Rosie's War

by Rosemary Say

  ‘I’d love to but I’m a bit worried about what will happen.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Pat. You don’t have to go into a trance. We’re doing one tomorrow after dinner.’

  So I went along. Quite aside from my natural curiosity, my attitude was one of ‘you never know’, and it would be nice to believe I could be in touch with my family, even if only the dead ones. The room was lit by just one candle and there were about a dozen women taking part. They all seemed to be elderly apart from us. No one took on the role of medium. This was probably just as well: a disembodied voice and ectoplasm in that greenhouse atmosphere might have rendered some of the more easily impressed women quite hysterical.

  I found it all rather predictable but the joggings of the table produced emotional responses from many of those present. Towards the end of the session the cards were read by a woman who looked as though she was about ninety. The message she deciphered barely made sense to me but most seemed to find it all very significant and encouraging. I was disillusioned with the whole affair and never went back, much to Olga’s disappointment.

  Fortune telling was also extremely popular and it was always very optimistic. Perhaps it had to be so. After all, a palmist in a wartime prison camp could hardly refuse to continue her prophecies just because of what she thought she saw in the hand before her. Olga persuaded me to have my palm read by a sweet old lady from Provence. But there was little substance to it. It was all very general and upbeat. ‘Tout va bien, tout va bien,’ I remember her repeating.

  By the autumn, the focus of interest for many was the show that we were hoping to put on at Christmas in the Casino. Sofka arranged a meeting to form a dramatic society and around fifty of us turned up. Inevitably, we spent a long time arguing about what we should stage.

  ‘What about Aristophanes’s Lysistrata?’ I suggested as we went round in circles thinking of plays. This suggestion produced a mass of blank faces.

  ‘Look,’ I went on. ‘The cast is entirely female and it’s all about a conspiracy of women who refuse to have sex with their husbands until the men stop fighting.’

  ‘It’s a classic tale of female survival,’ Frida added enthusiastically. ‘It’s really appropriate for the camp and very funny.’

  But we were virtually alone in our choice of play. In fact I don’t remember anyone apart from Frida even discussing it. The talk went quickly back to more jolly, predictable Christmas choices and at last we all agreed on Ali Baba. Sofka was appointed director of the production, mainly in view of her years spent as Laurence Olivier’s secretary and helper before the war. We reasoned she must have picked up some tips along the way. My room-mate Penelope cheerfully agreed to provide all the scenery. As a former teacher of art, she had been allowed to set up a studio in the Casino and had gathered around her many budding sculptors and painters (and some pretty good professionals as well).

  I volunteered to work on the small committee that was going to write the show. We had our first meeting a couple of days later and quickly established our intentions. We wanted to insert plenty of English and French songs and ditties with double meanings and a few of Shula’s Jewish songs. We wondered how much would be allowed.

  ‘Do you think the censor will pass “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary”?’

  ‘We could try,’ I said. ‘What about “Roll Out the Barrel”? Perhaps he’ll miss the bit about having the Huns on the run.’

  There were hoots of laughter at this. The meeting was fun and we had a good outline of the show by the end of it. Nevertheless, I went to only one more. My heart was never really in it: by this time I was planning to escape and I fervently hoped that I wouldn’t be around for the actual performance. I let the others fight over the details of who would star in what scene, which costumes could be produced and how they would light and stage the whole production.

  It was as we were leaving that first meeting that I overheard someone making a disparaging comment in French. It was directed at Frida and me. It was to the effect that ‘those English’ always think they know best but they don’t. This wasn’t the first time that I had heard dark mutterings that the ‘proper’ Englishwomen were receiving preferential treatment from the Germans. I had heard similar remarks after our first journey to Besançon, when it had been claimed that we had been given the best seats on the train. Perhaps my friendly reception from the Kommandant and his officers at work was a reflection of this? They had all seemed suitably impressed that my father was a retired Lieutenant-Commander of the Royal Navy.

  I gained a new perspective on this matter from a letter I received years later from Madeleine White, who talked about a side of the camp that I had never experienced. Madeleine’s mother married an English Tommy after the First World War and they separated some months after her birth. There was very little money on her mother’s side. Madeleine visited her father’s relatives in England quite frequently but was essentially French in her outlook. She was interned with her mother, who felt she could never ask for anything and consequently did not get any of the better shoes or clothes as they became available. Madeleine found that the larger rooms went to the ‘real English,’ she wrote, not to the ones ‘like us, who know little of English life and customs, and have not been brought up in English schools’.

  If we were treated more favourably by our captors I was certainly unaware of it at the time. I could not have believed that persistent troublemakers such as Frida and myself could have been given preferential treatment. Just the opposite! After all, I was never allowed a trip into town at either of the camps to see the dentist or doctor. Indeed, we were convinced that we had been put in the quarters on the top floor of the hotel precisely to lessen the possibility of our making the kind of trouble at which we had become expert at Besançon.

  If the passing months engendered quarrels and jealousies amongst us, they also produced for many a growing lack of concentration or an inability to see a project or discussion through to the end. This is probably the bugbear of every prisoner. I found that the hours began to lag for me, regardless of the various activities that were on offer.

