Survivor of the Long March

by Charles Waite

  One day we came back quite late and very hungry and I was just reversing in to my space, the last one home. Pony had jumped out and gone round the vehicle to check that everything was all right when an officer suddenly appeared, banging on the front of vehicle for me to stop.

  ‘Where’s your spare driver?’ he asked me, leaning in towards the open window.

  ‘He’s here, sir,’ indicating with my thumb over my shoulder.

  ‘Call him over.’

  ‘Corporal Moore,’ I leaned out and shouted to Pony – I remembered to use his proper name. ‘Captain wants a word.’ He appeared from behind the vehicle, stubbing out a cigarette and adjusting his cap.

  ‘I want you back on the road pronto. We’ve got a meeting at HQ. The chateau,’ and he mentioned the name. ‘You know. You’ve been going past it practically every day.’

  I knew where he meant, the big turreted place surrounded by trees with a long drive going up to it. Two or three other officers appeared and they all climbed in the back as Pony got back in the cab. ‘There goes supper,’ I said.

  I drove back out onto the main road and could hear the men moving about in the back. Pony kept any eye out for familiar landmarks and sign posts and we managed to find the chateau without any wrong turnings. The wheels scrunched on the gravel drive as I edged my way along not wanting to kick up anything which could damage the windscreen. I drove up to the very grand front entrance with its portico and steps leading up to the door and stopped. The men had jumped out by the time Pony had got out and round the back to open the door for them.

  The officer came to my window to speak to me. ‘All right, private, you don’t have to wait. We’re coming back by car tomorrow. Off you go back to base.’

  Pony got back in and I reversed in the drive and drove back down to the main road. As we were going along, I said to Pony, ‘Would you take over for a few minutes so I can have a Maconachie?’ You see, I was always hungry and this Maconachie was a brand of beef stew with beans, carrots and potatoes, part of our army rations. I thought it was nice even though most people thought it tasted terrible, especially cold.

  Pony turned towards me, ‘I’m sorry but I can’t.’

  I kept my eyes on the road ahead. I didn’t know what the problem was and I didn’t want to stop so I said, ‘OK, get one out and open it for me and I’ll eat it as I go along.’ So I’m driving along, one hand on the wheel, tin of Maconachie between my knees and eating it with a teaspoon with my free hand.

  Later that evening Pony came up to me in our tent and tugging me by the sleeve said, ‘Can I have a word, Chas?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I said, ‘Is there anything wrong?’ I was wondering if I had put my big feet in something.

  ‘No,’ and answering my question with a question Pony said ‘What are you?’

  I was puzzled. ‘I’m a private and I’m a driver,’ I said,’ You know that.’

  ‘Where are you from?’ he asked.

  ‘From Barking,’ I said. Well, he knew where I was from because I had told him when we first met.

  ‘Do you know Charrington’s, the brewery?’ he said.

  I nodded. ‘Yes I live about eight miles from there.’

  ‘Well, I worked there as a driver.’

  ‘OK, then, so why wouldn’t you drive my truck?’

  ‘No, when I say I was a driver, I mean, I drove a pair of horses. Shire horses, pulling a Charrington’s dray.’

  You’ve got to laugh, haven’t you? He drove a brewery dray. He hadn’t even got a licence and didn’t know how to drive my truck or any vehicle, come to that. So there I was with a spare driver who couldn’t drive. They called him up and didn’t even check what he meant by ‘driver’ on his application. He should have said something at the time but he didn’t. So that’s why I landed up doing all the driving. I just hoped that there wouldn’t be some emergency such as me being taken ill, or, God help us, injured. Maybe he would have a go. Surely he had watched me enough times changing gear and manoeuvring about to have some idea of what to do.

  It was a worrying time. All you could do was carry on with your duties, do your best and be on the alert. When we arrived, we felt as though we were on our holidays but now it was a war zone and this was not going to be any picnic. What were the plans for us? The Germans were rapidly advancing towards the coast and messages from Command HQ made it clear that our company and all the others in the area were there to hold up the Germans, to stand our ground, fight to the last man and the last round. We were meant to act as the buffer between the enemy and our troops on the beaches of Dunkirk waiting to be evacuated home to safety.

