The Folly of Revenge

We were always ready to watch anything out of the ordinary.  One day we all stopped our walk to watch one of our guards climb the pole from where the electric current was wired into our camp.  This pole had a large current box at its top, and the man started to work on it.  We saw him open the box.  That was when we heard him yell and slump in his straps.  He wore equipment, of course to climb and work on this pole, and that held him from falling.  Many of the POW’s, especially the new ones, started to cheer and shout vulgar suggestions to him and to the guards climbing the pole to help.

 We who had been prisoners for a long time knew we would suffer for this, and it would be all of us who would pay, and it would be soon.  We were right; the punishment started that afternoon.

The guard was dead when they got him down from the pole.  In the afternoon we were ordered out of our barracks and stood for hours on what was called parade.  We were counted several times, yelled at and counted again.  Most of the guys who had some experience as POW’s had taken their valuables out with them.  I had my coat and my letters and pictures in my pockets.  We could see the barracks being searched and searched well because all the time we stood there we could see the search activity as the guards went in and out of the barracks.

Towards evening we were allowed back into the barracks.  It was a shamble as was our room.  All our stuff lay on the floor where it had been thrown.  Our suitcases were empty, and some guys had lost things.  I didn’t lose anything but my food.  We didn’t have much because we were anxiously waiting for the next Red Cross parcel.  The guard had used my bowl and poured my instant coffee, dried milk, jam and other things into the bowl as they did to all the others.  The stuff tasted awful, but I ate it for the next few days.  When you are hungry, you’ll eat almost everything, and I say almost anything.  I say this because in the next camp I came close to that.  The bread and stew that we got from the cook house tasted even better now.  They were the only things not all mixed up.

The punishment did not stop there.  For a month or two we had regular room searches.  Now I kept my food mostly in the pockets and sleeves of my overcoat and took it with me at parade.

©Joseph H. Harrison 1999