CHAPTER 16
North Africa
Early 1941 a Junkers-52 plane flew to North Africa, a bumpy, sickening flight barely high enough to miss the rolling waves of the Mediterranean. Had they flown higher, they could have run into one of the British fighters who were able to reach these parts from their airstrips on Malta. Shortly after touchdown, Hauptmann Erwin Hans Resmel stepped gingerly on to the African continent and was violently sick.
A staff car arrived, along with its Italian driver and lookout, whisked him off to his new posting some 800 kilometres away: as POW interrogator for the Wehrmacht. It was a long bumpy ride, from the small coastal airstrip to the Holding Camp. A vehicle had arrived to collect the Hauptmann with driver and lookout. The heat was terrific and every half hour, the driver stopped to let the engine of the vehicle cool off. The three men doused their heads with water and took long thirst-quenching drinks from the water container. Never had Hans experienced such heat during daylight hours and even though he wore a light fabric uniform, his back was continually wet and beads of sweat ran down his forehead and down his face. He soon discovered that as soon as the sun set, the clear desert air temperature would drop like a downed plane and within only a few hours, he would be shivering from the cold. Coming straight from the freezing snow-clad winter landscape of Northern Europe to this heat was torture for his unaccustomed body and Hans wondered how on earth he was going to adapt to such gruelling conditions.
After almost an hour and a half, the vehicle turned off down a rough, narrow track and bounced its way across the sand and rocky terrain towards some towering rocks in the distance. The car rounded a looming lump of dark rock, rising straight from the sand-coloured ground and immediately ahead was a broken-down grey stone wall and a scattering of small rocks like some giant’s knuckle-bones’ game. A low barbed-wire fence surrounded a sea of army grey tent roofs. As the vehicle approached, two armed sentries immediately jumped to attention and saluted. One checked the vehicle and its occupants and then nodded to the other who pulled open a flimsy wide wire gate. The car rolled slowly through and headed towards a mud-brick and stone building that was flying a swastika flag. What seemed to be designated as a small courtyard was to the left.
The area had been marked out by a row of stones, not accurately arranged but rough and hasty by someone who had little time. He noticed that further on the left were what appeared to be two other smaller buildings, dented and shell damaged and missing a complete roof. A tarpaulin had been thrown over the missing part of the roof and held down by ropes which had been secured to the ground via several large boulders. Hans leaned forward and asked his driver if he knew anything about the place. The man responded, telling him that as far as he was aware, the place the Hauptmann was indicating was the guards’ quarters. Hans then noticed that to the right of the courtyard were four rows of rock-grey tents of various shapes and sizes and immediately in front of their open flaps, was an open area where he estimated about sixty to eighty battle-weary prisoners stood in silence, each head mirroring the the direction of the slow moving car.
As his vehicle got closer, Hans noticed that the soldiers of the camp were also guarding a much smaller group of people, possibly a dozen or fifteen who were standing slightly to one side. They were obviously not considered to be part of the main body. They were different. He was not sure but he thought some of them appeared to be nurses for they had a white covering on their heads. They certainly were not Arabs.
The car came to a halt just outside the main building. Hans noted the officer who came out walked stiffly with a slight limp. He walked over to the vehicle and stood to attention two metres from the front fender. The driver skirted round the front of the vehicle to open the door for the Hauptmann, who stepped out and gave a military salute. The officer in charge of the camp returned the salute.
“Oberstleutnant Specht. Welcome. I trust you had a good journey, Hauptmann Resmel.”
“Reasonably quiet, thank you Oberstleutnant.”
“There are eighty two held here as of the the present time. The majority are British. The number of prisoners changes from day to day. You will notice that we are not as formal here the camps in the Reich,” he explained. “That’s because we’re only a holding camp as the majority of our prisoners are wounded men. As soon as they are well enough to travel we load them on to trucks which transport them where they are put on ships for Italy and from there they are sent to POW camps within the Reich. The senior officers are flown out from the same airfield you arrived in. Our main job is to patch up the wounded and process any others as quickly as possible so they can be deported. There has been heavy fighting on the front line so over the past few weeks we have processed hundreds.”
“Really?” Hans walked slowly beside Specht, allowing the Oberstleutnant to dictate the pace.
“As well as the prisoners, we also take any of our own casualties who are too badly injured to be moved further down the line. Therefore, we are classed as an evacuation field hospital. We have two of our own doctors in charge and seven medical assistants. Working alongside them is a British team.”
“You keep the prisoners separate from our own wounded?” Hans asked.
