Across the Bridge

by Robert Grieve Black

  “How the flippin’ heck can he call me a Schottlander? Everybody knows I’m a bleedin’ Cockney”

  “Yeah, you tell ‘em Pete. Sing ‘em a Cockney song.” jibed Bob Potter.

  “Cockney song. I’ll sing you a bloody Cockney song!” shouted Pete.

  By this time all the hut had gathered round. “Come on Pete! You show ‘em lad.”

  So off he went in full voice, standing on a chair.

  “Out last night we had a party

  All our friends were very gay and hearty

  Wasn’t it a treat for the Bruces down the street?

  ‘Alf past ten wasn’t ‘ere a rush

  Someone said we couldn’t get a bus

  So me and the Missus put ‘em up for the night

  Fifty lay on the parlour floor

  Down the cellar lay fifty more

  On the stairs they lay in pairs

  Tables, chairs too-oo-oo

  Uncle Jim was very much put up

  So we put ‘im in the kennel with the bulldog pup

  Left in the lurch, I sat upon the perch

  With the cock-a-doodle-doo-doo-doo…”

  Everybody clapped in time while Ian and Bob Shand danced in the middle of the hut trying to adapt Pete’s rhythm to a Highland dance. With neither one willing to dance the lady’s steps they cavorted round the hut and nearly crashed into the guard who came back in to a rousing chorus of “cock-a-doodle-doo-doo-doo.” He went crazy, drawing his rifle up, shouting and screaming. Having been over a year in the camp most of the lads had quite a good understanding of German but this was incomprehensible. Somebody slapped the lid on the wood stove, which was the only source of light and everyone’s favourite guard went stumbling, still raging, fumbling towards the door. Good sense prevailed and all the men settled down quietly with a general acceptance that Pete had proven his Cockney citizenship. The stove died down and the cold crept into Hut 5 of Stammlager XXA Kulm.

  By now the mail was getting through regularly from home and more parcels from mothers, wives, girlfriends, churches and W.R.I committees with socks, balaclavas, chocolate bars and cigarettes. Most folk back home now knew where their loved ones were and the Red Cross were still providing nutritional support. This mail was sometimes given or withheld like a carrot and stick discipline but generally got through to the men in the end. Bartering became common not only between prisoners but with the locals, they came into contact with, or to gain some special favour from the guards. British cigarettes were much sought after and a few squares of chocolate could be a special treat.

  Life was austere, not just for the prisoners, but for the Poles and Germans too. Here, in the middle of Poland they were well out of the war zone but the war was still going on and things were getting tough for everyone. Some of the basic rations that came from the Red Cross became luxury items to be traded carefully or shared with special consideration. Stealing in the camp was almost unheard of except on the odd occasion when someone was unwilling to share. One lad was given a white loaf by a farmer while on work detail. He decided to keep it and slept with it under his head. He woke in the morning to find that his camp mates had removed the two ends of the loaf and just a few crumbs were left in the middle. Bread was normally black and hard, made the men said, from sawdust and served daily with potato soup highlighting the value of treasures like a tin of corned beef.

  For survival the body needs nutrition but the spirit feeds on hope. Perhaps more welcome than these rations was the mail from home, the link with the real world that told them they hadn’t been forgotten. There was never any news of how the war was developing. What hadn’t been obliterated by British censors was stamped over by the camp officials. But nobody really cared; it was great to hear from the folks back home and after a few letters like this they learned to write just about homely things.

  Photos were the real treasures and the German captors encouraged the exchange of photos. They took pictures of the prisoners and gave them copies to send home: good propaganda showing that the men were humanely treated but were still prisoners. That hurt because although they knew that they had been abandoned in the retreat from France they also knew that their humiliation and imprisonment not only helped the enemy work effort but provided constant propaganda to boost the German spirit and deflate British moral.

