Survivor of the Long March

by Charles Waite

  The Sergeant Major arrived and stood in the doorway. Nobody moved. He was a ratty little fellow who didn’t look as though he was going to take any nonsense from anybody. Straightaway he laid into us, barking commands to line up, stand to attention and don’t speak until you’re spoken to. He told us in no uncertain terms what he thought of us. He didn’t like the look of us, we weren’t going to be any good or amount to much, all that sort of caper you get from these people. It didn’t sound to me as though we were in for anything good.

  It was getting late by then and we were told to bed down there for the night. We slept in our clothes on the floor on what were called ‘biscuits’, a set of three square canvas cushions laid out to make a bed. Hard as nails they were. Better get used to this, I thought, it was probably a sign of things to come. I don’t think I was ever comfortable again at night until I got home to my own bed after the war.

  In the morning, after waiting for more recruits to turn up, we were taken by army trucks to the camp barracks to begin our army life. I stuck with the chap I had met on the train and we joined up with another couple of fellows and amused ourselves talking about our families and had a bit of a laugh about the Sergeant Major. I didn’t mind being away from home; it was an adventure for us young lads. That night I had no worries about being in a dormitory with a bunch of strangers because I was used to sleeping in the same room with my brothers and with my pals when I was away on holiday.

  We were taken to an army store to be kitted out in our new uniforms. Even though mine didn’t fit properly and my boots felt tight, I didn’t say anything. I would have to put up with it. We went back into town to an army depot and did our first bit of training. We were introduced to various officers and NCOs who told us what their jobs were and how the company worked. We did some running up and down, some marching and tried a bit of basic drill to get us all working together as a unit. I told Lily I had two left feet and this was evident as I tried to keep in step with the other lads.

  A few days’ later we were all taken down to the army camp at Horsham in Sussex which was to be our base for the rest of our training until our departure for France. We had our medical and ‘Protective Inoculations’, recorded in my Soldier’s Service and Pay Book: ‘Nature of vaccine, “T.A.B.” Cholera, plague etc.’ and I was pronounced ‘A’ fit for service and therefore able to start the training.

  We were out of doors a lot of the time on route marches and exercises. Once we were driven in the back of a lorry at night, dumped in the middle of nowhere and told to find our way back to camp. Marching was hard on the feet all the time and it was very important to break in your boots. You couldn’t afford to have blisters and bunions when you eventually went into action.

  One of my early brushes with authority occurred when I had been out in town one night and was returning to camp with a friend. We were walking along the High Street, smoking as we went, when we saw an officer coming towards us. We both slowed down and saluted but my pal had the presence of mind to throw away his cigarette. I was still smoking when the officer, a young chap, came right up to me, and slapped me across the face. He just meant to knock the cigarette out of my mouth but he miscalculated. The blow gave me the shock of my life and I finally got the message. You’re a man now and you’re in the army, Charlie. You’re going to have to learn the rules, obey orders and remember your place.

  I wouldn’t have minded being given a few more orders or at least some guidance. We were ill-prepared for fighting and for what lay ahead. I don’t think that I fired more than five rounds of ammunition before I went over to France. We spent a day, I’m sure it was no more than that, on a firing range on Salisbury Plain. Inside one of the huts, the Sergeant demonstrated how to assemble and dismantle a Bren gun and then told us to do it. There were three Brens laid out on tables with thirty of us trying to have a go. The Sergeant got annoyed when we couldn’t do it. Some of us barely had time to touch one. Outside on the range, we were given our Lee Enfield rifles – First World War bolt action weapons, and told to lie down on our stomachs and fire at numbered targets allocated to us. I was given Number 6, and the Sergeant tapped my foot when it was my turn to fire. I’m not sure if I hit the target at all because as I fired, the rifle kicked back practically ripping my shoulder off. I was probably firing up in the air for all I knew. I fired a few rounds and then it was time to go back to camp.