“No. All the badly injured are treated and housed together. They do not give any trouble. However, you may find accommodation here is rather primitive. This camp is not permanent. It used to be a British field hospital just behind their front line but when our forces pushed forwards, they had no time to evacuate everyone and we inherited their tents together with their supplies and some of its personnel; mainly nurses. Hence the British medical staff you may have noticed. They are the group over there.” He pointed to the small group Hans had noticed upon his arrival.
“And are those women I see with white scarves?” asked Hans. He had been told about British nurses who had been shipped over to Egypt to help stabilise those wounded on the battle field. With a heavy reliance on tank warfare, there were many soldiers who had received nasty burns to their faces and bodies. Hans had seen some of their own casualties when his plane touched down.
“Quite so. Nurses from the Imperial Military Nursing Service. We do have one or two British doctors and they work alongside our own. All the nurses here are British.”
“I am surprised they were so close to the main line.” Hans cast a glance over the camp and out beyond its borders to where the stone desert stretched as far as the eye could see.
“They weren’t at one stage. Our forces moved so quickly they were overwhelmed. Generalleutnant Rommel certainly gave the British a whipping.”
In the background, Hans’ ears picked out the words: Prisoners dismiss! given in snappy English. Chatter followed as the prisoners dispersed, guards’ voices could be heard barking out orders to make sure prisoners were left in no doubt as to whom was in charge.
“This way, Hauptmann.”
Specht held out his hand and indicated the way. Hans turned and took hold of a small black case that had been handed to him by his driver. The two men walked into the largest building which appeared to have sustained the least damage and which had been modestly furnished but sufficient for the main office. The rough walls had been decorated with several large photographs of the Führer together with a large red swastika flag which had been suspended from high up near the ceiling. It was obvious that obedience would be demanded here, just as if one were still in the Fatherland. One lived only to impliment orders from above. The Hauptmann had come to do a job and it was expected that the job would be done well.
“I believe you have some papers for me, Hauptmann?”
Hans reached into the case and handed over a large brown envelope. The Oberstleutnant quickly flipped through the papers and returned them to their container. Hans produced a letter of instructions and handed that over.
“These are my instructions. Their authority comes directly from Abwehr headquarters in Berlin.” Hans waited a while while Specht scanned the document. “As you see I am to act as required and send my report to them
.”
“Most impressive, Hauptmann. You will have my complete co-operation. Please let me know if you need anything clarified.”
However, Specht was not relaxed about this new posting for he had already been made aware that the Hauptmann had connections with some very influential men. The Foreign Section usually sent a lower ranking man to them as the camp inmates were not considered high risk here and an Abwehr officer with the Hauptmann’s experience would not normally be wasted on gathering information from such prisoners. Specht was certain now that their army must be getting ready for a major thrust and that they could expect to capture some with vital information. Yet, he could not be one hundred percent sure and neither could he put his finger on anything specific to allay his concerns. He was, however, relieved that he would be working with an officer of the Wehrmacht rather than one from the SS.
Later that evening in the tent used as the officer’s mess, a communication was received that Hitler had made a decision to thrust through the Bulgarian states and into Greece. The Hauptmann was at liberty to tell them that Operation Punishment was poised to take place on April 6th but he would divulge nothing more. Hans already knew the generals hoped for a victory before the Führer’s birthday on the 20th.
“What the hell will this do for us out here?” Specht asked soon after the radio operator had handed Hans the message and the two had walked out of the mess.
“It is hoped that if we can control the gateway to the Black Sea, then it’ll block up the Russians there and keep them out of the Mediterranean. Also, if we can hold that area, our supply planes will have other airports to fly out from.”
“But most of our supply planes leave from Southern Italy. Our ships are targets for the British planes. Should we not try to stop that?”
“I agree, Oberstleutnant. We know that the British control Malta and Gibraltar but we do not have the capacity to do anything about it. But if we can keep the Russians away from the Baltic and out of the Mediterranean then we can use routes closer to Greece and Crete. We can then keep a closer eye on the British. We do not want them sneaking up through the Suez canal as well.”
When the evening meal was set, Hans was invited to sit next to Specht so that they could continue with their discussion. The table had already been set for the five senior personnel who saw to the smooth running of the camp. Several privates were in the process of bringing in food and wine as the officers started to take their seats..
“There’s a real problem with British ships and aircraft, Herr Oberstleutnant,” explained Hans as he began to help himself to the hot, steaming soup from the large pot. “At the present time, they could bring in reinforcements through the Suez. After all, that appears to be their back door for Australian, New Zealand and South African troops. Now they’ve regrouped in Egypt there is very little we can do. They have landing strips in Malta and the RAF based there, together with their navy keep managing to sink our supply ships. It means reinforcements may not come through.”
“I know all about that.” Specht rearranged his cutlery as he spoke. “Medical supplies are the only things affected.”
