Survivor of the Long March

I remember that it was a lovely, clear, moonlit night and we could hear the sound of dogs barking in the distance. We went back along the road we had taken, across a couple of fields towards a wooded area which then came out into the orchards. There were row upon row of trees laden with these green plums. ‘Victoria plums,’ I said, trying to use my knowledge of the fruit trade from Stratford Market. So we started shaking the trees to get the plums down but it didn’t seem to be having any effect. They wouldn’t budge. ‘Not ripe enough probably,’ said somebody. By reaching up on tip toes to pull a branch down we managed to get few.

‘Oh, God, they’re sour,’ said one fellow.

‘Can’t eat these,’ said another.

‘You know what these are, don’t you?’ I said. ‘Greengages. You can’t eat them.’ They were as hard as iron and horrible. However hungry you are, there are still some things you cannot eat without making yourself ill. So we left empty handed and made our way back.

We had just crossed a field and were coming up to the main road when we heard men’s voices. We dropped right down in the gully at the side and lay down and waited as two men walked past, talking and laughing loudly. When we looked up we saw it was a policeman and a civilian, probably going home after a beer or two in the local bar. They weren’t on the lookout for any stray prisoners of war, luckily for us, and when it was safe we made our way to our billet. We didn’t get any fruit to eat but we saved ourselves from bellyache from eating the greengages. It was always worth a try when there was the possibility of something to eat and the risk wasn’t too great.

Extra rations did come our way, eventually, in an entirely different way. Goodness, what a feast we had! But we nearly get caught.

* * *

It must have been in late 1943, after Italy changed sides and declared war on Germany, that we met a bunch of Italian prisoners down in Freystadt. I was with Laurie, Sid and Jack, unloading coal for the villagers from the railway trucks in the sidings when some Italians walked up the track where we were working. I could hear these lilting voices and unfamiliar language and looked out from the side of the truck to see these men approaching. There didn’t seem to be any guards around so we stopped work for a moment. The only person supposed to be guarding us was an elderly civilian who wore a yellow arm band to show he was in charge of us. He lived locally and had gone home to keep warm and have a drink and something to eat. It was a cold day but some of the prisoners had their overcoats hanging over their arms.

They were all smiling and laughing and they waved to us and beckoned us over. We must have looked a real sight with our faces and hands black from coal dust. I wiped my hands as best I could on my trousers, as a gesture of goodwill, and put one out to them. Several came forward to shake hands. ‘Ciao, ciao.’

One of them pointed down the track. ‘Ecco, i formaggioni.’

What? What was he saying? We looked where he was pointing, wondering if there was some trouble further along there.

‘Formaggio,’ said another as he lifted up the edge of his coat to show us what he was carrying under his arm – a large round cheese with a thick brown rind. ‘Gro?e Kase. Che-e-e-s-e.’ They wanted to know if we knew that one of the trucks further along had a load of cheeses in it. We four looked at each other and shook our heads. Cheese. That would be good, we thought. It would go down well with the lads back at camp. We managed with a bit of German and a bit of English and a lot of hand waving and body gestures, to communicate with each other.

The Italians told us that they had broken the lock on one of the trucks and climbed inside. They had found some of barrels containing a number of big round cheeses and they had taken some for themselves. They had put the lock back on to make it look as though it was still secure. ‘Quattro,’ they said, and one put up four fingers. ‘Vier. Numero four,’ – to show how many trucks down the row it was. We thanked them and they thanked us and we shook hands, saying, ‘Ciao, ciao,’ back to them and they carried on their way.

‘OK, so who fancies going?’ said Laurie, rubbing his hands, already planning what he would do with his share of the booty.

‘What about you and Sid? Why don’t you go?’ I said.

‘Yes, and I’ll stay with Charlie to keep a look out,’ said Jack.

The two went off down the track, found the truck and pulled the lock off to open it. They disappeared inside and we kept our eyes skinned for anybody coming. A few minutes later they came back up the line, each carrying a huge cheese. We had taken our coats off before starting work and they were hanging over some railings by the side of the track. There was no need to get them covered in filthy coal dust which was impossible to clean off. Our greatcoats were precious to us. Think what they had been through already and thank heavens for them later on during our long, freezing journey home. And they were always useful for concealing things. Laurie and Sid held the cheeses under their coats which they had over their arms.

Jack and I had finished our work so we put our coats back on. The four of us waited by the side of the road for our guard to return and escort us back to camp. When he eventually turned up, he didn’t seem to notice anything different and didn’t speak except to say, ‘Schnell,’ – quick. He looked as though he’d had a good lunch and a couple of glasses of schnapps.

We were treated like returning heroes back at camp and everybody was excited at the sight of all that cheese. That night we had our own Kasefest – cheese festival, and got through an awful lot of it. Don’t believe old wives’ tales about having nightmares if you eat cheese before bed. I have to say that we fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the board and slept soundly.

However, the next day, before we went out to work, one of the better guards, a decent chap, came to us and warned us that somebody had reported the missing cheeses to the Bahnpolizei – Railway Police, and that if we had any cheeses we should get rid of them immediately. I think we had got through about half of each cheese and had put the remainder somewhere out of sight. We realised that this wasn’t good enough as a quick search would soon uncover them.

We decided that the best thing to do was to hide them under the floorboards. Nobody would think of looking there. Somebody took up a few floorboards in one of the spare rooms and Jimmy tied some string around each cheese and we lowered them down. Somebody made sure that the end was secured on a nail or something so we could get at them again. We made good the boards and put a table over the area. Lucky we did that, because we didn’t have long to wait before the Bahnpolizei turned up.

At roll call the next day, we were lined up outside and told to wait. These three policemen appeared in their shiny squeaky boots and pressed trousers and stood in front of us. We waited to hear what was going on. The officer who spoke the best English asked us if we knew anything about a load of cheeses which had been taken from a railway truck. They didn’t say how many, and I realised that the police were looking for a number of stolen cheeses. If they discovered ours, we would carry the can for the others which the Italians had taken. That made it a lot more serious.

Nobody said anything. We all looked down at our boots and hoped nothing would give us away. After a few moments of us standing in silence, they went off inside our billet to have a look round. I kept thinking, ‘God, I hope they don’t smell the cheese.’ They didn’t stay long, came out, dismissed us and then left. What a relief!

I got back in the evening, having thought about cheese all day long while I was working in the fields. I wasn’t the only one looking forward to a bit more with my meal. We needed to eat it up quickly and get rid of all traces now. Somebody went off to get the cheese up from under the floor but when they lifted the boards there was no sign of the cheeses. Disaster! What had happened to them? Rats. When we found the string and pulled it up there was nothing left except bits of brown rind with teeth marks. The rats had eaten a hell of lot in just one night. But that’s rats for you. We should have thought of that. Nothing was safe from them.

Rats. Horrible creatures. Always scavenging, looking for food. Night time, that’s when they loved coming out. We could hear them all over the building running around. That’s why I preferred sleeping on a top bunk. As with a lot of things over the years, we got used to them. It became the norm, whether fleas, lice, mice or rats. Life in this camp, the work we did all year round and the food we ate or didn’t eat, made up our world; this was our war and was all that we knew.

That was soon to change. If I had known what lay ahead next, I would have said, ‘Let me stay here, safe