大象传媒

The next day,the march was short,and
during it,I spoke to a Frenchman,and a German woman and a girl. On Saturday,14th.
April,I was up at 0600 hours,and had a breakfast of mashed potatoes,and continued
the march at 09.00 hours. I purchsed some
salt from a postern (guard) for one cigarette. We stopped at a wood,where there
was time to make a meal .
I note from my diary that on this day,
several comrades made their escape! I do not
know how they got on,but in the confusion they may have been successful.It was only
gradually,that I realised, that one of the camp rituals had been abandoned -the regular
roll call. It would have been most difficult
to count the columns,whose grand totals were
estimated to be as much as 10,000 men!
Many men found it difficult to keep up
with the march,despite the slowness of the
huge columns-and kept falling further and further behind into other distant groups,
They lost contact entirely with their original formation,despite the efforts of the guards to prod them on .
Occasionally,we would help those who
were really suffering to keep going. Some of
them were the victims of severe dysentry and
other ailments,which really incapacitated them for the kind of unlimited marching that
we were doing. Sometimes,I managed to persuade the guards to allow such men to travel on the Kranke(sick wagon),which accompanied the march. I was never able to
obtain this privilege for myself .
It was not only the P.O.W's who were
beginning to feel the strain of marching in the heat of the day,and sleeping rough over-
night in the cold. It was also some of the
guards. I had particular sympathy for a guard who was in his late 70's,and, when in the camp had often spoken to me about the war. He had also shown me with great pride,
photographs of his robust ,strapping grand-
sons - all killed on the Russian Front!
One day, I noticed he was beginning
to stumble and not keeping up with the column,as easily as before. I suggested that
he give me his pack and rifle,which would at
least lighten his load a little. This he did. I did not mind this,but later,I did think it rather odd,that I was carrying four
rifles-two on each shoulder-for several
kilometres,Some of the P.O.W's,who had been
wounded before capture ,were really toiling.
and at each village ,arrangements were made
to leave them behind. Again,I do not know what happened to them.

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