Airborne

by Robert Radcliffe

  ‘No, they’re guessing, but we must find a way to get out.’

  ‘It’s impossible.’

  A pitcher of water and two stale crusts had been left in his absence. He crawled to the jug and drank greedily. Then he rose painfully to his feet and began searching the cell. He found nothing but cigarette ends and a piece of wire. Then he began examining the window. It was small, perhaps two feet square, and set high, well above eye level. It had no glass, but two vertical bars of wrought iron cemented into the sill.

  ‘We have our blades.’ Theo plucked at the stitching around his collar. ‘The hacksaw blades, Fortunato. Come on, we’ll take turns.’

  ‘But they’ll hear. Anyway I can’t reach, I’m too short.’

  ‘Then stand on my back.’

  They tried. By stretching on tiptoe Theo could just reach the bars with one hand and saw the blade back and forth with the other. But it was exhausting work and he was soon numb with exertion and gasping for breath. He then had to crouch on all fours while Picchi stood on his back and stretched up to saw. Repeatedly they had to stop, sometimes for minutes on end, when they heard footsteps in the courtyard or voices in the corridor. And all the while the sun’s shadow crept across the floor. After a while, Picchi gave up and returned to sitting in his corner. Drenched in sweat, Theo too slumped to the floor for a breather. Evening had come, the building fallen quiet. He tried the piece of wire on his handcuffs but it bent and broke. The cuffs were old, however, and improperly fastened, and by twisting his hands he felt he might just get them off, albeit while losing some flesh. Spitting on his wrist he began working at it.

  Then the door crashed open.

  ‘You!’ The guards pointed. ‘Out!’

  ‘No!’

  They dragged Picchi up and out into the corridor and a moment later the door slammed and all Theo could hear were his friend’s anguished cries as they hauled him away. Silence fell for some minutes, then he heard commotion in the courtyard: marching feet, shouted orders, a lengthy announcement. Jumping to the bars, he hauled himself to eye level in time to see the firing squad take aim, hear the shout ‘Sparate!’ and watch the explosion of a dozen rifles.

  He sawed. Blind to the pain, he wrenched the handcuffs from his wrists, retrieved both blades, reached up to the window and sawed, long into the night, long after his throat was burning up from thirst, the sweat was pouring down his neck, and his fingers were in shreds and slippery with blood. The bar was thick, but the iron poor and the blades keen. As one grew too hot to hold he swapped it for the other; as his right arm tired from hanging he turned his back to the wall and hung from his left. Some time around midnight he was still feebly sawing when he heard a sudden ‘clink’ and looked up to see the bar was severed. Still hanging from the other he then set about levering the broken one aside to create a gap. Finally it was done and, pausing only to check all was quiet outside, he jumped up one final time and wriggled out into the night.

  It took him another hour to work his way back, cross-country, to the hill by the village. Moving swiftly but stealthily, keeping to high ground and pausing at the slightest noise, he reached it undetected, soon locating the juniper bush where they’d hidden. His pack was where he’d buried it. He retrieved it, drank water and ate pemmican, heaved the pack on to his shoulders and set off once more. The weather was overcast, with a cold wind blowing scud over the mountaintops. He had his flashlight, maps, food and water. And twenty-four hours to the rendezvous. By dawn he’d covered ten miles and reached the spa town of Contersi Termi where the fast-flowing headwaters of the River Sele rose. On the outskirts he stole men’s working clothes from a line and fruit from an orchard. Avoiding the town he descended to the riverbank and began searching among the overhanging trees and mud banks until he found what he wanted, which was a canoa di pesca, a canoe-like fishing skiff beached among the reeds. Throwing his pack inside, he picked up the paddle and pushed off into the current.

  It took all day. At first the going was wild and headlong with torrents of fast-flowing melt-water crashing in fearsome white rapids over the rocks and boulders. The canoa pitched and tipped alarmingly, repeatedly shipping water until he had to land and empty it. Gradually, guiding it with the paddle as he had learned in childhood, he descended the rapids to wider sections of quieter water. By late afternoon he was in the lower reaches, passing towns like Persano and Torrette, the river widening, turning brackish and slow, and he had to paddle harder. Finally at Ponte Barizzo he reached the lowland plain leading to the sea and with darkness falling he beached the skiff and set off on foot. The ground was open farmland, flat and exposed and criss-crossed with dykes and irrigation ditches. He kept to the riverbank which, though winding, was more wooded. Another five miles and he could smell the sea, and slowed his pace, probing cautiously forward, pausing to listen, advancing again. Then his boots trod into sand, he heard the crashing of surf and glimpsed the flashing of a light. He knelt, watching the light, but it was no submarine, it was a navigation mark, showing the point where the Sele joined the sea. He’d arrived. He sank to the dunes, taking cover beside a jumble of rocks, and fumbled for his flashlight.

