something to cover me while we sort this out?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, I suppose that there is no chance of you being able to run away since you have no trousers or shoes, but we will still have to hand you in,’ the girl who appeared to be the leader said.

  Feeling really stupid I walked with them to the building where they had been working. They found a sack that had contained feed, and I managed to wrap that around me.

  What looked like the oldest of the girls then got up on the horse and went off to get help.

  About an hour later we saw a very old and dilapidated van approaching.

  A policeman and two members of the Home Guard got out and came over to where I was sitting. To increase their official status the two Home Guard members were carrying First World War rifles.

  ‘The girl here has told us that you are a German, is that correct?’ the policeman asked.

  ‘Yes, that is correct. I am on an exercise organized by the British army. I got stuck in the swamp, and these girls rescued me.’

  ‘You will have to come with me to Bude police station. We will sort it all out there’ the policeman continued. ‘Have you got your orders and papers with you?’

  ‘No, all my papers are in my trousers, which are still in the swamp.’

  The policeman smiled. ‘Well that’s a first for me. I have never seen a grown man pulled out of a bog by a group of girls leaving his pants and boots behind.’ He scratched his head as he took Markus to where the van was parked, still chortling away.

  Back at the police station in Bude, I was locked up in a tiny cold cell with the promise that they would try and get a pair of trousers for me.

  The key turned in the lock and the policeman who had arrested me came in with trousers and a cup of tea. The trousers were far too small, but at least they were better than the sack I had been using to cover my modesty. The tea was warm and was most welcome after what I had been through.

  Shortly afterwards the door was unlocked again, and I was brought to an interview room where a police sergeant was waiting to talk to me.

  ‘What is your name and rank?’ he fired at me.

  ‘My name is Markus Bekker, and I am a Lieutenant in the British Army.’

  ‘Where are your papers proving who you are and why you were on the moors in the middle of winter?’ He didn’t seem to be convinced by my story.

  ‘My papers were in my trousers, and I lost those when I was pulled out of the swamp.’

  ‘That’s a good one, and you also expect me to believe that you are a British officer with an exceptionally strong German accent’

  ‘Might I suggest that you phone my superior officer, Major Richards, who is based at Witley Park in Surrey? He can verify my story. There is also Sergeant Young who has been training me in Cornwall for the past two weeks. He is in Bodmin at the moment,’ I replied.

  ‘This Sergeant Young could also be a German spy. I will phone Major Richards and ask him to come and identify you. In the meantime, we will have to hold you here.’

  Twenty four hours later, after a night in a freezing cell, I heard the lock being turned, and a familiar face stuck his head around the door.

  ‘Lieutenant Bekker, the police sergeant here doesn’t believe that you are an Officer in the British army, so I have come to get you out.’ I looked up to see the cheery face of Major Richards puffing away on his pipe. ‘I went via Bodmin to let Sergeant Young know what you had been up to and to get your clothes. No doubt you would like to put on a pair of your own trousers for the trip back to Bodmin.’

  ‘Thank you. The trousers that they rustled up for me here are far too small.’

  ‘I am afraid that you failed to complete your test, so you are going to have to do three more days on your own in the great outdoors at another time to be arranged.’

  ‘I know that I failed miserably in the task I was set; however, I felt that it was better giving myself away than drowning in a swamp,’ I said contritely.

  ‘This time we will take you to a different area of the country where you will have less of a challenge from the underfoot conditions.’ The Major smiled sympathetically.

  ‘I don’t mind being out in the open, it was travelling through the swamp and the bog land that was pretty impossible,’ I added

  I was delighted to get away from my prison cell in Bude police station, although I didn’t blame them for the inconvenience of being detained. For once I welcomed the Major’s smoke.

  We returned to Bodmin in the comfort of the car to find an amused Sergeant waiting for us.

  My survival instructor was highly amused to hear the detail of what had happened.

