It was around six in the morning when Horace awoke. He didn’t know what had woken him first: thoughts of more food, Eva’s lithe body or the sound of more artillery fire less than a few miles away. Outside, Sergeant Major Aberfield stood with a corporal and two or three men studying the sweeping corn fields to the east. Plumes of smoke rose to accompany the dull thud of the gunfire in the distance. The stems of the corn swayed gently in the breeze, a wallowing sea of yellow and green dancing to the tune of the wind.
But then something strange. The cornfield was moving but the timing was wrong. No longer did it flow back and forth like a wave, it, well… sort of jerked. A flash of grey. Aberfield had spotted it too and pointed open-mouthed as the helmets came into view. The men froze for a second as now the torsos of at least a dozen Germans became visible. They marched in a straight line, making no attempt to conceal themselves.
‘Fuck me!’ shouted Corporal Graham as he made a sprint to the farmhouse for his rifle. Horace didn’t panic; he knew exactly what to do. The Bren gun stood poised, unmanned, at the door of a small barn 20 yards away, and by sheer coincidence primed and pointing in the right direction. Just what were the Germans playing at? He’d take most of them out before they even knew what was happening. He covered the 20 yards like an Olympic sprinter, Aberfield following in his wake. He reached for the tripod of the gun.
‘Take your hands off the gun,’ Aberfield said, pointing his revolver at Horace’s temple.
It wasn’t happening… it couldn’t be happening.
‘Hands off the gun!’ he repeated.
‘What are you doing, sir, for Christ’s sake? They’re lined up like sitting ducks!’ Horace screamed, shaking his head, unsure what exactly was beginning to unfold. The sergeant major’s pistol trembled in his right hand and Horace had no doubts whatsoever that he would pull the trigger. Aberfield’s left hand went into his pocket and slowly withdrew a white handkerchief.
‘No!’ Horace howled out. ‘No…’
The handkerchief fluttered in the breeze as Sergeant Major Aberfield held it up high and not one shot was exchanged between the section of the 2nd/5th Battalion Leicesters and the advance party of the German 154th Infantry Regiment.
As Horace marched into Cambrai he had never felt at such low ebb. His feet ached, his stomach groaned and he thought of his family back home. He thought of that Christmas Day and the robin, he thought of birdsong and long hot summers and the smell of fresh bread and wet summer grass. He was lost in his thoughts, desperately trying to project his mind away from the living hell he was looking at.
At least ten thousand Allied prisoners of war were packed into the medieval town square, surrounded by German guards. Night was just drawing in; the day was grey and bleak. The prisoners’ faces portrayed sadness – all hope had gone, they were united in misery. Some were bloodied and broken, some clearly dying on their feet. French citizens stood among them, persuaded by the occupying forces to surrender without resistance, and for that they would be rewarded with jobs in munitions factories in Germany.
They had given up their country with barely a shot fired.
Horace was overawed by the sheer scale of the German presence, of their sleek, well maintained vehicles, far superior to those in which his section had travelled the breadth of France. They were better equipped, their uniforms of better quality, and a field kitchen had been set up in the entrance to the square as sausages, bread and steaming hot cups of coffee were handed out to their smiling, well fed faces. They were organised, battle hardened and more experienced.
They were also brutal and desensitised. The POWs were instructed to lie down where they stood in preparation for the night ahead. No tents, no huts, not even a blanket, just the uniforms they stood up in. A German soldier lunged at a poor unfortunate who was just a little slow obeying the order. He was dragged out of the main body of prisoners and attacked with rifle butts by half a dozen guards. The furious assault lasted no more than half a minute as the sickening thud of the rifles split his skull open and poured his blood onto the already damp cobbles of the square. The dazed man, barely conscious, looked up at the officer standing over him, pleading with terror-filled eyes. He knew what fate awaited him. The German officer smiled as he withdrew his pistol from the leather holster at his hip and pointed the gun at the head of the prisoner. In an act of unbridled cruelty the officer delayed the inevitable execution. The man begged and pleaded and shook his head and the tears poured down his cheeks for half a minute as he lay pained and bloodied on the ground. Then the officer’s smile disappeared as he moved a step closer. Horace closed his eyes a split second before the shot rang out and when he opened them the man lay motionless, his eye socket a bloody empty hole.