  Sometimes the letters brought news from home that was not so welcome. Pete Daly’s mother was badly injured in the London blitz and Bob Potter’s old police station had been totally destroyed with two of his old workmates inside. In the middle of November things hit a low point. Pete got a letter from back home. It started, “My Dearest Pete…” but it was what everybody called a “Dear John”. It went on to explain that although she still loved him and missed him and thought about him every day, she had met a young airman who was great fun and with the terrible times of the blitz and not having Pete she really needed someone to cheer her up. She was sure that he would understand.

  He understood perfectly! He went from the numbness of shock through the anguish of childlike sobbing and into a deep state of depression. The others tried everything but could not shake him back into his normal bouncy character. He stayed like that for days. But happy or sad, in good health or in bad, this was a labour camp and they just had to get out and get on, out into the forests or the fields, the mines or the factories. Life trudged on and Ian and the two Bob’s reckoned that Pete would bounce back.

  Work that week was in the forest cutting logs to feed the ingenious gas tractors that the Germans had invented. This work took them out along the banks of the River Vistula. Ian’s inquisitive mind was intrigued by the strange boiler contraption that converted wood-logs into gas and it was one of the jobs he didn’t mind doing. Pete, on the other hand, was a city lad and he hated everything to do with the country so there was always a friendly banter between the men as they worked. Or avoided work! Nobody was sure how Pete had got himself into the open-air squad; he was a plumber by trade. Right now he was still on a downer, turning away from time to time so the others wouldn’t see the tears but they knew he was hurting. He was splitting large logs with an axe and he was bringing the axe down viciously so that the guards thought he was in an unusually energetic mood.

  Suddenly he stopped and looked up.

  “I’m going home,” he declared.

  “Aye Pete, we’ll come too,” joked Bob Shand in his canny Highland lilt, “What time’s the next train?”

  Pete ignored this and raised the axe to split the next log. The axe went nowhere near the log but instead he brought it down fiercely on his own lower leg. The others gasped as they heard the bone crunch.

  “I’m going home,” he repeated.

  “Guard!” somebody shouted. “There’s been an accident.”

  Two guards came running, rifles outstretched. Two men were detailed to take him back to camp. Despite the obvious pain, there was a smile on his face.

  “I’m going home,” he whispered.

  The guards knew exactly what had happened. A week later most of the harvesting work was finished and they returned to the main camp at Torun. Nothing had changed much except all the tents were gone and there were a few more huts. On their return to the camp Ian and the two Bobs were called before the Unter Kommandant, Hauptmann Tettenborn.

  As they entered the room he stood by the window, hands clasped behind his back. They had seen him many times at roll call but this was the first time at close quarters. He spun round on his heel!

  “What happened last week with Private Daly was not an accident,” he said in perfect English. “Tell me what you know.”

  “I’m sure it was an accident,” said Bob Potter. “But I didn’t see what happened.” Ian and the other Bob nodded in agreement.

  The Unter Kommandant turned back towards the window. “I understand he received a “Dear John” letter.”

  “Yes, two weeks ago,” replied Ian.

  “The guards tell me that he thinks he is going home.”

  “
He wanted to go home, yes.”

  Hauptmann Tettenborn stiffened noticeably and Ian winced, preparing himself for what was coming. He swung round sharply and glared at Ian reminding him of Mr. Arnold, the head teacher of so many years ago.

  “Yes, soldier,” he paused a moment, “We all want to go home,” and he sunk heavily into the chair behind his desk. “It is out of my hands now. The Red Cross want him repatriated and the SS want him executed. Let’s hope the Red Cross win the argument and your friend goes home. He is certainly no use to me in that state. His leg is ruined.

  Two weeks later news came through the grapevine. Pete Daly had been sent back to England via Slovakia, Austria and Switzerland. He had escaped but there was no sense of satisfaction, no sense of envy. Pete’s depression hung over them for quite some time.

  Next month came the mail again with a letter for Ian. It was waiting when he came back from a work detail. He opened it and took out the contents. He studied it, turned it over and peered over it again. Tears started to form in his eyes and his hand shook a little. Bob Shand was watching him. He came over quietly and laid a hand on his shoulder comfortingly.

