Twenty Days in the Reich (4 page)
There was nothing else we could do that day, however, and so we settled down to our early bed once more. That night, we were disturbed by the arrival of supper. We found that the German woman had sploshed a ghastly-looking mixture on top of our saved soup, which we thought might contain a bit of meat, but which turned out to be almost entirely bread. The whole lot stirred up was horrible, and we all went to bed practically supperless.
Sunday dawned, bright and fine once more, and breakfast was repeated as on the day before. We indicated that our pail needed emptying. I was detailed for the job, and from what I saw of the prison sanitary arrangements outside, I decided that the pail system was not so bad after all. But
I shuddered to think what it would have been like in the summer, when the flies started to buzz around. We got quite a surprise when we made signs that we would like a wash, our first since Thursday morning back at base. Not only was our request granted, but little Helena brought us her own soap and towel. She also provided a mirror, and with three days’ growth of beard I looked a fearsome sight, but I can’t say that the fact bothered me much! I was always cursed with a strong growth, and by comparison the hair on the faces of the other two did not look too bad.
Once again, it was a morning of sirens, solitude and slumber. I never seemed to feel as sleepy as my comrades and it would take a whole book on its own to recount the thoughts that used to follow one another through my brain in these periods of forced inactivity First and foremost, I would try to picture the scene at home where my wife with a boy and a girl of school age, had just presented me with a further son. Up to now I had been luckier than a good many, for I had had regular leave, my children had not grown up without my seeing something of them, and I had actually been pretty near at hand when the third was born.
The morning following the day of disaster my wife would get a telegram from official sources, which would just make the bald announcement that I was missing on active service. It might have been received an hour or two after my last letter to her, which I had given a friend to post just
before take-off on the fateful day. With now what seemed exquisite irony, I had told her to keep her fingers tightly crossed for me, as the last half dozen trips often proved the most hazardous. Yet for all the mental strain, I knew she would keep the flag flying. My one big hope was that the shock would not affect her feeding of the latest arrival.
We did not see any of our friends again until after the midday allocation of soup, but then Jan came around and reaffirmed his plans for our escape. It would be a wonderful feat if we could make it. From my pretty accurate knowledge of the spot where we baled out, I calculated that we would have to travel no more than 50 miles in a straight line to make contact with our forces at the spot where they were last Thursday, and they might have pushed in a good deal further since then. We didn’t know enough of the country over which we should have to travel to realise that the 50 miles would become a full hundred, but experience was to show. …
Around 2 p.m. the prison became very quiet and deserted, and it suddenly occurred to us that there was a hitch in the plans somewhere. We made contact with Jan through the peephole in the cell door. After a great deal of puzzling, it was brought home to us that the door leading out into the courtyard was locked and nobody could get out of doors. Suddenly, from the adjoining cell there came bursts of songs and laughter, which
persisted for so long that I was prompted to suggest to Arthur that I should stand on his shoulder and have a look through the hole in the wall to see if I could find out what was going on. I sang a tune myself into the cavity, and in a few moments Valentina’s smiling face was looking through at me, obviously enjoying the diversion!
It was all very touching, but I was certain that whenever the vocalists next door paused for breath, I could hear the steady rasping sound of a file against metal. Jack, with his eye glued to the peephole, reported that Jan had been out two or three times and appeared to be making an inspection of our door, as though he was thinking up a way of opening it. Could the plan now be revised so that Jan would be able to get us out of our cell and into the other one, the bars of whose window were already as good as fixed? Or was the Dutchman really no longer interested in us now that he had got an idea of where to make for, and had been foiled in his attempt to remove our bars? We couldn’t make it out, or we just daren’t hope for too much.
We expected even less when at supper time the wardress brought with her one of the two soldiers who had led us into this place. She indicated, with the first smile we had seen on her undoubtedly comely face, that we were moving out at 5 a.m., and of all the places in Germany, we were going to Arnsberg, our very target of the previous Thursday! From what we could gather, we were
going to join English and American comrades. Whilst we still hoped than Jan might do his stuff, we reflected that if he didn’t, we ought, at least, to be somewhere a little more civilised. There would also be a chance of meeting the Skipper and the rest of the boys.
