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.Nulli Secundus -
'Second to None'
by Terence Cardwell
Chapter
Thirty Nine - Secrets
The weeks turned into months, and months ran into years.
Time stood still at the Soltau POW Camp, to which Jack
had been moved two years before.
The German guards kept telling them the Germans were
winning. The prisoners learnt to ignore most of their
statements as fantasy. The only news they received that
they could believe came from the trickle of new
prisoners arriving from the battle front.
Two trucks had driven through the front gates loaded
with prisoners. Jack, Tom and Henry joined a group of
internees and wandered across to where the trucks had
stopped.
The new chums were a bedraggled group with a week’s
growth of beard. Filthy mud covered greatcoats and
uniforms, making them unrecognisable as British
soldiers. They were lined up and assigned to their
barracks by the Germans, then marched off to put what
little they had on their straw beds, followed by a large
group of prisoners eager for information about the war.
As they came out of the huts they were bombarded with
questions and they told of the horrors of the
battlefront, which had not moved any great distance with
the passing of time.
They spoke of ghastly conditions of trenches ankle-deep
in mud with the bodies of dead Germans or allied
soldiers lying half buried in the mud for days, until
the battles stopped long enough for squads to take them
away. Huge rats fed on the bodies and tried to feed on
the exhausted sleeping soldiers, who continually
suffered from rat bites. Trench foot caused by wearing
boots
that were perpetually wet from the cold, cloying mud
left most of the soldiers with a morbid fear of removing
their boots.
The new prisoners said the stench of rotting corpses and
human waste was sometimes overpowering and made the
soldiers vomit, retching until there was nothing left to
bring up, then dry retching till their stomachs hurt.
Then the shelling would start, hour after hour, pounding
away at them. Their sanity slowly collapsed, until some
broke down in tears or screamed at the top of their
voices as they held their hands over their ears.
Their only thought was to return home as soon as
possible, away from this hell on earth. The war had no
fascination for them, and they had been reduced to
mud-covered stinking scarecrows gaunt from starvation
and lack of sleep. All of them hoped to be slightly
injured so they could receive a Blighty wound and be
sent home . Arriving here at the POW camp was heaven
compared to what they had suffered.
The continual bombardment on both sides had sent some
soldiers insane, and others suffered from psychological
disorders. One soldier arrived at the camp with spasms
of the jaw, unable to stop it going up and down. He
waved his arms up and down almost in unison and walked
in a staggering motion at the same time. Finally, after
much pleading, the Germans were convinced he was
genuinely sick and took him away to a mental hospital.
Others staggered when they walked and their legs shook,
reminding the other interns of a Charlie Chaplin movie.
In time, with help from fellow prisoners, the staggering
and shaking subsided and finally disappeared.
Quite a number of soldiers arrived with one or more
limbs missing, and those who were able-bodied considered
they were very lucky, and were determined to survive
till the end of the war.
For the past three-and–a-half years, Jack had marked
time, counting every day, until he had almost given up
hope of returning to England and his regiment.
The latest news threw him and the other soldiers into a
black depression. It was late March, 1918, and the news
coming in via other prisoners was that although the
allies had held their ground, they were severely short
of fresh troops and armaments. They had drawn a line in
the sand, stating they would not withdraw any further,
and had managed to resist all the German efforts to
advance— that is, until March.
The Germans had decided to make one last gigantic effort
to push the allies back beyond Paris, using every piece
of armament and the massive forces of manpower that they
had at their disposal. This was to be the final push, as
their armaments too had been reduced to almost nothing;
and this was their last desperate effort to break the
allies. They pounded away with 6000 artillery pieces,
including gas and high explosive shells, until they wore
the allies down, finally pushing them over the River
Somme with enormous losses on both sides. But they only
gained some forty miles of territory, a relatively short
distance for such a hard-fought battle.
They then started shelling Paris with their long-range
eight-inch artillery pieces, which were later known as
the ‘Paris guns’ because they fired over a range of
fifty miles, landing on the outskirts of the city. They
did little military damage, but a small number of
civilian residents were killed or injured.
The German general staff believed the British had to be
on the point of collapse and were predicting an end to
the war soon.
The prison guards strutted around like peacocks, telling
everyone who would listen that the war was nearly over
and the Germans would be victorious. All the prisoners
would be made to work as slaves for the rest of their
lives, and as more prisoners arrived confirming what the
Germans said, the mood in the camp was not improved. The
one glimmer of hope was that the allies had not given up
the fight and had ceased their retreat long before
Paris, which the Germans boasted they would soon
capture. ‘Hey, Englander, soon I take you home as my
slave, for good,’ the guards teased. ‘You dig my garden
and sleep with my pigs. If you’re good, maybe I let you
mate with them!’
This irritated and upset a number of the prisoners, who
could do little but snarl back at the guards, who
laughed even more.