  And that was it for a while. We carried on doing drills and exercises which I hated. I wasn’t a natural soldier, certainly not a killer, so I was very happy when I was selected to join the company transport unit.

  It happened one day when we got back from an exercise. The Sergeant Major called us to attention and read out a list of names of men who were to report to his office. A few weeks ago, an officer had asked our platoon for volunteer drivers. ‘Write your name and number on a piece of paper and put it on my desk in the office.’ There were seven names on the list, including mine, and we were told that we had all got driving jobs. It wasn’t like it is now when every youngster learns to drive as soon as they reach seventeen. I was one of the few who had held a licence for nearly four years. As there was a shortage of drivers, I was a good catch. Licences were checked, papers issued and vehicles assigned.

  Hand in hand with a shortage of drivers was a shortage of vehicles. The army was using ones which had been hired or commandeered from local civilians – their contribution to The War Effort. Some people were making a lot of money doing business with the army. Horsham housewives found that they were not getting their laundry delivered and butchers in Tunbridge Wells did not have their waste bones collected. So who was it that got one of those lorries? It was me. I got a bone lorry. It was terrible. My uncle was a butcher and every Monday morning one of them came round to collect his waste bones which were collected in sacks and thrown straight into the back of the lorry which continued on its round until it was full. You can guess what that lorry smelt like over time.

  Now the chap who had hired my lorry out to the army did his best, or so he thought, to hide the nature of its cargo. He washed it out and cleaned it but, of course, that wasn’t enough to get rid of the awful smell. So he decided to paint it inside and smothered it with thick brown paint which only made things worse. There was the smell of old bones and the smell of paint mixed together. I felt sorry for the men I was carting about in it. They were standing up in the back, while I sat in the front cab away from the worst of the stink.

  I enjoyed being out on the road, driving around collecting supplies, taking the men out on exercise and all that. I learned how to look after the vehicles and do basic repairs. However, one day I was driving in a convoy going out on manoeuvres in town. Everybody had jobs to do as part of the exercise and I decided to help the lads fill sandbags for a shelter they were constructing. When we got back, I was summoned to the Section Commander’s office. What on earth had I done wrong?

  I stood to attention while he tore me off a strip for what I had done. ‘You left your f------- vehicle!’ he said. ‘Never leave your f------- vehicle again!’ All the regulars swore like troopers. ‘That’s your f------- job!’ My responsibilities were to drive and look after the vehicle. Nothing else. I don’t know what he would have said if he had known that a few months’ later I abandoned my truck on a road in France and surrendered to the Germans.

  You do your best, that’s all you can do. In spite of the rollicking I got, I wasn’t put off. I was happy to carry on driving and looking after my vehicle, pleased to have this particular responsibility in my unit. However, I didn’t know that I was in danger of having it taken away from me and being put right in the line of fire.

  A month later, seven of us were called to do some more firearms training but in a different location, inside a tunnel. The rifles we used this time took 0.22 calibre bullets which were smaller and the targets we used were much nearer, about 100yds away. It was a bit like popping a gun at Dreamland Amusement Park in Margate, trying to win a goldfish for your girl. With the small
er bullet there was less kick and it was more accurate firing, and I could see that I was doing quite well. I just thought that it was good fun and a bit of extra training. I didn’t know how I had scored until a few days later when five of us were called back to the Commander’s office. In trouble again.

  We went in one by one and the first thing the chap said was, ‘What I’m going to tell you now is not to be repeated outside this room.’ Goodness, I had no idea what was coming next. It was a shock. I had scored highly on the practice range and had been selected to train as a sniper. This is ridiculous, I thought, straightaway. Why would I want to do that? Kill or be killed. I could be up a tree, see a German coming, fire at him, miss him, he turns round, shoots me, and I fall out of the tree either dead or injured. And what about the driving? I had only just got that job and they were going to take it away from me. So I refused – and so did the others. We were lucky that we were able to say no. They were short of snipers but they were also short of drivers, so they would have had to recruit more which would not have been easy.