  *

  He stayed until dawn. No one came. No third aqueduct party, nobody from Daly’s missing team. And no submarine. Every hour on the hour he pointed his flashlight out to sea and signalled three dots and a dash, morse code for ‘V’. No answering signal ever came. In a pouch in his pocket were his written notes of the aqueduct operation, the retreat and capture of the two escaping groups, details of the two missing ones, his arrest by Blackshirts, and the murder of Fortunato Picchi. He also had Harry Boulter’s letter to his wife. Had the submarine come he would have handed them all to its captain. And stayed on board for the return to Valetta? Or taken the dinghy ashore again for the mission to Rome? He didn’t know which, for it was a question he didn’t dare ask himself. Now there was no option, so no need to ask it. Burying his report and army pack in the sand, he slipped Smith’s packet into the pocket of his stolen clothes and crept away into the trees.

  CHAPTER 13

  Following my day-release with Inge Brandt in Bergen I return to Stalag XIB that evening together with the much-needed medical supplies. Driving in through those gates is a depressing moment, not just because XIB is such an appalling dump, but also because today is the first day I’ve spent away from everyone since leaving England, and it has made an indelible impression: the open air, the leafy town, the spotless hospital, Inge’s quiet intensity, the drive in her car, the dreadful shock of the camp in the forest. Our strangers’ embrace. I feel a strong urge to reflect upon it all in private, write it down even, but there’s no privacy to be found in a POW camp, and I’ve nothing to write with, so I’m soon plodding into the overcrowded lazaret with its stink of pus, sewage and malodorous menfolk. I’m greeted warmly however, or at least the stores are, by our new CO, Major Philip ‘Pip’ Smith. During the day, following Colonel Alford’s departure, Smith, being next in seniority, has assumed command of the medical team, and has clearly been busy organizing things. A quiet man, modest but determined, he’s even visited Möglich, which is courageous of him, and after another ‘supper’ of boiled cabbage and potatoes he calls us together for an update.

  ‘Möglich couldn’t have been nicer,’ he begins, ‘so I don’t trust him an inch. Bill Alford’s threats must have got through, because he’s promised to look at the stores and supplies situation, find some extra blankets, heating coal and so on.’

  ‘What about the food? This slop is beyond a joke.’

  ‘Yes, he says he’ll look into that too, although don’t expect miracles. In fact don’t expect anything – he’s a slippery bastard and no question. All we can do is cope as best we can and keep nagging him. Hopefully matters will improve in the next week or two. Meanwhile, at least we’ve got the supplies Garland brought back from Bergen.’

  Murmurs of approval, then: ‘So how was it, Dan?’

  I’m taken aback rather, and oddly reticent. B
ut I give them the basics.

  ‘Bergen’s pretty small, but the hospital’s good, well staffed and equipped, and I’m sure our wounded will be looked after properly. The clinical director is trying to arrange further supplies for us too. She’ll contact Möglich when she has news.’

  ‘She?’

  ‘Yes. Name of Brandt. Pretty helpful. Her husband was the major in charge of the Apeldoorn train.’

  ‘Did you get out and about?’

  ‘I… Not really. Didn’t see much military activity either. The hospital staff were civil; the locals seemed, well, normal. That’s about it.’

  ‘Much bomb damage?’

  ‘Not that I saw. As I say, a small town so probably of little strategic value.’

  Not what they want to hear. What I’d seen in fact was ordinary people going about their lives with little sign of the suffering, submission and surrender we’ve been expecting and hoping for since crossing into Germany. Which is disheartening. Yes, common sense tells us the war is nearing its end, and yes, we’re confident of victory, but here in the rural heartlands, there isn’t much sign of it.

  Pip Smith reads our thoughts. ‘We’re going to have to face it. We’re stuck here for the winter at least.’

