Prisoner of Dieppe

by Hugh Brewster

  We crossed a bridge and walked under the steel cranes of the port of Dieppe. It sounded as if the gunfire was beginning to die down. We turned a corner and the beachfront and promenade lay in front of us. The firing on it seemed to have stopped. As the grey smokescreen lifted we could see plumes of black smoke rising from shattered landing craft and burning tanks on the shore. The street in front of the promenade was lined with hotels and apartment blocks, many of them with scarred bricks and broken windows. Smoke was coming out of a large white building farther down the beachfront that I soon learned was the town’s casino.

  We were marched onto the concrete promenade that had once been a popular spot for day-trippers to stroll and eat ice cream. Now it held a few hundred bedraggled and battle-weary Canadian soldiers. A few of them were barefoot and bare-legged. I guessed that they had kicked off their boots and pants while trying to swim out to sea. Some of the wounded were being bandaged by German medics.

  I walked among the huddled knots of men, looking for Mackie and any of my platoon-mates.

  “We never had a chance!” I heard an angry voice say.

  “Who planned this cock-up?” muttered another.

  “The damn Brits!” said a third man. “Where was the Navy? Those destroyers were supposed to give us cover — their guns were like bloody popguns!”

  I nodded in agreement. I’d seen one destroyer fire onto Blue Beach from offshore. All it did was knock off a chunk of cliff that fell onto the men below.

  Then with a loud roar another Spitfire swooped down over us. Once again we scattered and dived for the pavement. We heard the rat-tat-tat of automatic fire, but luckily it didn’t hit any of us. A man lying near me rolled over and shook his fist. “Where were you when we needed you?” he screamed at the departing plane.

  After we stood up, I saw that groups of men were being marched off the promenade. When our turn came, we walked by the beach and I caught a glimpse of bodies and a severed leg bobbing in the bloody surf. It made me want to vomit. For what? I thought. All these man sacrificed … and for what?

  Then we passed two Churchill tanks that had been abandoned on the promenade. I noted that it was surrounded by concrete barriers. These tanks could have done nothing except roar around the promenade.

  Shouldn’t somebody have known this? I thought. We climbed over the barriers and walked with our hands on our heads through the streets of Dieppe. Some of the townspeople looked at us sullenly but others flashed the V for Victory symbol with their fingers. A Jerry photographer was snapping photographs of us. I could only imagine how the German newspapers would crow over our defeat.

  Before long we were herded into the walled grounds of the Dieppe hospital. Men lay on stretchers near the doors. French nuns and some doctors were tending to them, clearly overwhelmed by the number of wounded. Trucks soon arrived to take some of the injured to other hospitals. As we squatted on the grass, the guards came and demanded that we empty our pockets. We grumbled at this, but I eventually tossed my paybook and watch onto a pile that included wallets, fountain pens, rings, pocket knives and tobacco pouches. A young fellow from Montreal threw a grenade onto the pile. The guards all dived for cover, until they heard us laughing and realized that the pin on the grenade hadn’t been pulled.

  By late afternoon, all those who could walk were formed up into a long column outside the hospital. By my estimate there were about sixteen hundred of us. Some of the men had blankets around their shoulders. Many had no pants. A few of those without shoes had wrapped their feet in bits of cloth. Slowly we marched forward with our hands on our heads. Some of the townspeople tried to pass bottles of water or wine to us, but the guards pushed them away with bayonets.

  As we crossed over the bridge into the docklands I saw a small group of our soldiers approaching. Men ahead of me were calling out greetings to them. As they drew closer I recognized Lt-Colonel Catto walking with his hands up. There were about a dozen men behind him, one of them walking with his arms around the shoulders of two others. When he lifted his head, I saw that it was Mackie.

  “Mack, Mack!” I shouted. “Are you okay?”

  “Hey, Allie!” he replied, grinning, his white teeth lighting up his grimy face. “I’m fine. Nothin’ big. Just a bullet to the foot. But it went right through!” he said, raising his wounded foot.

