The railway man : a pow's searing account of war, brutality and forgiveness by Eric Lomax Read Free Book Online Page B

conscientious instructor. By the middle of May I was on my way to Catterick Camp in Yorkshire, the headquarters of the Royal Signals.
    I arrived at the Mame Lines and was promptly stripped of my rank. I was now a cadet, my white shoulder tapes and cap bands telling the world that I was neither officer nor man. It had all been too much for one boy: I had barely arrived before I was turned out on parade with the other 250 cadets for a funeral. A cadet on an earlier course had shot himself after being told he was 'RTU'd', the worst humiliation: being returned to your unit.
    With this sober beginning, we settled down to seven months of training intended to turn us into effective Royal Signals officers. It was the most demanding and intense period of study I have ever undertaken; the Royal High School seemed child's play by comparison, and of course it was. We learned about radio, telegraphy and telephony to a level beyond the Post Office's dreams, and were taught about military organization, how to use quite heavy machine tools and even about intelligence work.
    In June 1940 the British Army was evacuated from Dunkirk, and for the first time the war began to touch us. We were told to expect troops and refugees, and prepared beds and mattresses in halls, gymnasiums and every large building where there was room. After a couple of weeks the emergency passed; the army had retreated in surprisingly good order and it survived. A cloud lifted. Our beds were not needed, the evacuees went elsewhere.
    The war then made another stealthy, silent leap in our direction, like a storm threatening to come in off the sea. It was feared that the Germans would follow up their advantage and invade, catching the exhausted troops who were the core of our army at their weakest. That summer, I spent a lot of nights on a little platform at the top of a very high wooden tower, with orders to keep watch for enemy parachute landings. I forced myself to stay awake, looking up at the fields of stars and hoping that I wouldn't be the one to see drifting silk crossing them. But once again the war stayed away, withdrew beyond the coast; nothing happened.
    In fact, the worst that happened to me on this marvellous course was pulling an extra drill for my entire class by attempting to poison the company commander. Captain Knowles was a stickler for inspections, and liked to check things in turn; bootlaces, rifle barrels, the insides of hats. One day, he decided to inspect the No. 13 Course's kit. There we were, shaved and washed, loaded with rifles, gas-masks, haversacks and water-bottles, and he ordered us to present the bottles as we would our firearms. He pulled the cork out of mine and took a deep whiff, and staggered backwards into the arms of the company sergeant-major, who was unfortunately an exceptionally small warrant officer. Dignity was not maintained.
    It was not a happy situation, and it resulted from my desire not to leave anything behind that could be usefijl, a habit that I would have unlearnt then and there if I had known what it could bring down on me. On an exercise out on the moors, I had been appointed cook and at the close of the exercise I had not wanted to waste the leftover milk, so I poured it into my water-bottle. I strongly recommend stale milk, fermented for three weeks in a British Army canteen, as a harmless substitute for gas.
    Weathermen talk about an area of low pressure, the cold air pushing out the warm, the threat of rain and winds of enormous force. I was living all the time now on the edge of such an area. The war kept coming closer, and not content with knowing it was out there, I went out to meet it. Towards the end of 1940, a notice appeared in Daily Orders, inviting volunteers for service in India.
    I volunteered, not without thought, but I broke the old soldiers' rule for a second time, and have wondered about it since.
    The anny can be inscrutable and it was to be some time before I learned whether I was going to India.