  It would also depress me to see the nutters in their obsessive and pathetic wanderings around the park. One woman would continually recite Shakespeare. Another reverted to childhood, speaking in a baby’s voice. Battered by life in late middle age, they found our prison a comfort rather than a challenge. Such people would be easily recognized, I imagine, in any sort of prison. They were apprehensive of release, with its demands on the individual and the withdrawal of comforting rules and regulations. As they trailed their paper bags, talking and singing to themselves, letting go by the board the basic ideas of cleanliness and personal care, they were neither unhappy nor scared. I hated to see the German soldiers laughing at them.

  It was vital not to sink into the lifestyle of such women. ‘What does it matter?’ they would cry. ‘Just look after yourself and get what you can.’ The motto of the camp for many seemed to be ‘It could be much worse.’ Indeed it could. Remembering back to the days of Besançon, this place was better fitted out than many ordinary homes. With a bathroom across our corridor shared with just one other room, we were a long way from our former conditions with a single cold-water tap serving perhaps twenty inmates in a bug-ridden dormitory with open toilets in the courtyard.

  But how and when would we ever get out? The news in October that Moscow was apparently on the brink of falling to the Germans was particularly depressing for me. I had never believed that Churchill would make peace with Hitler, even in the likely event that the Red Army was defeated. If that were the case, the war might simply grind to a stalemate. The appalling thought occurred to me that we could be stuck in this stifling atmosphere for perhaps years. I began to think more and more of escaping.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Thoughts of Leaving

  ‘What about disguising ourselves as French workmen?’

  ‘You’re mad, Shula,’ I said. ‘What about your bust? In case you haven’t noticed,
French workmen don’t have one.’

  ‘Well, I think we’d still have a good chance of reaching the border without getting caught. If we could only get out.’

  ‘How are we going to get there? Switzerland’s about fifty miles away.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, Patachoun. There must be trains running to it. Once we’re there we could get across. I don’t suppose tracking down escaped English girls is going to be the highest priority for the German Army.’

  I was curled up on my bunk one afternoon arguing with Shula about escaping. Her logic seemed to be impeccable. While we knew we were fortunate to have a Kommandant who was too old for service on the Russian Front and who wanted no trouble, it was a different thing to slip away from under his nose. There would be nothing dramatic like being shot at dawn if we were caught. But as sure as sure, we would be working in a German munitions factory with other forced labour prisoners. He had to maintain his authority. You can’t be made a fool of.

  We seemed to speculate endlessly as the weeks went by. Sometimes it was Shula who was optimistic, sometimes me. The Kommandant and his officers were always reminding us how difficult it was to escape from any German POW camp. And we always got stuck on the question of where we should make for once we were outside. It was particularly galling that practically all the other Commonwealth citizens had been released by the summer. As I wrote to my sister Joan: ‘ … why weren’t we born in Ottawa, Honey? Or even Sydney would have got me out long ago … ’

  My vague plans were made real one lovely autumn day as I was walking around the grounds with Frida. We had often talked about the possibilities of escape but, as with Shula, our discussions had never got very far. Until now, when she made a surprising revelation.

  ‘If we could somehow get out of the camp,’ she told me, ‘I have contacts who may be able to get us across the Swiss border. But it would mean going back to Besançon, of all places. Are you interested in coming with me, Pat?’

  ‘Of course I am. I’d do practically anything to get out. But why Besançon?’

  ‘Do you remember hearing about the dentist there who’d congratulate British patients on the latest RAF raids as he filled their teeth?’

  ‘Yes, but no one knew if he was serious or not.’

  ‘Well, he is. I’ve had it confirmed that he’s willing to help escapees.’

  I gulped. I was slightly taken aback by the suddenness of it all. But I had made my decision a long time ago: I was desperate to get out. So, by the time the curfew whistle was sounded we had already worked out the beginnings of a plan.

  We agreed on a number of things. First, we needed money. We would write home, asking our parents to send money orders, and we’d start selling our possessions and Red Cross supplies – especially the cigarettes. Second, we would inform no one else of our plans unless absolutely necessary. Words slipped out inadvertently and they could easily be picked up by the professional gossips and slanderers who roamed the camp. Third, we would need to get hold of our passports (to get into Switzerland) and false documents for travel within France (the dentist in Besançon could, we hoped, provide papers). Finally, we would keep an open mind on the actual method of escape. Perhaps some of the French workmen who came daily into the camp would be able to help us here. The important thing was to be ready to go. At once, if necessary.

  Over the next few days, therefore, we began to look in earnest for different ways of escaping. The tenor of our lives now changed: we were no longer inventing mad schemes that would end in giggles and laughter or going round in circles and ending up frustrated. We scoured the wire fencing to find the most suitable place to climb through without wire cutters.

  We discussed approaching one of the workmen. This proved to be much more difficult than we had at first thought. There was a worrying amount of double-dealing and spying going on in Vittel. No one was confident that those men who proclaimed anti-German feelings were really sincere. In fact, the Kommandant boasted that he had a whole network of spies both inside and outside the camp. We couldn’t be sure if he was telling the truth. I had made friends with the small team of French prisoners who worked in the office with me but most of them were family men who made it very clear that they did not want to do more than their allotted shift.

