Opposite Sides (61 page)

“
Get up! Get
up! Move!”

They crowded like
over-heated sheep seeking the pitiful shade behind rocks or under
what straggly trees that had managed to survive this parched place.
There was no escape. The heat sucked the energy from a man like a
spider sucks the life juices from its victims. Even the shadows
here were dangerously hot.

Finally on the third day,
the twenty Allied soldiers and their six hundred prisoners made it
to the camp, a conglomeration of huts and tents within the confines
of an ancient fort. The prisoners were ordered into rows of fifty
to wait for the Camp Commander to make his appearance.

“
Welcome,
gentlemen, to POW Holding Camp B638. What officers are there in
your ranks? Fall out and assemble over by the flag
pole.”

An American gave the
translation and indicated to the guards that the separation of
ranks should take place. Slowly, order was regained and the
captured officers stood waiting some distance from the main body of
men. The American addressed them in German.

“
Who are the
senior officers here? Hauptmanns . . . Captains?” Three moved
forward and waited. “Majors?” Hans moved away from his fellow
officers and stood with the three captains. “Have we got a General
in our midst?” The heads turned round first to the right and then
the left, but no senior officer came forward. “OK. So, it’s one
Major and three Captains. Good. Attention! Now, quick march and
follow my sergeant.”

They were led to one of
the standing huts. One of the guards pushed Hans with the barrel
point of his gun into the hut interior and indicated that he should
remove his hat. The American followed. Inside, seated behind a
table, was the Commander. He had not bothered to look at the man
standing before him but shuffled several pages of a file, then
dipped his pen into the inkwell ready for writing. He spoke to the
American but still did not raise his eyes.

“
Ask the
prisoner what his name is.”

The American turned to
the prisoner.

“
Ihr
Name
?”

“
Erwin Hans
Resmel.”

The Commander ignored the
prisoner and addressed the interpreter again.

“
Ask him when
and where he was born?”

“
Wo und wann
sind Sie geboren, Major
?”

“
Freilassing,
Bavaria. Nineteen hundred and eight.”

The Commander’s head shot
up in astonishment and his eyes immediately latched on to Hans. He
stood and saluted. Hans put on his own hat and returned a military
salute.

“
Major.”

“
Commander.”

“
You speak
some English, then?”

The Commander
sat.

“
Sufficient,”
answered Hans curtly.

He realised that that
piece of information so far was lacking. He thought it best at this
point not to divulge the exact extent of his knowledge. He knew the
line of questioning that would now take place. He had done this,
himself, on countless occasions and was well aware of how an
innocent question would be used to trap the unwary into saying too
much.

The Commander spoke
directly to Hans.

“
Where were
you captured?”

“
Near the
Marath Line.”

“
And the
nature of your capture?”

“
For the
welfare of those remaining, it was decided to surrender. We were
low on supplies. Further resistance would have been
futile.”

“
What unit
were you in?”

“
Light
armoured division.”

“
How many men
were in your division?”

“
To begin
with, two hundred. At the time of capture, fifty four.”

“
How many
wanted to continue the fight?”

“
I didn’t ask
them. The men had a duty. They did it until the order was given to
stop.”

“
And what
were the orders you had been given prior to the surrender,
Major?”

“
You will
have to ask a General that, Commander. I have no
comment.”

The questioning went
further as the Commander tried to assess the battle situation and
obtain any information regarding troop movements and supplies of
the remaining Afrika Korps. But Hans knew all the interrogation
tricks and was on his guard not to divulge any information that may
be of advantage to the enemy.

The Commander noted that
the man standing before him was an Abwehr officer. There had been
reports of several men from the Abwehr having arrived at night by a
U-Boot. This man could have been one of them and had been
responsible for leading one of the small groups which were known to
play havoc behind their lines. He considered it his duty to ask why
it was that his prisoner had been in North Africa.

“
I fought
because it was my duty. Like yours. My last duty is for my men. I
only ask that they are treated correctly in accordance with the
Geneva Convention.”

“
I
understand, Major. But I need to know if you were one of those who
arrived by submarine?”

“
No. I came
here through normal routes. By plane. And I have been in North
Africa some time,”

“
I see.” The
Commander appeared to be satisfied but Hans knew that he would not
be completely satisfied until every little bit of information had
been verified. The Commander leaned slightly forward as one does
over the dinner table. “Your English is very good, Major. Where did
you learn it?”

“
At
school.”

Hans offered no further
information. So far the interview had been very polite and had not
caused any problems. Even though Hans had deliberately kept his
sentences short, The Commander had heard enough for him to realise
that this Major probably understood more than he was letting on.
The British Commander decided to press his prisoner on several
delicate tactical matters.

“
I’m sorry,
sir,” answered Hans. “I’m not at liberty to tell you any more. The
Geneva Convention states that . . . ”

“
Yes, Major.
I am aware of the agreements in the Convention. And you Germans
don’t need to keep trying to quote it to us.”

The Commander returned to
the matter of filling in the forms. He was required to make a
personal record for each prisoner, together with fingerprinting,
serial numbers and information concerning the capture.

“
Your
identification number, Major?”

When the officialties had
been completed, the Commander returned his pen to the inkwell and
pressed a sheet of well-marked blotting paper over the ink-wet
form.

