Some of the boxes were open and we could see hundreds of these jet black biscuits identical to Spratt’s dog biscuits, inside and scattered along the tracks. We didn’t know what they were. Some men grabbed some and stuffed them into their pockets, presumably to keep for later.
As we helped to clear the boxes and dump them at the side of the line, we looked more closely at the biscuits.
‘What d’you think, Jimmy?’ Sid asked.
‘Don’t touch ’em.’
‘Why not?’
‘Just look at them,’ said Laurie. ‘They’re all black. Horrible.’
‘I’ve eaten charcoal biscuits,’ said Sid. ‘They were black and horrible but they got rid of my wind.’
‘We’ve eaten worse,’ I said. I didn’t like the look of them either but I was starving and was tempted.
‘No. Not worth the risk. Could be anything,’ Jimmy said. So that was it. Jimmy knew best.
We had no idea what they were made from or their intended use and we agreed not to touch them, however hungry we were. If I had been on my own like some of the other chaps, the loners or those with only one mate to look out for them, then perhaps I would have tried one. Just one, to see what it tasted like. But I didn’t. Common sense prevailed. We hadn’t come this far to go and do something stupid now.
Because when we woke the next morning we found five of our men had passed away in the night. We knew it was the biscuits. I hadn’t heard a thing but others said they had been disturbed by noises, the sound of somebody retching and vomiting. Two of the dead were friends from our company, one the vicar’s son who had stood next but one to me in the back row of the camp photo. What a waste!
After another day’s work we were on the move again. Before we left we had the chance to bury our two chaps and help bury another nearby. The other two men had to be left behind where they died. Laurie and I managed to get hold of a fork and spade and we dug two shallow graves as best we could in a woody area just near the road. The dead men still wore their identity dog tags round their necks so Sid broke each one in two, took one half and left the other with the body. We lifted our friends into the graves and covered them with earth and rubble. With each spade full of soil we prayed for their souls to rest in peace; and silently thanked our lucky stars for being alive.
We were sad leaving our comrades behind. Sid carried those dog tags back home with him and sent them on to the War Office.
Not long after this, Sid collapsed.
* * *
It was about this time, at my lowest point, that I sat down one night and wrote my God Help Us letter about all the things that had happened to us since leaving our camp. Sid had been taken off to one of the stalags nearby and we were now just three – Jimmy, Laurie and me. Who would be next? All I could hear were sirens wailing, planes droning and the sound of not so distant explosions. I felt the ground trembling under my feet. Was this it? Was this what the end of the world was like? ‘God help us,’ I said.
Jimmy lent me a stub of pencil and somebody gave me a sheet of lined note paper. We were all really scared and desperate. Would we survive this and get home and see our families? Would I ever see my mother or hold Lily in my arms again? I thought I would probably die out there and not be buried, even in a shallow grave. Perhaps somebody would read my note if they found my body.
It was like putting a message in a bottle and throwing it out to sea. You hope somebody will find it, read it and understand what happened. It was a cry for help but I didn’t expect anybody to answer. So I wrote down my thoughts, things that had happened up till then; it wasn’t meant to be an accurate record of everything. It’s hard to make sense of it all. You’re so helpless. You do anything to ease to the pain. If people knew what it was like maybe it would never happen again. No sons, brothers or fathers should have to go through this misery and suffering.
I have quoted parts of this letter before but it ends:
Easter Sunday [1 April 1]
Much worse now. 3 have died. Sid collapsed. Taken to stalag. Rations very poor. We are working. Very, very little chance of Red Cross.
War. News is good. We are all hoping it will finish.
God help us.
I folded it up, placed it inside my testament, the gift from the padre, and put it back in my coat pocket.
Just as we had seen planes overhead dropping leaflets, we saw different ones that night; they were reconnaissance planes going overhead. The sky was lit up and we watched them pass overhead, white clouds descending from them, turning into a silver glittering cascade. Wonderful! They were dropping tin foil strips which blocked radar devices and put off the Germans who were firing at them. Clever and rather beautiful among all that noise and ugliness.
We continued on The March with no end in sight. We didn’t know where we were exactly. Everywhere looked the same. Dust, debris and broken people. Places, dates and times of the next events are difficult to remember. There were no signposts to our liberation. It just happened one day, without warning, probably towards the end of April, early May.
We were walking as usual along another endless road to nowhere. I was at the back of the column with Jimmy and Laurie when everybody suddenly stopped walking. It took a few seconds to realise we had come to a standstill. Word came down the line that we were going off the road down into a sand pit.
I was scared. ‘God, in heaven!’ I said to Jimmy, ‘You know what that means,’ thinking they were driving us all down there to shoot us.
‘Only thing to do is to bury yourself in the sand,’ he said.
There was nothing else to do but move slowly on ahead; nobody wanted to go fast. We edged off the road down a sandy bank until the road was higher than us. Everybody was spread out and I couldn’t see what was going on. The men near us were panicking and some of the fellows had already started burying themselves in the sand. It was all a confusion. And then it went quiet.
