The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (Princess Louise's)

THE SWISS RED CROSS © Tom Barker

"For blood and for life they thanked the brave,
Sustenance and succour they willingly gave."
H Marshall

I got to thinking that while writing all this, "Bang, you is dead stuff." a lot of other material was left out, like "Thursday we got a Red Cross parcel between two men." "What is wrong with that? You might casually warble."

Well, if you have ever read an advertisement in a newspaper, "Wanted, bath for baby with a copper bottom." you may want to peruse the two men bit again.

It would have made more sense, "One Red Cross parcel was shared by two men."

However, when one sticks to the Kings English, one loses the rhythm of a story and if a person can jot down ones thoughts as they enter ones head, then the reader gets a fresh and original, at times with humour, yarn to read. I suppose it is in a way the same as painting in oils, when one paints a picture sticking rigidly to the rules, no one gives it a second glance, but if someone paints something outrageous he gets a million dollars for it. So with that in mind if I wander a bit, don't worry too much, because all this is true and you get cat 'n' skin 'n' all, so to speak.

Anyway, we have read that parcels were issued, but what was never mentioned, was what was in those parcels. A Red Cross parcel would be made of very strong cardboard and would be in two parts, the bottom half and the top half. The top half covered the bottom half and the bottom half fitted snugly into the top half and was secured by strong string. Not unlike a shoe box, except this lid reached to the bottom of the bottom half, making a double barrier against damage to the contents at the sides during it's tranportation. It had a Red Cross stamped on one corner and on another corner it was stamped Croix Rouge.

Since there was no mention of Germany or Italy, it led one to presume that El Duce Fatso Musso and Herr Dumb Kopf the Mad Painter, were not the flavour of the month, or for that matter, for the four years of WW2. The color of the cardboard on the inside of the box was light grey, but the outside was a beige or light brown colour. The size of the box was roughly 40cm by 20cm by 20cm. The contents of each parcel varied, and among a group of POW, we could swap what we didn't like.

A typical parcel would contain the following:-

• 1 bar of Cadbury's nut and fruit chocolate or similar
• 1 tin of Klim (Canadian dried milk powder) or
• 1 tin of Carnation evaporated milk or
• 1 tin of Nestles condensed sweetened milk.
• 1 tin of Player's cigarettes (50) or
• 1 tin of Digger flake pipe tobacco.
• 1 tin of Irish stew or similar.
• 1 tin of rice pudding or similar.
• 1 tin of Fray Bentos corned beef. or
• 1 tin of pilchards.
• 1 tin of sardines.
• 1 small round tin of cheese.
• 1 tin of jam or marmalade.
• 1 packet of cream cracker biscuits.
• 1 tin of butter, usually Canadian, and my mouth would water when the butter squeezed through the holes in a cream cracker biscuit like the speeded up movie of a lawn growing after a double dose of, "quick lift" fertilizer.
• 1 tin of coffee.
• And other yummy stuff.

You would not believe the mischief one could get up to if one got a tin of coffee in one's parcel. It used to happen like this. One of our blokes perhaps has done a bit of washing and hangs it out on a line between the barracks to dry. Sounds a bit mundane, but there is a lot more to that than meets the eye. To begin with he has chosen that particular spot to hang his line. When he washes his gear out he can dry it on that line. Since he has chosen a spot near his window he can now sit by that window and while reading all about Betty Grable, he can make sure no one nicks his apparel or what passes for a uniform.

While devouring Betty's picture on the front of his book and nibbling on his nails, I thought, "It's a good job we don't have mental telepathy, or he would be barging into Betty's mind just as she was having a cup of tea in her favourite restaurant."

"O.K. Blondie, ah'm 'ere." etc, etc.

While chatting up Betty, this nutty fruit character would now and again tear his gaze from the page as he caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye. He would appraise the approaching Ferret (a roaming-at-will Guard inside the camp) and with a couple of sharp taps on the wooden wall, would alert any ne-er do well to desist in his enterprise until the all clear was given.

