Free The Deserters: A Hidden History of World War II by Charles Glass Page A

of Egypt in 1882, beside the Roman camp that Octavian erected after his victory over Mark Antony and Cleopatra in 24 B.C. For the British, it had additional resonance: in 1801, they had defeated Napoleon’s forces there, and the barracks was an assembly point for many of the regiments sent on the disastrous Gallipoli campaign against Turkey in 1915. Like Rome, Britain used the base primarily to cow the natives in Alexandria. The prison to punish wayward troops was a later addition.
    The military detention center at Mustafa was notorious. Allan Campbell McLean based a novel, The Glasshouse , on his fifty-six days confined within its walls. A character in his book recalled that the “old sweats” who had done time in many prisons reserved a special hatred for Mustafa Barracks:
Their talk always came round to the one in the desert near Alexandria. The Alex one was the worst of the lot, they said, the screws there egged on by a mad bastard of a commandant, who would have stuck the boys in front of a firing squad if he hadn’t reckoned on Rommel doing the job for him when they had done their time and got back to their units.
    One blazing afternoon in the early summer of 1943, an army truck dumped John Bain and five other prisoners at, in Bain’s words, “the great iron-studded door that looked almost jet-black against the high white walls.” The door to No. 55 Military Prison and Detention Barracks opened, and the shackled convicts marched into a square formed by two-story detention barracks and rows of solid steel cell doors. While the men stood at attention, a military policeman named Staff Sergeant Hardy informed them of their new status: “From now on, you are S.U.S.’s—Soldiers Under Sentence. You will do everything at the double. You understand? Everything. You do not move unless it’s at the double.” So confident were the guards that escape was impossible that they removed the men’s chains. Staff Sergeant Hardy then marched them double-time into the middle of the square, where he turned them over to Staff Sergeant Henderson.
    Hardy and Henderson dressed in identical starched khaki drill clothes, peaked caps and shining boots. In common with the other MPs guarding prisoners behind the lines, they had not been to the battlefront or faced the enemy in combat. This did not, however, deter them from playing tough with men who had. Henderson ordered each SUS to answer to his name and serial number. When the first, Private Morris, answered, “Sarnt,” the sergeant’s face seemed to Bain to contort into “a mixture of snarl and smile.” Henderson went into a rage: “Not Sarnt, you dozy man! Staff! You call us Staff. . . . Understand? Staff’s what you call us. All except the RSM [regimental sergeant major] and the commandant. You call them Sir.”
Reading out Bain’s name and number, he said, “I see you’re in the Gordon Highlanders. What’s your regimental motto?”
Bain answered, “Bydand.”
“Staff!”
“Bydand, Staff.”
“Bydand. Aye. And what does that mean, Private Bain?”
“Stand fast, Staff.”
“Stand fast. That’s the motto of the Gordon Highlanders and they’ve always lived up to it. Till now. They never retreated. Not in the whole history of the regiment. But you didn’t stand fast, Private Bain, did you! You horrible man. You took a powder. You got off your mark. You’re a disgrace to a great regiment. My father fought with the Gordon Highlanders in the Great War. He stood fast, Bain. He didna take a powder. So I’m going to keep a special eye on you, Bain.”
    Henderson detailed the daily regimen: reveille at 6:00 A.M. , inspection, daily assignment of tasks, back into the cells at 5:00 P.M. ,lights out at 9:30. Speaking was forbidden. “If you’re caught talking at any time you’ll be on a charge and you’ll get punished,” he said. “Three days solitary on PD One. That’s Punishment Diet Number One. Bread and water.” Bain noticed Henderson’s lips curl to expose