Survivor of the Long March

by Charles Waite

  Our guards turned a blind eye to a bit of coal pilfering. They were quite privileged away from front line. It may have been boring for them and they didn’t have many luxuries either, but they were pretty safe. As long as they obeyed orders, said ‘Heil, Hitler’ to the officers and didn’t get caught with a tin of Player’s cigarettes, they were all right. It was a break for them, to be sent out there to guard us for a couple of months before being sent back to the fighting.

  So everybody tried to keep things on an even keel. None of us prisoners wanted to step out of line as it could have repercussions for everybody else. The guards didn’t want any trouble as that could reflect badly on them and they wanted so stay on at the camp because they were out of harm’s way. So we put up with things. But sometimes, once in a while, it didn’t take much to tip you over the edge.

  9

  Not Fit for Pigs

  Every day started and ended the same: thinking about food from the moment you got up to when your head hit the straw mattress at night. You were looking forward to each meal, whatever you were given, hoping there might be something different or a little bit more. Mug of coffee for breakfast, thin, greasy soup for lunch, and a piece of bread and butter and a slice of bratwurst, if you were lucky, for supper. Play cards. Darn your socks. Write a letter. Go to bed hungry. Always the same.

  Except that day. I will always remember that particular day as one thing distinguished it from all the thousands of other days spent in exactly the same way.

  Mid July. Warm and dry. It was harvest time. That day I was in a different working party. There were eleven of us, including pals Laurie and Jimmy, and we were working on a small farm helping the farmer, his wife and their daughter with the harvest. We were in a hay barn and we were moving sheaves of wheat with pitch forks from one side of a huge barn to the opposite bay. We were giving the hay a good airing so it didn’t rot or get eaten by vermin. I was up top with three others, throwing the sheaves down to the five below, who passed them to the other three in the empty bay. It was hard work and it was hot, and the dust from the wheat got in the back of my throat. We had rolled up our sleeves and tied string round the bottom of our trousers to stop the mice getting up our legs when their nests were disturbed in the wheat. They ran out, babies and adults, all over the place, looking for another safe place to settle.

  Good old Jimmy had come prepared. He usually carried an assortment of useful things in his pockets including string which he saved from the Red Cross Parcels. Just the ticket. It was funny though, because you wouldn’t think to look at it that the string was actually made out of brown paper. It was all twisted very, very tightly but if you unravelled it, you would see what it was made of. Of course, it was no good in the rain as it just fell to bits. It was hot and sweaty work but still better than freezing to death in the middle of a field in winter, hacking at sugar beet in the frozen ground with a useless two-pronged hand tool.

  A guard came across the farm yard. It was lunch time. You could hear the sound of the hooves and the wheels of the cart on the cobbles coming towards us with our food. The sound of the metal ladle like a reveille, clanking on the milk churn full of soup. I heard a voice shouting something in German, probably, ‘Los!’ – get going, or ‘Schnell, schnell!’ – hurry up, to the camp cooks or maybe to us. We stopped work, put down our tools and made our way out of the barn. I wiped my hands on my trousers as I followed the others. As I came round the side of the barn, I could see our chaps struggling to keep the churn upright on the back of the cart.

  Soup of the day. Glorious soup of the Fatherland! Soup was all we usually had at midday after a long, hard morning’s work. Hot and wet, maybe a surprise bit of meat or lump of swede, a scrap of beet leaf, but nothing much to recommend it. I couldn’t see anything else on the cart. No bread. No such luck. If you were clever enough, or rather strong enough, you saved a piece from the night before to have with your soup the next day but most of the time you didn’t. It took an iron will not to wolf it down as soon as you got your evening ration.

  We always carried our bowls and spoons with us so I went and collected mine where I had left them in the large inside pocket of my overcoat, which was hanging on a post. I went and queued at the cart where one of our chaps was standing ready, ladle in hand. You would have thought it was precious liquid gold the way he was serving it out, taking his time, careful not to spill a drop as the ladle travelled the distance between churn and bowl. ‘Come on, come on. I’m hungry,’ I said.