  From what she had told me about the dentist in Besançon, I guessed that Frida had Communist contacts outside the camp who could help us. I never asked her about them and Frida didn’t volunteer information. Curiously, this was something that was never at any point to be discussed in our many decades of friendship after the war.

  I have often wondered why Frida asked me to go with her and not one of her close political friends such as Penelope, Olga or Sofka. They would certainly have been more in tune with her. While I liked Frida a lot we were very different. She was nearly ten years older than me and a far more reflective, thinking person. I knew she considered me something of an undependable flibbertigibbet. Nevertheless, we turned out to be a good team over the coming months. I never did find out why she chose me.

  The search for an escape route lasted a couple of weeks but without success. Our enthusiasm and energy rapidly dried up as we came into November. The weather turned cold and we began to get disheartened. Perhaps we had left it too late? The air was freezing and the first snows not far away. To make matters worse, my old trouble with bronchitis had started up again. Whoever heard of a prisoner escaping with a hacking cough?

  One day a band of workmen arrived to put the various hotels’ central heating in order for the coming winter. On our floor we had a cheerful, elderly man called Alain. He spoke good sailor’s English. He had served in the merchant fleet for years and spent the first day gaily recounting stories of the dockland bars and brothels in places such as Tilbury, Southampton, and Liverpool. That night Frida and I decided that we would confide in him.

  ‘I’d like to get back to London before the war ends,’ I said to him the next morning as he was mending the radiator in our room.

  He had just finished telling me a long story about a visit he had made there in the early 1920s. I mentioned my wish in a very offhand way. I didn’t want to commit myself. His eyes gleamed.

  ‘If Mademoiselle really wants to go,’ he said, ‘I can help you. There is a sewer pipe at the back of this hotel. It will lead you outside the camp. I know it well. I have worked on the sewers here.’

  My heart sank at the prospect of struggling though miles of filthy tunnels which were probably full of rats. Still, it was an idea. ‘And then what?’ I asked.

  ‘Very simple. It is three or four days’ march to Belfort. Then you are near the Swiss border. I have a brother there who will help you.’

  I wasn’t very enthusiastic. Nevertheless, I discussed it later with Frida on our regular pre-curfew walk around the grounds.

  ‘Great,’ she said, after I had told her Alain’s plan. ‘We crawl through the filthy sewers and then trudge for three days in our stinking, wet clothes across the countryside into the foothills of the Juras. We’re escapees, Pat, not martyrs.’

  We both burst out laughing at the absurdity of the idea. We’d have to think of something else. The next afternoon our money orders from home came through at last. Mine arrived with a typical note from my father advising me not to be extravagant in the camp but to save my money for later. Little did he know how economical I had been. I had been reduced to chewing the sour regulation loaves, as everything we could sell had been advertised on the exchange and mart board. Even my beautiful ski suit and boots had gone. We had about 1,000 francs between us (almost £250 today). We thought that this would be enough to last a week or so. I approached our friend again the following day.

  ‘We need to go soon, Alain, or the weather will be totally against us. But we’re not keen on the sewers idea. Is there no other way of getting out?’

  He grinned slyly. ‘My friend is working this week in the Casino. Maybe he gives you some keys. You hide there at night, cut the wires and go on the early train. He tells me
there is no control on it.’

  I rushed to tell Frida. This seemed promising, at the very least. Why hadn’t we thought of the Casino before? For some reason we had always ignored that building on our previous scouting missions. As soon as we could we walked over there and began to search around. The Casino was part of the spa complex and looked on to the park and our hotel. The rear of the building abutted the barbed-wire perimeter fence and a main road beyond it. We discovered that the small outhouse at the rear was now being used as a coalbunker. From a distance it looked as if the barbed wire had been disturbed, probably to allow the coal lorry to get through.

  Was this really the weak point in the camp security where we could try to get out? If it was, it would mean spending the night in the outhouse and cutting the barbed wire at the moment of changeover for the sentries. Once we got through the perimeter fence we would be on the road to the station and the town. The main gate to the camp and the guardroom would be on our left. So we wouldn’t have to go through them from the camp itself but we would still have to pass right by. With any luck we would be taken for French workers. We would need two keys from our helper: one for the front door of the Casino and one for the door leading to the outhouse.

  We were both incredibly excited by this discovery. We would go for it. We walked around the grounds talking and planning. We knew there was no problem being out after curfew, as we had often slipped out in the evening. We needed someone to cover our tracks after we had escaped. She would have to stay the night in the coal bunker with us. We decided to ask Penelope. We explained to her that once we were through, we needed her to take the wire cutter, fasten the window and make her way back to the Casino, locking the door of the outhouse behind her. She would have to wait until the night curfew was lifted, unlock the door of the Casino and slip back to her bedroom at the Grand Hotel in time for the morning roll call. Alain would pick up the keys and the wire cutter from her. She readily agreed.