Chapter 13

THE TRAITOR AT VEHNMOOR

The Swamp at Cellelaager--Seven Hundred Men and Two Small Stoves--Taking the Stripes Down--The Recreant Sergeant Major--"Go Ahead an' Shoot--!"

Giessen is in Hesse. Shortly after this we were all sent to Cellelaager in Hanover. This was the head camp of a series reserved for the punishment or the working of prisoners. Each unit retained the name of Cellelaager and received in addition a number, as Cellelaager 1, Cellelaager 2 and so on. There were grounds here providing a lot for football, and a theatre run by the prisoners, for which there was an entrance fee, and other like amusements. These, however, were only for those prisoners who were on good behaviour and who were employed there. As such they were denied such desperadoes as ourselves.

We remained there for two weeks and were then sent to the punishment camp known as Vehnmoor or Cellelaager 6. This was a good day's ride away and also in Hanover, fifteen kilometres from the big military town of Oldenburg. Here we were turned out to work on the moors with four hundred Russians, one hundred French and Belgians and two hundred British and Canadians. We were housed in one large hut built on a swamp and were continually wet. There were only two small stoves for the seven hundred men and we had only a few two pound syrup tins in which to cook. A poor quality of peat was our only fuel. As only five men could crowd round a stove at a time, one's chances were rather slim in the dense mob, every man-jack of whom was waiting to slip into the first vacant place that offered.

We slept in a row along the wall, with our heads to it. Overhead a broad shelf supported a similar row of men. Above them were the windows. At our feet and in the centre of the room, there was a two foot passage way and then another row of men, with two shelves housing two more layers of sleepers above them. Then another two foot passageway, the row of men on the floor against the other wall and the usual shelf full above them. The vermin were bad and presented a problem until we arranged with the Russians to take one end to themselves, the French and Belgians the middle and we the other end. By this means we British were able to institute precautionary measures amongst ourselves so that after feasting on the Russians and finishing up upon the French, our annoying friends usually turned about and went home again.

The swamp water was filthy, full of peat and only to be drunk in minute quantities at the bidding of an intolerable thirst. There was no other water to be had and we simply could not drink this. The Russians did, which meant another fatigue party to bury them. The only doctor was an old German, called so by courtesy; but he knew nothing of medicine. As a corporal, I was held responsible for twenty men. That implied mostly keeping track of the sick and I have seen nineteen of my twenty thus. But that made no difference. It was "Raus!" and out they came, sick or well.

Every morning an officer stood at the gate as we marched out to the moor, to take "Eyes right" and a salute, for no useful purpose that we could see except to belittle a British soldier's pride. As corporal I was supposed to give that command to my squad but rather than do so I took my stripes down, although that ended my immunity as a "non-com" from the labour of cutting peat. Others, I am sorry to say, were glad to put the stripes up and at times went beyond the necessities of the situation in enforcing their rule on their comrades. It was one of these who was found to be trading in and selling his packages to his less fortunate comrades and who was ostracized in consequence.

There were here at Vehnmoor, as there had been at Giessen, a certain few of our own men who traded on the misfortunes of their own comrades. This man was the worst of them all. He was a sergeant-major in a certain famous regiment of the line in the British Army. He was a fair sample of that worst type which the army system so often delegates authority to--and complains because that authority does not meet with the respect it should on the part of its victims.

He excelled in all the arts of the sycophant: The pleasure of the guards was his delight, their displeasure, his poignant grief. He assumed the authority of his rank with us, he reported the slightest of misdemeanours amongst us to the guards and was instrumental in having many punished. These and other things gave him and others of his kidney the run of the main grounds so that they could stretch their legs and have some variety in their lives. Such liberty was there for any man who would do as they did.

None of us were safe from these traitors. The sergeant major in particular, spied on us, reporting all criticisms of our guards and other things German. We raged. He had for his virtue a small room to himself in a corner of the hut. When parcels came from England, addressed to the senior non-commissioned officer of his regiment, for him to distribute; he called the guards in. Shortly they went out with their coats bulging suspiciously. We were then called to receive ours whilst he stood over, bullying us with all the abusive "chatter" which the British service so well teaches. And afterward we watched covertly, with all the cunning of the oppressed, and saw him receive other stealthy favours from the guards that were not within his arrangement with the Commandant.

So one of his own men who had a certain legal learning took down all these facts as I have recited them and calling us together, bade us sign our names in evidence of so foul a treachery. Which we gladly