  A dismal prospect, and over the next couple of weeks a dismal pattern evolves. Roused rudely at dawn by shouts of ‘Heraus!’ and ‘Aufstehen!’ we seven medical officers descend from our bunks after a freezing night on the unyielding slats and make our bleary way to the washroom, there to queue for the one toilet, and then the one basin, where we scrape painfully at our chins with blunt razors before returning for a ‘breakfast’ of coffee made from acorns and bread made from potato starch. Thus nourished, twelve hours of unremitting labour follows, attending to the three hundred wounded men in our care. The work is relentless and exhausting. We get half an hour for a cabbage-soup lunch, and by six or so in the evening, after more soup, possibly laced with shreds of rancid horsemeat, we’re finished for the day, literally and figuratively. Some desultory chat, a half-hearted game of chess, a smoke of precious tobacco, then the doors and window shutters slam, the lights go out and it’s back to the bunks for another freezing night on the slats.

  It’s an abject existence made worse by the overcrowding (we doctors are six to a room, the men up to twenty), the onset of winter, and most of all by the condition of the patients, which in many cases seems to be getting worse not better. By now their treatment is about after-care, or should be, as the business of managing their injuries – debriding dead tissue, setting bones, stitching up wounds – has long been completed. So the focus is on recuperation, that is keeping their wounds clean, draining pus, changing dressings, and building up their strength and resistance to infection. The problem is that their diet is so poor, the overcrowding so acute and the sanitary arrangements so awful that many are going backwards with their convalescence, with wounds becoming reinfected, fevers breaking out, healthy tissue turning necrotic and so on. To add to their woes a gastro-enteritis bug strikes, bringing extra suffering to many, including some doctors and orderlies. With little at our disposal to fight it with, all we can do is mop the vomit and look on helplessly. One victim particularly hard hit is Jack Bowyer, whom I visit most evenings.

  ‘Hello, Sergeant, how are you tonight?’

  ‘Bloody awful, Doc, since you ask.’

  ‘Managed to scrounge you a couple of M&B.’ I hold out sulfonamide tablets.

  He lifts his head. ‘Where the hell did you get those?’

  ‘The French. Two packs of cigarettes.’

  ‘Bastard Frogs.’ He flops back. ‘You should save ’em for the lads.’

  ‘Doctors and orderlies take priority: you know that. We need you fit again.’

  ‘Bollocks to priority. Anyway I’d only puke them up.’

  ‘As you wish.’ I check him over, starting with his pulse. Looking weak and pale, his cheeks hollow, his eyes sunken and darkly ringed, he’s a shadow of the man I dropped into Arnhem with. Wasting, like all the others, to a husk before our eyes. Anger. I’m starting to feel these days, for the first time, real anger at the Germans for perpetuating this misery. It’s a novelty, I find. Helps focus the mind.

  ‘You’re going to get through this, Jack.’

  He leans over to retch. ‘Not sure I can be buggered.’

  A few days later comes a development. Two. Firstly, another shipment of medical supplies from Inge Brandt; a sizeable load too, it arrives by truck, the French looking on with envy as we unload it. There’s also a note, for me.

  Dear Doctor Garland,

  I hope you find these of value. I regret it is the last we can send. A directive has been issued: all spare medical supplies must be diverted to the Front; infractions will be punished severely. As a result, we will run short ourselves (although I will keep some for the women we visited).

  Your wounded men continue to make progress. Two will be returned to you in the next few days; however, Private Trickey remains unconscious, stable but critical. I would like to retain him a while longer. Good luck on your journey. Remember our discussion.

  Sincerely,

  Inge Brandt

  What journey? I wonder. Then I remember our conversation about trains, and realize she’s being metaphorical. Or not. For as I’m helping unload the stores into our makeshift dispensary, I receive a sharp prod in the back from a rifle.

  I turn in annoyance. ‘What!’

  ‘Zum Kommandanten!’ the offending guard demands.

  Irritation, fatigue, hunger, the incessant shouting, the unnecessary prodding: suddenly I’ve had enough. ‘Go away, I’m busy.’

  His eyes widen. ‘Zum Büro des Kommandanten! Beeile dich!’

  Evidently Möglich wants me, and right now. But welling up inside, for the first time I can recall, certainly the first time since dropping into Holland, is a sudden and overwhelming urge to stand up to my enemy. Actually fight him, which since I’m an unarmed medic carrying cardboard boxes and he’s a trained killer hefting a rifle, may be admirable, but rather foolish.

