by Leo Kessler
‘Our CO, for instance. He’d get as high as a howitzer every Saturday night – regular. By midnight he’d be stripping off his uniform, save his ceremonial sword and jackboots, staggering all over the field with his dingle-dangle covered by his cap, shouting that it was on account of personal modesty and he didn’t want to give the female auxiliaries stationed at Evreux a shock. They’d get screaming heebie-jeebies when they saw the size of it, he said.’ He shook his dark head in mock disgust.
Still Otto said nothing, his unhappiness forgotten a little now as he concentrated on where he had heard a similar intonation to that of the corporal before. Why, he didn’t exactly know. Outside the sirens started to give off their thin, frightening wail, indicating that soon Dover was in for another Stuka dive-bombing attack.
‘Then there was Phyllis the Padre.’
‘Phyllis is a funny name for a padre,’ Otto said, intrigued, breaking his silence for the first time.
The little corporal winked and said, ‘He was that kind of padre.’
‘Oh,’ Otto said and finished the last of his cocoa before the vibrations of detonating bombs upset the liquid.
‘One time he came back from the mess full of sauce, staggered into my billet, crying his head off and howling, “mea culpa”. I think it’s some kind of Latin war cry. Then he tried to get in my bunk with me, telling me he was going to explain all about the Immaculate Conception and it would be cosier under the blankets. And when I wouldn’t wear it, he went down on his knees, still crying and asking me to flog him “for the good of my soul!” I told him he could sod his soul, and that it was for the good of my arse. Next day he got me seven days jankers from the CO for disobeying a direct order! Ever afterwards when I met him, he’d sniff, “God and I will have nothing more to do with you, you ungrateful wretch.” Just like that, as if he had a god-damn direct line to Heaven!’
Otto laughed shortly. Now outside the British 3.7 anti-aircraft guns were beginning to thunder, but even they could not drown the roar of engines. ‘Here they come with their square eggs,’ he said.
The danger did not seem to worry the little corporal. ‘Oh, don’t worry about those Stuka shits,’ he said, carelessly. ‘They couldn’t hit a turd in a piss-pot.’
Otto shrugged. ‘If you say so – ’ the rest of his words were drowned by the sirens and howling air-brakes of a diving Stuka, hurtling out of the sky at 400 kilometres an hour. Otto could visualize the gull-winged dive-bomber flailing out of the night at an almost ninety-degree angle, as if the pilot would never be able to stop it plunging straight into the ground.
The first stick of bombs hit Dover. A series of thick, obscene crumps. The walls of their cell trembled. Plaster came raining down. A second stick sounded much closer. The third blew them both from their bunks onto the stone floor, the cell suddenly flooded with the hot acrid stink of burnt cordite. The lights flickered and went out abruptly.
‘Great buckets of fire!’ the little corporal gasped. ‘Fat Hermann’s boys might just go and croak us after all!’
And then Otto had it! On the floor, he clicked his fingers together with the excitement of his discovery, while outside the world rocked and trembled – like a ship at sea struck by a sudden hurricane – under the impact of the bombs, and hot blast came rushing into their cell to strike them across their faces like a blow from a damp, flabby fist.
‘Hey, you’re from the coast – the Baltic coast!’ he roared above the howl of the Stuka’s sirens and the thump-thump-thump of the flak.
‘What?’ his cellmate asked, getting back to his feet. Otto followed his lead.
'From the Baltic Coast?’ Otto yelled, his mouth close to the other man’s ear in the flickering pink and darkness.
‘Yes... Yes! But what – ’
‘Stralsund?’ Otto hazarded a wild guess.
‘Yes. Heaven, arse and cloudburst, yes, Stralsund! And if you’re so bloody well eager to know, Georg Fockstrasse, to be exact!’ He gasped. ‘What a time for old home-week!’
Otto knew now where he had heard accents like that before. From the Jews who lived all around old Mayer, the tailor, who was foolish enough to give credit to sailors. ‘You’re a Jew, aren’t you?’ he bellowed above the blast and thunder of another stick of bombs.
‘A what?’
‘You’re a god-damn Hebrew Jew!’ Otto roared.