  I pulled out the crumpled mirror and waved it. “The mirror saved me, Mack!” I called out, but he had already passed by. He craned his head back and I shook the mirror like a rattle until I felt a sharp prod in my backside.

  “Komm!” growled a guard. I hopped back into line. I was now farther back than when I’d spotted Mackie. Around me were a group of men from the Fusiliers Mont-Royal. One of the FMRs started singing the “Marseillaise” in a high clear voice.

  “Allons enfants de la Patrie,” he began and a chorus of FMRs joined in. I sang along as well, summoning a memory of Miss Carlton, my Grade Ten French teacher, teaching us the words. This was a scene she could never have imagined, I thought.

  An old French man saluted us, and others standing by the roadside sang along with tears in their eyes. It had been over two years since they had heard their national anthem. The guards tried to stop the singing but we ignored them.

  On the outskirts of Dieppe a farmer brought out a metal milk container and started ladling it out to us, but one of the guards kicked it over and shoved him away.

  Then an old woman pushing a wheelbarrow of tomatoes had a better idea. She picked up a ripe tomato and began cursing us. “Crétins! Imbéciles!” she yelled hoarsely. Then she began hurling the tomatoes at us. Some of the men caught them and put them in their pockets to eat later. I saw two guards roaring with laughter and one patted her on the shoulder. She smiled back, very pleased at having fooled the Germans.

  Soon we were in open countryside. I looked out at the fields of yellow wheat glowing in the evening sunshine. I heard birds singing in the trees. A wave of euphoria swept over me. I was alive! Mackie was alive! I had never felt so alive in my whole life. Alive! The word kept repeating in my brain with every step, a-live, a-live, a-live.

  A barefoot soldier abruptly ended my reverie. He had fallen back in the line because gravel from the road was digging into his blistered feet. I kneeled and helped him pluck out the gravel and then put his arm around my shoulder. As he limped along beside me, I learned that his name was Stan Darch, one of the Rileys from Hamilton. He said that his platoon had managed to get inside the casino on the beachfront and clear the Germans out of it. “But we couldn’t get into the town,” he continued. “There was no way. They were firing down on us somethin’ wicked.”

  “For us, too, it was murder,” said one of the FMRs in accented English. “We were supposed to be the reserves. But the commanders­ — they had no clue what was really happening. So they sent us in. But when we got through the smoke, we were just pinned down on the beach. You moved and you got it!”

  We passed a road sign that said that Envermeu was just 3 kilometres ahead. “Envermeu,” I said to Stan. “Let’s hope we’re stopping there for the night.”

  “Oh sure,” said Stan, “they’ll be getting the best hotel ready for us.”

  As we came down a hill towards Envermeu, we were greeted by an amazing site. It was like something out of a dream. Approaching us was a bride in a long white dress carrying a bouquet of flowers. Beside her was the groom in a tuxedo with satin lapels. The rest of the gaily-dressed wedding party walked behind. They had all just come from a wedding in the village church, whose tower we could see through the trees. As they waited for us to pass, we called out greetings and congratulations. Some of the guys had English coins in their pockets and tossed them to the bride. “Here, honey,” I heard someone say, “buy yourself a wedding present!”

  As Stan and I drew near, some of the wedding guests looked down at his bleeding feet with pity. Suddenly I saw a young man with a flower in his buttonhole — I think he was the best man — bend down. He unlaced his shiny new shoes and han
ded them to Stan. Stan was stunned and began to say, “No, no I couldn’t,” but the guards suddenly grabbed the best man and hustled him away in his stocking feet. Stan immediately squatted down in the road and put on the shoes. As he was lacing them up a guard came and booted him in the backside. But Stan didn’t care — when he caught up with me he had a huge smile on his face. “Hope they don’t give that guy any grief,” he said. “That was one fine thing, what he done.”