We went to bed once more, I with the silent prayer that I always uttered for the safety of us all and the peace of mind of those at home. If Jan was going to free us, we reckoned that he ought not to leave it until later than midnight. We wondered grimly if he knew that 5 a.m. was zero hour.
We slung the logs on the fire recklessly that night and made the room so hot that we all awoke around 3 a.m. and lay waiting for the next chime of the hour so as to see whether any hope remained. Apparently none did, and at 5 a.m., prompt to the minute, the same two soldiers appeared. We were led, baffled and bewildered, into the cool stillness of a morning that promised yet another brilliant day to follow.
W
e were to travel, it seemed, by train. We already knew where the railway station, or
bahnhof
, was, because we had noticed the approach to it, just beyond the burgomaster’s office. In the days that followed, the word ‘
bahnhof
’ was to be constantly on our lips. We certainly had no idea then that the one at Fredeberg was to be among the very few that we saw that was untouched by the action of Allied aircraft.
It was a very handsome railway station, and a very big improvement on its prototype in England. Here was no cold, dark and gloomy general waiting room with the inevitable hard horsehair seats and empty fireplace, but a brightly lit prosperous-looking apartment. It was centrally heated, with an attractive refreshment bar at one end, which actually opened up at 6 a.m., although it did not appear to have a lot to sell. Everything was beautifully clean, and there were neat glass-topped tables all around, each with its quota of four modern chairs – the kind that give you the
impression that you are going to fall off them, although you never do, of course. I think that if all the subsequent
bahnhofs
that we saw, smashed to little pieces, had been anything like this one, then it was a very great pity that it had to be done. It would have been more fitting had a similar fate befallen some of our own stations, so that some inspired individual could have been detailed to rebuild them on the German pattern.
We were allowed to sit down in the waiting room, in which there were only a handful of people, mostly quite pleasant-looking civilians. Some, quite ignorant of our identity, tried to pass the time of day with us, but were quickly stopped by our guards. The two soldiers had been reinforced by two civilians whom we took to be members of the
Volkssturm
. We correctly surmised that the soldiers only intended to hang around a little, perhaps to check the train in, before handing us over to the Home Guards.
After a wait of about half and hour, a train pulled in, which soon proved not to be ours. It disgorged a fairly large crowd into the waiting room, thus causing us to have to yield our seats. It was obvious that long waits were customary, for with no show of haste, everybody began to pull out food and drink. They then began their breakfasts in a manner that showed that they were well practised in not relying on local supplies of food. One of the members of the
Volkssturm
offered us each half a meat sandwich, which
tasted very nice. We thought this was quite kind of him, as it was obviously from his own rations.
After we had been in the room for about three hours, somebody came in and shouted out a message, which seemed to convey that there would be no more trains today. (We were to discover later that few, if any, trains ran in the daytime in that part of Germany, and we have since wondered why these people were apparently more optimistic than the many would-be travellers we met afterwards.) This was the signal for everybody to pack up their food and belongings and leave the station. With some gloom we followed our guards out into the road. Within five minutes we were sitting on our old bed in the little cell, concerned only with one important factor – was the fire still lit?
We hardly had time to begin to kindle the last glowing embers before the two civilians came back again. They hurried us out into the street, muttering something about
autobus
, which sounded to us as if we might be going to travel by road. We were more or less chased at the double towards the market square, where a covered wagon was drawn up, and seemed to be waiting to get us on board before pulling out. We were bundled inside, finding about ten other passengers already installed. We were left to make ourselves as comfortable as possible amid a pile of empty flour sacks and a large quantity of assorted articles of hardware.
Our fellow passengers were a mixed crowd, and included old women, some of them obviously gentlefolk, as well as a baby in arms. In England, this mode of travel would be called ‘hitch-hiking’, and had considerable popularity among members of the forces going on short leave. However, then, it would be exceptional to find it indulged in by ordinary people in civilian clothes. Over in Germany, we found, it was just about the only way left to travel in the daytime, and quite a good stage of organisation had been reached. At every busy road intersection, in or out of the towns, would be standing a member of the police force, who would wave to a halt practically everything on wheels, motorcycles included. The driver would have to give details of his route, and invariably about twice as many people as the vehicle could comfortably hold would be packed inside. Invariably, a man would be perched in a precarious position outside, in the case of cars on the right-hand side front mudguard, whose sole job was to give an immediate warning to the driver of the approach of enemy aircraft.