Just after the town clock struck midnight the rain started. As if it couldn’t get any worse, Horace thought. Within an hour he lay shivering in the cold night air, completely saturated. Incredibly Horace actually slept through the night but awoke the next morning to find himself lying in a channel of water running down from the streets that led into the square.
The clock struck seven and a volley of shots burst from an officer’s pistol. Collectively the whole square understood them as a command to rise. Some never made it; they’d died from their untreated injuries. Incredibly a few slept through the noise, from sheer physical exhaustion. They were unceremoniously executed by enthusiastic guards, as if taking part in a bizarre sport.
An SS officer stood on the steps of the town hall.
‘For you the war is over,’ he shouted. ‘You are prisoners of war, prisoners of the glorious German nation.’
He rambled on for another ten minutes, enjoying the power he yielded over the assembled masses, but whatever he said Horace didn’t hear; he was thinking about crispy bacon and fried bread, an egg lightly cooked and hot, oversweet tea. The unmistakable aroma of cooking sausages wafted around the square as at least 50 guards stood patiently in line for their morning rations. They smoked, laughed and talked as if they had not a care in the world.
Ernie Mountain had slept alongside his friend for warmth and the two boys from Ibstock stood talking as the early morning sun, combined with their body heat, began to thaw their bones. A little later steam started to rise from the uniforms of ten thousand wretched souls, making a bizarre viewing spectacle. The German guards stood in shop doorways and on the town hall stairs, grinning and pointing at the thousands of smoking, smouldering prisoners as if they were about to burst on fire at any moment.
‘Look at those fuckers,’ Ernie said, tugging at Horace’s damp uniform sleeve. He was pointing to a group of French prisoners feeding from what looked like a small leather suitcase. They sat on a small embankment on the outskirts of the square.
‘Hungry cunts, eh?’
Horace nodded.
The French prisoners had had time to prepare for their incarceration and had stocked up on the bare necessities of life. They ate baguettes filled with meat and cheese; one man chewed on a bar of chocolate.
‘Think they’ll share it out, Ernie?’
‘Not a fucking hope in hell. They’re huddled around like a pack of wolves.’
A plan formulated in Horace’s mind. For the first time in his life he was going to become a thief. He placed a hand on his pal’s shoulder.
‘Ernie, my friend, we are about to partake in a little breakfast.’
‘What?’
‘I’m going shoplifting. Your job, Mr Mountain, is to stop any froggies coming after me. I’ll disappear into the crowd with my ill-gotten gains and catch up with you later.’
‘No, you crazy cunt! You’ll be shot.’
Horace pointed over to the field kitchen.
‘They’re all having breakfast, mate. I’ve made my mind up. Now get ready, I need some bloody food.’
Before Ernie could protest, Horace had sauntered through the mass of bodies in front of him and stood on top of the embankment less than two yards from the Frenchmen. He didn’t have to wait long, and what a result!
Half a baguette was being handed across the circle. Without thinking, Horace covered the short distance as quick as lightning and grabbed the prize from the startled Frenchman’s hand. He was down the embankment like a whippet as the Frenchman scrambled after him. Horace dropped his shoulders, picked out the unmistakeable bulk of Ernie and ran for him. As he passed Ernie the Frenchman seemed to be gaining on him. The rest of his friends had risen to their feet and were shouting, attracting the attention of a few guards.
‘Voleur!’ they cried. Thief!
Ernie gritted his teeth and aimed for the bridge of the Frenchman’s nose. He didn’t even swing a punch, just a stiff outstretched arm and a huge balled fist. The runner’s momentum did the rest. There was a sickening crunch as bone met bone and the pursuer’s legs kept going as his head remained motionless. At one point his body wavered vertically for a fraction of a second as he crumpled unconscious to the floor. Ernie about turned, looking innocently skywards as two German guards forced their way into the mêlée with their rifle butts.
