Aug 28, 2001
They must have gathered him up off the battlefield with a rake and a sugarbag. He was scarred pretty well everywhere, either from the seams where they’d sewed him together or from the skin they’d removed to graft on to places where they felt it was more appropriate. The neighbour’s kids would ask him, as kids will, how he came by the scars, and what else he did in the war, and this is one of the yarns he told them. A good bit of it is true.
He spoke in a kind of urgent whisper, with much glancing about as if to ensure that this vital information should not go beyond our immediate circle. It was impossible not to listen.
General Freyberg, he said, came to me one night in my slit trench in the desert.
“Sergeant,” he said, (he could see I was a sergeant from the stripes on my pyjamas). “Sergeant,” he said, “ There’s a lot of movement going on on the enemy’s side and we need to know what it’s all about. What we need are some prisoners I can interrogate. I want you to take two men and creep over to the enemy lines, and don’t come back till you’ve got some prisoners.”
“Certainly Sir!” I said, putting on my hat and saluting.
The enemy lines at that time were only about 500 yards from ours, so I had to work very quietly, and choose my men carefully. I chose Murphy, because he could use his rosary beads to count the paces, and tell us when we were getting close to the enemy. I also chose Hackthorne because he wasn’t much use for anything else. We camouflaged ourselves as best we could by covering our faces with chocolate and we wore grey woollen mittens and balaclavas. “Murphy”, I said, “Tell me when we have marched 200 yards, and then we will crawl till we get close to the enemy and can look for some prisoners.”
It didn’t work out very well. Murphy was so busy doing “hail Mary”s on his own account that he quite lost count of the paces, and I’d have done better have relied on Hackthorne who had kidney trouble, and had to stop every 50 paces to relieve himself. Anyway, by and by Murphy reckoned we’d done 200 yards so we got down and started to crawl. And we crawled and crawled and crawled and crawled, until it was beginning to get daylight. The ground was solid rock, there was nowhere to hide and things were looking desperate. However, over to our left, I could see some sangas, heaps of rocks with a space in the middle big enough to accommodate a man. They used them in places where the ground was too hard to dig a trench to shelter in. I told my men to choose one each and we would have to wait out the day there, and look for prisoners the next night.
Well presently the dawn broke and I could see we were very close to the German front line. Furthermore there was a machinegun post quite near, built up out of stones, and peering between the rocks of my sanga, I could easily see the gunner’s helmet as he turned his head this way and that to scan the horizon.
The sun got up, and the Germans woke and stretched themselves, and some staggered about trying to get the sleep out of their bones. I felt some trepidation that one of them might decide to come over and relieve himself in my sanga. As the sun got higher we found that our camouflage of chocolate was very attractive to flies, and they added to our misery as the sweat ran down our faces and backs. To make matters worse, towards midday, a truck came up from the German rear and we could smell the hot soup and fresh bread and sausage as the Germans settled into their lunch. We had a sip from our water bottles.
After lunch the Germans lay about here and there, with their helmets over their eyes, and one by one, went to sleep, all that is except the machinegunner. I kept my eye on him. After a while I noticed his head droop forward, but immediately he straightened himself and resumed his careful survey of the surroundings. Then I saw his head fall forward again, and this time stay down a little longer before he once more jerked upright and continued his watch. But the third time his head went down it stayed down.
This had to be our chance. I climbed out of the sanga and alerted the other two. Then I crept toward the nearest German, revolver in hand. A few yards from him, I picked up a pebble and threw it onto his face. He brushed it away without opening his eyes, no doubt thinking it a fly. I took another pebble and did the same. He shook his head. On the third pebble he opened his eyes to find himself staring down the barrel of a revolver, held by a grotesque figure in a balaclava, with cocoa and sweat smearing his face, and a finger beckoning. Silently, as in a dream, the German rose to his feet, to behold, 50 yards further back, yet another chocolate apparition, this one aiming a rifle, and again silently beckoning, and beyond that again, even a third. He walked spellbound towards the beckoning fingers.
Meanwhile I began with the pebbles on the next nearest German. In due course he went the way of the first.
When we had three of them I turned, and with bayonets prodding them we ran them back at full speed to the shelter of our lines. General Freyberg seemed pleased.
He paused for a moment.
“It’s a pity you know.” he said, “If I’d had time, I could have captured the whole of the Ninetieth Light Division. There were plenty of pebbles.”