  Nobody had bothered to tell me and Pony, Bert and Chalky and all the other drivers how this was going to happen. We may have had our eyes open but we were really driving blind.

  4

  The Wrong Way

  The peaceful French countryside of those early weeks had turned into a noisy and frightening battleground. I heard the sound of aircraft and distant gunfire all the time. I was no longer on the sidelines, out of harm’s way. We were right in the thick of it now. Low-flying fighter planes were bad enough, right on top of us as they appeared in the sky only to shoot off again. I stood there trembling even though I recognised them as friendly. We were just tiny specks on the ground to the pilot looking down. How did he know whether we were friend or enemy?

  The most frightening sound was that of Stukas, the German dive-bombers, which gave out this dreadful, bloodcurdling siren wail as they dived down and then up again. I was frightened all the time by what was going on around me. Nobody explained what was happening; nobody told you what to do to protect yourself. I was just a driver, trying to look after my vehicle and keep the load I was carrying out of harm’s way.

  I wouldn’t have known what to do if I had come face to face with a German soldier holding a machine gun. I wished then that I had done more training. The sniper course I was offered wouldn’t have helped me in these circumstances. The war was a reality now and the fighting was getting closer each day. I was in a constant state of fear. I was doing my best but this proved not be good enough in the end.

  We carried on our routine duties of fetching and carrying, going out and coming back, never knowing what might be round the next corner. But you forget all that when you get in the driving seat. You’re with your mates, you’re out on the road and you’re looking forward to your next fag or mug of tea.

  Of course, it would have been better to have had some rounds in my rifle the day I was captured. I might have felt braver. Not that I could have returned fire anyway in the face of the German tank unit we met on the road. It happened so fast. And to be honest, I was probably more afraid of my truck being hit – full as it was with cans of petrol. I never usually carried the stuff but on this last trip I had been asked to drive this load of 340 gallons of petrol in tins. They were all packed tight into crates and strapped securely into the back of my truck. I looked at all this fuel in the back as I was loading it, thinking what my father, Alf and Reg wouldn’t have done to get hold of a gallon or two for the delivery vans.

  The evening of 19 May, we got back into camp and an officer came out and told us not to unload our vehicles but to park and leave them overnight as they were. I thought it was a bit odd until I heard from the other lads later that we were off to Dunkirk in the morning. So our trucks were fully loaded when we left early the next day to do whatever was expected of us, to do our bit in the fight against Germany.

  This was the day that sealed my fate for the rest of the war. ‘Home by Christmas,’ we were told as we left England. But nobody said which Christmas it would be.

  * * *

  Early morning of 20 May. It was a warm bright day with a light mist just touching the tops of the trees as we drove out from the camp. We could hear a constant low rumbling noise that had gone on all night. I hadn’t slept well, listening to the distant sound of fighting and worrying about how close it all was. We didn’t know what was going on except that t
he Germans were closing in on the whole area and we could be caught in the middle. How near I didn’t know.

  As a member of the transport corps, I knew that my job was to keep the supply chain moving and all I had to do was to follow orders. Nothing very complicated. You didn’t have to think for yourself or use your initiative. All it came down to in the end, as my commanding officer said during training – ‘Never leave your f------- vehicle!’

  It was the driving I loved most, getting out on the road, breezing along with the window down, enjoying the empty roads and open spaces. It was good to have a laugh and a smoke with the fellows in the depot. The last thing I, or anybody else, was thinking about was meeting the enemy face to face and having to defend ourselves. The last time I had fired a gun had been about eight months before on Salisbury Plain. Nobody in charge of my unit there in France had thought of preparing us. Nobody had thought of saying, ‘OK, lads, you’re out on the road, enemy round the next corner. What are you going to do? You got to be ready for anything. Let’s do a bit of target practice. Run through some drills. Check your kit and weapons. Be prepared for any emergency.’