  In early April 1940 we received our orders for departure to France to join the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). We were given a few days’ leave and I went home to see Lily and the family. We had a little party and Lily and I managed time on our own, going out on one of our favourite walks. My mind was on all sorts of things and we didn’t talk much about the war or about what might happen to us in the future. ‘Let’s just enjoy being together now,’ said Lily, putting her arms around me and holding me tight.

  The next morning, as I was about to leave, my mother gave me a gold signet ring. ‘Take it, Charlie. It was your grandfather’s. I want you to have it.’

  I had never bought a ring for myself and had always wanted one. ‘I’ll always wear it,’ I said, putting it on. I never told my mother after the war that I had given it to a German soldier in exchange for half a loaf of bread. When you’re starving, you do anything to fill your belly.

  I was about to leave my home and my country for the first time. I was pleased and proud to be going out to France, in my brand new Bedford MW truck. Luckily it had arrived in time for me to familiarise myself with driving it and also to practise some basic maintenance work. I didn’t know, as I boarded the ship at Southampton that I wouldn’t see my family again for five years.

  * * *

  An apple, an orange, a bar of Fry’s chocolate and a pork pie. That’s what I collected from the Warrant Officer in charge of stores before I boarded the boat to France on 17 April 1940. A real feast to me. I suppose I remember that clearly now, because food, and finding enough to eat, was an obsession during my years of captivity. There was the luxury of packets of jelly in the Red Cross parcels; the necessity of eating dock leaves and fish heads on The Long March.

  All through my life since the war, I have appreciated every crumb of food on my table. A slice of toast is as good to me as a side of beef. I took my rations and went to join the others. ‘Let’s hope it stays down,’ I thought. I didn’t want to be seasick. A paddle steamer on the Thames wasn’t the same as sailing on a troop ship out into the open sea.

  I was excited now that we were leaving England and on our way to be part of this big adventure. The Transport Corps was going ahead of the company to prepare for the rest of the Battalion’s arrival and deployment. I stayed on deck with the other men as we waited in Southampton waters before leaving in the early hours of the morning. I ate my food as I watched all the activity on the quayside: so many busy men with so many loads, all shapes and sizes. I talked to the other soldiers who were also in transport and supplies, sent ahead of their units to prepare the ground for them. The sea was calm, the sky inky black and I dozed off, surrounded by the noise of engines and the chatter of men.

  When we disembarked at Le Havre our vehicles had already arrived on another boat anchored alongside. As we walked off, our trucks were being lowered in slings onto the quayside. Once they had landed and the slings removed, we had to push the vehicles to the end of the dock and then wait for instructions.

  There were seven of us with six trucks and one small tanker which carried all the drinking water for our company. We had been told not to drink any water while in France unless it had been treated. An officer met us in his little two-seater Austin car and directed us to the end of the dock where we filled up with petrol. Then we followed him in convoy out of the port and into the Normandy countryside – remembering to drive on the right-hand side, of course.

  It was wonderful being behind the wheel of our new vehicles, following the officer in his motor car out front, taking our time, enjoying the view. Along straight tree-lined roads for miles, through small sleepy villages with shuttered cottages out into the vast countryside. It was so pretty and the roads were empty; it was a pleasure being out there like being on holiday. We stopped by the roadside to make tea and have a smoke. All that clean, fresh air and space, and peace and quiet. Hard to imagine there was a war on. Everything looked normal: washing on lines, men working in fields, cows grazing. War seemed a long away from us.

  Our field camp was just outside Abbeville where all the various units had different quarters under canvas. We were in our own little marquee which housed us, some admin people and cooks. When the rest of the Company finally arrived, they would be spread out in a number of different sized tents; the officers having their own separate bell tents. Not that we spent much time there. We were out driving all the time to large field depots to collect supplies of food, water, blankets, equipment, petrol and ammunition to take back and unload at base camp. There was everything you needed to fight a war.