I lay there with my face almost in the sand. The only sound I heard was my own breathing rasping in and out, in and out. Nothing else. Suddenly somebody was shouting. I looked up. Some of our fellows appeared above us on the road, waving and shouting, ‘It’s all right, they’ve all gone.’ They shouted again, ‘It’s OK. It’s OK.’ Laurie, Jimmy and I got to our feet and looked at each other in disbelief.
‘What’s going on?’ I said.
‘Only way to find out,’ and Jimmy started scrambling back onto the road and Laurie and I followed.
‘Hey, look at that.’ There were abandoned rifles on the ground and two machine guns lying in the middle of the road. Not a single German guard to be seen. They had vanished. I stood looking around me, confused rather than elated at this sudden turn of events. I heard the sound of an engine and turned to see what was coming down the road. God, what now? Should I grab a machine gun and get ready to defend myself rather than just stand there like a sitting duck? I didn’t have the energy to do anything but wait and see what it was.
An American jeep drew up with a squeal of tyres beside the men up ahead. Three officers in a four-seater started talking to our chaps and gesturing down the road. Word came back down to us, ‘Keep on up the road and you’ll meet their company.’
So that was it. The end had finally come. Just like that. The Germans ran off and left us behind. The Americans arrived and took charge.
I remember some things so clearly and odd details are fixed in my mind for ever but the rest – well, it was all a long time ago. I didn’t feel any great sense of relief; I was too stunned to say anything. I had kept going for so long and now all I wanted to do was lie down in the middle of the road and never get up. Jimmy put a hand on my shoulder and pushed me gently forward. ‘Come on, Charlie. We’re nearly there.’ I forced myself to go on even though my legs were about to give way. Laurie was in a bad way, too, so we held on to each other and limped along behind the others. ‘Nearly there. Nearly there.’
As we made our way that last mile I could see we were heading for some sort of military base. Ther
e was a sea of men in fields either side behind the perimeter fence. German prisoners were one side and the British, and everybody else, on the other. I think we had arrived at a German Air Force base, now under the authority of the United States Army Air Force. I looked up and saw planes circling overhead waiting to land. As we entered the gates there were lots of American service men rushing about directing people as they were brought in on foot and by truck. There were able-bodied, walking wounded and sick men on make-shift stretchers everywhere.
People came out to help us and we moved towards the entrance to a large three-storey building. I remember there was a wide staircase inside and some of our group were being led to the upper floors. There were rows of men everywhere lying on the bare floor, on blankets and overcoats. Pale faced boys with dead eyes looked up at me. Laurie and I couldn’t walk any further and we stayed at the bottom of the stairs. We saw a space and helped each other towards it, stepping over and around other men. Once I stopped walking, I collapsed in a heap. That was it. My legs had finally given up.
I felt myself sinking like a deep-sea diver underwater. Waves of pain swept over me in every bone and every muscle in my body. I just sank down and down into a sort of semi-conscious state. I was asleep, aware of every sound and movement, but unable to move. I was physically and mentally exhausted and I knew I was safe. Somebody else was responsible for me now. I didn’t have to worry about anything ever again.
We stayed there a week or so, I think, maybe longer. I wasn’t in any fit state to count the days. People were coming and going around me all the time. I heard voices, felt hands, tasted food. To be honest, there were so many of us there in need of help all they could do was keep us dry and fed and then move us out as quickly as possible. I remember an American woman feeding me bits of white bread, so soft in my mouth, like eating cake and there were tiny biscuits which just dissolved on my tongue. Like baby food; and that’s what I was – a baby being fed by its mother.
When I was stronger I was able to get up and have a wash, which was pretty basic but better than nothing. I think I must have borrowed a razor because I had my first shave for four months, I looked in the mirror over the basin and saw this tired old man looking back at me. I was glad my mother couldn’t see me now. A stinking, flea-bitten, lice-ridden bundle of skin and bones. A walking skeleton. I was ashamed of myself and what I had become. What would people think? I dreaded being seen like this by anybody who knew me.
As for Lily, I thought it would be better if she married one of her dancing partners. I knew she had men friends and been out with some of them; she had told me so in her letters. I wouldn’t hold her to any promises we made before the war. What had I done during five years of war? I wasn’t returning a hero. I didn’t have any medals to show or tales of bravery to tell. I had nothing to offer. I was a rag and bone man fit only for the rubbish heap.
But I wanted to go home more than anything. Men were on the move all around. There was noise and activity day and night, lights flashing, planes landing and taking off and vehicles coming and going. It would be my turn soon. It must have been a nightmare for the Americans to sort it all out. French and Dutch companies were being dispatched home and I remember a fellow Brit next to me complaining, ‘We should be going home before them Frogs.’
It was 8 May, 1945, my 26th birthday, and how did I celebrate? I climbed half way up an American tank so I could hear Churchill’s Victory in Europe speech on the tank radio. VE Day. I will never forget it. What a wonderful birthday present!
I was still very weak and somebody gave me a lift up so I could get closer to the set to listen. How wonderful to hear our Prime Minister announce, ‘The German war is therefore at an end’ and for somebody to thank us for what we had done, ‘Our gratitude to our splendid Allies goes forth from all our hearts in this Island and throughout the British Empire.’
