by David Fraser
‘They’ll not want us to be liberated if they can hang on to us,’ Matheson said sadly. ‘We’re cards in their hand. We’ll be going east.’
‘How strong a card in Hitler’s hand do you reckon you are, Jock? Mightn’t he have other preoccupations, with half Germany lost and the rest going shortly?’ But they knew he must be right. They could not be sent west, with the Allies now closing up to the Rhine: while in the south it sounded as if the Americans had already punched a hole into the Palatinate, and presumably would soon be advancing on Bavaria. To the east the move must surely be: although by now it could not possibly be for far.
And the journey, in bitter March weather, turned out to be to a camp in Saxony, a pleasant enough place when the weather improved, secluded in woods on the borders of Silesia. The prisoners marched for fourteen painful miles and were then packed into an inadequate number of bitterly cold railway carriages for a journey which took fourteen hours to cover, Anthony reckoned, only some two hundred miles. The new camp was now to be given the same title as the old, ‘Oflag VI’, although it already existed as a temporary officers’ camp and was overcrowded, swelled by intakes from other camps, evacuated like themselves before the advancing tide of Germany’s foes. Colonel Bressler, moving with them, was Commandant.
Food, like space, was desperately short – a consequence, all recognized, of the breakdown of the transportation services of the Reich. Red Cross parcels, those blessed alleviators of hunger, had now, it seemed, ceased to arrive. The end, they all knew, could not be far away but they did not know in what shape they would be when it came. The camp took familiar form – the same regular rows of wooden huts, the same German guard compound, the same inner and outer perimeter wires, the same watch towers. But here was no talk of escape – that was all done with. Nerves were increasingly frayed as hunger bit, as men became more querulous, as all waited for others to exert themselves and finish the war.
When first brought back to Oflag VI Anthony had been sentenced to six weeks in the punishment cells. His punishment was at first mitigated by admission to the camp hospital, to recover from the attentions of Pieck and Schwede, and from a reopened thigh wound. Then the sentence was held in suspension for the move to Saxony. On arrival there he was interviewed by Bressler and told his sentence would again be suspended.
‘Any indiscipline, any reports of improper behaviour, Captain Marvell, and you will immediately be confined – to carry out the full period of your punishment, added to any further sentence which it might be my duty to impose.’
Bressler had looked at Anthony over the top of his spectacles. His voice, as ever, seemed to boom from somewhere half-way down his chest. Behind the pebble glasses Anthony fancied he saw a glint of amusement. Who would be imprisoning whom at the end of Anthony’s nominal sentence? Anthony doubted whether Bressler had the slightest illusions. He looked at the Commandant with respect and liking. The man had saved him.
The weeks dragged on, weeks of boredom mingled with rumour, but marked for all by hunger, with the feebleness and irritation it engendered. Small jealousies and resentments had always loomed large in prison. Now they threatened to become insupportable.
Meanwhile more evident daily was the terror of the German guards as news – filtered news, censored, born of rumour, but vivid and gathered with fearful eagerness – reached them of a renewed Soviet offensive.
‘These lads are scared stiff of the Russkies,’ said Matheson with relish. ‘They know what’s coming to them!’
Fritz – at least one of the guards was called or nicknamed Fritz in every camp – was a local man, a Saxon. Fritz was also loquacious and well-informed – a Hermann, thought Anthony, with something like nostalgia for Oflag XXXIII and its well-ordered, decently nourished existence. Fritz took grisly pleasure in relating to the prisoners the stories rife in Saxony as the rumours from the Front grew ever worse and the population of the neighbouring villages shivered and waited. They waited with mounting panic for the Red Army to break through the fragile screen of the Wehrmacht: a screen assisted, at its last gasp, by Volksgrenadier formations, groups of the elderly and the very young, enrolled under threat of instant execution, pitifully equipped with an armband and a rifle, shown on maps at the Führer’s Headquarters as battalions and divisions. All knew that a mass flight westward was the only way to avoid a frightful fate: but any movement of the population had been expressly forbidden, and Party officials had been armed with draconian powers to prevent it. In the neighbourhood of Oflag VI, Fritz told them, stories were rife of what would happen when the Red Army arrived. Despite the regulations some refugees had slipped westward and the tales they told made folk shudder.