Sometimes he would leap up and yell "There's a truck at the main gate!"

Some blokes with dirty minds would immediately scramble to the nearest windows with tongues hanging out with cries of "Where, where?" probably expecting, and particularly since they were here in Kraut land where the keep-fit Fraulein paraded around in skimpy knickers and no socks - or was it the other way round? I forget.

However! The droll reply from our mate with the book would be, "I said TRUCK!"

But as one of our witch doctors observed, "When the mind is fondly remembering some things that stand out in the past, it only needs a slight nudge by a trained mind to make the incident recur."

To which, some wit added, "Yea, but if some bugger slams the door on it, he'll think he's astride a 500 cc Norton motey bike fer the next bleed'n' month."

Then we would have to wait until the main gate was opened and the truck came into the Camp to see if it contained a contingent of the Gestapo, coming to look for someone hiding in our Camp, or somebody to thump, because their thumping quota was down. But on finding out from the Camp Commandant that this Camp was not political but was indeed a P.O.W. camp and held Brit Soldiers, they changed their minds and went elsewhere to fulfil their sadistic desires, safe in the knowledge they would not get thumped in return by people who were at death's door already or children too weak to resist.

If it was a Red Cross truck, we knew it would not be long before the gate would be opened by the German Guard on the gate. Looking bored to tears, the Guard was standing like a dead Christmas tree near the middle gate. On seeing one of our blokes on the other side of the wire sitting on the steps of the nearest hut nonchalantly tearing the blue and gold label off a block of Cadbury nut and fruit chocolate sent to him in a personal package from his home, and making a big deal out of getting the silver paper off as he glanced sneakily to see if the Guard was watching, the Guard seeing him looking his way, would hastily transfer his gaze to the clouds. Desperately trying not to drool down the front of his uniform and trying to assess by the look of the clouds how long it would be before it p----d down - as if he didn't have enough misery. Getting wet through and standing there for another hour and a half while watching some yobbo trying to poke a bar of Cadbury's Nut and Fruit though the back of his neck from the front, was not the ideal way to spend an afternoon.

Our mate with the choc block could not be bothered to break bits off. So, offering the bar of sweet brown delight to his noshing gear and making a rough guess, he bit down on two squares narrowly missing his fingers, and closed his eyes as his tongue and gums tasted the delight of years of effort by Cadbury and Co. The Guard who had been watching and drooling, bit down on his tongue at the same time.

Have you have ever been to the dogs? You know the dog races where all the dogs are straining at the leash and as the electric fur-cum-pussycat flashes past like a speeding bullet, the dogs spot it moving at a fair rate of knots and as soon as it flashes past the starting gate, a lever is tripped and they are all free to chase the blur that is moving so quickly away to their front. Bunched up muscles and flailing legs; slavering at the mouth; white gleaming fangs; blood shot eyes fixed on the nuts that are frantically jiggling to and fro like a traveling clock on the dog in front, who is fearfully looking back with one eye and trying to outrun the gleaming slavering white dagger like noshing gear, almost imitating a hermit crab scuttling sideways up a beach dodging the ever sneaking up the beach and searching foaming fingers of the incoming tide.

Well our mob was a bit like that when Jerry opened the gate, and if he had not stepped back a bit sharpish he could have got trampled to death. When Jerry opened any gate and there was food in the offing, it always looked like masses of migrating Gnu racing across the veldt in Africa, nothing but a mass of heaving bodies and clouds of dust and milling foot gear.

On reaching the truck and settling down, we would file past to see the outcome of the verdict. The bloke who stood near the truck would move the next man forward and if it was one parcel per man he would tick that man's name off a script he had pinned to a board, after looking at that man's dog tags. If a parcel was to be shared by two men, the controller would move one man forward and the next man behind him got the parcel so both would have the same number of the parcel checked against their number and name on the list. The system worked well and every one was content.

