Free Twenty Days in the Reich by Tim Scott

otherwise could such a disreptuable-looking ‘erk’ have been entrusted with a reasonably responsible job such as this, unless it had been ‘wangled’ by Karl. We laughed heartily when Karl told us that whilst the journey outwards might take two days, they would spend at least seven on the return trip. We recalled that there might have been times in our service careers when we would have done the same things ourselves, had the opportunity presented itself. We also began to have grave doubts as to whether the two days, which we had at one time thought such a generous allowance, would prove to be anything like enough.
    The afternoon wore on and we still lay on the grassy slope, nobody apparently being in the slightest hurry to proceed. Karl did not have any objection to our making ourselves comfortable and snatching a short sleep. Children from the nearby village came and played around us: the view from the wooded slope was exquisite and but for the frequent wail of the sirens and the drone of our own aircraft overhead, we might easily have been lulled into the false impression that we were merely out on a picnic.
    At length we pushed on. Siegen, which at one time had been declared our day’s objective, was still at least 99 kilometres away. We only walked as far as the nearest railway station, which was less than 5 miles out of Iserlohn and there we waited whilst Adolf made enquiries about trains.It seemed that there would be one about 6.15 p.m. and as this seemed satisfactory, we all sat down in the waiting room, which at that time was quite warm and sunny.
    We pulled out our food once again and I suggested that as it looked like being a good deal more than two days before we reached our destination, it was about time that we introduced some sort of rationing system. Accordingly, we decided that any one meal should not consist of both cheese and margarine in addition to the bread and that the size of the piece of cheese per man should be severely curtailed.
    We had been cutting off slices of cheese at least half an inch thick and so we reduced this by half, which, when divided into four, gave us each a piece of cheese per alternate meal, measuring approximately the size of a very small India rubber!
    Karl, at this stage, had become so concerned with our welfare, that he even volunteered to go out and buy us some beer. However, although he was gone quite a long time, when he returned he was empty-handed and we were not able to gather the reason why he had not got any. I would say that under the rules governing POWs, the drinking of beer (especially with their guards) would be definitely forbidden.
    It grew dark and cold and at about 8 p.m., as the train had still not come, we were taken into the station master’s office, where two or three otherwould-be passengers waited beside a comfortable fire. We were even offered the facility of a wash (our first since Sunday) and, altogether, we felt that the ‘proprietor’ of this particular station, left no stone unturned to secure our every comfort!
    At about 9 p.m., the train puffed slowly into the station and we were bundled into the guard’s van, as every inch of sitting and standing room in the coaches seemed to be occupied. The doors would not shut, and our journey, which must have lasted for about two hours, was even colder that the one we had taken that morning. In the van we were sitting on top of some boxes of ammunition destined for Berlin (Heaven only knows how long it would take them to get there by the route they were going). More than once, as we passed through very dark tunnels, we were tempted to pitch the boxes out on to the permanent way, thus satisfying our legitimate rights as POWs, to commit if possible, a little undetected sabotage. I suppose we were deterred chiefly by the fact that the boxes were very hard to shift and in any case would have been missed as soon as we came out of a tunnel, because the moon was very bright and was shining in right through