Twenty Days in the Reich (3 page)
Our spirits were brighter this morning and we took the expedition as part of the day’s work. There were many things we wanted to discuss, but our guard kept very close. We deemed it wiser not to talk too much, as he might have a knowledge of English, which up to now he had
not professed. Another problem that occupied my mind was how to get rid of my Air Ministry watch, which I knew was a valuable piece of booty and which I did not think would remain with me much longer. I was unlucky in this matter, however, because the old man never took his eyes off us, and the immediate vicinity of the roadside did not have any ditches nor water of any kind into which I could dump the article.
At length we arrived at Fredeberg, which proved to be a very pleasant holiday type of town, where people probably came for fishing and shooting holidays. There were any number of pensions (boarding houses) and
gasthofs
, which we assumed with fair reason to be guest houses. There did not appear to have been any enemy activity (it seemed odd how quickly we came to use the term ‘enemy aircraft’ to describe our own Allied machines), but an air-raid siren sounded with a terrific clatter as we passed through the centre of the town. Simultaneously, a couple of Army officers indicated in no uncertain terms that they would very much like to shoot us! Our guard reasoned with them, however, and without any further show of hostility from the natives we dumped our burden and were led into the office of some high official who would almost surely be the burgomaster.
There was a queue of women outside the office and a couple inside. We were struck by the looks of sadness and suffering on the faces of them all.
Of the nature of their business we had no idea, but the burgomaster was a cruel-looking man, and whatever it was they wanted we had no doubt that it took an awful amount of securing.
In the room also were two German soldiers, to whom our old guard handed us over. Then with a brief nod to us, he disappeared. We didn’t much care for the look of these men either, and they proceeded to search us thoroughly and without any ceremony. Everything we had of value and otherwise was taken from us, and whilst protest seemed useless, we were to learn later that we should have been given a receipt if there was to be any hope of our eventually recovering those articles of a non-military character.
When this performance was at last over, we were led out of the building, back up the road down which we had come, and eventually our guards stopped outside a building, which had every appearance of being the local prison. As the door was opened, our worst fears were confirmed, because the smell and general aspect of the place reminded us vividly of the Nazi gaols we had read about at home. A stout inside door was pushed open, we were thrust inside a cold miserable-looking cell amid a pile of dirty straw, and left bewildered to blink around as the cell door clanged shut.
W
e did not have very long to ruminate on the obvious shortcomings of this apartment, because in less than a minute the soldiers reappeared and more or less pushed us out of this cell and into the one next door. The atmosphere of this cell at once smote us as being as stiflingly hot and stuffy as the other had been cold and dark. We wondered vaguely whether this was the famous hot and cold treatment that we had heard was used to make prisoners talk, but when we found that there was a glass window that could be opened to let in a fair amount of fresh air between stout iron bars, we decided that this was not so. In fact, we soon began to realise that the presence of the small wood-burning fire, which was the cause of all the warmth, was to make all the difference between comparative comfort and sheer misery – provided we were allowed to keep it going.
The cell was about 10 feet long from the window to the door, and about 8 feet wide. Except for a narrow passage down one side and along the end
by the door, the whole of the floor space was covered by a dais raised a foot above the ground, which, for want of a more exact term, we called the ‘bed’. This article, made of wood, and having a short slope at the end against the wall, was in two sections, each of which could be lifted off the ground. A rapid inspection revealed the presence of a large quantity of logs – enough, we thought, to last a fair sized siege!
When we had cooled off from our walk, and the sun had passed from our window, which it did pretty soon owing to the presence of a large house on the other side of the prison wall, we found that the cell was comfortable, but none too warm. We dragged out a good supply of logs and put them on top of the stove. We considered that, at all costs, the fire would have to be kept going if we were to get any sleep at night. We completed our survey of the cell, finding a small peephole in the door, through which we could get an idea of what went on outside, and a larger hole at the top end of the wall by the door, through which we could see into the cell that we had vacated. However, owing to the thickness of the wall, it was not possible to see what was happening in there. There was an electric light fitted with no bulb, guarded by a small wire grille, and a rack with about six coat hooks, the purpose of which was obscure. As this seemed to complete the entire fixtures and fittings of our apartment, we were able to make a very careful inspection for a possible microphone, and
to decide that if we kept our voices down it would be safe to talk. Outside the window we could see a narrow courtyard containing a lot more timber ready for chopping. There was a wall some 12 feet high and at the end on our right a big door the same height, leading to the main street of the town.
We settled ourselves as comfortably on the bed as was possible, using scarves or gloves to soften the ‘pillow’ that was automatically furnished by the slope against the wall. We began to try and sort out a few of the problems that we had been turning over in our minds since yesterday afternoon.