  It was my turn and I held my bowl out with my hand cupped underneath to keep it steady. Didn’t want to lose a drop. Maybe it was special that, I was thinking. Perhaps one of the camp cooks had added a bit of something extra. As it was served out into my bowl, I could feel that the soup was stone cold and I thought that this was rubbish. This was no good. I tipped the bowl forward slightly to look inside and gave the soup a sniff. Terrible. What on earth was in it? Bits of rancid horse meat in a scummy grey liquid. How could anybody serve something like that to another human being? How were you meant to work twelve hours a day on this pig swill?

  Now I had a terrible temper, I admit that, and something just went inside me sometimes. I lost all sense of where I was and what was going on around me. I didn’t care that the chap who made the soup was looking at me, worried that I was going to say something. That the fellow before me had already drunk his down in one go. I didn’t care who was standing next to me, behind me or across the yard. I was angry, so angry that I couldn’t stop myself. I walked over to the guard. I didn’t even take in which one it was. I did not care who it was. They were all the same that day.

  We had a number of guards who came and went all the time. You marched out in the morning with one lot and by then end of the day there had been two or three changes. There was Hunchback Hans, the one I gave cigarettes to in exchange for a bit of extra bread; Red Face who loved garlic; or the ones we nicknamed Taffy Biscuits because they were all the same, only capable of shouting. ‘Mach weiter. Mach weiter.’ – do more, do more, when we were working. You know – sounds like McVite, Mcvite’s Biscuits, so Taffy Biscuits. Oh, never mind. And there was Jan who didn’t like the English and me in particular.

  So this lunchtime guard was sitting on a wall, his rifle propped up next to him, head down, chewing and sucking his teeth. I walked across to him.

  ‘Look,’ I said, shoving the bowl under his nose, stabbing my finger at the disgusting mess in it. ‘That’s not fit for pigs,’ adding, ‘Für Schweine,’ – for pigs, in case he didn’t understand. Then I repeated the word, ‘Schweine! ‘ and threw the contents of the bowl across the yard. The soup sort of curved up in the air for a second before it landed, splattering across the cobbles, leaving a greasy stain and then seeped away through the cracks. OK, that was done, I had made my point. I imagined that the guard was saying to himself, ‘If you don’t want it, then that’s your loss. You don’t eat it, you go hungry.’ End of story.

  So I turned and walked off towards the stables where they kept the farm horses. There was a tap outside where you washed your hands, cleaned your bowl and sneaked a drink if you were lucky. I was bending down to turn on the tap and rinse out my bowl when I heard the guard get up. Now German soldiers wore boots with steel toe caps and heels and I heard the clack, clack sound of his boots on the cobbles coming towards me. Oh God, he was following me.

  I straightened up and turned round to face him. It was Jan, it would be, the guard who didn’t like me. He was a very big bloke, over 6 ft tall. He was what was known as einer falsche Deutscher – a false German, half Polish, neither one thing nor the other, I suppose. He had never liked me. Not that I had ever done anything in particular to him. I was English, a prisoner of war and he didn’t like the look of my face. He was coming straight at me now, fixing his bayonet to his rifle, which should have been fixed all the time by their law. He speeded up and when it was finally attached he suddenly lunged at me and caught me in the chest with the bayonet. I felt a sharp pain, which spr
ead across my chest and made me gasp.

  He wasn’t trying to spear me, I didn’t think, just give me a bit of scare. I dodged out of the way as I saw another one coming but the tip caught me in the side in the rib cage. That hurt too. I was unlucky; not quick enough. So when I saw a third one coming my way, I’d had enough. I grabbed his rifle by the barrel and with tremendous force pulled it out of his hand and threw it on the ground. It was a bloody stupid thing to do as there was bound to be a round of ammunition in the gun. I knew it because their rifles were meant to be loaded at all times. It might have triggered off and killed either one of us or one of my friends. What a stupid thing to do! Me and my temper. If I had killed a German guard that would have been certain death.

