The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (Princess Louise's)

Herr Montag (Mr Monday) © Tom Barker

"Far away behind the wire,
cold fettered feet falter, while
we laugh, and prison guards smile."
H Marshall

While idly gazing around the carriage, I saw lots of German civilians, who chose to ignore us. But there was an odd exception. An old bloke, on finding out from our Guard that we were Tommies, wanted to take us all on and began shedding his jacket, until our Guard snarled, "Gehen sie weg und sitzen, du alter kwatch kopf!" (Go away and sit down you silly old fool!)

There were also the odd German Service men that glanced at us out of idle curiosity, then glanced away hurriedly, as if they were afraid they would be accused of fraternizing with the enemy.

As I glanced at one gray haired old lady in one corner, who was knitting as if her life depended on it, my eyes signaled five degrees to Starboard and held steady as they latched onto the shapely legs of one bit of talent that was seated next to the old lady. Although my head was still turning, my eyes stayed latched onto this fair bit of crackling until I was almost looking out of my left ear. She was so engrossed in reading a glossy magazine, that she appeared totally unaware of being scanned by, "Feinlich ogen" (Enemy eyes) that were now stuck out like hermit crab's periscopes propped up on stalks.

Then I raised my eyes and became aware that the blond haired owner of the Betty Grable type encased in nylons under-carriage, precariously balanced atop a pair of shoes with stiletto type heels, had lowered her magazine and was also appraising me with a whimsical smile that I read as, "You should get that lucky mate! Or pigs might fly app'n? Then she must have thought what I was thinking, but I was too far away for her to slap me in the gob wi' a wet lettuce. So, with a slight blush, she returned her gaze to her magazine and with an after-thought and without looking, one of her hands sort of wandered down to her skirt hem and coaxed it to cover her dimpled knees. And that sort of broke the spell for me, for my eyes did a swift yu'ee, or tack to starboard, to catch up to my head.

Just beyond the Fair Maid with the glossy magazine, but standing in the isle of the carriage, my eyes focused on a group of German youths who were talking and grinning like idiots and due to the body language and glances thrown our way, I deduced we were the topic of their conversation.

Having now got my attention, one youth, who looked about sixteen, was miming picking bugs off his shirt then throwing the invisible bugs onto the floor and grinding his boot on them. Then he would turn to his mates and grin, "Ain't I a clever bugger, extracting the urine from the Tommies!"

When he looked back again I stuck two fingers up, which in our mob indicated, "Up yours, dipstick!" Perhaps some of the German lads knew what it meant, because some giggled, but the lad who was showing off how brave he was, suddenly became very red faced on realizing that he was now the fool.

It suddenly occurred to me that what had began as a prank could get ugly and I turned my back on the youth, with a view to defusing the situation, because we were in a no win situation surrounded by some very hostile Germans.

The train stopped and we got off and trickled onto the platform, then we watched as the train began to pull out of the station.

The German youth who had got out of his depth, was now at the window pointing a fist and finger like a pistol and dropping his thumb, while he mouthed, "Bang!". One of our blokes grinned in return. He made a motion as if he were undoing his fly buttons, then mimed one of his hands pushing at the back of an imaginary head while wrapping the other arm round an imaginary waist, and did such a good imitation of two dogs fornicating, that some of the people on this side of the carriage laughed and clapped at the droll bit of silent comedy. This seemed to tickle their Kraut sense of humour, but caused consternation to the red faced youth.

The train moved out of the station and we marched off the Railway Station in three ranks, with the (Postern) Guard following in our footsteps. Even he was grinning at the antics of our silent attempt at comedy, where no interpreter was needed, but the meaning was well understood by all. I always remember that day as, "The day I skewered, or screwed me a Kraut."

We marched clear of the Village of Teltow and followed a dusty lane until we could make out a cluster of wooden buildings, each about the size of a bungalow. On turning right, we observed a huge pair of wire encrusted wooden gates, one of which was open, and we marched through it and entered our new home. We had marched in files of three ranks and were now halted. We turned to our right and were now in three ranks in line, facing the German Guard room.

A German Guard came out of the building opposite us and beginning at the left, he strutted along our front counting us off. At the end of the count, he jotted some notes in a notebook, then turned to our Guard and barked, "Abtraiten!" (March them away!)

Our Guard warbled, "Stille gestanden!" (Attention!) and we all came to attention. "Links rum!"( Left turn!) and we turned left. "Abteilung marsh!" (Squad march!) and we all marched."

The path then turned right and led us to another gate with wire on it. Once through this gate we were dismissed. We were then addressed by one of our British Sergeants, as the Guard locked the gate and returned to the Guardroom near the main gate.

"Right, you lads have been sent 'ere ti shovel sand for the Fuhrer, so you better get used ti it, and yuz kin find a bed in yon hut ower theer." warbled the Brit Sergeant as he pointed to a nearby row of six side by side wooden barrack rooms that were about five yards apart.