We had our first illustration that morning of how a journey to nearly anywhere by road or rail would prove to be about twice as long as the actual distance measured in a straight line on the map. My place on the truck did not give me a very good view of the signposts, but I gathered that our route to Arnsberg lay through the town of Lenne and then all along the valley to the Lenne river, to
a point where a road branched off to the right through Stockum and Sundern. At any rate, the journey of about 25 miles as the crow would fly took us all morning, and our guard said that the distance was around 70 kilometres.
We spent by no means all the time in the wagon, because it seemed to be completely lacking in power. At even the smallest hill, it was necessary for all the men to get out and assist to push it to the top. We also stopped several times to deliver items of hardware, and altogether I suppose the trip was made a good deal more interesting than a similar one by the more orthodox English road coach would have been. At long length just before noon, we reached our destination, and bundled ourselves into the street to await further developments.
These came a good deal more quickly than we anticipated, and in a form that was totally unexpected. We had thought that the town seemed rather quiet, and casually assumed that there might be an air-raid warning on; we had overlooked the fact that since last Thursday, at any rate, a siren round these parts would be regarded as more than a mere formality. We looked up on hearing the distant drone of multi-engined aircraft, and saw a neat squadron of Lancasters sailing along majestically. With no thought of any immediate danger, we paused for a few seconds to admire the formation.
‘Can’t be our mob,’ observed Jack with some sarcasm, ‘the formation’s far too good!’
‘Good heavens, look at that!’ I cried the next second. They looked and saw what I had seen, a beautiful cluster of what subsequently proved to be a mixture of the massive 5½-ton and the new 10-ton bombs, proceeding earthwards in a manner fascinating to watch, but far too rapid to be healthy.
We got into the prone position immediately, whilst our guards, fresh from the unbombed Fredeberg, and in any case having no idea of the immense lethal power of these earthquake-producing bombs, merely stood and watched. A report of that raid stated that one house was lifted bodily and deposited 30 miles away, in which case it was probable that in our position (approximately a mile from the point of impact) we were too far away to get any of the immediate effects, and too near to suffer any harm from the showers of debris that passed overhead.
At any rate, the whole experience shook us considerably, and I think we can claim it to be unique. These big bombs, which accounted for such RAF triumphs as the breaching of the Moehne dam, and the sinking of the battleship
Tirpitz
, had only been employed for limited and very special targets. To be practically underneath a whole shower of them going down together, and at the very target that we had ourselves been so recently employed, must surely be a unique experience.
The excitement over, we walked on, our guards, no doubt, still wondering what we had made all
the fuss about. After about a mile we came up to what certainly appeared to be an authentic prison camp, with any amount of barbed wire and German uniforms floating around. However, it was pleasantly situated on the side of a well-wooded hill, and not at all an unsavoury-looking place in which to pass the remainder of the war.
We were led inside, and after some considerable discussion our guards departed. We were ordered to line up on a pathway overlooking a flight of stone steps, which led down to what was undoubtedly an air-raid shelter.
‘There’s no sign of any prisoners.’ I remarked, ‘maybe they’re all in the shelter waiting for the all clear.’
‘I expect we’ll have to live down there,’ said Jack gloomily. ‘Anyway, the place looks more like a rest camp to me, notice how half of the chaps have a limp or something.’
It certainly did look a bit strange, and as the minutes grew to an hour, and still we stood, we wondered what the devil all these German fellows were doing. They were spending all their time either going up and down the steps, or hanging around never very far from them. Most of those visible were officers, some of them quite high ranking. When an occasional private popped his head up to the top of the steps, he was sent back again in such certain terms, that we became convinced that the whole population of the camp was merely waiting for the all clear. There wasn’t
an aircraft of any sort in the sky, and to us from England, where shelters were only used as the bombs were actually falling, it seemed a trifle absurd and chicken-hearted. We were to decide in the days to come that we judged these chaps somewhat harshly, for we had not yet had the opportunity of seeing at first hand the devastating effect of the Allied bombing.