  We started work from the moment we arrived and I saw little of local life, especially any French people. Often on my trips the only life I saw were the black and white cows lazing in the shade of trees or gaggles of geese flapping about a farm yard as I roared by. When I arrived at the depot there would be English voices, ‘Awright, Chas, me boy, another load for you,’ and ‘Watch these little beauties over the pot holes’ – meaning, take care or you might get yourself blown up by the ammo in the crates. We didn’t have anything to do with the French and I didn’t see or speak to any locals in the first few weeks. I did eventually though make contact with a Frenchman – literally.

  One morning I was driving an officer to a meeting at another camp. I had the empty road to myself and I was bowling along at a fair lick on the left, the wrong side of the road; easy to forget. I had a driving mirror which was specially lengthened and stuck out quite far from the side. I was going up over this bridge approaching a small village and when I came down the other side, there was a French man in his blue dungarees and black cap, cycling very slowly along. As I went passed him my wing mirror hit him on the head and knocked him off his bike. So I slammed on the brakes and was about to reverse to see what damage I had done.

  ‘Don’t stop, you clot! Don’t you know there’s war on?’ said the officer. I could see the man in my rear view mirror lying on the road, his bike in the hedge. I could have killed him for all I knew. But orders are orders and I accelerated away, hoping we hadn’t been spotted. I was careful to keep on the right side after that.

  We carried on half a mile or so and passed some French barracks so I slowed down to get a better look. I was amazed to see a French sentry, rifle propped up against the wall, smoking a cigarette and chatting up two girls. I said, ‘You wouldn’t get away with that in England, sir, would you?’ still thinking of the wallop I had received for having a fag in my mouth from that officer during training. ‘They do things differently here, Private.’

  So with all this coming and going on various jobs, we weren’t doing what I would call regular hours. We went out and came back when the work was finished, whatever the hour. Sometimes we didn’t have time to queue up for food at the canteen, so we had to grab food when we could. I found myself doing a lot of eating as I drove along in the truck. I took rations with me such as bars of chocolate, biscuits and tins of stew which could be heated up. I often ate
the stew cold, with a spoon straight from the tin as I drove along, trying to keep the truck from landing in a ditch. That’s when I thought it would be handy to have someone else to share the driving.

  Someone up above must have heard me because it was a couple of weeks after we arrived, that I heard that we were going to be allocated a spare driver. I had just had my twenty-first birthday and I remember that my birthday cards were still under the seat of my truck. I used to read the messages in them over and over during any snatched moments on the road. We had started receiving post from England quite soon after our arrival. I knew that my mother was well and Lily was missing me. We got back in the evening and I was parking my vehicle in my usual spot. I had my head out of the window as I was reversing and could hear all these voices calling out across the field.

  ‘Who’s Private so and so?’ and ‘Who’s Private so and so?’ I heard my name called out, ‘Private Charles Waite.’ I got out of my truck, walked across to this fellow and said, ‘That’s me, Charles Waite. Who wants to know?’

  I was disappointed, I have to say. Instead of some fellow like me, the same age, somebody to have a bit of a laugh with, I was looking at this old man. Well, I say old, he was only forty-two, twice my age, but to me he was an old man.

  ‘My name is Moore but they call me “Pony”.’ He put out his hand.

  I never even asked his first name. In the army anyone called Moore was nicknamed ‘Pony’ so that was his name: ‘Pony’ Moore.

  ‘Pleased to meet you. I’m Charles but they call me Chas,’ and we shook hands.

  So Pony and I started working together. I was a bit worried because all these new men and new drivers had been shipped out and I thought my job could be in danger. He was a full corporal, a non-commissioned officer, with two stripes and he was above me so if they wanted to deploy some of us to frontline duties then that would probably be me. I imagined that he would pull rank and start telling me what to do but he didn’t at all. He didn’t even mention driving and just sat silently in the passenger seat enjoying the view.