‘I’m afraid I’m dreadfully vague,’ I said to Arthur ‘as to what it was that made us have to get out in such a fearful hurry after the Skipper gave the order to fix parachutes.’
‘If you drove your motor car with no oil in the engine what do you suppose would happen?,’ interrupted Jack.
‘I don’t know, I’ve never tried it. Something pretty ghastly I expect.’
‘Well, there you are,’ said Arthur, ‘the port inner had reached the stage where it had no oil left in it at all, and this caused the revolutions to get faster and faster, owing to the “windmilling” effect of the propeller in the slipstream.’
‘Would she have caught fire, then?’
‘Smoke was pouring from her then,’ he replied, ‘and the old Skip knew that she might burst into flames at any minute.’
‘But suppose it had,’ I pursued, ‘couldn’t you have put it out – aren’t there some special gadgets for that kind of thing?’
‘Yes, but he wasn’t able to get it out, and it might have been only a matter of seconds before the whole aircraft was ablaze.’
‘Nice thought,’ said Jack. Do you remember the case of poor old Johnny D. … a few weeks ago? His aircraft was seen to be streaking for the Rhine with an engine on fire. Nobody got out, and before they could reach friendly territory the whole issue burst into flames, and went straight into the deck. Nobody could have had a chance.’
‘Looks as though the Skip did us well, taking it all round.’ I remarked, ‘but it’s an awful pity that we don’t know where the rest of the boys have got to.’
We carried on talking in monotones for some time, hoping, surmising and trying to form some plausible theories to account for our comrades. Eventually, we were interrupted by a babel of voices in the courtyard. We got up and were greeted at the window by several smiling and friendly faces – there were both men and women, and even some babies. We learnt that there were Russians, French, Poles and Dutch, all apparently prisoners and glad of the opportunity to pass the time of day with us. Not that we could understand much of what was said except from the Frenchmen, but there are times when looks and gestures can say as much as words.
There were two of whom we were going to see a lot during our stay in the prison – one a pleasant-faced Polish girl called Helena, and the other a pretty, sad-eyed Russian lass named Valentina. By a motion to the mouth and the use of the word ‘
essen
’, which could not mean anything else but ‘eat’, Helena enquired if we had dined. We shook our heads emphatically to indicate that we had not, neither did we think we stood much chance of so doing. Valentina stayed with us and in a few minutes Helena came back with a billy-can full of hot soup – at least a few strings of carrot floated around like goldfish in a pale sea of yellow liquid, but we realised that is was probably the girls’ own rations they were offering and we were thus very grateful. We ate as much as we could of the stuff to satisfy our hunger, which by this time was becoming rather noticeable.
The girls stayed to ‘chat’ to us for quite a while and we for our part tried to make out how they fitted into the scheme of things in this gloomy gaol. As Jack had remarked (and we thought we detected a change in his tone as he said it) ‘it seems to be a mixed clink’. The fact that these two girls were clean and dressed to a far better standard than any of the other prisoners pointed to their being kept there for the only obvious purpose. Valentina showed us how her hands had been burnt by Germans, and that, coupled with the immense sadness in her eyes, told us that she had been no ready victim for the fate that had
overtaken her. Poor kids, perhaps at the end of the war they were able to return to the homes whence they must have been snatched when they were but schoolgirls.
After a while the girls disappeared rather hastily, which seemed to indicate that whoever had charge of them had been away and was now back, and we returned to our roost.
Except for the occasional blare of a siren, all was peace and quiet. We tried to weigh the sirens up – there seemed to be three varieties. One was the long straight note like our English ‘All clear’, another a deep warbling tone which died almost away before coming up again, and the third a fast, warbling sound, which hardly changed in pitch at all. We thought that if the straight note was ‘All clear’, then one of the other two must be a preliminary warning and the other an ‘imminent’. But the theory didn’t work, because we were hearing ‘imminents’ before ‘preliminaries’ just as often as the other way round! We were to find out much later on that the fast warble was to indicate the approach of fighters and other light aircraft, and the deep warble was reserved for those occasions when heavy bombers were on the prowl – which, we reflected grimly, ‘they can be as often as they like provided they steer clear of Fredeberg!’