  There we were driving all over the French countryside, loading and unloading ammunition for everyone else but nobody had bothered to see if the Lee Enfield rifles we carried were even loaded. I was based at this particular camp and expected to return there at the end of the day. I was dressed as usual in my standard issue uniform, helmet and greatcoat, with a few personal possessions stuffed in the assortment of pockets about me and that was it. That’s what I had when I was captured; that’s pretty much what I had when I returned five years later.

  We were driving in our usual convoy of seven vehicles, water tanker at the rear and me at number 6 with my truck full of petrol tins. I was following the chap in front who was carrying tinned food, including a load of prunes. I remember him joking, ‘It’s my job to help keep the regulars regular.’ The others carried equipment, bedding and, of course, ammunition. As we were about to leave, I saw a young officer rush across towards us and jump in the passenger side of the first truck. Pony Moore was settled in my passenger seat, still half asleep, and I followed the vehicle in front slowly out onto the road, worried about jolting the vehicle too much. Precious cargo – and dangerous too.

  We were heading towards Dunkirk on the small country roads through familiar countryside opening up either side. We passed stone farm houses and ramshackle barns dotted about. We came to a halt at a crossroads. There were two cottages, their shutters closed and no sign of life except a couple of chickens scratching around on the verge. I could do with an egg or two, I thought. I only had time to grab a mug of coffee before leaving. Maybe the Sergeant at the depot would let us get a bit of breakfast.

  Instead of turning left, as I thought we would, we turned right, the opposite direction back towards Abbeville. Pony wound down the window and poked his head out. ‘Lieutenant’s waving us on.’ You just follow don’t you, don’t question what you’re told to do. It didn’t matter to me if we were going another way, I was in no hurry. I assumed the officer knew what he was doing so we dutifully followed.

  We left behind the few signs of civilisation there were and came into open countryside with ploughed fields one side and pasture land the other. There were few landmarks except a church spire above a ridge of trees on the horizon. We were driving quite slowly and I kept my eyes on the road, which was higher than the fields, checking for pot holes and making sure the wheels of the truck didn’t stray over the edge and down into the gully.

  After a few miles we started to slow down, almost coming to a halt again. I wound down my window this time, stuck my head out and shading my eyes, strained to see what was going on up the road ahead. I’m a nosy parker, always wanting to know what’s going on and impatient to keep moving. And that’s when I saw it – a line of armed vehicles with half a dozen tanks coming towards us down the road.

  My first I thought was that this was a bit of luck. They are French, and all we have to do is pull over to one side and let them pass. But then I saw the Black Cross symbols on the sides and I thought that looked like trouble. When I glanced to the right, I saw this dark grey mass of figures like a swarm of ants advancing towards us across the fields. Three or four hundred German soldiers, it must have been. I was scared. I had never even seen a German, let alone hundreds of them armed to the teeth and coming towards me. And that’s when I knew we were in a terrible mess.

  Everything was wrong. Alone on this road, we had no ammunition, no troops with us. We had no proper firearms, no anti-tank rifles; we had nothing. There was nobody to help us; nobody to tell us what to do. Our officer, who was 2nd Lieutenant and a territorial (and I’m not sure what he knew about anything) was the only armed person with us. He disappeared. What happened to him I don’t know; but we were left to face our fate alone.

  We tried to get off the road but all that happened was our trucks dropped down the gully and stayed there. The convoy was now caught in the middle of this mass of enemy troops. Terrifying. Pony said, ‘Grab your helmet and rifle and get out.’ The first and only time I had heard him give an order. I did what he said, put on my steel helmet, grabbed my rifle and, edging the door open, stepped down on to the road.

  I was so scared that I dropped my rifle and it went under the truck. No bloody use anyway as I had no ammunition. I knew I couldn’t fire back in self defence against this lot even if I had had any ammunition. Hopeless. And then all hell broke out as the Germans opened fire. I threw myself down on my stomach on the side of the road, half under the front of my truck, half in the gully. I lay there absolutely still with my face in the dirt of the road.