  My two pals ran to me and got between me and Jan. Jimmy was shouting at me, pretending to tell me off, and Laurie was holding me off with one hand and waving the other at Jan as though to say, ‘It’s OK, OK, I’ve got him.’ Jan looked as though he had had enough. He was thinking, ‘I’ve given him a fright, shown him who’s in charge, and his mates have got him now and are telling him off.’ I took deep breaths and then let go and felt Jimmy and Laurie holding me, taking control.

  Another guard arrived to take over from Jan. Jimmy and Laurie marched me away and told me what a bloody idiot I was. They were cross and said, ‘You could have got yourself killed.’ I looked over my shoulder and saw that Jan had retrieved his rifle and was checking the bayonet. I saw from his face and gestures that he was telling guard No 2 about what had happened. Telling him all about me and what I had done to the soup and to him. He disappeared and we went back to the hay barn to finish the job.

  It was painful trying to work, especially bending down and stretching up. My chest and ribs hurt and my shoulder felt as though it was coming out of its socket. I opened my tunic a little and rubbed the area through my vest. It was sore. There was bruising; it would be purple by morning. I carried on working, well, going through the motions. Afternoon turned into evening. There was another change of guard and we finished about seven and marched back to our camp.

  Nobody said anything on the way home but we all returned in a good mood, looking forward to something to eat, especially me. Anything to take the edge off the awful hunger. No breakfast and my lunch left on the ground in the farmyard so I hoped that there was a bit of Wurst that night.

  Word had got round about the incident, presumably from our cooks and as I entered the camp yard, some of the chaps who had returned earlier called out, ‘All right, Tyro, what you been up to, then?’ Some of the chaps used that nickname. Apparently Tyro was an Indian word for ‘Wait’ and I suppose I got it, not just because of my surname but because I had been known to get a bit impatient over things. One of the cooks joined in: ‘Fancy some soup, then, or shall I cut out the middle man and chuck it straight on the floor?’ They knew about the trouble with the guard and wanted to know more.

  ‘Go on, Tyro, what you do?’ But we were interrupted by the Unteroffizier calling us all to order. Everybody was told to go inside except me. ‘Hier bleiben,’ – stay here, he said. What was this? I was thinking. This looked like trouble. I was worried then because Jan had obviously reported me or word had got back to the Unteroffizier from the other guard. I didn’t know what was going to happen next. They were not going to forget it. I was going to be charged, wasn’t I? Charged and punished.

  The officer said, ‘Name und Nummer,’ – give me your name and number, which I did. ‘Private Charles Waite Number 10511,’ and added ‘Mein Herr.’ He handed me a postcard on which was typed in English ‘POW Charles Waite No 10511 is to be taken to the Kommandant at Headquarters under arrest on a charge of Incitement to Mutiny.’ Mutiny! I couldn’t believe it. That frightened the life out of me. My heart was pounding and I could hardly breathe. I felt as though I was going to faint because I knew, I knew what the penalty was for such a serious charge.

  Mutiny. In Germany in the First World War that meant a man could be shot so there was no reason for this lot to behave any differently. I was scared to death. I thought of my mother and of Lily, how upset they would be. All the family.

  The officer said, ‘Komm hier früh,’ – be here early, ‘um sechs Uhr morgens,’ – at six o’clock in the morning. He walked off sharply and I was left standing there alone. When I went in and told the others, my pals tried to reassure me, ‘Don’t worry, Chas. You’ll be back.’ And ‘You haven’t hurt anyone. It’s just to put the wind up you. Don’t worry about it.’ But I was worried, very worried. Incitement to Mutiny. Headquarters. Kommandant. You couldn’t forget that.

  I couldn’t get to sleep for thinking about it. I lay awake in my bunk listening to the strange noises in the night and worrying. Oh, God, spare me, I prayed. I was up well before the time and everybody wished me good luck. ‘See you later, Chas,’ and ‘Chin up, Tyro.’ I went and waited by the main entrance for the guard and it was Jan who was going to escort me to HQ.