“Quite so. Those planes of theirs seem to pop up everywhere. It was dangerous for me to fly across the Mediterranean. Several times even we had to either dodge flak from one of their ships or fly so low my backside was almost in the sea. If we could fly further east, even though it is a longer flight, it could prove to be safer. We’ll be further away from Gibraltar and Malta and that means further away from those infernal battleships and fighters.”
The camp commander tucked his napkin into the top of his uniform. He picked up his soup spoon and nodded to those present that the meal could begin.
“Yes. Supplies are difficult to get through.” Specht waved his spoon in Hans’ direction. “Take this camp, for instance. We don’t have an abundance of supplies . . . sufficient, yes, but only for our own. As for the prisoners, we’re at capacity since the Tobruk campaign began - barely enough to feed all those extra mouths. Too much food and they become a bloody nuisance and not enough, and we have the Geneva Convention on our backs. It’s a no-win situation and Berlin doesn’t want to know. How on earth does Berlin expect us to get those prisoners to Italy? I really don’t know at this point. In the meantime, we just do our duty and battle on until we’re relieved or directed elsewhere.”
“I agree. A soldier’s job should be keeping the front lines moving forward, not keeping an eye on troublesome prisoners. We need all the soldiers we can get at the front. I agree with Generalleutnant Rommel that it’s imperative we keep pushing the front lines forward. The sooner one of us reaches a victory, the sooner this madness will end.”
“Be careful, Hauptmann, or what you are saying may be misconstrued. Those damn Gestapo boys have ears everywhere, listening to in to misplaced words is a hobby of theirs.”
The two men continued their conversation well into the evening. It was agreed that some time during the following morning, Hauptmann Resmel would be shown around. After that, he could begin his duties as soon as the new prisoners arrived later in the afternoon. Six Tommies had been captured during a skirmish that had taken place two days ago and it had been decided that at least two of the men were holding valuable information that could prove most useful for an attack Rommel was planning.
At precisely ten the next morning, the prisoners were lined up for another roll call and inspection. Hans noticed the small group he had seen the day before were not part of this roll call.
“Tell me, Herr Oberstleutnant Specht, why are the medical prisoners not here?”
“These are fighting men and as they are able to walk, they must attend roll call. We do not insist the medical prisoners attend roll call every time. The army doctors and the nurses are needed to attend to the sick and injured and those duties must be paramount.”
“It surprises me that women are so close to the front line.”
“They are part of the Auxiliary Territorial Service. The British army accepts women as part of their front line forces. They are expected to work along side the men.”
“I do not agree with placing women in such situations,” Hans commented with force.
“Most of the nurses we have here originally came from hospitals in Cairo. They were sent here when the fighting got worse and I am told, they elected to stay with their patients, rather than leave them when our forces pushed forwards.”
“They take their duty most seriously then.”
“Yes, Hauptmann, they do. Brave women. When our forces broke through, the hospital was still functioning. What else were we to do with them but make them prisoners of war? So, they continue to save lives and patch men up but now they work in our camp hospital. Because of that we’ve become the main military aid station for this region which stretches from here through to the coast. Not only bodies to put together but there are also infections and illnesses to deal with. The result of this terrible climate. Wait ‘till you get a bout of the raging dysentery. Screws up your insides so violently, you wish you were dead on the spot. Men are useless. They stink. And there is very little can be done. And do you know what the worse thing about it is, Hauptmann?” Specht screwed up his face at the very thought. “The worst things is, nearly everyone gets it! One time or other.”
“Sounds disgusting. What do you do about it?” Hans screwed up his nose as the image of some poor soldier bent double with diarrhoea crouching over one of the basic latrines one found in the desert..
“Not much. Wait for the infernal thing to pass. The medics can’t help other than give them water. If there is enough to spare. A few never make it. Poor bastards. They just lie on the stretchers and die on the stretchers. There is not a lot we can do. Dehydration. It saps the body until it can no longer hold out.”
Hans remembered the terrible conditions he had seen on the eastern front. Men who had been reduced to living like savages.
“Lice and ice in Russia. Dysentery here. Seems there’s something to get you wherever you
are.”
“That’s about it. But you won’t find any of it in the reports. The leaders are only interested in numbers.”
The two men walked between the tents, ruffling the sand dust and leaving footprints behind them. They were like the Bedouin tents: low slung roofs with rolled up sides. They were as hot as ovens during the day and exceedingly cold at night. A foursome sat crossed leg on the ground just inside where the shade provided some protection and played a game of cards. A wide dark wet line on each back clearly marked the sweat line on their shirts. The men hardly looked up as the two German officers walked into and out of the tent.
“Where are these medics . . . the doctors and nurses housed?” Hans glanced around the thick, stone walls that made up part of the enclosure. A platform of grey tent roofs spread in all directions. No sign of any red crosses.