In a sudden burst of purple flame, Otto caught a glimpse of the little corporal’s face, the usual good-humoured look had vanished, to be replaced by one of almost wolfish determination, the eyes bulging, the lips bared to reveal yellowish teeth. ‘Don’t try anything,’ he hissed over the patter of falling plaster. ‘You’re bigger and more powerful than me, you Nazi bastard! But I’ll make you pay, I’ll make – ’
As the cell swayed and heaved, the little corporal faced him, fists doubled, ready for action.
Very gently, Otto reached out a hand and patted him on the shoulder, saying as quietly as he could yet still make himself heard, ‘Don’t worry, Corp, I’m not going to hurt you. All I want is for you to do me a favour.’
‘A favour?’ the other man echoed, as the lights flickered back on and the roar of the Stuka engines began to die away, only to be replaced by the first thin wail of the all-clear.
‘Yes. Get me out of here,’ Otto said simply, as the other man dusted down his knees and sat back on his bunk. ‘I know nothing of military value. Honest, I am what I say I am – the owner of a mobile brothel.’
‘You want out of here – to where?’ the little corporal asked.
‘To a camp where I can be with my own people.’
‘Germans?’ Rubinstein spat out the word, as if it were dirty.
Otto nodded humbly and said a little sadly. ‘Yes, Germans. They are the only people I’ve got, friend.’
It might have been that Otto’s wish to be put with his fellow countrymen might not have been fulfilled so promptly, but for a priority telephone call that Captain Wanke-Smythe received later that night.
He was lying in his bunk in a corner of his office, working as usual through a bottle of NAAFI whisky in order to forget Dover, the Interrogation Centre, and the bombardment. He realised he hadn’t had a woman since the girl he'd picked up in Piccadilly Circus on his last forty-eight hours. He smiled, remembering that the blackout had been so effective he hadn’t been able to see her face. They had done it up against Eros, which had seemed suitably symbolic. It was into this epic reverie that the rattle of the phone injected itself wholeheartedly.
For a moment or two he stared at it drunkenly, the words of the current hit – ‘Dear little henny, when, when will you lay me an egg for my tea’ dying on his lips.
Then he fumbled for it, upsetting the pile of new leaflets from the Ministry of Information entitled, ‘What To Do If Invasion Should Come!’
‘Run like hell, I should think,’ he snarled drunkenly and picked up the receiver. ‘Are they landing?’ he said thickly.
‘Stand by, sir, for a top-priority message, sir,’ a metallically distorted prissy female voice said. ‘You are Captain Wanke-Smythe, aren’t you sir?’
‘No, Smith the Wanker,’ he snapped icily. ‘Of course, I’m him... er,’ vaguely he remembered that he had been educated at Oxford, ‘I mean he. Who wants me?’
‘One moment, sir, please,’ the prim, professional telephonist said.
There was a series of clicks, while he stared with blurred eyes at the leaflet, trying to make sense of a paragraph that commenced,
Now how do you know that this lone nun is an enemy parachutist? First you must remove the top part of the supposed nun’s habit. You will see immediately by the nature of the suspect’s anatomy if you have made an unfortunate error. However, if you have been correct in your assumptions, you will find the typical red marks made by a parachute harness –
‘Captain Wanke-Smythe?’ The voice metaphorically tapped him on his shoulder. It was upper-class, heavy with Eton, the Brigade of Guards, inherited money – and power. It was the vo
ice of authority.
It sobered the Intelligence Corps captain up immediately. Symbolically, he swung the unknown speaker a tremendous salute which left his fingers quivering just below his hairline in the approved drill-sergeant’s fashion.
‘Sir!’ he barked.
‘Come here,’ the voice said. ‘I’ve read your report. Drop everything. Bring Graf von der Weide to my office in Broadway immediately. Lose the other chap. Thank you. Good-night, Captain.’
Abruptly the phone went dead, leaving an astounded Captain Wanke-Smythe staring at it, as if a little green man had just emerged from the thing and blown him a raspberry. He had just spoken to C!
CHAPTER 5
By the autumn of 1940, York, that northern grey Gothic cathedral town, had almost forgotten the war. After all, the Siege of York by the Roundheads in 1644, had been more slightly momentous than this so-called World War.