  We set off walking towards Freystadt and arrived at the station about half an hour later, where a train was waiting. It was just an engine and two carriages and we headed for the first one. Nobody else was allowed on and I saw people – civilians, being directed to the rear carriage. A guard shouted, ‘Hier nicht,’ – not here, and pointed saying, ‘Im hinteren Wagen’ – the rear carriage. When I got inside I went to sit down but Jan indicated with his rifle for me to get up. I stood at the back while Jan made himself comfortable on a seat in the middle of the empty carriage.

  After about twenty minutes, the train stopped and we got off and went on another train with a single carriage. When we arrived at our destination, about an hour later, we had to climb down and cross the railway tracks to get to the main road. It was empty countryside for miles around. No signs or landmarks. We didn’t talk or communicate in any way as we walked side by side, a short distance apart. All the time I was frightened, thinking about the charge, where we were going and what was going to happen.

  Suddenly we came to a sharp bend and as we rounded it the barracks appeared ahead. The battalion headquarters were massive, thousands of German troops were stationed there. There was a field to the left with half a dozen small planes, which looked like observation aircraft. Jan led the way, marching smartly now, as we approached the main gates where two guards outside checked our papers, and opened the gates. As soon as we were through and standing in a small square, they locked the gates and we walked towards another set of gates. Two more guards repeated the palaver and we went through the gates into a larger square with buildings all around. I had no idea where I was. I didn’t recognise anything. I wondered if I would ever get out of there, back to my pals at the camp.

  Jan asked a guard something, probably where the guardhouse was, and the guard pointed across the way. The place was noisy and busy with people coming and going. As I stood there, I felt very small and very afraid. I was nothing. Nobody. Off we went again with Jan pushing me forward to the entrance to a building and up some wooden steps. We went along a corridor and up more steps into a huge hall with high ceilings and a beautiful polished floor. There wasn’t any furniture in the room and I felt even more afraid in these surroundings. Still not saying a word to me, Jan pushed me against a wall, and I stood to attention automatically.

  At the far end was an enormous framed picture of Hitler, his eyes staring straight at me. Behind me was Göring. I could just see his face over my shoulder if I turned my head slightly and that made me feel even more nervous. Who was going to come out of the door the other side and along that corridor? I would be going through there any minute. Somebody was going to come out and call my name. Me, all on my own in this place. I could have done with a friend right then. I was wondering if I would see Laurie and Jimmy or Sid and Heb again. Had they finished work and were having lunch? Soup again, no doubt. Maybe they were having a crafty smoke behind the stables.

  It felt a long time standing to attention but it was probably about five minutes when Jan decided he had had enough. He was st
anding to the side of me, his rifle propped up against the wall. Now I had the feeling all along that Jan was a bit of an idiot. Fancy leaving your rifle propped up when guarding a prisoner for a start – and in a place like this. He walked round the front of me and said, ‘Bleiben hier. Ja.’ – stay here, yes. I understood and replied ‘Ja’. He walked off and away down the steps and disappeared. I could hear voices and he was asking somebody about a drink – ‘Zu trinken,’ and if there was a canteen – ‘Wo ist die Kantine? He didn’t come back so I just remained standing there on my own waiting for something to happen.

  Suddenly two German officers appeared from the other end and they walked towards the opening where their offices were, I imagined. Those boots again, with those steel tips and heels, which went clack, clack, clacking across the polished wooden floor. To give them due, they were the smartest looking officers, and their uniforms were way above anything I had ever seen. Immaculate, everything beautifully polished and starched. They really were just the ticket. One was wearing the Iron Cross on a ribbon round his neck, and there wasn’t a crease in his uniform. They disappeared for a little while and then I heard the boots again. They came back and one said something to the other one.

  Oh, God, what was that? Iron Cross came over to speak to me and I was taken aback. He said in absolutely perfect English. ‘Who are you and what are you doing here?’ and I thought, Thank God, an English man! You could always tell a German trying to speak English by their pronunciation of zee instead of th as in the; but there was no trace of that. It was laughable. I was so relieved and then immediately felt frightened again. If he was English and turned German I was in serious trouble. He could be really hostile to any fellow Englishman if he had turned against his own country. If they were going to try me then things could get much worse for me.