“Way over there. We’ve given them the luxury of stone rooms. We need to take care of them. They are like gold to the bank.”
After they had inspected the medic’s quarters, Hans could see why disease could spread so rapidly in the hot climate. Even the condition of their quarters was dismal. Camp beds were crammed together in the two small dusty rooms, each with one squashed, tired pillow at the head and a dark-coloured grey army blanket folded across the foot of each bed. In each corner was a canvas bucket and spade, the only indication of toilet needs for the men once the nightly curfews were in place. The two square window openings and the empty doorway had no cover to keep out any wind so that the sand on the floor, was constantly being whipped into miniature whirls and scattered throughout the air. Sand grains were layered over everything in the room until, over time, every item took on the same rusty orange-coloured hue In the first room, a rough canvas curtain was all that separated the men from the women.
“Is this the best that can be offered?” Hans’s tone suggested he had been shocked. “It isn’t very satisfactory. The Geneva Convention states that certain conditions must be met. I do not see these conditions here.”
“Herr Hauptmann, this is a battle zone. I , I don’t think . . . Compared to other camps this is good.”
“But you expect these medics to heal the sick and repair the injured, especially when they are expected to deal with our own men. Should they, therefore, be expected to work and live under such trying conditions?”
“When you have been here long enough, you will see things differently, Hauptmann Resmel. None of us like the conditions but that is how things are.”
“This doesn’t look good.” The Hauptmann flicked the canvas wall so that it rippled and sprayed the air with clouds of reddish desert dust. “This canvas screen is not satisfactory. You need to ask for more tents. Several could be accommodated out there. Leave the nurses here and move the doctors to there.”
Hans pointed to the corner of an outside courtyard where part of a stone wall had fallen down. Specht brushed the suggestion aside in a burst of anger and frustration.
“Easy to say, Hauptmann but this is war! Everything’s impossible here!”
“I am not interested in excuses, Herr Oberstleutnant. Is it not better that the Wehrmacht run this camp rather than other branches of the military? Remember, these people have only become your prisoners because the front lines have moved. Treat them badly now and you may be signing your own death warrant should the fronts move and we become their prisoners. Remember what Generalleutnant Rommel has said.”
This time Specht did not reply. He beckoned to a passing guard, and mumbling something about tents and water supplies, he saluted and strode away in the direction of his office. The new man, a young soldier in his early twenties, was left with the job of showing Hans around the rest of the camp: the water tank that hopefully was replenished every two days, the two rough shower cubicles and the stinking latrines as far away from the hospital as possible.
As they were retracing their steps back past the medical area, Hans suddenly stopped and pointed at a nurse who was holding the side of her glasses exactly as . . . His face softened and he smiled to himself as his mind went back to the happier time before the war. A glimpse. The running nurse was in a hurry to get to the hospital block.
“Ach, Herr Hauptmann, you like the look of her?”
The guard hesitated in his step. He laughed roughly, then opened and shut his mouth like a fish, waiting with uncertainty for the reaction. When the answer came, it did so with an air of disinterest.
“No, Grenadier. For a moment, she just reminded me of someone I used to know.”
The answer gave the soldier courage and he spoke again,
“I keep clear of her, Herr Hauptmann! Good looks but she has a tongue on her like a whip. I have heard her lash out and I was a good five metres away. A soldier who was taken to the hospital with dysentery told me about her quick temper. Said everyone gave her room, even the British. Shame she’s such a snake. Pretty woman like that.”
The man began coughing violently, a rough, hacking smoker’s cough. Not good in such a climate such as this, thought Hans.
“That ‘snake’, as you so politely put it, might be a very good nurse, soldier. Remember, she may be more valuable than you!
The guard lost his grip on his gun and spent several seconds fumbling and grasping as it began to slip away from his fingers. Suddenly he managed to wrap his fingers round the butt and prevent it from hitting the ground. He looked at Hans like a pup that had just vomited rubbish. He hoisted his rifle back onto his shoulder and followed his superior.
The following morning, Hans began his interrogation of the two new British officers. A list of the captured men, together with their ranks, had been laid out on the table. As soon as he had made himself as comfortable as anyone could possibly be, he began checking the names of the people he needed to speak to. The first list contained the names of the new prisoners and under that were the names of two of the medics who had requested a further supply of medical supplies from the stores.
“Armkey, Barker, Briddle, Dodge, Keller.” Hans filled in the names: one prisoner on each form. That done, he turned his attention to the requests. “Pennyweather, Turn . . . ”
Hans’s heart missed a beat. He re-checked. It was there . . . Turner. The name seemed to leap from the page and impinge on his mind. He reached and took the ‘T’ prisoner information file from the shelf. His fingers flipped the pages until his eyes caught the heading he was seeking. He eagerly began scanning its contents until he found the name.
