The Long Way Home (4 page)

A few seconds later a single-engined monoplane approached us, flying fairly low. Seeing the black crosses on the underside of the wings, we realised that we were in the presence of the enemy. It
was obviously a reconnaissance plane and offered no personal threat to us, but to Jimmy this was a chance to do battle and he insisted I ‘shoot the bloody thing down’. I pointed out
that the bren had a very low tripod and that unless the pilot flew at road level there was nothing much I could do. But Jimmy was not to be denied and insisted I use his shoulder as a high tripod.
As I was quite keen to see if I had figured out the working of the gun properly, we did just that. These planes fly very slowly, which is just as well, otherwise this one would have been gone by
the time we got organised. With Jimmy holding the tripod on his shoulder, I released the safety-catch, worked a round into the breach, aimed – allowing for speed – then squeezed the
trigger.

Then came all the things that gave me satisfaction in shooting: the noise – which accounts for my being almost totally deaf in my right ear – the smell of cordite and the feel of the
tightly-held gun butt bouncing on the shoulder. As I wasn’t using tracers I couldn’t tell how close I came but, judging by the pilot’s reaction, it must have been good because he
was off like a bat out of hell. Jimmy was jubilant, picked up one of the spent cartridge cases and put it in my pocket as a souvenir. He then decided he had seen some movement in an adjacent field
and went off to investigate. He had just disappeared when the captain came forward to find out what the shooting was all about. When I told him, he decided to stay forward in case I needed any
help. I had no idea how the others were deployed but it seemed awfully lonely up front.

Suddenly all hell broke loose. There was one huge bang and the car on the corner blew apart. Shrapnel zizzed all around us. It was obviously suspected of being an observation post and was
completely wiped out. The captain and myself dropped to the ground, still in the middle of the road behind the Bren. Before we could say anything, there was a loud rumbling and round the corner
came one very large tank displaying a black cross on its turret. Fortunately, it stopped to survey the situation and gave me time to line up my sights on the driver’s sight slit and to fire a
burst from the bren. The captain had decided that our position was too exposed. The tank commander must have decided that we were no great threat to them but had given us the few seconds necessary
to get off the road and into the nearest garden.

This is where fate took a hand in the proceedings. Opening the garden gate, the officer turned right and took up position with the rifle he was carrying, leaving me no option but to turn left
and take position there with the bren. We didn’t have long to wait. The tank rumbled towards us and took station just outside the garden. My mind was racing with the possibilities of what
would happen next. I figured that the turret lid would open and a hand grenade would be slung into the garden, so I held the bren so that I could fire a burst at the lid to discourage them. Sure
enough the turret began to swivel and I thought I had been right. My finger tightened on the trigger and I waited for the lid to open. Instead, the tank’s machine gun raked through the
garden. Shocked at being on the receiving end of gunfire for the first time in my life, I saw the captain’s head sag as the burst hit him across the back. Then it was my turn. I was hit by
lightning in my left leg. I remember thinking that a second burst would finish me off and my poor mother would never know what had happened to me, but it never came.

As the tank moved off I had a chance to evaluate the situation. My leg was completely numb; blood was oozing out of a wound in the ankle and this seemed to be the main damage, although about a
week later a bullet was discovered lodged in my thigh bone. I checked the bren and found that a ricochet had damaged the breech, which also accounted for the blood on my left hand. The mopping-up
troops were now visible through the hedge. A few minutes later I could have been finished off by the big German sergeant who came into the garden behind his threatening Luger. I closed my eyes as I
didn’t want to see the shot that killed me, but when I heard him shouting at me I opened them again. He was motioning for me to stand up. I pointed to my bloody ankle and shook my head,
whereupon he went to the door of the house and hammered on it with the butt of his automatic.