But sometimes only a small amount of parcels would reach us. The senior Brit Sgt would get out his note book and after ten to fifteen minutes of high maths, a conference with some of his cronies, a bit of looking at one another and a lot of head nodding, he would decide it would be one between four. As this info was relayed to the hungry mob, a groan would be heard like an old organ winding down. After the issue, any left-over parcels would be put under lock and key till the next lot came in, then the saved ones could be added to them to boost the number and maybe we could get one between two again.

We did on occasion, get one parcel each, but then the next parcel would be late, so it worked itself out. As I sit here typing this, I can still vividly remember the comments as the senior Brit announced one parcel per man. A mad cheer would rise from the motley assembly, and for two men to a parcel there was a moderate cheer, but for four to a package one would hear, "Well it's still better than just the lousy Jerry soup."

Sometimes we would hear from the Guards, that a long stretch of railway was under repair. Perhaps a wagon had jumped the lines and stuffed up the timetable in that particular area. I would go to have a shave and wink at the bloke in the mirror.

Unfortunately, not only was the gear to the front immobilised, but any Red Cross packages to us were also held up, so not wishing to be lynched, I kept quiet. That poster I read so often on the station platform informing us that "Pssst, Feind hürt mit." With an umlaut, (two dots) over the U, in English it meant, "Ayup, the Enemy is listening!" so I played it safe with both sides, Jerry and his trains and our blokes with their parcels.

But most times it was one package between two men. The main thing was to keep an eye on the bloke who had half of your parcel. If you could have seen them you could be forgiven if you thought the two were manacled to each other, because where ever the bloke with the parcel went, the other bloke was like his shadow until you got back to the barrack room. There you shared by common agreement. But if you could not agree, or both wanted the same thing, then one would roll a dice and the highest number took his choice,

A tin of corned beef or a big tin of pilchards, one could not half, because it could go bad, so one made an agreement to open it when we both wanted to use it at the same time, and so too with other things. This arrangement worked pretty well. The only gripe I had was, sometimes, when you got a tin of corned beef, the key to open it was missing or the metal tab where the key fitted to wind it open, broke off. And since we had no knives, it was impossible to open a tin of corned beef with a spoon, so you had to swap one cigarette to borrow a key - that is if someone had a key.

Of course there is always a smart ass who comes up with, "Ah cin oppen yer bully fer yer!" and another will ask "Oh and how pray, may I ask?."

Dum Dum answers, "Yer, well it's too easy. All yu do is hold the spoon between yu hands and work it back and forrards an' the handle will snap off due to metal fatigue from the spoon bit, then when we go to the concrete pool we just rub it up an' dahn on the concrete till it gets a sharp edge on it, then yu cin cut oppen yer bully tin."

And another voice simpered, "Then, what yu gonna eat yo' soup wi'?" and from the bed area a tired voice drawls

"'e can aways stick 'is d--k in it and suck it up like an effilant (elephant)." and someone else, having noticed our mate when in the showers, suggested

"Don't yo mean like a bleed'n' mosquito?"

Sometimes a parcel would have something different in it, like a tin of cocoa, or Horlicks, or a tin of Benger's food. Benger's food is not unlike dried milk, it can be used to make a milk shake or it can be added to food like a sauce or mixed in with a custard. There were lots of different ways it could be eaten. I think it's main advantage was that it was ideal for people with tummy troubles, since it was enriched with vitamins and minerals to enable the sick cope better with their malady.

As soon as everyone got back to the barracks the questions would fly "What lucky back stud got a tin of coffee then?"

And someone, or perhaps two would chortle, "Ow abaht that, then?" and holding a tin of coffee on high for all to see, they would grin at everyone like they had just dug up the Hope diamond.

"Lucky back stud!" someone would mutter, but then the bloke had to find somewhere to hide it, because one just don't drink gold.

I sometimes muse today about during WW 2, how Hitler flooded the market with funny money. How he went to all that trouble setting up people to make all the different plates and getting the printing organised and so on, and right under his very nose, there we were, sitting with the equivalent of D.Marks 5000 in one parcel.

Coffee in England during WW2, could have cost about two bob a tin, but in Germany real coffee was as scarce as rocking horse s--t and if you had a tin, you were indeed a very lucky man.