Corporal J.R.Turner, Doctor number 3046623. Royal Essex, medical division.
In a way he was disappointed. Why did he assume it could have been Jan? Why did he feel a tingle of excitement when he first noticed the name? He had heard nothing of her for almost three years so why should she leap into his mind? He sat staring at the name. He almost wished it had been Jan. It would have been good to see her again and know that they could still be friends, inspite of the war. He wondered what she was doing right now, in this war that had built a wall between them, a more impenetrable wall than all their teenage quarrels had ever done. He wondered if she had returned to look after her ageing aunt. Then he remembered she had been training to be a nurse. In London perhaps? That is where she said she would like to be. In one of the large children’s hospitals. As soon as he thought of that, he was worried that her hospital may have received a direct hit. He had heard that London had been badly bombed. The thought of Jan lying under all that rubble, maybe wedged under a hospital beam unable to escape as the building burned. He sincerely hoped that was not the case. It was too horrible to contemplate futher so he closed his mind to such thoughts.
He looked at the list of names again but could not get his mind away from Jan. Maybe Jan had been posted overseas like the nurses here. If so, he hoped she was well back behind the lines, maybe nursing in Cairo or some other town.
Jan and Andrea. The two names were intertwined. The thought of Andrea ripped into his heart and made his chest ache. No news. His mind had been forced to create a reality around
her, of a happy child in the countryside. Wishful daydreaming. The reality is, is she the child of an enemy? He, the enemy of a child? Or, is she a child of no-one, with no father or mother to protect her in her hour of need?
He began to worry that Miss Turner had grown too old to look after Andrea. And, if Jan had been called up, how would she be in a position to keep Andrea safe? The thought of it churned over in the pit of his stomach and made him feel sick. He realised he did care what happened, to all of them, for they were as much his family as were his aunt and uncle. But, it was a helpless situation: his own daughter was now his enemy. And so it was with Jan. It had been that way since September in thirty-nine when they became officially on opposite sides.
Enemy! That was a far worse name than being the pest she was during their school days. It had never given him much thought before that all those students, the people in the town he had got to know and all the friends he had made were now classified as enemies. Enemies of the Fatherland and that if they were to meet face to face, then both would be expected to aim their weapon on the other, and shoot. He wondered how he would react if ever he did come face to face with any of them: Gerald, Loppy, Robert, or even Jan. How could he treat those friends of his as his enemy? It was a ludicrous situation. Frightening. Ludicrous and frightening at the same time!
He knew he had to push such sentimental thoughts to the back of his mind if he were to survive. He had to, if he was to retain any form of sanity. And that was especially true with regard to his daughter.
‘Corporal James Roger Turner, 28 years, captured . . .’
Hans did not know him, yet he immediately felt a connection to him. The muscles of his cheeks tightened as he gritted his teeth. He was still thinking of Jan when Oberstleutnant Specht interrupted his thoughts. He wanted to know if he could deal with the nurse who had made a name for herself for embarrassing the youngest guards. She had an ample supply of female hormones and knew how and when to turn them on to her advantage. The majority of these young men had come from the country and their knowledge of the opposite sex was raw and explosive. They were young recruits who had crumpled under the stress of constant shelling and now were instructed to perform monotonous duties, marching up and down the compund, seemingly guarding injured prisoners, many as young as themselves. And, this nurse knew exactly how to distract their minds.
Nurse Rollings had been implicated in a failed escape plan. Three men who had been caught on the other side of the outer perimeter and had already admitted that the nurse had been their decoy by distracting the two young guards on duty. It was most unfortunate for the group, for as they dropped down off the wall that ran behind the hospital, one of them had landed heavily on his ankle. A few minutes later he was surrounded by a circle of loaded weapons pointing in his direction. With the alarm raised, it was not long before the other two were marched back into the compound.
In the confusion, the young woman seized her own opportunity, and when the rubbish truck stopped and the driver got out to check his front wheel, she unlatched the canvas cover and jumped in. A pair of sharp eyes spotted her and she was hauled out, arms and legs waving in all directions until the guards dumped her on the ground. Hans had been informed of the escape. The men had taken their recapture in good spirits but not so for the nurse. She was proving to be far more difficult and defiant .
The guards had a nick-name for this nurse but they kept it to themselves. Hans had noticed the way, these young ones spoke and laughed among themselves when they thought their seniors were not looking. Nurse Rollings was never very far away and one could not help noticing the curvature of her body and ample breasts even under the cloth layers of her uniform and as she was the youngest of the women, Hans guessed the young warriors poured all their pent up longings and desires on her. It was difficult enough being so far from home but when there appears to be a flirting female, it was no wonder that the young bucks went wild. They acted more like randy schoolboys than disclipined soldiers and because of that, they needed to be kept under close surveillance by their older counterparts.