  We walked into the village of Envermeu and stopped in front of the church where the wedding had just taken place. The officers were separated out and I saw Lt-Colonel Catto and the others climb the steps of the church, where they were to spend the night. There were groans and muttered protests as the rest of us were marched out of the village. We walked for a few miles more until we were herded inside an abandoned brick factory. It was just a shell of a building with a dirt floor, no toilets and only one water pipe outside. We milled about, complaining loudly, sometimes tripping over the wounded. Many of them had fallen down from sheer exhaustion.

  Suddenly there was a shrill whistle and a loud English voice shouted, “Atten-shun! Silence, please!”

  A short man stood very straight atop a pile of bricks. “I am Regimental Sergeant-Major Beesley of the British Number Three Commando Group,” he announced. “We must have some order here. We are soldiers and we must conduct ourselves as soldiers. The enemy must not see us as cowardly in defeat. Everyone here fought bravely under impossible conditions. We were defeated through no fault of our own.”

  A few lame cheers went up. But I could see some of the guys rolling their eyes as if to say, “Who is this Limey telling us what to do?” Beesley then ordered that one corner of the old factory floor be cleared for the wounded. When they had been moved and settled there, he organized a group of men to carry water to them in their helmets. Later, when some loaves of black bread were brought in, Beesley directed some of the other sergeants to break up and distribute the small portions of bread evenly and fairly. Finally he delivered a small pep talk on how we could survive as prisoners of war. He concluded by saying, “Make your enemy respect you. In time they will fear you!”

  I found it hard to believe that the Germans would ever fear me. But I had changed my mind about Beesley and was glad that he had taken charge. He seemed a natural leader and we needed someone like him.

  It was now dark outside and I felt utterly spent. Could it only have been this morning that we were crouched in our landing craft off Blue Beach? It seemed a lifetime ago. I balled up my battle jacket and lay down near a dusty wall.

  Within minutes I sank into a welcome oblivion.

  CHAPTER 11

  JOURNEY INTO CAPTIVITY

  August 20, 1942, 0300 hours

  The oblivion didn’t last long. I woke up in the dark, aching all over. The dirt floor was hard and my side and chest were throbbing. I ran my fingers over the cut on my side and felt some pus oozing out of it. Great, I thought, it’s infected.

  Then I heard moans from the corner where the wounded were lying and felt guilty for even worrying about a cut. I could also hear muffled sobs coming from a few of the men around me. For some reason, an image of Lieutenant Whitman flashed into my brain and I began to cry as well. Why am I weeping for a man I never liked? I wondered. Even more tears flowed as I remembered how I’d made fun of him and called him Twitman. He had a family and friends back home, who would soon learn that they’d never see him again. Why him and not me? Why Hartley and Smiler and Turnbull and almost all of our platoon and not me? They were better soldiers — hell, they were better men — than me.

  It was almost a relief when grey morning light began seeping into our dusty compound. The guards roused us with barked orders, water was brought in, and small hunks of black bread were passed around. Just after sunrise we once again formed up into a long column on the country road. I noticed that some of the barefoot men now wore odd-looking shoes that had been cut out of army life jackets. A sergeant from the FMRs had stayed up all night making these. A man near me who was wearing these ungainly shoes — Norm, from the Essex Scottish — was also dragging his wounded leg. I offered my shoulder as support. As we trudged along I told him that I thought I might be one of the few men from my platoon who hadn’t been killed or wounded.

  “I heard the Royals were hit harder than any other regiment,” he replied.

  I told him about some of the guilty feelings I’d been having.

  “Guilty?” Norm replied, looking straight at me. “There’s nothing to be guilty about! We all did the best we could. It’s the idiots who planned this thing who should feel guilty. You should feel lucky! Lucky, and, well, grateful … yeah, grateful.”

  As we passed the gates to a farm, two little girls ran out and gave us the V for Victory salute and then ran away. We smiled and, all of a sudden, I did feel grateful. Grateful for men like Norm. Grateful for the morning sunshine that warmed my face. Grateful for still having a life when so many others had lost theirs.