"By the way." he continued, "You lot were lucky, you did your job as you were trained to do, but some people might say, "Why then are you Prisoners?"

"Any intelligent animal will submit when it knows it cannot win in a given situation, but it waits for the opportunity to turn the tables. A dead man cannot do that, and nothing changes. So the answer is to stay alive and do as much damage to the enemy as possible from the inside and have the final say one day. But if that day never comes, you all will have the satisfaction of knowing that you all pulled your weight"

Then a voice from the ranks added, "Yea well, it's one way to pass the afternoon, but there's no future in it!"

On entering the hut and sniffing, one could tell immediately that the wooden huts were built of pine wood. We also noted the red fire bucket full of sand. One bright lad from Brum, (Birmingham U.K.) asked, "Woi do we 'ave got a buckit o' bleed'n' sand in us room then?"

Another lad answered, "It's in case yo sh***s yu sen' owd mate. Yu just dab sum sand on yer ass an' it weern't soil yu dacks or yer blankit!"

"It weern't do owt fer 'is ring though." chortled another bloke.

"Oi ain't got no bleed'n' ring" retorted our mate, the first speaker, now holding out both hands for all to see.

"Yu wiil 'ave if'n yer sits in tha' buckit o' sand fer long." chuckled the other lad.

The next morning I opened my eyes, aware that something was burning or rotting, or both. Being allocated the bottom half of a pair of wooden bunks of one up and one down, there were fifteen blokes in this one room. I lay there wondering what today would bring us, when I got a whiff of that smell again, but this time I was awake and heard it's origin and prodded the bloke in the top bunk. "Wha?" and a befuddled face with screwed up eyes blinked into the daylight.

"Wot yu doin?" the apparition asked, yawning, and "Wot time is et then?"

Then the door crashed open and the German Sgt was banging with his stick on the beds, "Los! Mach schnell! Rous mit ihr mein herren! Es ist ein shone tag fur arbeit! Los rousé alle!" (Hurry! Make haste! Out with you Gentlemen! It is a pretty day for work! Hurry!) (Out everybody)

We got out of bed and dressed, then made straight for the latrines, which was a four foot by four foot slab of slate embedded in a three inch wide bit of concrete that had had a broom handle embedded in it at the base of the slate. When the concrete had set, the makers had ripped out the broom handle leaving a perfect channel for the run off from the slate plate to meander down to the nearest sink hole.

Meanwhile, while four blokes are stood there staring at the wall in front of them while the steam is now rising from the channel that is now going full bore with what looked like frothing Johnny Walker whisky racing down the channel looking for somewhere to hide.

As soon as one bloke began shaking his pet ferret a voice from the impatiently waiting queue immediately sighed, "If yer shake it more than three times yer playin' wi' it!"

And "Wit the f***k er ye glarin' at the wa' fer, are ye ashamed ti look at et?' And the long line of impatient ferret strokers consoled their pets to be patient and moved forward one space as another bloke left the wet slate slab with a contented sigh.

Since it was dusted every day with lime to prevent disease, we never had any problems with it. Some blokes got crafty, and instead of having another five minutes in bed, especially in Winter when a warm bed really pulled, they got up five minutes early and got in first, thus avoiding the crossed leg queue dance every morning, and the comments of, "How long have you had that, Dicko?"

And Dicko, with a faraway dreamy look in his eyes would smile and sigh, then warble, "A lot longer than it is now, owd mate."

The sit me down toilet bit was perplexing to us to begin with, because one bloke kept repeating "I can't find the chuffin' loo!" Then someone, who had heard this mournful cry so often, suddenly grabbed the bloke and frog marched him to one of the four little compartments that were opposite the slate slab in the little room, and banging open one door, told the ill at ease bloke to back up onto the two concrete footprints that had a three inch hole in between them, and drop his daks, then squat.

"Jesus!" cried the bloke in despair, "Ah need a bliddy bomb sicht ti hit thaat wee hole!"

"The bluddy hole is ony an inch away from yer ass an' not at thirty thousand feet, an come winter, if yu linger, yu could be froze ti the bluddy floor ti we find a crosscut saw or an ice pick so yu cin get tu yer bed ti sleep." groused the helping hand bloke.

Those places were also dusted every day with lime. The only problem was, when one departed the crap cemetery, one had to go outside and walk in the grass, or if it was night time, wash the soles of ones shoes in the wash house that adjoined the end of the barracks. We did not want the lime trodden into the clean barracks.

Early the next morning the triangle was jangling over at the cookhouse, that was over the wire and at the other end of the camp. Then looking out of a window, I observed the Guard on the gate to our compound unlocking our gate and a bloke from each of our huts went to the cookhouse. He took with him an empty stainless steel dixie with a lid on it and a handle to transport it with. He disappeared inside the cookhouse and reappeared five minutes later carrying the dixie, that was obviously a lot heavier.