  “Another Dear John?” he asked.

  The tears were more obvious now as Ian passed the message to his friend. Bob didn’t really want to participate in his best friend’s discomfort but he glanced at the paper in his hand. It was a photo. A pretty, sparky looking girl, nicely dressed, just the hint of a smile. He turned the photo over. At the top was “SCRIVENS PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDIOS OBAN”. In the bottom right hand corner was “Yours affectionately, Christina”. And in the middle, just to remind everybody was the usual stamp “STALAG XXA”.

  “She’s nice,” said Bob. “She must have gone specially to have this taken.”

  Ian just nodded, taking the photo back.

  “I’m going to marry her,” he said.

  “Have you asked her?”

  “No, but she’ll say yes.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then, why don’t you ask her?”

  “I’m going to. In my next letter.”

  “Right laddie. So I’m going to have to get you home in one piece.”

  “Aye. You can be my best man.”

  “ You’re bloody right I will, so you’ll have to get me home in one piece too.”

  They were still chuckling when Bob Potter came into the hut. Bob Shand pounced on him with the news. Ian handed him the photo.

  “You lucky bugger. Do I get an invite too?”

  “Aye. Won’t it be great? But I’ll have to ask Teenie first if she wants to marry me. Has anybody got a writing home docket?” All letters written from the prison camp had to be on the official “Stalag” paper.

  There was a scramble to look for a postkard to write the formal proposal. Pete Daly’s misfortune had pulled everyone down. Now spirits soared once again, something to look forward to, something to believe in, something to live for.

  Yours Affectionately Christina

  19. RAUS! RAUS! RAUS! ALLES AUS!

  Torun, 1943

  Nearly sixty years later these words still ring in the ears of every surviving prisoner of the Third Reich.

  “Raus! Raus! Raus! Alles aus!”

  “ Get up! Get up! Get up! Everybody out!”

  Every morning came the roll call. Everybody up and everybody out they stood and endured the tedium of the bogus head count. It didn’t serve any real purpose. There were some escape attempts and some prisoners who went into hiding in preparation for escape so there was some need to count heads from time to time. But the prisoners did everything in their power to “bugger-up” the count and the guards weren’t particularly bright. They had “extra” people more often than people missing. It was, in fact, counter productive as most days it served as a rallying point for the prisoners boosting the feeling of comradeship. It was also an opportunity for the grapevine to work spreading news about the progress of the war.

  It was worse when they were back at the base camp in Podgorz. Out in the work camps the guards went through the motions of a roll call and then everybody went to work. Podgorz, Torun was the administrative base with its team of functionaries who wanted everything exactly right. Here also the prisoners were more lethargic and never in any great hurry to “raus” especially in the winter months, so all in all the morning roll call was always more of a drudge in Torun.

  The 11 of February 1943 Ian Black was near to finishing a winter stay back at Podgorz. Today was his birthday and he took it into his head that as a special treat he was not going to “raus”. The guard came back in a second time.

  “Raus! Raus! Raus!” his voice shook the windowpanes.

  “Come on Ian! Get up!” Bob Potter had come back to see what was the matter. “Don’t be stupid. They’ll shoot you or something.”

  “No. Today’s my birthday. I’m not getting up.”

  “Well, suit yourself, mate. Count me out,” said Bob, assuming that Ian was just kidding, and out he went to join the rest.

  “Raus,” screamed the guard, bringing his rifle up and pointing it at Ian’s head.

  “I’m not well. I can’t get up.”

  “If you’re not well you go to the hospital,” he screamed in German.

  “Aus! Aus!” he screamed again.

  Ian didn’t budge.

  The muzzle of the gun pushed into his left ear.

  “Aus soldat!” this time he wasn’t screaming. His voice was cold and menacing. “A-a-u-u-s!” The gun pressed harder.