The Frenchman’s friends were picking up their unconscious, bloodied friend from the ground. ‘Au voleur! Voleur!’ they cried, pointing through the crowd. Ernie cursed them under his breath and prayed that Horace hadn’t been caught. Thankfully the German guards didn’t appear to be interested in justice among prisoners. It didn’t exist, and they cuffed a few of the French for the hell of it before returning to their breakfast. Horace found his friend and took great pride in tearing the baguette in half.
The two soldiers smiled as they bit into the delicious bread and savoured the taste. Ernie spoke between chews.
‘You dozy cunt. You’ve pinched a fucking sandwich with fuck all sandwich in it!’
Horace opened up the bread and sure enough it was empty. It didn’t matter; their stomachs appreciated it none the less.
Two hours later they began marching eastwards out of the village. The prisoner grapevine that would yield so much information in the coming years said they were embarking on a two or three-day march to the train station at Brussels in German-occupied Belgium. The grapevine got it dramatically wrong. The march would last for what would feel like an eternity and take Horace to hell and back.
CHAPTER
FOUR
The prisoners were a nuisance. They were nobodies and life was cheap. Horace sensed this almost as soon as the column of prisoners left Cambrai. For the first four or five miles the Allied prisoners marched along the main road out of the town, the line stretching as far as the eye could see. At one point the road dipped and straightened and Horace could see the front of the march shimmering in the rising heat of the day. Horace gasped at the sheer numbers; the line of sorry souls stretched at least three miles.
German trucks and convoys passed every few minutes and the hordes of prisoners were herded with rifle butts into the ditches by the side of the road to allow them to pass. The convoys of German troops, tank operators and drivers jeered and goaded and spat at the poor helpless unfortunates. A shaven-headed German thug hung from the roll bar of a truck with one hand. His trousers were at his ankles, his other hand on his penis as he sprayed urine onto the prisoners below. His friends on the back of the truck bent double with laughter, pointing and gesticulating. Horace thought back to his time on the farm and wondered how his fellow being could stoop so low. An animal wouldn’t behave like that. Horace was beginning to build up a hatred he’d never felt before.
Later that day the line of tired, hungry and dejected men was made to march across the fields because they were causing congestion on the roads, slowing up the masses of the Third Reich heading west. As night approached, the blue sky faded into a darker hue. A light wind brought a chill to the evening air and Horace felt a desperate hunger. Surely the Germans had made provision to feed the march?
An hour later several large trucks rumbled into the field where they’d halted. Horace breathed a sigh of relief as the trucks turned and he spotted boxes of food and water containers and a huge pile of French loaves in the rear of one lorry. As expected the German guards took turns and lined up patiently as the starving and thirsty throng looked on. Hope turned to anxiety and then to disappointment and despair as the trucks were made secure and one by one, left under the cover of darkness. Horace settled down for the long night ahead.
The march left again at daybreak but not before they had watched yet another torturing German feast. The steam rose from the cups of coffee the guards held as they chewed on boiled eggs and bread baguettes.
For three days and three nights there followed the same routine. The men alongside Horace were now desperate. What were the Germans playing at? They’d been told in the town square in Cambrai they were being sent to work in camps and factories, but what sort of condition would they be in when they got there?
The men ate anything they could along the way, their eyes continuously scouring the ground for long-forgotten potatoes or turnips left to rot from last year’s winter harvest. They stole the berries from the hedgerows and chewed on the shoots of any plant they could find, including recently planted root vegetables. It was dog eat dog; arguments broke out between two men over an ear of discarded corn or even a field beetle unlucky enough to cross the path of the march.
On the fourth day they passed through the small village of Cousoire. A signpost in the middle told the marchers they were 20 kilometres from Belgium.
A few villagers, mostly elderly ladies, lined the street, their eyes unable to take in yard after yard of stumbling, weary, desperately hungry men. As Horace passed a group of three old women his eyes caught the swift movement of a hand. The youngest of the group, around the same age as his own mother, held out an apple and her eyes made contact with his as she smiled. An apple. A sweet-tasting apple. Horace raised a half-hearted smile and reached out to take the offering. He’d made his mind up to divide it into three for the days ahead. Before it even touched his hand he could taste the sweet juice inside; he could feel the taste exploding in his mouth and the texture of the fruit as he chewed voraciously.