“
You will now
be taken and fingerprinted, Major.” He gave a short laugh. “But you
would know that already and know that that will complete your
processing. Your prisoner number is 81G/8624. You must understand
that conditions will be difficult for some time as we have many
prisoners to deal with.”

The Commander addressed
the American soldier again.

“
Have you got
those other officers ready for me?”

“
Yes sir.
They are waiting outside.”

“
Any from
your division, Major?”

The Major shook his
head.

“
We were in a
different area. My own men did not come here with me.”

“
Why was
that?”

“
I was
wounded.”

“
Ah, yes.”
The Commander glanced at the file. “You spent several weeks in a
military hospital.”

“
That is
correct, Commander.”

“
Thank you,
Major.” He addressed the American who had been standing easy just
behind Hans. “Take him away. I will speak with the Major again but
later.

The Commander stood and
returned the salute the Major had given. Resmel left the building
under guard. He heard that on May 13 1943, the Axis forces
surrendered totally to General Montgomery. The battle for North
Africa was over.

On July 10th, the
Anglo-American landings in Sicily took place and by the beginning
of September, they had made footfall on the beaches of Southern
Italy. It was the end of Italian resistance and within a week, it
was announced that an armistice had been agreed between Italy and
the Allied powers. With the Italians now out of the fighting, the
way was open for a back-door invasion force into Austria and
ultimately into Southern Germany. This news paralleled the news
concerning the eastern front, where in July, Hitler had hurled his
remaining army into a savage battle west of Kursk only to have his
divisions splintered and pushed back towards the Polish and
Rumanian frontiers.

At first, Hans was not
sure whether this latest information had been told to the prisoners
in order to break their moral or whether the tide had, in fact,
started to turn.

Was the shine of Hitler’s
Third Reich beginning to tarnish and was his dream for world
domination starting to crumble? It was beginning to look as though
soon only ruins would be left, spreading across Europe from east to
west and from south to north. The younger and lower ranked soldiers
guarding the prisoners liked to taunt their captives with chants of
‘Berlin or bust’ and sing to them a rude ditty or two about Hitler
and his cohorts but most of the time it went over the head of the
normal German soldier who spoke only a few English words he had
picked up during his time in the desert. There was a handful of
short-tempered men who did understand the sentiment of the ditty
and fought back, but they inevitably spent punishment time in
confinement. Most of the prisoners, however, were subdued and
quiet, making sure they followed camp discipline to the
letter.

Hans often sat alone on
one of the large stones which had toppled, during some earlier
time, off one of the inner walls which had been built when the fort
was much younger. He watched the others wander aimlessly about the
small confines, noting the frequency in which several small groups
of men gathered at a point not far from where he liked to sit.
These men seemed angry and restless, especially after one of the
news session moments when all prisoners were forced to stand in the
heat and listen to tales of how the German fronts were being
squeezed like a lemon on every side. These men were not ready to
give up the fight and although they did not not understand what
their captors were saying, they interpreted the messages through
the actions and emotions of those whose job it was to guard them.
Every few days or so tempers would erupt and fist fights would
break out as frustration levels rose in men who had only known the
action of war and the constant fight for survival.

On this account, the
Commander had had a gutsful. He demanded audience with the Major in
the hope that the problem could be sorted out quickly.

“
Major, as a
senior officer, it is your duty to order your officers to keep your
ranks in order. This openness of disobedience cannot be allowed to
continue.”

“
I will speak
to the men. One problem is the crowding here. There are too many of
us and stories spread like disease, infecting the idle minds of
men. The other problem concerns a lack of news from
home.”

“
How so? What
is the problem there?”

“
Mail has not
been handed out for many months and with all the negative talk we
hear of the European campaign, is it no wonder that some of my men
are rather upset and liable to hit out? They have become frustrated
with nothing else to think about. I will talk with my officers but
you, in turn, must tell your own men to stop their harassment. We
may have lost the battle but we haven’t lost the war.
Yet.”

The Commander listened
politely as such senior ranks were apt to do. He wrote a few notes
and read back what he had written giving details about the lack of
mail.

“
Hopefully,
that should see a distribution mail in time for Christmas. With Red
Cross parcels. Remind your men: only good behaviour brings rewards.
Thank you, Major.”

The two officers saluted
each other: one with his hand against the side of his head, the
other with index finger touching the front.

Hans wondered how it was
for Jan when she found herself in a similar situation. Strange, how
things had turned out for her; being a prisoner one minute, and
then as events had changed, being freed again to carry on as if
nothing had happened in the interval. Yet he felt that much had
happened during that interval which had been the catalyst to
initiate change in both of them. And then, meeting up again like
that, in a field hospital, both so far away from their homeland and
to be thrust upon each other in the desert land, two people who
were only now discovering that they had need of each other. And
what was it, that soldier had said to him at the field hospital:
‘it looks plain as day she’s in love with you.’ Why, why didn’t he
see that sooner?

The Commander was as good
as his word, for as soon as he noticed that normal military
discipline had been restored, he allowed the distribution of the
long-awaited mail. Hans, too, was eager for news from home; he had
heard nothing from either Elisabeth nor his uncle for more. than
six months. His spirits rose as he was handed several letters and
as he turned the envelopes over in his hands, he noticed that at
least one had been opened, and then resealed. He smiled to himself,
as it reminded him of the earlier times he, too, had looked into
prisoners’ mail for that little piece of information that might
give some hint to a less innocent meaning.