  ‘I said, I am busy, you irritating lout!’

  Instantly there’s a metallic click as he chambers a round, and I’m staring down the barrel of his gun, which is levelled at my nose. Everyone stops, silence descends, a stand-off follows. Obviously rifle beats cardboard box, so my one-man rebellion is crushed before it begins, yet anger and obstinacy are overriding common sense and I stand there glaring at the man, waiting, daring him even to pull the trigger. Seconds tick as my resolve wavers, and then Pip Smith comes to the rescue.

  ‘It’s all right, Dan, we can manage the rest. You’d better pop over and see what the silly bugger wants.’

  I follow the guard across the compound, buttoning my uniform and pondering what just took place. Uncharacteristic rashness, I conclude. Soon we reach the admin block and wait to be admitted, and I’m wondering what Möglich does want, and whether the guard will report my insurrection, and find I don’t care much, although I do secretly hope he’s sending me to Inge Brandt’s again.

  No chance. I’m frog-marched in: ‘Links rechts, links rechts, halt!’ Beret off, stamp to attention, chin up and salute.

  Möglich barely looks up. ‘Stalag 357,’ he says, waving a note. ‘Morgen.’

  *

  Returning from his office I bump into Padre Pettifer.

  ‘Hello, old chap, why the long face?’

  ‘I’m being transferred. To another camp.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Stalag 357.’

  ‘Ha!’ He beams. ‘Then fortune has favoured you, dear boy. By all accounts it’s a holiday camp compared with this place.’

  Pip Smith greets the news less cheerfully. ‘For God’s sake, I’m already short-handed! Now he’s taking another bloody doctor. I’m sorry, Dan, I’ll have to lodge an official complaint and try and stop this.’ Off he stumps, only to return twenty minutes later saying the order apparently came from a ‘higher authority’ and there’s nothing anyone
can do to change it, not even Möglich.

  I keep quiet and wonder which higher authority it could be, and then spend the rest of the day as the least popular man in camp. It’s odd, but there’s a definite change in attitude once the news circulates: suddenly I’m persona non grata, shunned by my peers as if I’ve betrayed them. Nothing is overtly said or done, but the resentment is palpable: You’re getting out, we’re not, and that’s the nub of it. Nor can I pretend ‘I’d much rather stay here with you chaps’ or ‘Maybe this new camp’s no better’ because everyone knows neither is true. Even the patients give me short shrift.

  ‘You could refuse,’ Jack Bowyer says when I visit him. ‘You should, in my view.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know. Go on hunger strike or something.’

  ‘I thought I already was.’

  This raises a wry smile, which is a good sign as far as his recovery goes.

  ‘I wish you were coming with me.’

  ‘Now you’re talking. Fetch my boots will you, Doc?’

  We chuckle at the notion. ‘Seriously though, it’s the end for me, isn’t it? As far as the Paras go.’

  ‘Probably be some Paras at this new camp.’

  ‘Not from Arnhem. Not from 1st Airborne. None who’ve been through what we have. Together.’

  Next morning I’m roused even earlier than usual and spend twenty minutes washing and packing and clumping about in the dark trying not to disturb everyone. Irritated grunts and groans follow my progress, until eventually I’m ready, my worldly goods packed in my haversack, my beret on my head, my heart oddly heavy.

  ‘Cheerio, old chap,’ Pip Smith murmurs unexpectedly from his bunk. ‘Good luck.’

  Suddenly I’m saluting him in the darkness. ‘And good luck to you, sir.’

  ‘We’ll need it. Waho Mohammed.’

  ‘Waho Mohammed.’

  My escort for the journey is a jug-eared youth of about seventeen. He signs me out at the gate and we set off on foot towards the gathering dawn. The weather is cold and clear; the tree-lined road silent save for the crunch of our boots. My guard speaks no English, and offers no comment or conversation, but after a while we find ourselves falling into step and are soon marching along at a good clip. The exercise and fresh morning air energize me, and as Stalag XIB slips steadily behind I find my spirits rising, as though a weight has been lifted. Pretty soon I’m whistling ‘Colonel Bogey’, which to my amusement my escort joins with, clearly unaware of the ‘libretto’. After an hour we arrive in Fallingbostel, and continue through the town to the station, which I last saw from the Apeldoorn train. He buys tickets at the office; then, checking the station clock, he gestures that we have thirty minutes to wait.