Horace never got to savour the experience. A young German soldier had spotted the incident and dragged the old woman into the middle of the road by her collar. His rifle butt had smashed the gift from Horace’s hand and it rolled deep into the crowd. A dozen hands clawed for the prize, pulling and punching at each other as three German guards waded into the mêlée with their rifles flailing and feet kicking at any head they could connect with. Horace lay helpless, clutching at his wrist as the woman squealed and screeched like a pig being led to the slaughter.
‘Bâtard allemand!’ she screamed as the soldier took her by the hair. ‘Bâtard allemand!’ she shouted again, and a few of the prisoners laughed at the spectacle unfolding in front of them, impressed by the lady’s defiance and colourful language. Horace’s knowledge of French was basic to say the least but he knew exactly what the old lady meant.
The German threw her to the floor and pointed his rifle at her face. A threat, thought Horace, why? She had given him an apple, for Christ’s sake. What had she done to offend the man, to upset the German nation? And then the unimaginable happened. The old lady seemed to freeze, a look of horror on her face as she made eye contact with her aggressor. The action slowed down as if in a bizarre slow motion as the soldier pulled the trigger.
The old lady lay motionless on the ground as a pool of blood spread like a crimson lake around her head. A young prisoner ran at the soldier, his eyes filled with hatred as two of his mates rugby-tackled him to the floor.
‘You fucking bastard!’ he screamed as a life-saving hand clamped his mouth shut. A tear ran down Horace’s cheek as he lay motionless, unable to understand the cowardly act he’d just witnessed. It was simply incomprehensible. He wanted to kill the soldier, to tear out his eyes with his bare hands. He recalled how he’d likened the Germans to animals a few nights before. They weren’t like animals; he’d insulted the good name of an animal. These men were worse.
The condition of the men
deteriorated over the next few days but thankfully the Germans seemed to turn a blind eye to villagers handing out whatever scraps they could spare. Horace was positioned towards the back of the queue and managed to get very little. He ate the skin of an orange one day and a cup full of milk, crumbs of bread and some grain. The march swept into the villages like a swarm of starving locusts.
Nothing survived, anything that could be eaten was. Hens, dogs, cats… anything. They were eaten raw, the warm blood of the freshly killed animal savoured by those lucky enough to catch it. There were regular altercations between prisoners fighting over a piece of stale bread or a fat insect, even stagnant water. The Germans looked on as full fist-fights developed. It was a little light entertainment for them on the long monotonous journey.
When allowed their one rest each day, a dinner time break without the dinner, the men would sit around in groups and speak of their families back home. It kept them going, and some would talk full of hope that it would all be over soon and they’d be back with their families within weeks or months. Horace worried more that England would be overrun by the Germans and his family’s lives would be as wretched as his had become.
Then the dysentery started with a vengeance. Every few minutes somebody left the line and walked a few feet to a ditch by the side of the road, squatted, and without a shred of human dignity left, emptied the watery contents of his insides in full view of everyone. Some had time to grab at a handful of grass and clean themselves best they could. Others didn’t bother; they were past caring and simply pulled up their shit-covered trousers.
The stench was permanent, the flies constant. Some men collapsed, too weak to go on. They were left by the side of the road and executed by the section of Germans following up the rear. The executions were regular and could be heard by the chain of human misery. They followed a pattern. Horace could see the signs – men staggering, stumbling as if in a drunken stupor, then buckling at the knees. Occasionally a rifle butt in the back, an order to continue. The men would be helped by their friends and comrades and urged to press on, and some would do that, glad of the support. But some would just shrug off the assistance, resigned to the fact that wherever it was they were being taken, they would never get there. They would be left where they fell, prepared to meet their maker. And a long two, three minutes later… that awful sound.
Do the Birds Still Sing in Hell? Page 6