When the door was opened he went in and reappeared carrying a chair, which he placed on the path near me. Then, with very little apparent effort, he picked me up and gently placed me on it. He
then checked the bren and, on finding that the bolt was jammed, unceremoniously threw it in a corner. Opening one of his tunic pockets, he produced a packet of cigarettes and offered me one. When I
indicated that I didn’t smoke, he courteously offered me a bar of chocolate out of the other pocket. To this I said ‘Thank you, but no thank you’. He now went into one of his
trouser pockets and produced a field dressing; after removing the gaiter, boot and sock from my damaged ankle, he bandaged it. Everything was done with great care and consideration, yet the same
man could just as easily have killed me and no-one would have been any the wiser. All very confusing.

He now did his level best to interrogate me as to the deployment of troops in the area. I don’t think there could have been a less informed person than I. After he established that I
belonged to the Signal Corps and not an infantry regiment, he relieved me of my pride and joy – my lovely chrome pliers which I carried in a holster on my belt.

This big, gentle man then arranged transport to take me to the nearest German field hospital, where I was placed in a long queue awaiting field surgery. The real war had broken out down beyond
our road block, with lots of different kinds of gunfire. Finally the Stukas were called in to dive-bomb the obstruction to the German advance.

About a year later Joe told me the rest of the La Capelle story. Apparently the lead tank which shot us went on down the road and straight over the road block as if it wasn’t there, firing
its machine-gun as it went. Joe said he had never seen our group move so fast as they dispersed towards the coast. He eventually met up with my brother Jimmy, who wanted to come back and look for
me. The squad convinced him that I must have been killed and that there was no way back. The official verdict was ‘Missing believed killed in action’. So ended my one and only go at
fighting in the war.

After a succession of dressing stations and hospitals I finally ended up in the British 21st Field Hospital in the town of Camiers. Although a British hospital, it was under
German control. The hospital itself was under the command of Colonel Robertson, whose house I had worked in just before the war during the auto telephone conversion of the area he lived in. This
connection was a stroke of luck.

I had been told I would never have full use of my ankle again and would probably need calipers to walk. At the hospital, however, there was Colonel Wilson, a brilliant surgeon, and Major Tucker,
an outstanding bone specialist, both reputed to have practices in Harley Street. They decided that I should be able to use my ankle again, and after a great deal of pain and time this objective was
achieved. Years later I was re-graded in an army medical and passed A1. It is strange to think that if I had not been channelled through this hospital I would very likely have been crippled for the
rest of my life.

A few months later, a group of us who were just able to hobble about were assembled and put into a variety of French, Belgian and British uniforms and unceremoniously bundled into a freight
wagon, whose doors were slammed and bolted. We spent three miserable days and nights in this hell-hole as the train was slowly shunted to Upper Silesia in eastern Germany, close to the Polish
border. Occasionally the doors were opened and some rations thrown in, but we were never allowed to get out. Someone enterprisingly ripped up a piece of the floor and this served as our toilet for
the trip. I often have a quiet giggle to myself when I hear people complaining about the terrible inconveniences that they have had to put up with.

Eventually we reached our destination and were rousted out with lots of noise and shouting. To my horror, my walking stick, a necessity rather than an affectation, was taken from me and thrown
aside, as were all the crutches and sticks of the group. We made a sorry spectacle as we shambled through the town, sore from the discomfort of our trip and unable to walk properly. We were not a
pretty sight. The townsfolk must have wondered why the war was taking so long; if we were an example of the British armed forces then the Hitler Youth should have been capable of wiping us out
without the might of the Wehrmacht.

After this degrading march, we were transported by trucks to Stalag VIIIB, Lamsdorf, where we were body-searched and then lined up. There were already thousands of British prisoners in this main
camp and, of course, a batch of new arrivals created quite a stir, with people checking to see if any of their friends or buddies were amongst them. It just so happened that Joe was one of those.
When he recognised me, he was quite overcome, and after an emotional reunion he told me not to go away as he had another surprise for me – my brother Jimmy. Apparently when he told Jimmy that
I was there Jimmy grabbed him by the throat and said that if this was a joke it was in very bad taste. This was understandable, as he had come to accept I had been killed at the road block. After
much persuasion, Jimmy came along to see for himself, and once again our trio was complete.