Two days after the escape attempt, the young prisoner was escorted in to the Hauptmann’s office. She was most attractive and Hans could see why young female-starved recruits would be attracted towards her like moths around a lamplight. And, this young nurse knew it.
The two soldiers who remained at attention outside the office door were much older. The Kommandant had selected them most carefully as married men with families to consider would not be so easily distracted from their task.
“Name?” The Hauptmann asked as soon as the prisoner had entered the small makeshift office.
“Your documents tell you that.” She was certainly rebellious. Hans looked deeply into her light silver-blue eyes and concluded that they were enchantingly beautiful. However, he had a job to do so it was better to focus his attention on the top of her head, instead.
“Let me make it clear to you, Miss, that if you refuse to co-operate with me, I will have no option but to hand you over to higher authorities. The Kommandant may not able to have you removed so quickly, but I assure you, I have that authority. You either answer the questions put to you now, or I will see that you will be removed to a more secure camp. It is your choice now: you either co-operate with me, or you face a much more difficult interrogation elsewhere.”
He leaned back so that his chair rested on its back legs. Laying on the table top was a map together with an assortment of objects and packaged food pieces.
“Your name?”
“Warrant Officer Margaret Rollings, number 4099832. That’s all I need tell you.”
Hans waited patiently to hear more. He stroked the back of his little finger, and waited. When she offered nothing else, he asked,
“Have you forgotten something Warrant Officer?”
“Sir!” Her eyes clouded over as she spat the word out in annoyance. She stood close to the table, her hands motionless at her sides. She could have been taken for one of those mannequins he had seen in a Kurfurstendamm shop window.
“We found your bag.” He emptied its contents on to his table and swiped over them to separate the items into two distinct groups either side of a large envelope. “These things that were inside. How did you get them?”
“I do not remember, sir.”
“It is clear to me that these items must have been taken from the hospital stores and these came from our own stores. How did you get them, Warrant Officer?” She glared at her interrogator but refused to give out further information. He removed her file from the envelope and, while he waited for her to answer, tapped his fingers lightly on the cover of a file as the seconds ticked by. “I have your file before me.” He opened it. “I note that you are our most junior nurse. Therefore, your value is small. I also note that this is not the first time you have been repremanded, nurse. Remember, Warrant Officer that you are bound by every rule of this field hospital. At the moment, I’m asking only for information about that escape attempt.” Hans paused. He was prepared to wait all morning, if needed. Time was not in a hurry in this camp. Time was only something that moved and changed outside the walls. Inside there was only the waiting as though one were within a pause, waiting for battles outside their sphere to decide their fate. But even within that climate, there was a job to do. “Where did the things in your bag come from? . . . Who got you the army rations? . . . They certainly are not of British issue.” He waited, this time tapping his fingers lightly on the table edge. Still there was no reply. He leaned towards the prisoner standing before him and spoke deliberately but quietly. “Co-operation is to your advantage. Co-operation will be rewarded, Warrant Officer Rollings. Your forces are miles away. How did you think you could survive with so few things? Do you not know how difficult it is to survive in desert conditions?”
She still remained silent but not subdued. He was certain that her escape attempt was a spur-of-the-moment decision. He was more interested to discover how she acquired German army rations. br />
“I ask you again: Who got you the army rations?”
She smirked as a thought came into her mind.
“I had to do anything,” she answered fluttering her long eyelashes at him and smiling so sweetly he was unnerved for a second. “ I had to get out of here. My objective was to reach our lines.”
“And you thought that by tempting your guards that it would give you that chance?”
“All men can be bought, especially those who think of nothing else but of female bodies. However, I would rather be flattered by just one of our boys than by any of my enemies.”
“If that is how you feel, there is little point keeping you here, nurse! You are no use to us and you have nothing more to offer.”
She looked the officer in the eye and said in a soft, melting manner,
“But I do have something to offer, Hauptmann,” she crooned, pulling off her small white nurse’s head scarf. She watched very closely for his reaction all the while pretending to smile and parting her lips in invitation. “Men out here have only one thing on their mind.” Her hair, now loose and free played like waves as she tossed her head. She noticed him blush slightly. “Even a man such as you . . . and, it does not matter what uniform they are wearing, Hauptmann.” She mumbled the first part so quietly he barely heard what she said but the end came out loudly enough. She puffed out her chest so that her ample breasts pushed hard against the buttons of her tunic and he wondered how long it would be before the bottons popped.
She looked at him with a hint of interest and ran her hand down over the curvature of her hip. It was the first time she had made any hand movement.