Of course it was not planned, but it just had to happen. The first time we got a parcel, someone took the tin of coffee to work and at midday when he made a brew, the breeze took the aroma (a bit like the Bisto kids) over the railway line and past this factory. And if you have ever seen some of the zombie films, where a gorgeous blonde is tied to a tree, then someone rings the dinner bell at sunset and all the zombies rise out of the ground flashing fangs and making hungry noises, well this scene was a bit like that. One whiff, and everyone downed tools, even those in the toilets, and with noses reaching for the scent of coffee like a bull elephant's trunk trying to detect a cow elephant in heat, they stumbled over each other to get to the source. It was not long before the owner of the coffee realised the potential in one tin of unopened coffee.

Perhaps what the reader does not realise is the fact, that in WW2 in Germany, the nearest one could get to a drink of coffee was roasted ground acorns. Personally I would have preferred water from the local duck pond. It is not surprising when our mate made this coffee brew, everyone who got a whiff of it was under a spell, so to speak. It was not long before the price of an unopened tin of English coffee sky-rocketed, and if some fortunate joker got a parcel with a tin of coffee in the contents, it was like winning lotto.

Needless to say, one didn't leave it lying around for all and sundry to peruse. It would have been like Barclay's Bank leaving a gleaming gold bar in the middle of a street teeming with out of work de-mobbed soldiers. It would not have surprised me if someone had walked past me in those days with a twig between his hands dowsing for a bed whose owner had been fortunate enough to get a tin of coffee in his parcel. When you are a POW, you suddenly become Jack of all trades, just to keep abreast of the times.

With four tins of coffee, the world is your oyster, to coin a phrase. I often wondered how many tins would have persuaded some joker in the black market to knock off Hitler. I think word got back to England that accidentally here was a secret weapon that could corrupt the German people, because a lot of flag waving had died down a bit and people were beginning to see that Germany was not going to get all her own way after all. Also, the Germans were beginning to remember what their Dads had said in 1918, "When the Tommy LOOKS like he is asleep, THAT'S when he is the most dangerous."

More parcels seemed to have coffee in them all of a sudden. Sometimes, if the Guards were a bit slack, or they had been bribed, a bloke would take out a tin of coffee and blokes on the work party came back into the camp with a loaf of bread tucked under their jackets and if there were ten men on that work party, then ten, two kilogram loaves of rye bread wasn't a bad swap for a little tin of coffee. And the price kept going up, as some of the Gestapo were now taking an interest, because there was a profit to be made. Like I said before, all this was undermining the German war effort.

We would use a special place as a post box sometimes. One ideal place was the Gents toilet in the water cistern, and another was a fire bucket full of sand on the platform. But this way had its drawbacks, in that sometimes the tin would be taken, and you would not see it or the bloke again. Or the situation was such, that the bread could only be delivered to us one loaf per day.

Those situations were good, because sometimes the Guards knew one bloke had a loaf under his coat but would ignore it. But if, after work, all the blokes on our Commando walked into the Camp looking like a gaggle of pregnant Nuns, the Guard would get it in the neck if he ignored the obvious fact that we were indeed transporting the staff of life into our Prison Camp, while a lot of Krauts were on strict rationing. The only draw back to our little scheme would be if the Camp Commandant did a spot check, which was rare. We would see him peering through the Guard room window as another Guard would suddenly erupt from the Guardroom and then go along our ranks, searching and prodding. Of course if he found the loaf of bread, it would be confiscated, and as a punishment, the whole camp would miss out on the Tuesday evenings jam ration, which was a teaspoon full of jam.

Commandant of this Camp I am,
and not some Rajah in Siam.
They don't get dinner,
and will soon get thinner,
when I confiscate their ration of jam.

The bloke delivering the bread to our work site also had to be very careful. There were plenty of people who thought, "If I can't have some of that cake, then I will shop the lot, and cop a reward."

