Idle Hands

Spring brought vegetable seeds from our God Mother, the wonderful Red Cross, and the Germans granted our camp leader his request that we be allowed to garden along the edge of the parade grounds.  Almost every guy gardened.  We filled in much of our time digging with our klim cans, reading directions on the seed packets and discussing gardening at great length.  We felt we needed fertilizer, but where would we get such a thing?

Well, we got it from an unexpected source, our German guards.  This spring as a supplement to our diet, they gave us canned fish paste.  Any extra food was wonderful, but when we opened the cans, the smell was terrible, and the paste oozed out like pus.  Here was our fertilizer, and that is where the fish paste went.  We could then dream of fresh vegetables by summer.  Some fresh vegetables and my D bars with all their vitamins, and I knew I’d stay healthy.

Spring made me feel happier with the garden, the brighter and warmer days, and I could wash my clothes more often.  I note this because when I washed my pants, I had to go without them until they dried as it was with my shirt.  I had two changes of underwear and three pairs of socks so I was able to stay fairly clean.  Bathing was a problem.  We only had cold water, and the tap was outside.  During cold weather it was almost impossible.

My shoes still held up.  The worn spot on the outer sole was still there, but not worn through, and they were comfortable.  In the camp I could take them off at night and leave them tied to the bed so as not to worry that they would be stolen.  Tied to the bed the mice couldn’t get into them.

One of the musical instruments we received from the Red Cross was a violin, and one of the guys in another barracks could play it.  This gave the fellows with him a lot of pleasure, but he gradually slipped away from reality, and by spring played all the time except when his friends reminded him to eat or took him to our outhouse.  The constant playing bothered his fellow prisoners, and they solved that by getting him established for the day in an unused incinerator.  It was brick, and he was protected and alone.  He played all day; all day you could hear music from this place.  His friends took care of him, brought him in at night, saw that he ate, and even that he was reasonably clean.

That spring our trusty radio brought us news from the BBC that the Allies had crossed the channel.  As the news spread, the camp was wild with excitement.  We’d be released in no time, everyone thought.  And why be careful?  We threw caution to the wind.  The toilet paper in the outhouse was grabbed and streams of it thrown at the fences until all we had hung draped on the wires.  Some of the guys even ate more of their Red Cross supplies than they should have and went hungry until the next week’s parcels arrived.  I didn’t nor did my friends, but we kept our reserves hidden and didn’t talk about them.

The days passed, and the news had nothing of the Allies coming for us day after day.  There was no toilet paper, none at all.  Any piece of paper was valuable; even some letters were used in an emergency.  Before long our wild dream that the end had arrived gradually faded, and life took on its usual daily parade, food, and walks.

Our German captors weren’t pleased with us, and we weren’t too pleased with ourselves.  This all led to more dreams of escape.  We were well organized in some ways.  All escape plans had to be presented to the escape committee for consideration.  As secretary I heard about them, and most were wild-eyed, impossible plans, but the committee had to let some be approved just for the morale of the camp.

There was a plan devised by four guys who had found a secret way into the barracks used by the Germans for storage, and from there they were going to dig a tunnel from this barracks, go under the fences, and come to the surface well away from the fence, some 200 feet, I guess.  All this digging was to be done by hand with only their klim cans for tools.  In order to support this tunnel, they needed wood so they begged bed boards from everyone.  Now, the only support for our straw-filled gunny sacks, which served as our mattresses, was seven bed boards.  These boards weren’t nailed to the frame, and we could donate two boards each, three in a pinch.

The German supply barracks was across from the small barracks where I lived.  From this vantage point I could see these four guys come out with bags that they had made full of wet sandy dirt, which was a dead giveaway as it hadn’t rained for days.  The ground was sandy so they needed more and more boards.  They had to carry the dirt to the outhouse to get rid of it.  It was really not much of a surprise when the Germans grabbed them and stopped everything.  All this work for nothing.

There were two results to this effort.  It kept four guys busy and happy for a few days, but it was a hardship for the camp.  Bed boards were confiscated, all but four for each bed.  Believe me, you can’t sleep on fewer than four boards unless you sleep on the floor.

Another wild plan was to dig out from the outhouse.  It was sort of odd to sit on one of the holes and realize there were a couple of guys down under you.  They didn’t make it either, and how revolting.

It was now July.  We’d been at this camp four months and were starting our fifth month.  I know I felt as if we’d been here a year or more so much had happened to me and yet so little.  I was wasting my life, but so were all these men I was living with in this camp.

We had received some duffel bags through the Red Cross from Great Britain.  They were strange bags, very long and narrow and waterproof, only one or two bags for each barracks.

I don’t know who started the idea, but someone did, and it appealed to all of us.  The idea was for as many as could to donate some of their canned fruit and sugar, and then one or two fellows with experience would direct the manufacture of a potent liquor, all done by fermentation and time left in the bags.  We had gotten the duffel bags about May, and by July 4th the fermentation was supposed to be completed.  The morning of July 4th dawned beautiful and warm, and I decided to count empty beds that day which was part of my job.  I visited all the barracks that had the duffel bags and sampled all the juice.  I was more than happy as I strolled back to my barracks.  You might say I was a little stewed.  But I would say that more than half the guys were downright drunk, drunk and disorderly.  The guards were angry, and the officers in charge of the camp came in to inspect the wild celebration.  The duffel bags were confiscated and the barracks locked with all the men inside.

We four, although we had sampled the goods, did not show any drunkenness so we were not locked up, but we were lectured.  We were accused of being nothing but vulgar Americans and that in the future all canned goods would be punctured so that we would have to eat our food quickly before it spoiled.  This incident passed, but it did leave pleasant memories and a source of much gossip and laughter.

This too was the month of our great theatrical achievement.  We had musical instruments, and we had some fellows who knew they could produce a show.  Our camp leader got permission to use an empty barracks and permission to have a show.  There was a lot of talent, musicians, dancers, artists and plenty of guys willing to do any work possible.  The whole effort was closed to all but the cast and workers, but as secretary I could get in and watch and even do some low-level jobs.

German guards were assigned to watch, and through them six poster boards, about 5 feet by 4 feet, with some paint were the basis of large drawings of gorgeous girls in scant costumes.  These were hung on the side walls.  Some of the small fellows whose hair was little long were cast as female dancers.  One guy whose mother had sent a couple of sheets in his parcel donated them for costumes.  Also other donations were obtained.  A couple of fellows who had tailoring experience sewed up costumes with whatever they could find.  Again, the guards helped a little.

I enjoyed seeing rehearsals, but the show itself was spectacular.  The opening was the social event of the season.  Invitations were sent to the German officers who arrived in their best uniforms and as guests had front seats.  There were to be three shows so that everyone could see and enjoy it.  The Germans even supplied benches for the audience.  I went to the opening and to the second show.  I don’t remember anything I have seen that was more fun.  Everyone was wild about the posters and yelled with wild enjoyment when the female impersonators danced.

But the third show never went on because we left the camp that day.  In the morning at the parade we were told we were to be ready in an hour to march out of the camp.  We were being moved.  The German officer advised us that they were saving us from the Russians who were advancing toward us.  We knew from our radio that the Russians  weren’t too far from us.

©Joseph H. Harrison 1999