  By the afternoon, however, the sun that I’d enjoyed in the early morning was beating down relentlessly. We’d been slogging along in humid heat for hours with hardly a break, and with no food and very little water. Norm’s face was red and his leg was oozing pus. I felt his forehead and realized he had a high fever. Another man came and took Norm’s other arm over his shoulder.

  Late in the afternoon, we saw a sign that said Paris was only 25 kilometres away. I’ve always wanted to go to Paris, I thought, just not in this way. Only a few kilometres later, near a village called Verneulles, we suddenly caught sight of our destination. It was a large barbed-wire enclosure with some shabby grey barracks inside. As we approached the gates, everyone fell silent. Just inside them was the grim silhouette of a large wooden gallows.

  “Looks like they’re planning a necktie party,” quipped a fellow from the Calgary Tanks. Nobody laughed. We had heard about Nazi executions of enemy soldiers.

  Once we were inside the gates, I took Norm to a long line of wounded that had formed outside the infirmary. I sat him down in the line and the guards gestured me towards another long grey hut. When I walked inside, it was already crowded. There were no beds, so some men were stretched out on the floor. There were no blankets either.

  “I guess the management wasn’t expecting so many guests,” said Fred, another fellow from the Rileys, but nobody even smiled.

  Two guards came in a little later with a bucket of cabbage soup and a few loaves of black bread. We had no eating utensils so some guys drank out of a tin helmet. One or two used an army boot. A man near me had found an old tin can and I waited till he was done, and borrowed it. The watery soup had a greasy taste and there was sand at the bottom of the bucket. I nibbled slowly on my scrap of black bread, trying to get rid of the taste of the soup. A restless sleep on the hard floor followed. Three men in our hut died during the night.

  The next morning we received another bucket of watery soup with a hunk of black bread, and the same again in the evening. Everyone was starving. Around mid-morning I’d seen Norm sitting in the line outside the infirmary. He had received some disinfectant and a paper bandage for his leg, but was still waiting to see a doctor. When I spoke to him he was quite calm and said that three of the Canadian medical officers and one German doctor were working around the clock. “They’ll get to me,” he said calmly. I managed to get some disinfectant and a paper bandage for the cut on my side and by the next day it had dried up.

  Then Mackie arrived, hopping into camp on one foot. He had been sent to the hospital in Rouen for treatment and shipped to Verneulles by train with some other wounded men.

  I’ve never been so happy to see anyone in my life. I ran towards him and we hugged. I cried quite unashamedly and so did he.

  “I’m so sorry, Allie. This is my fault,” he said hoarsely. “I got you into this.”

  “No, no,” I replied. “Wasn’t you who planned this thing, it was some idiot Brits!”

  We both laughed and Mackie show
ed me the bullet that had gone through his foot and ended up in his boot. He’d saved it as a souvenir. I then pulled out the punched-in mirror with the shrapnel in it.

  “Is that what that is?” he said, grinning. “I wondered what the heck it was that you were waving at me.” Then he glanced towards a man waiting next to him who had a badly mangled arm. “Listen, Allie,” he said, “we’ll talk more later. I gotta get old Cec here to see a doc.”

  Cec Towler had been in the bed beside Mackie’s in the Rouen hospital. The evening before they left, some doctors had walked through the wards deciding who would stay and who would leave. Mackie was told he was leaving but Cec was ordered to stay. Then Cec overheard that his arm was to be amputated the following day. Early the next morning, with Mackie’s help, he had slipped out of bed, joined the lineup of walking wounded outside the hospital and managed to get on the train undetected.

  I was able to find room for Mackie in the same hut that I was in. Scrounging around, I found some old sacks and made a pillow to raise his foot. He told me not to fuss and said that no major bones had been broken in his foot and that it was healing nicely.

  Over time, he told me what had happened to him on Blue Beach. During the firing on our landing craft he had jumped over the side into deep water. His Bren gun had fallen to the bottom and he’d had to scramble to retrieve it. Wading forward, he too had found Smiler leaning against the boat. Mackie had tried to drag him onto the shore, but the pain was too much and Smiler begged Mackie to just leave him.