‘Ten, twenty, thirty fellows will rape a woman. Then they’ll shoot her if she’s no good for any more. Or, if it’s a Panzer unit, they often loop a rope round her, attach it to a tank and drive along with her bumping behind until she’s finished. It seems they like that, it amuses them.’
‘What about the men, Fritz?’
Fritz, with a certain show of delicacy, said that men – young men, boys – were also sexually assaulted and murdered if the inclination took their enemies which it often did.
‘And anyone else is likely to be shot. Straight away. And of course it’s not only the girls that are treated like that. It’s old women, children, the lot.’
‘Well, Fritz,’ someone remarked, ‘look what you did to them!’
But, in fact, the prisoners in Oflag VI were shaken by what they heard. Fritz would grunt and shrug his shoulders. ‘Who had done what, and when?’ he said to himself, uneasy and uncertain. Anthony listened to Fritz’s tales, thought about the fate of Europe and the end of the war as sharply as any of them. Every reflection, general or personal, now sickened him.
He tried to accustom his mind to the worst on the subject of Anna. He told himself every day that she must have been executed – executed because of his own errors. Those brutes would have grabbed her immediately they knew he had been at Schloss Langenbach. It was his foolishness that had betrayed her. He felt little elation at the prospect of liberation, and small concern at the imminence, it seemed, of Allied victory. They would not have been scrupulous about getting proof of Anna’s involvement. They would not have been slow in inflicting the penalty. No Allied advance would be likely to help Anna. Fritz told them that the Anglo-American air raids were worse than ever, turning whole cities into deserts. No air raid was likely to liberate Anna. It might be merciful if she died in one, but it was unlikely. From every direction death and horror threatened each of the people he loved, or had already overtaken them.
‘Marvell’s pretty odd, these days, he’s got worse,’ his companions would murmur to each other. Anthony had no close friends from earlier times in Oflag VI. He made no attempt to discover congenial spirits. His remoteness was resented here and there. ‘Toffee-nosed bugger’ one or two muttered. But the prisoners had other concerns. They were, on the whole, tolerant.
‘Marvell had a bad time after recapture, I gather. He was wounded in an air raid when on the run, lay up for a long while, then got knocked about by Gestapo thugs. He doesn’t want to talk about it.’
He didn’t want to talk about it. It was not important to anybody. There were, in this camp, no plans for escape, no long-term studies, projects or entertainments for which a man might expect to be enlisted. Everybody was waiting, bored, discontented, anxious for whatever the ultimate defeat of Germany might bring. One solitary, more or less, made little difference.
The third week in April arrived. The German camp staff appeared to have fewer illusions even than the prisoners.
‘We could walk out of this place at any time,’ said Matheson, shaking his head. ‘But I’m not sure exactly where we’d go.’
Curiously, Red Cross parcels had started again to appear and the prisoners’ health and spirits quickly recovered in consequence. But deprived for many years of responsibility, the prisoners needed orders to be given and decisions to be taken by others
. Deep in their hearts, while all longed for liberty, some feared it a little too. Every day, now, they could hear the roll of artillery in the east, continuous, ever louder, ever nearer.
It was on 18th April that Lise was summoned to Ward Reception to find the Ward Superintendent, Sister Brigitta, at the centre of a peculiar scene. They had for some days heard unceasing gun fire to the east and the atmosphere throughout the hospital was tense. Sister Brigitta was facing a small man in Party uniform with a wizened face and pince nez. They were looking at each other with unflinching hostility. In the corridor, audience of what appeared a confrontation, were four dirty, ragged bundles, just identifiable as human beings. Two elderly folk, almost certainly male and female, were standing, wrapped in coats and scarves, faces barely emergent. There was something in their posture that was supplicant and fearful. On the floor were two different bundles, recognizable, Lise thought, as young women. Presumably, gaining entry by subterfuge or determination, the elders had carried the younger pair into the hospital: although a civil establishment, the hospital had been ordered for several weeks to admit only military casualties. The four bundles were covered with dust.
