大象传媒

Chapter 10

My job as assistant Catering Officer was to draw the rations for the officers and to supervise the cooks and their work. The facilities for cooking were not at all good because we only had boilers, if they had been better at the time we first went to the camp they would have been of no use because there was nothing to cook. As the camp was new there was no arrangements made for a contractor to supply food until after our arrival, in consequence our first two or three weeks were very thin indeed, there were of course no Red Cross parcels arranged for us. Every morning I went to the QM stores which was outside of the quadrangle with a fatigue party of other ranks to see the food weighed and carried in. The only bit of trouble that I had in the early days was with the bread; this was made up into small cakes about the size of a doughnut, each cake was an officer鈥檚 ration. The Italian QM wanted to give me them by weight, but after my Capua experience I was wide awake to that one, it simply meant that on some days I got one for each officer but on other days the bread would weigh more and I should not have enough to go round. After a lot of arguing I used to count the correct number out each day and chance the weight. The only other items that I had to draw at this time was salt, sugar, cheese on 5 days a week and meat on the other two days, tomato flavouring, rice or macaroni on alternate days, coffee and a very few split peas and vegetable, this consisted of something not unlike cabbage but when cooked was tough and looked like grass, the last item was fuel wood with which to cook, this of course never lasted the day out. That is all I had to deal with during the first 2 or 3 weeks in consequence the meals consisted of early morning coffee, lunch was soup from the split peas, cheese and bread ration, coffee again at 4pm, evening meal consisted of macaroni and cabbage and that was that. When meat was issued all we could do was to chop it up and make a stew. Mark you this was costing each officer 12 lira a day, somewhere about 3/6d per day, no wonder that there was a lot of discontent.

The arrival of the contractor improved things a bit, he was responsible for supplying goods other than that supplied by the QM, who now stopped issuing cabbage, therefore the value of the food supplied by the QM was somewhere in the region of 2 lira per officer, the contractor could spend the remaining 10. At first the contractor supplied an orange and an apple a head plus a better type of cabbage, and wouldn't put himself out to do anymore and so after a long argument with the Commandant, the contractor was sacked and a new one substituted. This one proved to be a contractor to beat all contractors, a proper rogue and fully alive to the famous black market of which he didn't mind taking advantage of if we were willing to play. Then ensued a period of 3 or 4 months when we lived, at tops under POW circumstances, until the Commandant got the sack and things were tightened up again. In the vegetable line we did very well except for potatoes which were like gold, but as each type of vegetable came in season so we got it and any amount, however the contractor did it I do not know, fruit and nuts were also supplied in large quantities. Then the black market came into play, seldom a day passed without he didn't supply meat, then potatoes arrived and ham, extra cream, cheese and butter. It was my job to get this all into camp without being seen; by various schemes I managed it.

With all this food at my disposal cooking was made much easier, I was able to produce some real good feeds. At one period I had two barrels of condensed milk and was getting in a weekly supply of eggs, which were not always sufficient for one per officer, and so I used to serve stewed apples and pears with egg custard, my sweet rice dishes with condensed milk were delicious. With the addition of meat and plenty of vegetables of all kinds I could serve 2 good meals a day consisting of soup, entree and sweet. Chianti and Marsala were also obtainable and served with the evening meal. By this time Red Cross parcels had arrived and everybody was happy, tea was taken from the parcels once a fortnight and put into the cookhouse, so instead of the coffee we served tea, everybody was happy and spirits went up. One sunny morning this all came to an end, trouble arose over the black market, somebody had been left out. The black market had been supplying the canteen as well as the messing. One of the items being ice cream which was supplied by one of the Italian officers friends from the local village, another ice cream merchant in the village hearing of this tendered his wares for sale but was refused by the Italian officer, in consequence this second merchant wrote away to the Italian War Office who in turn sent an General to investigate. The balloon went up good and proper, I had to hide everything that could be labelled as coming from the black market, what a job; at the time, I had besides other things, 17 hams, valued at about 17,000 lira, hanging up in the kitchen. Some were dumped into the already cooking meal, in the soup and cabbage, and disposed of in various places, crates of jam were buried, chocolate and cakes in the canteen were quickly issued out and eaten as soon as possible, making certain that the coloured wrappings were all burnt. All officers had to join in with this eating; some of the chocolate was as much as 15 shillings a bar but it had to be tucked away. The General and his party found nothing except a very satisfied looking lot of officers, some looking very sick. The outcome of it all was that the Commandant and some officers were sacked, it was rumoured that the Commandant was punished heavily but it was never known for certain. And so ended a glorious 3 or 4 months, things went back to normal again, although we were getting more than we were getting at the beginning, gone were the days of extra meat, eggs etc., and we got down to hard facts again. With these vegetarian meals and macaroni or rice one felt absolutely blown out for about half an hour but then it all turned to wind and water and after a good belch or a visit to the lavatory one was just as hungry again.

The happy feeling that had been in camp also began to go and so the old days were back again, until just before the camp came to an end we could get no fruit or nuts and the only vegetables available were onions and pumpkins, two more wind and water making vegetables I have yet to eat. As time went on and everybody including the civilians were feeling the pinch the QM tried to come the 'Old Soldier' with me by cutting the ration by unfair means, one method he adopted was to adjust the scales but I countered this by stepping on the scales each morning, I knew my correct weight because the QM used to weigh me periodically, so by this means he was frustrated. The next method was to weigh everything in sacks or containers and try and gain a bit that way but it didn't work either. Finally his last method was to try and tamper with the scales after I had tested them by taking me out of the way and getting one of his soldiers to fix it up, but my fatigue party noted what was being done so I insisted on being weighed again. I complained to the Commandant after that things improved, they improved to such an extent that at Easter 1943 he gave me a bunch of grapes and an egg.

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