  ‘I would have given a week’s pay to have seen you being pulled out of the swamp by three girls, without your trousers and boots. It must have been highly embarrassing for you but highly amusing for the girls.’

  ‘To be perfectly honest, I was so happy to be rescued from a muddy death that I barely noticed the fact that I didn’t have any trousers or underpants on. You’re right, the girls did think it was highly amusing.’

  ‘Well Markus I want you to give the Sergeant here a full account of how you got on,’ the Major interjected. ‘Give him every detail from the time you were dropped off until you were picked up by the police. We will leave for Witley Park as soon as you are finished.’

  It took me about an hour to communicate all the details and then we left for Surrey. My orienteering training had been eventful, to say the least, and I still had the three day test to look forward to.

  ‘Don’t get too upset by failing your test. You did remarkably well up to the point where you were sucked into the swamp, and you certainly have gained a lot of experience from your ordeal. Those girls know you quite well too, don’t they?’ he smiled.

  Ten minutes later we left the Sergeant in Bodmin and headed for home.

  Chapter 26

  Witley Park didn’t seem to have changed much since I had left it ten days previously although the total blackout meant that there wasn’t much visible by the time we got back. I was delighted when I found that Francette Tranquet had stayed up to greet me and that she was adamant that I give her all the sordid details of my adventure. We had been soul mates, who enjoyed each other’s company before I had left for Cornwall, but I hadn’t seen her as a special friend. I was touched by her concern for me. We drank and talked until my energy ran out and my eyes started to close. We then both went upstairs to our respective beds.

  The following morning I was called into the Colonel’s office. As usual, Colonel Thorpe and Major Richards were waiting for me when I entered.

  ‘Good morning Markus, I hear that you had some interesting experiences in Cornwall on your orienteering course,’ the Colonel said, with a smile on his face.

  ‘Yes, I am afraid that I didn’t cover myself in glory during my test and was rescued by some land girls.’

  ‘I understand that they want you do redo the test, but I have another urgent job for you to do before you go off again,’ the Colonel said, taking on a more serious tone. ‘Major Richards will explain what we want you to do.’

  ‘Is this new job connected with my training?’

  ‘No, it is something totally unrelated. Perhaps I should give you the details now,’ the Major explained. ‘You are aware that the SS were waiting for Vic Biddlecome when he landed in France and that they shot him.’
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br />   ‘Yes, I was extremely upset when that happened as we had shared a room together and had become quite good friends,’ I said.

  ‘When that happened we were convinced that there was a leak somewhere along the chain. The French Resistance were adamant that it wasn’t at their end, so we had a look at our end. Much to our surprise we believe that we have found the source, and it appears to be extraordinarily close to home.’

  ‘But the other agents in this house don’t know about each other’s projects. You insist on us not talking about our missions, and Vic never said a word about what he was up to.’ I was starting to think that maybe they thought that I had leaked information.

  ‘Don’t jump to the wrong conclusion Markus. We are certainly not pointing the finger at you or any of the other trainee agents. You all have too much to lose, and we trust all of you,’ the Major stated energetically. ‘We have heard that there is a man with a German background who has been seen in the local pub “The Cat and Fiddle” and the Colonel’s Secretary, Elizabeth Walters, has been seen talking to him. In fact, we believe that an intimate relationship has developed between them.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ I didn’t like where this conversation was going, and the role they had in mind for me.

  ‘We would like you to visit “The Cat and Fiddle” and try to get to know this man. We need a bit more information before we can be sure that Elizabeth is, in fact, the leak. Are you willing to do that for us?’

  ‘If you think that I can help, I will give it a try. When do I need to go there?’

  ‘We have taken the landlady of “The Cat and Fiddle” into our confidence, and she will phone us the next time that he comes in. He usually arrives at about 5:30 pm, has a drink with Elizabeth and then they leave at around 7:30 pm. We have also told the landlady that we will place our own man undercover in her Pub and that he has a strong German accent.’