A big cheer went up when Churchill mentioned the United States and their ‘overwhelming power and resources’. And when I heard, ‘Finally almost the whole world was combined against the evil-doers, who are now prostrate before us,’ I cried. I was glad that I was no longer a slave and had to prostrate myself before the enemy.
Eventually a load of us, including Laurie and me (I don’t know what happened to Jimmy) were moved by truck to an airfield just outside Berlin. We were going home via Brussels. We boarded a Dakota which normally carried parachutists so there were no conventional seats. About 50 of us had to perch on these wooden benches each side of the plane. We landed at Brussels and I expected we would get a shower and some decent food but we didn’t. All we had were thin cucumber sandwiches on white bread, and a couple of hours kip sitting on benches in a waiting area.
Early next morning Laurie and I boarded a Lancaster bomber for the last leg of our journey. Comfort rating – zero stars. This time there was a steel bar to sit on in the body of the plane for over 2½ hours. The noise was dreadful. The crew were Australians. Nice fellows. Laurie was put up front in the cockpit, as he was short, next to the navigator who was keen on giving us a running commentary. He wanted us to know what places we were going over, what altitude we were doing and our ETA. As it was so noisy he told Laurie the information and got him to write it down on bits of paper, which were passed back to us to read. That was good. We cheered when we heard we had just gone over the Romney Marshes and Lydd. I’m afraid Laurie and I were still in our old uniforms (same filth, fleas and lice) and I was scratching, Laurie was scratching and I expect everybody else was, including the Aussie crew, by the end of the flight.
We landed at Horsham – back on familiar territory. Not much had changed since I had been stationed there a lifetime ago when I was a fresh-faced young conscript. As we descended from the aircraft and walked off the tarmac onto the field, some of the chaps got down on their hands and knees and kissed the grass. Back on English soil. I didn’t do it; I couldn’t see the point. All that mattered to me was to get back to Barking to see the family as soon as possible.
We were desperate to go home and hoped that we would have a proper clean up and get through the paperwork for our repatriation as soon as possible. It wasn’t asking much was it, after all we had been through. No delays, please. I thought I might still be able to make it home in time for tea and surprise everybody. I hadn’t a clue what my family knew about my whereabouts. Even if there was a bit of a delay and I arrived at midnight, I didn’t care and I didn’t suppose my family would either.
We were escorted to the camp buildings, a group of huts including admin, canteen and some of the officers’ quarters. I expected some sort of welcome home. It is hard to believe now how we were treated. I am furious to this day, thinking about it. Nobody seemed to have a clue about us and what we had been through.
I don’t remember how many of us had landed at the camp but I do remember that it was a Friday afternoon. Why do I remember this? Because the office personnel who were mostly civilians said, ‘I’m sorry but we can’t deal with you now. We don’t work weekends.’ I couldn’t believe it. We all protested but they wouldn’t budge: ‘We’ll see you Monday morning. And then you’ll be on your way.’
What a way to treat men returning from war. I wondered what their war had been like; pretty cushy, I imagined, compared to ours. They refused to stay in spite of our pleas to make an exception for us. ‘No exceptions.’ So that was it. We had no paperwork, no travel warrants, no telegrams to send home. Nothing. They wouldn’t wait to process us so we could get home as soon as possible. Five years I had waited. Some of the lads just walked out. They were so desperate that they started walking home but they didn’t get far and they returned later as they had no money.
Nobody had any kind words for us, just directions to a tent. ‘Take a blanket and your bed,’ they said. Oh, no, not those bloody biscuits again. The very same canvas cushions I had slept on five years back in the furniture store in East Grinstead where my army career had started. What did we get to eat? A couple of slices of bread and marge and some lukewarm soup. No
change there.
We hung around all weekend until the office opened again on Monday morning. We went to the Quartermaster’s store, which was packed to the roof with uniforms of all shapes and sizes. They must have been dealing with a huge number of returning soldiers as the shelves were well stocked. We had showers, threw all our old clothes away, including underwear (what was left) and put on our new uniforms which we had been issued with. Mine didn’t fit; everything hung loose on me as I had no arms or legs to speak of. Now I was ready to face the world again.
I was sorry to say goodbye to my mother’s boots but they were worn out. Not surprising considering what they had been through. The new ones may have been smart but they were hard on my poor feet which were still in a bad way. It seemed incredible at the time to have all this new stuff when we were going home but, of course, we were still in the army and serving soldiers. I had quite a while to wait until I was officially demobbed.
At last we were dealt with and I signed papers, ticked boxes and sent my field telegram. That was funny because mine arrived about an hour and a half after I did. We were given travel warrants for use on the railway but not on the buses so if your home wasn’t near the station, you would have to walk or hope that somebody would give you a lift. We weren’t given so much as a penny to put in our pocket.
When I eventually got home to Movers Lane, I found my parents had moved. Some homecoming.
15
Back to Life
‘What’s two or three miles more to a man who’s walked over a thousand?’ you might be thinking but I didn’t want to walk a step further than I had to. I wanted to go straight home to Barking but the Corporal issuing the travel passes said, ‘Ilford Station is the best I can do. Not far to walk, mate.’
Survivor of the Long March Page 19