‘I suppose they’ve come in a farm cart,’ thought Lise. She saw the eyes of one of the girls fixed on her. They looked mad.
The wizened Party official was speaking. He had a thin, precise voice.
‘I am empowered to remind you that all places at this hospital are reserved for the military and that no treatment is to be given to civilians, whatever their condition. That is an order throughout this district, which has for several weeks been designated a war zone.’
Sister Brigitta said,
‘We have treated very large numbers of wounded soldiers here. We have also, by our Director’s order, continued to treat others who have nowhere else to go, especially –’
‘Your Director’s order is improper. I hereby declare it superceded.’
‘– Especially where the injuries are attributable to the actions of the enemy. As in this case, I believe, Herr Schlitter.’
‘The Gau authority, which I represent,’ said Schlitter, ‘has been charged with enforcing regulations. In this case the regulation is being disobeyed. On a routine visit to this hospital I observed these people entering. They have no claim to be treated here.’
Sister Brigitta eyed him. ‘In default of an order from my own Director, Herr Schlitter, I have both a moral and a professional duty to these people and I intend to discharge it. I–’
At this point one of the elderly bundles, certainly male because standing cap in hand, coughed apologetically and spoke.
‘It’s our granddaughters you see, we –’
‘Shut up!’ said Schlitter, his thin voice rising. The old man flinched and bowed. Sister Brigitta raised her hand with immense authority.
‘On the contrary, I know this man’s explanation will resolve matters. Continue!’
Caught, unenviably, between two such persons, and avoiding Schlitter’s eye, the old man continued,
‘It’s our granddaughters. We were in the farm when an Ivan patrol arrived. Then a few hours later they left and some of our boys turned up. The farm’s where the fighting is now. We stayed in the cellar, we didn’t know where to go or what to do. Last night we hitched the horse to the cart and moved here. But when the Ivans came they caught the girls, you see.’
One of the girls started to speak. Her grandmother tried to hush her.
‘Sh, sh!’
The girl jabbered incomprehensibly, her voice rising to a screech like a parrot. Her eyes were transfixed with terror. Schlitter started to talk, but Sister Brigitta gestured to the old man to continue. Schlitter looked baleful.
‘It’s not only – you know – it’s their breasts as well, you see,’ said the old man deferentially. ‘They would just go on at them, they bit the nipples off, you see, as well as everything else they did to them. And we couldn’t stop the bleeding though it’s better than it was. There and, you know –’
‘We’ll do what we can,’ said Sister Brigitta briskly. ‘Fraülein Arzfeld,’ she snapped some orders to Lise. To Schlitter she said, ‘These girls have been injured by the enemy, as much as any soldier and worse than many.’
‘They are not military personnel. I shall make an immediate report!’
Sister Brigitta took no further notice of him and he withdrew, announcing that he intended immediately to see the Hospital Director. The old couple stood huddled in the corridor, itself an overflow ward, until Sister Brigitta hustled them away. Lise wondered fleetingly where they had left the cart and whether Schlitter would arrest them, out of sheer malevolence, when they left the hospital – if, indeed, he could effectively do so since there seemed to have been no police in the village for some time. She took gentle charge of the two girls and established that each, with suitable encouragement, was able to walk.
That night the gunfire in the east sounded louder and more menacing. Lise told Marcia of the peasants’ arrival and of the encounter between Schlitter and the Ward Superintendent.
‘We’ve had some like that,’ said Marcia, shaken. ‘But I didn’t deal with them myself. Lise, I suppose that’s what’s coming, is it? Of course, we’ve been told all the time, but now it’s only a few miles away!’