Unfortunately, we did not stay to see the end of this little comedy, for with German officers still going up and down the steps, we were placed in the charge of two soldiers, who were given a paper. Without wasting any further time, they led us out of the camp, down the hillside, and back into to centre of Arnsberg. One of these new guards had a bullet hole in the side of his cheek, which he said had been done at Köln (Cologne). We were rather inclined to confirm Jack’s impression that the place we had just left was some kind of rest camp, and did not contain any Allied prisoners at all.
When we reached the centre of the town, I tried to convey to our guards, on behalf of our party, that I thought it was time for
essen
. We had received nothing officially since supper time the night before, and the small amount of walking we had done after the three days in gaol, had made us all feel quite weak. I think they understood, but if they had any food they were disinclined to part with it, and there was nothing for us to do but to remain both very hungry and more than a little thirsty.
The policeman at the crossroads did his stuff, and we boarded a covered truck going as far as the town of Neheim. This conveyance was packed to suffocation with passengers of all descriptions, all standing up so as to make more room. Everyone above about 5½ feet 6 inches tall had his head bent over to prevent it banging into the canvas cover. It was a nightmare of a ride, and when eventually we reached the town all three of us felt so tired that we were forced to sit down on the pavement whilst awaiting further instructions.
It seemed we were only going as far as Werl, about another 20 kilometres. However, at Neheim a lift proved so difficult to secure, that at length our guards, in despair, ordered us to jump on to a passing horse-drawn dray Although only going at walking speed, at least it was proceeding in the right direction. This mode of transport proved quite cooling and refreshing, and we were able to enjoy an excellent view of the railway station and yards that had received full and quite recent attention from our comrades. It was a fascinating and yet at the same time quite terrifying sight to see the row upon row of burnt and shattered trucks and coaches. The once handsome station buildings were reduced to mere piles of rubble. The spectacle was one that was soon to become all too familiar and I personally reached the stage, before I left Germany, of becoming tired of gazing on the destruction on the scale that Allied bombing had wrought.
We also received, as we left this pleasant little town of Neheim, many baleful looks from civilians. Some shook their fists at us, giving us every impression that it was only the presence of our soldier guards that saved us from getting more than a little hurt. We were destined to learn on the morrow a good deal more of the dangers attaching to this particular aspect of our situation.
The dray only took us about a mile along the road, before our guards abandoned it in favour of another covered wagon that was coming up behind. It was in this wagon that we had our first experience of the ‘air-raid spotter’ system in operation. We had only been under way a few minutes before we were ordered, along with the other passengers, to disembark, owing to the presence overhead of the ‘
flieger
’ our ‘comrade’. We spent a quite comfortable quarter of an hour in a ditch by the side of a wood. We did not dream for one moment that any of the Thunderbolts would waste valuable time and ammunition on a single truck drawn up by the road side, when there was a prominent railway and station in the town we had just left, which, no doubt, could stand a bit further ‘plastering.’
There was an amusing episode when in the distant sky could be seen what looked like a thin spiral of descending smoke. From the shouts of joy and laughter coming from the Germans, we jumped to the same conclusion as they had, that one of the Allied planes had been shot down. It
was our turn to laugh (and to give them their due some of the Germans laughed with us) when the ‘smoke’ drew nearer. As it came right up into view, it devolved itself into a gaggle of geese flying in perfect formation. No doubt, as they looked down on us, they enjoyed the joke as much as we did!
We were in the ditch again three more times during that short run to Werl. On the last occasion, when we were only a couple of kilometres outside the town, our guards ordered us to start walking. Apparently, it was liable to prove at least as quick, if not quicker, than waiting for the wagon to get under way again. We walked right into Werl, receiving a host of ugly looks as we passed through the main street, and about another 3 kilometres out the other side. Eventually, we were led on to an airfield of what, in England, was known as the pre-war type. The administrative buildings and living quarters were built of brick and stone, presenting a totally different appearance to the temporary war-time aerodromes at home, which had little clusters of Nissen or wooden huts usually dispersed among clumps of trees. In fact, the whole layout was so suspiciously reminiscent of English airfields constructed before the war, that we felt that somebody, sometime, must have done a little quiet ‘cribbing’. Which side it was we were not prepared to say!