Jimmy managed to convince the guards that we were brothers and I was allowed to stay with them in the same hut. There then followed for me a welcome period of recuperation, during which Jimmy
and Joe did everything possible to get me back in shape. I began to realise that, given time, I would be able to walk normally again. You can imagine the stories we had to tell each other. After
having been separated and captured in different places, it was an amazing coincidence to be reunited in the same Stalag in eastern Germany.

I was now an official POW and had my own number to prove it. My mother was notified accordingly, whereupon she wrote to Winston Churchill that he should take it upon himself to see that I was
provided with proper footwear so that I could make a full recovery. Astonishingly, as a result, an extra pair of new boots was delivered to me every six months through the Red Cross, outwith the
normal issue. I often wonder what would have happened if she had insisted that I be repatriated immediately.

It was now catching-up time. Jimmy and Joe related their hair-raising adventures of how they had met again and been rounded up in the fort in Calais. They had no hope of being
rescued from the beach there as the main retreat flotilla was concentrating on Dunkirk.

They and thousands of our other troops, still bewildered by the speed of events over the last few days and totally stunned by the outcome of the Blitzkrieg, were forced to march across France
into Germany. This journey left scars on the minds of all those who took part in it and was always referred to afterwards as The March. No rations or drinking water were provided, and sleeping
accommodation was simply the ground where they stopped for the night. Toilets were non-existent. This became a great problem as stomachs rebelled at what was being put into them – stagnant
water from ponds and brooks, along with anything that looked edible. Naturally, all this took its toll and left them severely debilitated. We had been in reserved occupations at home and had, after
all, volunteered. Nowadays when I see the commercials urging young men to join the Territorial Army, I feel they should be shown some of the horrors of war as well as the entertaining side of the
army.

Over the next few years the amateur POWs arrived at the various Stalags which had been set up in Germany and Poland and, through bitter experience, became hardened professionals. Most of them
had some untapped abilities of which they had not previously been aware. In their new life of enforced captivity there was time to think, listen, watch and learn – to try something new, to
improvise and maybe succeed. Those who did not adjust to the new way of life became ‘Stalag Happy’ and lost touch with reality. Thank God this didn’t happen to many of them.

Jimmy and Joe were first-class survivors and worked very well together. When they arrived in Stalag VIIIB, they organised themselves into the plum job in the camp – the cookhouse. In no
time after my appearance in camp, I also was elected to a post on this elite staff.

Now began a period of readjustment for everyone. No-one could possibly forecast how long we were going to be ‘in the bag’, and everyone was well aware that it had been said that
World War One would be over by Christmas. We realised that it might be years more before it was over, so the word was ‘settle down, chaps, and make the best of it’. This having been
established, the organisers took over.

Slowly the birds of a feather flocked together. The music men found a place where they could talk shop and make plans; likewise the bookworms, the artisans and others who had similar interests.
As time went on the German authorities co-operated as far as possible in providing instruments for the musicians, and books and writing materials for the studious; eventually there were bands and
various types of learning classes leading to examination standards which were accepted at home.

There were, of course, the Escape Committees which no self-respecting camp should be without. One of the unwritten laws states that it is a POW’s duty to escape from the enemy and that, if
successful, he will not be returned to the same theatre of war. One presumes this is so that he can go through the whole bloody business again, only under different conditions.

The Escape Committee is a weird and wonderful organisation for which there are no known qualifications – they don’t exist in the real world. This means anyone in the camp is eligible
to become a member. Many escapes were made as there was a hard core of men who made escaping their full-time occupation, even though they were captured time and again. These were the ones that the
Committee delighted in concentrating on. A first-time escapee would be told that beginners could not receive assistance. This was what happened to us when we made our one and only approach for
help.