“Fräulein, I assure you, that in my position, I can have the choice of any woman I wish. And, you would not be one of them!”
She looked above him, at the ceiling. She lowered her eyes and smiled tantalising, taking the time to pout her lips. He felt his temper rising and knew his patience has come to an end.
“Anything which upsets the smooth running of this camp will not be tolerated. Meanwhile, you will follow the rules!”
The words tumbled out: You will follow the rules! Those same words had been told to him many times when he was attending Prince Albert College. You will follow the rules! Maybe he should make Warrant Officer Rollings write a four-page essay, too. He imagined he were the teacher scolding the naughty student. If only life was that simple again. But he was no teacher; he was a German officer and he was interrogating a young woman, with enough wild hormones and the body to upset the disclipine of the young recruits. And, besides, this was not 1925 but 1941.
“Who were the young Grenadiers who got you the army rations?
“Warrant Officer Margaret Rollings, number 4099832,” she repeated. “I am not required to tell you more.”
Hans decided to bring the questioning to an end. Secretly he admired her spirit and courage and although her file said that she was a capable nurse even under the most trying conditions, he knew his duty was to send her down the line.
“You can spend the night under guard. I will speak to you again in the morning. If your mood has not changed by then, Warrant Officer Rollings, you will be moved.”
He wrote some comments on her form and then called to one of the guards to take her away.
“You Nazis will never win!” She cried out as the guard prodded her with the barrel end of his rifle. “Rule Britannia!”
He could hear her singing There’ll always be an England as she was half-led, half-dragged out of the office and over to where a punishment quarter had been set aside.
The following day was no better. The senior British officer had also been called to the office along with Warrant Officer Rollings. If she was unprepared to make concessions in his presence, then there would be no alternative but to process her and immediately send her away. He wondered whether one of the Italian guards had been persuaded to co-operate with the misfits, but still the woman refused to offer any further information. With such an insolent prisoner, a hand-over to higher authority was the only option left. This hospital camp was not set up to deal with difficult prisoners and Specht did not want the bother. Getting through each day with its draining heat and blowing wind was quite enough to sap the energy out of one and so a quick decision had to be made.
“I’m sorry you have not seen the importance for self-disclipine, Warrant Officer. You will have to be transported immediately to one of our secure POW camps. We do not have their type of facilities. From this point you will be treated as any other prisoner.”
He sat looking intently at her wondering what had motivated her to act like that. Could she not see that by flirting with the young soldiers, she was undermining army discipline? A prisoner should show the same respect for discipline as anyone on the field. It was unfortunate for her that she had decided to play such a dangerous game and had she not been caught, what would have been the outcome? It would be sheer stupidity to pretend nothing had happened and keep the nurse with them. She had left him no other choice.
He sent for the senior British medical officer to explain why disclipinary action was necessary. They saluted each other and the British officer removed his hat and stood easy.
“The necessary papers for Nurse Warrant Officer Rollings to be relocated have been completed. You must understand, Colonel, that discipline must be maintained, not only for our soldiers and medical staff but for your medical personnel as well.”
“Is there no hope for a reprieve, Hauptmann? I am sure that I will be able to control that type of behaviour so that it will not happen again. She is very young, you know, full of spirit but has learnt by her mistake.”
“I cannot wave any decision I have made, Colonel. You had failed to keep army discipline in your ranks and Nurse Warrant Officer Rollings has attempted to undermine the discipline of the German army. Such a disregard of camp authority cannot be dealt with in a lenient manner. Regarding the others: they will be trucked away first thing in the morning with the rest of the newly captured soldiers. The nurse will leave in three days time. Until then, she will be kept under constant guard and you will be denied any further contact with her.”
The Colonel watched in silence while Hauptmann Resmel shuffled the papers together and stowed them away in an envelope. He then stood and both men saluted before the Colonel turned and left the room.
Almost a month to the day later, more prisoners arrived as further attempts by the Allies to capture Tobruk failed. The senior ranks had to be interrogated and processed before being transported to camps further from the front lines.
This is one of the drawbacks of having such an excellent fighting force,’ Hans thought. We overwhelm the enemy to such an extent that we end up taking all these prisoners and are left with little choice but to send them on to more secure camps.
So far, it looked as though the Afrika Korps could do no wrong on the battle field even with the difficulty of getting supplies through to the front line. The achievements provided quite a boost to the moral of those in the camp who were given the job of guarding the British. There were many evenings when men poured many bottles of good Italian wine down their throats and sang raucous army songs which could be heard thundering out from their quarters. It was usual to find two separate groups of guards ; at one end, the Italians; at the other, the Germans . . . comrades in arms yet not accepted as drinking partners.