A passing mate, seeing the dixie carrier struggling, strode over and grabbed the other side of the handle and between them they manhandled the heavy dixie along the path and through the gate. With the dixie now in our room we formed a queue with mess tins in one hand and a spoon at the high port position wondering what delights the dixie held.

One bloke with a ladle, whipped the lid off the dixie and beckoned the first bloke in the queue to hold out his mess tin. Having got what looked like about half a pint of hot pale ale the bloke retired to a corner and tasted the brew, then immediately spat it out.

"So this is weer aw that pish went ti doon the drains?" he squawked.

"It's o.k." waffled an educated voice, "It's Jerry's erzat's coffee. They make it from roasted ground acorns, you know!"

"Actung! Der Commandant!" a German Guard was at our door and suddenly he stood aside and saluted. Then a tall German in a uniform that declared he was paid more than any of the other Krauts in that camp and who looked like someone's family lawyer in a uniform, walked into our room and looked round.

"Well, Gentlemen. I see you have got settled in and tidied the place up a little." We stood silent waiting for the reason for this visit. Was it friendly, or just a prelude to another nasty surprise?

"Never trust a Kraut when he is offering a toffee apple for nix." I had heard bandied about the camp. We had also learned that the Camp Commandant had been a head schoolteacher before the war.

Having inspected our room and lifted the corner of a straw mattress with his stick on one of the bunks, he warbled, "Nice clean straw I see. Good."

One of our blokes replied, "Yea mate, in England we puts straw in the outhouse fer pigs to sleep on."

Suddenly the Commandant dropped the corner of the mattress a bit smartish when one of our blokes warbled, "Ere, ah 'ope oor Albert is asleep, cos 'e gets reet upset if'n yu disturb 'im, an' 'e might bite."

"The Camp Commandant straightened up and stepped back from the bunk a bit sharpish and demanded, "And who pray, is Albert? And what is he doing, hiding under your matress?"

"Me pet rattle snake, owd mate. Ah nivver go any weer wiv aht 'im."

The Commandant glared and spoke sharply to the Guard, who pulled the mattress off the bunk. But of course there was nothing there, and all our lads stood there with tight lipped straight faces as the Commandant furiously stomped out of the room and forgot he had not inspected the remainder of the rooms. He was not amused by the Tommy sense of humour, because the last glimpse we got of him that day, was, as he disappeared into his office and slammed the door shut.

The Brit Sergeant was not amused either, and warned us not to push our luck. "The Commandant is not a bad old bloke and he has leaned over backwards to get us a few privileges, like movies in the mess hall and packs of cards and dominoes, so don't go and spoil it. After all, he's more or less in the same predicament as us and has to take orders from higher up."

I could see the sense in his thinking, but some just thought that all Krauts were tarred with the same brush and treated them as such.

Then we found out that tomorrow we were going to be sent out to work.

"Well, that a least will break this boring monotony." suggested Dicko

Three of the wooden barracks that had been filled with our lads, had been more or less silent since we got here. Now they were buzzing like the proverbial wasps nest that had been poked with a big stick.

"D'yer reckon we'll get to see Berlin?" gasped one youth.

"Down yu fool!" warbled his mate. Us ain't exactly goin' ti Cleethorpes or dancin' on Blackpool bleed'n' pier."

The next morning, at seven of the clock, the door crashed open and a Guard was demanding everybody to get up out of bed and get ready for roll call.

Since it was cold, the motley assembly stood there in what they had been captured in. K.D. shorts and shirts had been the norm in the desert, but were inadequate for the typical German climate. Some were wearing General Service issue caps that resembled a flattened fannie that a truck had run over. However this head gear did unfold when worn and when the press studs were done up under the chin they protected the head, neck, and ears from the sometimes chilly North winds.

Also, when the soles of one boots had worn off completely from the uppers, it was pointless lacing up a pair of black spats just from habit and treading on sharp stones with bare feet. Once the black spats were no longer in fashion and got dumped, the sunburned legs now ended in what looked like white spats.

But this problem was solved when the Camp Commandant ordered footwear for us, so we could work without injury to our feet. Then a bundle of captured British battledresses was issued, which was just as well, with Winter just around the corner.

The wooden Dutch clogs that the Germans 'liberated' from Holland, were also dished out to us, and that first day for us in clogs was like watching Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, and the Three Stooges, all together in one comedy film.

One bloke, imitating Fred Astaire, the tap dancer, suddenly kicked one leg high and a wooden clog shot off his foot and went straight through the glass pane of a barracks window. Another was assisting a mate to carry the heavy dixie of erzats coffee, when he stepped into a small muddy patch and one of his clogs stayed put due to suction. As he moved his leg forward, now minus the clog, he stepped into the cold mud.

Herr Montag was ever vigilant, but on observing this bit of extra Tommy comedy in his P.O.W. Camp, the Germanic mind sent signals that caused his Kraut countenance to crack open just above his chin.