‘Perhaps they’ll respect a hospital.’
But they had both heard stories. There had been the tale of a hospital run by an Abbey, somewhere in Silesia. One of their own nurses claimed that a sister of hers had been on the nursing staff there, had hidden and ultimately escaped. The Abbey had been occupied by the Russians, it was said. Red Army soldiers had murdered every human being, doctors, monks, patients, and, of course, nurses. Their colleague’s sister had allegedly witnessed the Russians’ arrival.
‘They were like mad, wicked children. They smashed everything, furniture, glasses, medical equipment. The surgical spirit they drank. They played games with everything, threw it about, took it to pieces, the way a spoilt, destructive youngster treats a toy. The people they treated like insects to be squashed. They threw the patients out of the upper windows, roaring with laughter all the time!’
‘Was anybody spared?’ Lise asked. ‘No,’ the nurse had answered, ‘nobody. Nobody at all.’
Three days later the Hospital Director assembled all the staff and spoke briefly and without evasion.
‘We have to make difficult choices. It is not possible to obtain directions which are practicable to obey. I have certain responsibilities and I must now make decisions.
‘You all know the stories of what can be expected from the Russian Army, even in a hospital. Unfortunately, I believe these stories to be true. I do not expect they are true of everywhere, all the time, but I fear they are sufficiently true to mean you are all at grave risk. The front is now under ten miles from here.’ He spoke against a rumble of gunfire. It was not German gunfire. German detachments had been drifting back through the village for the last two days. The wards, of course, were as full as ever and the nurses were worked off their feet.
‘I have asked for military transport to evacuate the hospital. I have received none. I have, however, spoken to the local Wehrmacht Commander. He has agreed to requisition a certain number of farm carts. In them we must try to load as many as possible of our patients who cannot walk. Every person who can walk, even slowly, must walk. There are no riding horses left in the neighbourhood. There are no motor cars, and if there were there is no fuel for them. Five columns will leave, starting tonight.’ He gave details.
‘I wish to say one more thing. In ordinary circumstances it would be the first duty of all of us, at whatever personal risk, to remain with our patients, to care for them to the end. Circumstances today are not ordinary. I hereby declare,’ the Director said, standing ramrod-straight, and frowning, ‘that I regard it as consistent with the sense of duty of every female member of the hospital, of every nurse, to move independently at any time, if thereby she sees a better chance to escape. And, of course, return
to her duty in more favourable circumstances. I cannot protect you as I should. You must do your best to protect yourselves. Your capture,’ said the Director carefully, ‘will not help your patients. Thank you.’
His last words were accompanied by a number of explosions, sounding nearer than before. It was being whispered that somewhere, both north and south of them, Russian armies had already penetrated west of where they were; and that in the north a mighty Soviet push was being mounted towards Berlin itself.
That night five pathetic little columns, carts, bicycles, limping men and bravely marching nurses started the painful move westward. In spite of the Director’s pessimism three motor vans had been produced from somewhere, burning wooden fuel in remarkable contraptions fitted to the roofs, but somehow gaining from it sufficient power to move. Lise and Marcia moved with Sister Brigitta: two ancient ward orderlies, two dozen patients on foot and seven more loaded on carts which they all took turns to drag. They were under the nominal control of one of the doctors. Doctor Winckelmann was plump and elderly. Marcia thought that the journey was going to be as hard on him as on any of them.
They moved in darkness. The April nights were still cold. They had their route. Doctor Winckelmann spoke with a little assumed authority at their first halt, soon after dawn.
‘We are behind German lines. We should now have six hours’ rest. The patients require it.’
But it was to Sister Brigitta that the party looked for discipline and guidance. Untiring, driven by an iron sense of duty supported by an equally iron constitution, this remarkable woman steered the little party westward. Progress had been very slow. Now she spoke.
‘Herr Winckelmann, I do not believe that we are, strictly speaking, behind German lines. It does not seem to me that there is anything which can precisely be called a German line.’