But back in September 1939 the barracks had filled up with reservists and there had been electric excitement in the air. That time, just one year ago, now seemed long gone.
A little panic had broken out when rationing had been introduced and for a couple of days the better-off bought all they could lay their hands on. Beaverbrook’s scrap-metal drive had caused another ripple of excitement, and the trophy cannon dating back to the Crimean War, plus most of the city’s railings had disappeared over night (even today there are Yorkists who hiss ‘traitors' when they pass one of the innumerable Victorian houses of the city where the railings are still intact).
What followed was boredom. Once or twice the sirens sounded, and excited little boys who knew that if the ‘all-clear’ did not sound by midnight they would be free from having to go to school the following morning, prayed to God to let the ‘Jerries’ come. Obstinately, the ‘Jerries’ refused to come, and come the morning, the boys went to their schools.
Thus it was that while Britain battled for its supposed existence in the south, York had settled back into being the northern provincial backwater that it had been for the last three hundred years, ever since the Cavaliers had been sent packing by the Roundheads, and the cause of Charles I had ended on the executioner’s block.
It was to this remote northern city that Otto came, in the company of a cross-eyed army cook, who had gone fishing off the Normandy coast and, to his great surprise, found himself in Kent with not even a mackerel to show for his pains; an arrogant, wooden-headed air-gunner, shot down over London; a mild-mannered, bespectacled ‘Bible Student’ who had been conscripted into the Wehrmacht against his will and had rowed fervently across the Channel to escape; and fifty happy bronzed Italians who had surrendered cheerfully in the Western Desert the month before.
The train journey passed in a blur for Otto. His mind was confused. Where was the Count? He could have been enjoying himself if the Count was here – a curious kind of enjoyment that mostly involved devilishly dangerous plans, yes. But enjoyment all the same.
Otto hadn't seen his compatriot since the day of their imprisonment. Maybe his upper-class roots entitled him to a better class of incarceration. Oh well, for the moment, he was on his own. And there was only one thing for it: if the Count wasn't providing the adventure, then Otto would have to get off his arse and do it himself. He'd have to escape!
After the brain inside that tousled mop of blond hair had come to this conclusion, Otto had sat back and watched the landscape trickle past. His new companions certainly were a strange bunch: cook, Bible student, air-gunner, and fifty nattering Italians. He'd take his time and see how this played out.
The lot of them arrived on a sunny morning in October 1940.
‘This is York Station,’ the female announcer whispered furtively through the loudspeakers, as if she suspected that German agents lurked everywhere. The prison train came to a shuddering halt. Its engine gave out a great cloud of steam that shot high to the roof of the huge Victorian station.
The elderly volunteer with the blue rinse in charge of the ‘Forces Canteen’ readied herself for the onslaught of customers. ‘It’s no use asking for cups,’ she yelled towards the train, ‘'cos I know you common soldiers, you just break them! There’s only jam jars.’
At the barrier the two hawk-faced redcaps, whose eyes were hidden beneath their peaked hats, straightened up and began looking officious. The fat, elderly railway policeman, proud of his new revolver, touched his holster significantly like Tom Mix and stared with narrowed eyes at the prisoners-of-war now emerging from the train. It was the hard look of a born killer.
‘All right, all right, now,’ the middle-aged staff-sergeant in charge of the transport cried above the clatter of steel wheels and the rush of escaping steam, ‘sort yerselves out! Come on, now, let’s be having you there!’
They were let out into the big square in front of the station, stared at by curious school children waiting for their buses. Some youngsters ate stale sandwiches from their cardboard gas-mask containers and occasionally called out at the beaming Italians, ‘Knock knock. Who’s there? Abyssinia. Ah be seeing yer after the war. Ha, ha!’
For a few moments there was a little scuffle between the air-gunner and the Italians as to who should lead the march to the POW camp. The air-gunner insisted the four Germans should; the Italians replied that they were in the majority, therefore they should lead. In the end the middle-aged staff sergeant decided the Italians would.
‘You wops are all the same size,’ he bellowed above the laughter and jeers of the schoolkids, ‘and you’ve all got the same hair colour. You Jerries come in all shapes and sizes. The Eyeties go first. Got to make a decent orderly impression on the natives, you know. All right, let’s be off and bags of swank, you Eyeties. Show the locals what you’re made of!’