  I lay there for five or ten minutes, or maybe it was only a matter of seconds. Yet it felt like a lifetime as I blocked out the noise and the fear by thinking of anything else but this horror. I thought of Mum checking the blackout curtains in the shop; Lily sewing buttons on a new blouse; Alfred mending a broken chair at his bench in the shed; Elsie cooking up some nice chops for Joe’s tea; and Ronnie joking with his army mates in a bar somewhere safe behind enemy lines. God, what would happen when they read the words ‘Killed in action’? All I could hear was the rat-tat-tatting of machine gun fire and the screams. It was a terrible sound, the sound of men yelling out, crying in pain, gasping for breath and dying.

  There were Germans firing at us from the other side of the road, lying on top of field ambulances. I turned my head slightly to the side and saw the nearest man to me, only a few feet away. He looked as though he had been cut in half by a machine gun. Shocking sight, all ripped open. Bloody bits of flesh and guts spilling out on the road. He was lying with his head looking towards me, eyes staring blankly and his face was white as though covered in flour. No longer a human being, just some bit of rubbish a butcher had thrown away.

  Then it went very quiet. I almost stopped breathing, listening for a sound. Waiting for something to happen. Nothing. And I just lay there, my forehead pressing deeper into the rough stony surface. It was obvious to me that this was our day, our time had come.

  So I had it in my mind to get it over and done with quick. Take my helmet off and sit up then they could get a good view of me. They couldn’t miss me and I would be shot in the head. That was what I wanted. A nice clean shot through the head. So I lifted my head up and strained an inch or two to get a look. I could see more bodies around and I thought I was the only one left alive. I turned round on my stomach to face the Germans and took my steel helmet off to get it over with and closed my eyes.

  A voice called me from somewhere, ‘Chas, Chas, are you all right?’ It was the Sergeant.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I think I’m OK.’

  ‘Get rid of your side arms,’ he said, meaning my bayonet. We still had on our overcoats even though it was summer, so I edged myself up slowly onto my knees and then into a squatting position, unbuttoned my coat a bit and undid the webbing which held my bayonet, drew it out and dropped it beside me.

  ‘N
ow just wait. We’ll have to just wait,’ he said.

  I could see a German officer a couple of hundred feet away, a huge man, flanked by two more gorillas. Anything could happen now, I thought. What will they do to us? The scariest feeling in the world, knowing what these men were capable of and not knowing what they were they going to do. I wished that I had something in my hand, a loaded weapon, preferably. I would have felt better. It would have made me feel like a proper soldier, able to defend myself instead of just being a sitting target. I was lucky to be still alive though. I felt sorry for the others, particularly those I could hear groaning in pain. God knows what injuries they had and how they would be treated. Then the fear hit me again. What was going to happen next?

  At first when I had got out of the truck I thought it would be all right. There’s somebody in charge up ahead. We will be OK, they will know what to do. Then I realised I was on my own. I asked myself, ‘Why didn’t the Germans just blow us all up?’ Me, my truck and hundreds of gallons of petrol, it would have all gone off like a bomb and taken us with it. It would have all been over and done with in a second. No fear or no worry. The end. No more. And my last thoughts were for those I was going to leave behind. What would my mother do when she got the news? What would happen to Lily?

  The German officer came up the road towards us shouting, ‘Hände hoch! Hände hoch!’ – hands up, and ‘Up, Tommy, Hände hoch!’ I was frightened to get up on my own but when I saw the Sergeant move, I grabbed my helmet and stood up. We walked towards the officer with our arms raised high in surrender. Two others of our unit appeared and I was pleased to see one was Pony Moore. As he walked towards them with his hands up, some of the German soldiers started calling out and making gestures. Pony was a short, thickset chap and the Germans were making fun of his appearance shouting ‘Komm Churchill.’