Most of the soldiers knew that if the war was lost they
might never return home, but could be treated even worse
than they were now, enslaved for the rest of their
lives. This had a reverse effect on a few of them, who
made plans to escape, desperate to see their families.
The food had been reduced to starvation level and only
the food brought in from the work farms, and in food
parcels from home, helped the prisoners to survive.
Jack was sitting back, along with his friends Henry and
Tom, in discussion with a group of other fellow
prisoners about the war in general and what was
happening in the camp on a daily basis.
It was April 1918, and something had been bothering Jack
for the past two weeks, but he was unable to figure out
what it was.
‘There’s something going on but I don’t know what,’ Jack
said over his pipe, pointing at the guards.
‘Like what? It’s the same miserable food, same guards,
they’re just as bloody miserable,’ Henry replied.
‘Bugger all change that I can see,’ Tom added.
Jack drew on his pipe again, trying to understand what
his subconscious was saying to him. ‘Has anything
changed— prisoners coming in, wounded? I’m blowed if I
know, but it’s driving me mad,’ he said.
The group sat talking among themselves for a while as
Jack mused on what was wrong. He tuned in to the
conversation as Henry said, ‘At least the guards aren’t
giving us such a hard time of late, but for how long?’
‘Bloody hell— that’s it!’ Jack burst out. ‘That’s what
it is!’
‘What’s what, Jack?’ Tom asked, surprised. The others
looked at Jack as if he was mad.
‘That’s it— can’t you see, the guards aren’t bragging
anymore. What does that tell you?’
The group thought for a few moments, and then their
faces started to light up one by one as the meaning hit
them.
‘You mean they’re not bragging any more because they
have nothing to brag about?’ Tom asked, the excitement
growing with each word.
‘You’re right, matey, I haven’t heard them saying any of
their shit for two weeks now,’ a Yorkshire Light
Infantry soldier observed.
‘Does that mean we’re winning the war?’ Henry grinned.
The grin was contagious, caught by the other soldiers.
Some of the men patted each other on the back.
‘Hang on a bit— that may not be true. It could be they
got tired of bragging,’ Tom cautioned.
‘That’s possible, but how do we find out?’ Henry
wondered.
‘Why not the obvious?’ Jack suggested.
‘How do you mean, the obvious?’ the Yorkshire soldier
asked.
‘Well, what if we pretend we already know that we’re
winning and do the reverse— have a dig at one of the
guards. Tell them they’ll be living with our pigs and
see what happens. If he laughs at us, we’re wrong. If he
gets upset…’ Jack raised his hand in the air. ‘Then you
know we’re winning.’
The mouths on some of the prisoners fell open as they
realised what this could mean: after all this time, the
possibility of going home. Freedom.
‘Who’s going to ask them?’ Tom asked. ‘We need someone
who’s a bit canny.’
‘I know just the man for the job.’ Jack winked at Henry.
‘Why me?’ Henry protested
‘Because you figured it out,’ Tom said, and the others
laughed.
‘No I didn’t, Jack did.’ He looked at Jack. ‘Oh, bugger
it. I’ll go. But you lads had better look after me if
the guard tries to attack me.’
He wandered off towards the ablution block and
disappeared inside.
Everyone waited silently, and after a few minutes he
reappeared and wandered along the fence perimeter where
one of the older guards was walking backwards and
forwards. The guard was in his late fifties and had been
in the camp for the past three years. He was too old to
be sent to the front line, but still useful for guard
duties and did not have some of the bitterness of the
younger guards, caring little for the war.
The soldiers watched as Henry meandered up to the guard,
speaking to him as he drew level. The guard stopped and
started shouting, waving his arms as if telling Henry to
go away. Henry continued talking and the guard said
something, then turned and stalked away in the opposite
direction.
The soldiers were as excited as children as they waited
for Henry to arrive back, and as he got nearer they
could see the grin on his face.
‘Come on, tell us what happened,’ Tom urged.
‘He told you to bugger off, didn’t he?’ Jack grinned.
Henry gave him the thumbs up. ‘I said, “It looks like
the allies are winning the war and your lot could be
living with our pigs.” I thought he was going to attack
me. His face went red and he shouted at me in German.
Then he said, “The war is not over yet, the allies will
not get too far,” and stormed off.’
‘Yes! You bloody beauty!’ someone called out, and
everyone started talking together before hurrying off in
pairs to tell the other prisoners.
By the next morning the atmosphere of the camp had
changed. People smiled, and occasionally laughed.
Soldiers who were unsure tested the guards themselves,
receiving a similar snarling or aggressive response.
‘Now how long do we wait before the war is over?’ Henry
asked, looking skywards as if the answer was there.
‘It could go on for a lot longer yet— they’ve dragged it
out for the last four years. I don’t think it will be
over in a hurry,’ Jack replied.
‘Now we know, it’ll seem an eternity before we go home.
It’s going to be a long wait, fellas,’ Henry said as he
relit his pipe. ‘I might as well sit down and wait.’
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