But some soon learned that was also very dicey, because the French underground kept tab on people who got rewards, and some didn't live long enough to collect their ill gotten gains - let alone enjoy them. But I think that was due to either, the bloke got wind that someone was watching him, or he decided after the first time, it was too risky. After all, who was stupid enough to kill a goose that laid golden eggs?

Most German blokes who smoked pipes had a little tin in their pocket, and in it was a pathetic collection of dried daisy flower heads. These would be crammed into the bowl of a wooden pipe and with a grimace, the owner would light up. Our blokes would take pity and dragging out a tin of Digger Flake, with a nudge, nudge, wink, wink, to their mates, they would ask the bloke for his pipe, knock out the daisy heads and fill it with flake, then hand it back, motioning the owner to light up and enjoy. With the pipe now firmly clenched in his mouth the Jerry would light up and the first time he puffed and inhaled, he had to sit down, because it made him so giddy.

"Farfluchter noch mal! Was is das?" ( bloody hell what is that, or the equivalent).

A lot of these little niceties sometimes paid off later if you wanted a favour. Chocolate brings back happy memories. The Boche had chocolate, but against English chocolate, it was no contest. Rowntree and Cadbury's should have got a medal, because with a bar of either, you could bribe some of the Guards to do hand stands while you held his rifle.

So in hind sight, the parcel to the Brits did as much in undermining the German system as secret agents did. Let's face it, you had only to pick the wrong bloke to bribe and that was your lot. So one had to step clever, so to speak, by knowing whom you were dealing with or the next step could be your last. Most blokes made sure they had something on the bloke or made him believe same, as insurance, so to speak.

One day a car pulled in to the camp and two very dapper gents got out and went into the Camp Commandants office. Our grapevine was such, that we knew the moment the meeting was over and what we suspected came true. To quote one of our blokes, "There y'are Dicko. Yu owe me ten fags. I knew the Krauts wouldn't issue new blankets just like that, an' ahl tell yu what, I bet yu another ten they is gorn afore they two Swiss blokes is aht the camp."

So we watched them come out of the Camp Commandants Office and the Commandant was all smiles and stepping back to allow the two Swiss Gents go first, and the Swiss Gents hanging back with a, "Nein, bittershone, weitermachen." (No! please, after you.") and one of our blokes, watching all the polite gestures smirked,

"Is this goin' ter be an inspection, or a frigg'n' barn dance?"

German manners being what they are, the Commandant won the day, so, led by the Swiss delegation, this mob descended on our Barracks. Behind these three, and fetching up the rear, came the German Feld Wabel (Sergeant) and two posterns (Guards). This party came strolling to our living quarters as if they were visiting the local zoo. Mind you, chuckin' a quick shufty at some of our blokes, I suppose that remark is not so far off target. Anyway, on entering the first hut, one of the Swiss Gents with pin striped trousers and a crease you could slice ham with, complete with elegant spats over highly polished shoes and shiny brief case tucked under the arm, asked one of our lads,

"Are they treating you well?" and he nodded and smiled politely. Glancing left and right at one another, we interpreted the silly grin on the face of each of our blokes as,

"Whit a f---n' stoopid question ti ask!"

We also noticed the grim face of the German Sergeant and woe betide anyone who said something out of line.

The Swiss Red Cross excelled in another direction, in that they would push until Jerry repatriated some of our blokes back to their homeland, because of mental illness due to action at the front.

To see some of these blokes would make you weep. Sometimes today you might see a bloke selling poppies at the yearly parade on the 11th of November. He may be all smiles and have a vacant look, but next time, when you see a bloke like that, you may notice there is someone not too far away from him, keeping an eye on him or guiding him to stop him from wandering on to the road where there is traffic.

But a lot of young people today don't even know about that, let alone see some of the old blokes who have to be fed, because they can't even hold a spoon steady now. When a heavy truck goes by, they cringe, weep and whisper, "Stuka" (dive bomber). When they walk down the street and someone kick-starts a motor bike, the bloke is on the floor trembling, ashen faced and weeping.

But like I said before, the Red Cross did and still do, a sterling job, and they can call at my house any time.