The afternoon wore on, and there seemed no evidence of our gaolers desiring to visit us. The question of personal convenience was becoming rather pressing, and Arthur, who was
experiencing grave discomfort, eventually found beneath the bed a small empty condensed milk tin about a couple of inches in height. The tin had two small holes already pierced in the lid, and the problem was how to get the rest of the lid off so that it could be used as a container. Arthur at last found that one of the staples holding down the grille over the lamp socket was loose. By using this and piercing many more holes in the top of the tin, he at last achieved the desired result. It was then a case of several visits, with a pal to stand by to empty each tinful out of the window, but we enjoyed quite a good laugh. We were not in the least abashed when the courtyard began to fill with prisoners again, and our antics if not actually witnessed must at least have been guessed at. Necessity knows no laws, and we were, at any rate, preserving a certain amount of hygiene! Our other problem when it arose, was much more expeditiously solved by the use of the tray below the fireplace, followed by the rapid burning of the contents.
About this time quite a few of those outside began to hand us in old and very stale hunks and crusts of black bread, for which, I must admit, we got the impression they had no further use! Still, they meant well, and whilst we didn’t feel quite that hungry then, we built up a little store beneath the bed, for there seemed to be no telling whether those who had left us here might have forgotten all about us.
Dusk, like dawn, seemed to arrive earlier than at home (we knew the time from a nearby clock that chimed the quarters as well as the hours). As we had no light the only thing left for us to do was ‘to take an early night’. We were scared stiff lest we should sleep too well and let the fire go out, but we need not have worried. For several hours there was a terrific racket going on outside, with the sound of German male voices rising above the shrill howls of at least three young babies – we guessed it must be visiting night! Far into the night those wee babies cried, and there always seemed to be at least one of us awake, so that the fire was kept alight, and we were by no means unappreciative of the kindly thought that had provided it for us.
When we finally got up and stretched ourselves, we were staggered to see how many logs we had used. We had stacked a big pile to dry by the fire, and they had practically all gone. We decided that with a little more care, the remaining stock might be made to last a week.
A considerable commotion outside drew our attention to the fact that a large part of the prison population, including three infants, seemed to be on the point of evacuating. Luggage was being tied up onto carts and there was much excited chatter and gesticulation. After a while, the party left by the big gate, waving us goodbye and leaving us still further supplies of even staler bread. We came to the conclusion that they were
probably only passing through the town, and had stopped here for one, or, at the most, two nights. The prison, at any rate was never as noisy afterwards as it had been up to now.
At around 9 a.m. the door to the prison opened at last to admit a German woman of about 35 years of age, with features not unbeautiful but desperately stern. She deposited three mugs of black coffee and three pieces of dry black bread on the bed, put a pail down on the floor and departed without any ceremony. We made the best we could of the meal, and surveyed the pail, which we thought might be a good deal more convenient than our existing arrangements, but was not likely to be as sanitary!
The day was again fine, and apart from the ever-present wail of the sirens, little happened to disturb our peace. Valentina and Helena came to the window during the morning and we were quite pleased to see them and exchange a few more views in our language of signs and gestures. A finely built Dutchman, whose name we learnt was Jan, also got quite friendly with us, but the visits of all three were brief, and there was little for us to do apart from stoking the fire and gazing out of the window. Inevitably we spent a fair amount of time studying the bars to the window, but they looked pretty solid, although there was some evidence that the middle one had been got out at some time and subsequently restored.
We slept a bit, and talked a bit, and eventually around noon our wardress brought in a can each of potato soup, which actually tasted quite wholesome. We considered that things were looking up and perhaps we were even going to be fed three meals a day, but we took no chances and saved a little of our soup, which we kept warm by placing the cans on top of the fireplace.
During one of our chats to the girls later that afternoon, we indicated that we thought that if we had an axe we might possibly be able to hack away the concrete around two of the bars, and thus get away during the night. It gave us an immense surprise, though, when Valentina slipped away and returned in a few moments with an extremely useful-looking chopper, which she handed through the bars. At the same time, she made it understood that she would be able to get civilian clothes.
We wondered if and when we dared risk the noise that the tool would undoubtedly create, but we started a little tentative chipping just to see. We had not made much impression when Jan appeared and claimed what seemed to be his axe, and whilst we thought our hopes of escape were going to be dashed, such was not the case. Jan indicated, and it was truly amazing how much conversation we managed to carry on without speaking a word of each other’s language, that he would like to come with us. When we told him, by means of a crude sketch, that the Allies had a
bridgehead over the Rhine at Remagen, he was wildly elated. The information had obviously not been allowed to get into the prison. His idea seemed to be that tomorrow, which would be Sunday, the wardress would be out all afternoon. He seemed to think it would not take him long to hack away the bars from the outside, as long as he could carry on uninterrupted. The bars would be left loose until after dark and then, he told us, one man over the gate could unbolt it from the outside, and let the others through.
We ourselves were not unexcited, for we had seen enough of the prison system and its occupants to know that we were the only ones who were at all well guarded.