  “Alright but move that gun from my ear.”

  The guard backed off, still with the rifle at the ready. Ian roused, got on his clothes and was marched out into the yard with everyone else.

  Someone called out, “Come on, Jock! Raus laddie! We’re freezin’ our bleedin’ balls off while you’re in yer kip.”

  Across the yard a Glasgow voice responded “Och, shuttup ya English twit. Can ye no see the laddie’s no weel?”

  The gauntlet was down. Nobody could resist. The parade went into uproar as insult traded insult and the guards strutted up and down trying to restore order. Ian Black’s fate was sealed. Immediately after roll call he was marched to Fort 14 to the hospital and presented to the German doctor in charge.

  “I understand you’re not well soldier. What exactly is your problem? Does our home cooking not agree with you?” taunted the doctor.

  “My hair is falling out.”

  The doctor exploded.

  “Guter Gott im Himmel! Don’t you know there’s a war going on? And you are worried because you’re going bald. Look at me. I’ve got no hair.”

  “ Yes I know there’s a war going on. That’s why we’re here. Isn’t it? I am not going bald. My hair is falling out. I think it’s alopecia.”

  “Ah! You think it’s alopecia.”

  “Yes. I’ve always had a good head of hair and now it’s coming out in handfuls.” Ian insisted.

  “Oh, well soldier. I’ll give you some oil to massage your scalp,” conceded the doctor.

  He poured some oil in a bottle and handed it over. “Now get out of here. I don’t want to see you back unless you’re dying.”

  The doctor never saw Ian Black again. Three days later Ian was moved out and was never to return to Torun. Work groups were formed randomly, just a list of names crossed off against a list of work places to be filled. Some of the XXA men were shipped north to Stalag XXB at Marienburg just south of Danzig (now Gdansk). Ian was lucky in this respect in that he saw out most of his prison years along with Bob Shand and Bob Potter. They went together to Konitz, Camp XXA (124)

  They were marched down to the station at Torun, a grand opulent building. Outside was a line of horse drawn carriages with their drivers sitting in top hat and tails waiting for the business gentlemen coming off the trains. Inside the station stood a long line of coaches, doors open, with people going to and fro’. At the front the locomotive was building up steam ready to go. The prisoners didn’t go o
n this train. They were marched two hundred yards more to a sideline where stood the familiar horseboxes. They climbed aboard.

  The journey was surprisingly short, about sixty miles northwest passing through the town of Bromberg once again. Konitz was a small industrial and commercial town but the prison camp like most was out in the countryside, the inevitable line of wooden huts. This was home for the next two and a half years. The work as always was out in the farms but the strictness of the first two years was mellowing and more contact was allowed with the local people.

  In the villages that they worked in or passed through, in the houses that they glimpsed inside and in the people themselves, Ian’s strongest impression was the obvious influence and dominance of the church. They were more afraid of the local priest that of the Germans. Every house had a cross above the door and a little shrine. Nobody ate meat on a Friday, which wasn’t a big sacrifice because they didn’t see much meat the other days either.

  They arrived in Konitz at the end of February so for the first couple of weeks there wasn’t much to do except keep warm. Days and evenings were spent talking about home, telling stories of childhood and of the jobs they had in “civvy-street” and planning what they would do when they were free.

  “What will you do, Bob?” asked Bob Shand of Bob Potter.

  “I suppose I’ll go back to being a London Bobby. What about you Bob?” he bounced the question back.

  “Oh, something in the motor trade or have my own shop. Maybe become a racing driver. Maybe go to America,” sitting in a prison camp in the middle of nowhere “maybe” could be anything they wanted.

  “Bobby went to America,” chipped in Ian.

  “Bobby who?” chorused the other two.

  “Bobby, my brother. He’s a seaman. He went to America with my father during the depression. They went to New York and Chicago and the Niagara Falls. It was like the Wild West. Everybody carried a gun.” Ian retold his brother’s exploits with enthusiasm.