Hans did not join in with these rowdy evenings. He preferred to take walks within the confines of he camp, not as a duty, for neither he nor the Oberstleutnant had such mundane duties to perform, but he liked to walk in the cooler time of the day, a time when he could relax and think his own personal thoughts. Duty and obligations. This was not the life he had imagined for himself when he finished his studies and set out in the world. Loyalty is expected, regardless of what one’s inner thoughts and feelings were. He had shown loyalty. He had done whatever had been asked of him. But where was the honour in that, sitting behind a desk interrogating prisoners of war? In
two months’ time his duty here will end and then he will leave and be assigned another task. He hoped to get back into a fighting unit. That is where he would find honour: to be able to play an active role in one of the victories of a winning army.
A few weeks before he was due to leave, Hans, as usual, had decided to make his tour of duty around the camp. Numbers had been constantly swelling as the Afrika Korps overwhelmed the British forces. There were so many prisoners to process: fingerprinting, medical checks, listing ranks and service numbers. Then, there were numerous interviews during which, it was hoped, someone would make the mistake of divulging information, information that might prove useful to intelligence.
With the increase in numbers, it became necessary to transport those prisoners who had superficial wounds to other camps yet those left behind still had very little elbow room and the camp appeared just as over-crowded as it did before. Any man who could hobble around on crutches was only seen by a nurse when his dressings needed changing. When Hans made his rounds, he stopped and chatted to those he could, making small-talk, asking them about their families they had left behind and about army life in general. Not much difference really between the ordinary soldiers of the two opposing armies. Just the top brass. Hans noticed that some of their own men who had been assigned guard duties in the camp were either too soft and vulnerable, or seemed to carry some vindictive streak and had to have their own behaviour closely monitored. Respect and discipline was just as important for gaoler as for prisoner.
Suddenly, the siren sounded. The wail rose and fell and rose and fell. Those on guard let off a volley of shots upwards. At first, it was difficult to see what they were firing at but out of the glare of the desert sun, two armed spitfires crossed the camp and climbed back upwards into the sky. Everyone waited, scanning the milky sky for the return of the planes. But they did not return.
Those men who had crutches waved them wildly in the air as they cheered the vanishing planes in the distance. Camp guards rushed around like sheepdogs trying to herd the unruly mob into the centre square but the dust they had kicked up was making the job more difficult than usual. Oberstleutnant Specht had decided a line-up was warranted and he had ordered an immediate roll-call to be taken.
“Schnell! Schnell! Line up! Line up!”
Everyone was scrambling. Some hopped on one leg as they furiously tried to get their shoes on. Others grabbed at jackets and hats, running and dressing at the same time. Guards zigzagged across the campus all the while urging the mass into some sort of order. Finally, the quadrangle was formed and the rush of bodies slowed down. Rifles were set. Barrels pointed inwards. Hats on. Jackets buttoned. The British senior officer gave the order for attention. Two hundred feet stamped in unison. One huge cloud of dust rose high into the air obliterating the assembled men for alost five complete minutes.
The calling of names began as soon as the air was clear. New names from the intake that had been captured during the past few days. First, the names of the fighting men. Finally, the names of the medical officers. Oberstleutnant Specht stood motionless his eyes fixed on the rear line of the men on parade.
Hauptmann Resmel stood to attention half-way between the main group of prisoners and the smaller number of prisoners who made up the medical corps. First, the names of the fighting men. The roll-call was slow and deliberate. Beads of sweat began to form on every face and shoulders dripped a wet stain down the shirt backs of every man and woman who sttod and had to endure the harshness of the desert sun. As each one heard their name, they took a step forward until the entire block had moved one pace towards the front.
“ . . . Smith, Smith - Tooley - White, Wilson, Wittney - Yeoman.”
A second voice began calling out the names of the smaller group.
“Abbey, doctor: Armitage, nurse . . . King, nurse; Knight, doctor . . . Newton, nurse . . . Turner”
Strange, thought Hans. He had not noticed that a ‘Turner’ had turned up before during the medical roll-call. Must be one of the latest arrivals. He made a mental note and decided that at the conclusion of the parade, he would look in the file of the prisoners.
Hans thumbed through the alphabetical pages of the ATS file. Finally he found the ‘T’ section and continued his skimming until he found what he was searching for. There were two entries under ‘Turner’: Nurse. R. Turner . . . Rosemary. Captured . . . That was of no interest to him. Entry two: Nurse Second lieutenant. Turner - Janine Grace. Captured . . .
He stopped reading. Surely, it could not be. He read the name again and a shiver went down his spine. He had a sudden compulsion to find out for sure but tomorrow would have to do. Nurse J. Turner would not be going anywhere. Not tonight.