大象传媒

During the whole of this first eight days as a prisoner of war things were not so bad as they became later on, many of us had big quantities of cigarettes (I do not smoke myself) and we generally managed to get food of some sort from the French. But then things got worse, the long marches began to tell on us, the lack of food and drinking bad water gave every second man a bad stomach. Then, on the tenth day I had a premonition, more than that, a conviction in fact, that in three days time everything would be all right.

I do not know why but this feeling was extremely strong and I had not the hope but the real assurance that on Wednesday something important would happen. As a consequence the three days that I had to wait did not seem of any importance. However the next day when we had only marched about three miles along the road my stomach and head gave so much pain that I staggered along, unable to see a thing. As a result I found myself in the rear of the column being urged to keep up by a German soldier. He was very decent, and when he saw that I was really ill and not shamming he stopped the first car, explained something to the occupant officers and I was put inside, and promptly collapsed. The next thing I remember was finding myself in the courtyard of a large house which appeared to be full of officers. From there I was taken to a hut and waited for about an hour with a great number of men, most of whom were wounded and required their dressings changed. There was an old Commandant who struck me as being particularly courageous, he had a huge gash right across the top of his head and one man was shaving off his hair with a blunt razor. At long length it was my turn but as my command of the French language was equal to the doctor鈥檚 English and time was very valuable I鈥檓 afraid that he did not understand a lot. However he gave me a draught of some liquid that did eventually put an end to the pain in my stomach. I then lay in the courtyard of the house for the rest of the day. A Scottish private brought me a good ration of soup about six o鈥檆lock. Then I was sent back to my friends in the bottom of a large gravel pit.

That night I slept under canvas (for the first time since the day the war started) in the sick tent in fact. The place was stuffy and during the night I nearly suffocated but could not get out because doing so would have meant wakening the whole tent, some of whose occupants were really ill and some wounded. The next day we did not move at all (this was at Doullens) and in the evening it started to rain very hard. Now, up to now the sleeping question had been bad but at least endurable, we slept in short rows of a dozen or so, anyone who had an overcoat or gas cape using it so that two others also shared it. I had an overcoat and a small piece of canvas from a lorry so that I was in a much better plight than many of the others, many of whom had only battle dress. But to sleep in the open, in a pit with about three inches of water in it and rising rapidly while cold piercing rain poured down was by no means a pleasant prospect to contemplate. Some of us were already in the sick tent but the water was even deeper there than outside and lying down was out of the question. Just as we had given up all hope of doing anything except stand up until morning the welcome news arrived that we were to be moved somewhere else. At first this turned out to be a short tunnel already half full of cement in bags but a few minutes afterwards we were moved into a room in a small house. There were forty-four of us in a room about ten by fifteen and yet everyone had a good night. The next morning we had a shorter march than usual and reached St Pol, Pas de Calais. One man remarked, as we got to the camp, which was in a racecourse 鈥業 don鈥檛 like the look of this place, it鈥檚 the first bastard with a swastika on it鈥�. It was in fact the first time I saw the now familiar flag, blood red with a black swastika in a white circle. As soon as we were there however we received a good big ration of soup, dished out by a laughing brown skinned French cook. The ration was so big that I was unable to eat all of mine and gave the rest to Cook, one of the Army Class who had been with me since St Valery. I was in a contented frame of mind as the next day was the day I knew something would happen. That day we heard that the French had signed an armistice with Germany and that the war was over. The French soldiers went mad, kissing and hugging each other and singing. As we had no news of the British doing the same we did not join in with them.

That day, on the march a German soldier had told me and several others that he had kept a caf茅 in Abbeville for five years, being all the time an agent of the Nazi Intelligence. The guards on the whole were not too bad, although there were some cases of individual brutality, mainly when there was a chance to get water or food some of the men were badly knocked about by rifle butts and kicked. The next morning we were given coffee at four o鈥檆lock in the morning and marched off of the racecourse. Followed a wait of an hour in the town of St Pol when we got a lot of food given to us and several fellows escaped. I was determined that if nothing happened that day that the following day I should attempt to escape. On the road I attempted to get someone to go with me but no-one would go, the answer was always the same 鈥楩orget it, the war is done for me, anyway it won鈥檛 last long鈥�.

After a long march of about twenty kilometres we were put into a large field and given food by the French Red Cross. I had already collected about two pounds of bread in the town of St Pol. One incident occurred which I remember vividly, there was a young girl of about twenty outside one house and she had a bag of biscuits with her that she was giving away two at a time. Such was the dignity, the air of that girl that the soldiers formed a short queue and got their biscuits without grabbing or pushing. I never saw this happen before or since. She was a small well built girl, rather like Kitten and she was dressed in a pale dove grey. Little Lady in Grey, I saw you only once but you will remain in my memory as part of the France that was.

Outside the village of Divion my premonition was justified. A huge crowd of people lined the route for miles, some to give us food, cigarettes and drink, some even soap, towels and razors, some merely to watch us. Then an absolutely mad thing happened. I had just been given a pint of beer by a man which is mad enough anyway when a girl grabbed me and hissed 鈥淭oots Sweet, Ally Ally, Toots Sweet鈥� and seizing my arm, gave me a shirt and a pair of miner鈥檚 trousers. She took me behind a low wall and tried by signs to make me put them on. I took off my overcoat and started taking off my jacket but she got angry and made me put the clothes on top of them. My mind was in a confused whirl until it came to me that this was Wednesday and the 鈥榮omething鈥� that I knew would come on that day. I followed the girl, who was joined by another. They hid my pack, steel helmet, water bottle and overcoat and made me go to a house about two hundred yards away. My first impression of the house was that it was full of people, mainly children, in all about thirty of them, all of whom were drinking coffee. Not one of them knew a word of English and my knowledge of French consisted of about thirty words. I was also given a cup of coffee which was more than half rum and then another until my empty stomach could take no more. Then a young fellow proceeded to shave me, a painful business as it was the first time in at least three weeks but at last most of it was off, but I retained a moustache. I learned then that my new home was not to be here but some way away. Then we each took a bundle and walked for about four miles where they completed the transformation and I got rid of the rest of my clothes.

* * * * *

Peter Janes was sheltered by the Bodlet and Francoise families in the Pas de Calais for a year and a half before being taken south on the Pat O'Leary escape line to Spain in September 1941 and eventual repatriation from Miranda concentration camp.

For more details of this extraordinary story see www.conscript-heroes.com

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