They set off at a slow shuffle, surrounded by soldiers armed with fixed bayonets, led by the now very self-important staff sergeant, swinging his arms as if he were leading a pre-war Empire Day parade, crying loudly, ‘One, two, three, four! Left… right! Swing them arms now!’
The wooden-faced air-gunner looked at the chattering crowd of Italians who strolled through the shabby streets of the ancient city as if they were on one of those evening walkabouts so common in their native land.
‘What a shower of shit, the spaghetti-bending buggers! Comrades, we’ve got to show these buck-teethed Tommies what we Germans are made of.’
The column came to a ragged halt in front of a traffic light, which was at red, while the NCO in charge clapped his swagger stick impatiently against his leg.
‘Now then, comrades,’ the air-gunner said urgently, ‘we’re gonna give them a song, a real German marching-song.’
‘Oh, my aching back!’ Otto groaned.
But there was no stopping the air-gunner now. ‘Einsy zweiy drei – ein Lied,’ he commanded.
In the very instant that the lights changed to green and the shabby column shuffled off once more, he burst into the Horst Wessel Lied, ‘Die Fahne hoch, die Reiheti fest gesch-lossen…’
Reluctantly the other three Germans joined in. The British NCO beamed. ‘That’s the stuff to give the troops,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘Nice bit of singing by the Army always impresses the civvies. All right you Eyeties, show a bit of regimental spirit! Hum, if you don’t know the words. There’ll be an extra ration of five Woodbines for the lot of you, if you do!’
The bribe worked. The Italian prisoners started to hum the marching song, aided by the whistling Tommies, who were infected by its lively manner. Thus it was that Otto Stahl arrived at his place of imprisonment, singing the Horst Wessel Lied, the aggressive anthem of the National Socialist Party, with his guards whistling lustily at his side. Somehow it seemed appropriate to Otto, who had long since decided that the world of men was absolutely crazy.
Captain Harry Hawkins, Camp Commandant, beamed with pleasure at the singing and whistling that floated up to his office high in the stands of what had once been York Race Course. His new prisoners seemed a happy bunch at least, and he told himself, ‘a happy p
risoner meant a happy camp commandant’. It was then that the Camp’s senior NCO, Staff-Sergeant Dicks came in through the door, his face flushed with excitement, and flung Hawkins a tremendous salute, his boots smashing down on the stone floor.
‘That’s a bunch of scoundrels and a half, Dicksey,’ Hawkins said. ‘Good news?’
Dicks, who had just ‘signed’ for the newly arrived prisoners, said excitedly, ‘You bet, sir. Fifty-four.’
Captain Hawkins’s leathery, scraggy bird-of-prey face lit up. ‘Christ, Dicksey,’ he exclaimed, ‘we’re in the money at last. Our ship’s come home. Now they can’t wind up the camp, the shite-hawks. All Eyeties?’
‘No, sir. Four squareheads among them.’
‘Oh, we’ll soon settle the hash of any loose wallahs among them.’ Hurriedly he got to his feet and crossed to the big chart on the wall, while Dicks waited with bated breath.
He erased the previous figure at the bottom of the chart which was entitled ‘Enemy POW Strength –Oct, 1940’ and did a quick mental calculation. Then, with a hand that trembled slightly, he crayoned in the new total. He stood back to let Dicks see the figure. This lovely number meant they were now safe in this cushy billet.
‘104, mixed Eyeties and Squareheads!’ Dicks breathed. ‘Now we guards are at last outnumbered by the prisoners.’
‘Jolly good!’ Hawkins said enthusiastically. ‘There’ll be no going back to square-bashing for you now, Dicksey. We’re in the business. Northern Command can’t close us up now. 104 POWs! It’s pukka, Dicksey, very bloody pukka indeed.’
Dicks wiped the sweat off his fat, well-fed face. Like his commander Hawkins, he had got his ‘feet under the table’ with a widow-woman in York and was being well looked after in both senses of the word. He said, ‘I must admit, sir, I’d already got my kitbag packed and my webbing blanched.’