Opposite Sides (50 page)

She still remained silent
but not subdued. He was certain that her escape attempt was a
spur-of-the-moment decision. He was more interested to discover how
she acquired German army rations.

“
I ask you
again: Who got you the army rations?”

She smirked as a thought
came into her mind.

“
I had to do
anything,” she answered fluttering her long eyelashes at him and
smiling so sweetly he was unnerved for a second. “ I had to get out
of here. My objective was to reach our lines.”

“
And you
thought that by tempting your guards that it would give you that
chance?”

“
All men can
be bought, especially those who think of nothing else but of female
bodies. However, I would rather be flattered by just one of our
boys than by any of my enemies.”

“
If that is
how you feel, there is little point keeping you here, nurse! You
are no use to us and you have nothing more to offer.”

She looked the officer in
the eye and said in a soft, melting manner,

“
But I
do
have something to
offer, Hauptmann,” she crooned, pulling off her small white nurse’s
head scarf. She watched very closely for his reaction all the while
pretending to smile and parting her lips in invitation. “Men out
here have only one thing on their mind.” Her hair, now loose and
free played like waves as she tossed her head. She noticed him
blush slightly. “Even a man such as you . . . and, it does not
matter what uniform they are wearing, Hauptmann.” She mumbled the
first part so quietly he barely heard what she said but the end
came out loudly enough. She puffed out her chest so that her ample
breasts pushed hard against the buttons of her tunic and he
wondered how long it would be before the bottons popped.

She looked at him with a
hint of interest and ran her hand down over the curvature of her
hip. It was the first time she had made any hand
movement.

“
Fräulein
, I assure you, that in my
position, I can have the choice of any woman I wish. And, you would
not be one of them!”

She looked above him, at
the ceiling. She lowered her eyes and smiled tantalising, taking
the time to pout her lips. He felt his temper rising and knew his
patience has come to an end.

“
Anything
which upsets the smooth running of this camp will not be tolerated.
Meanwhile, you
will
follow the rules!”

The words
tumbled out:
You will follow the
rules
!
Those same
words had been told to him many times when he was attending
Prince Albert College
.
You will follow the rules!
Maybe he should make Warrant Officer Rollings
write a four-page essay, too. He imagined he were the teacher
scolding the naughty student. If only life was that simple again.
But he was no teacher; he was a German officer and he was
interrogating a young woman, with enough wild hormones and the body
to upset the disclipine of the young recruits. And, besides, this
was not 1925 but 1941.

“
Who were the
young Grenadiers who got you the army rations?

“
Warrant
Officer Margaret Rollings, number 4099832,” she repeated. “I am not
required to tell you more.”

Hans decided to bring the
questioning to an end. Secretly he admired her spirit and courage
and although her file said that she was a capable nurse even under
the most trying conditions, he knew his duty was to send her down
the line.

“
You can
spend the night under guard. I will speak to you again in the
morning. If your mood has not changed by then, Warrant Officer
Rollings, you will be moved.”

He wrote some comments on
her form and then called to one of the guards to take her
away.

“
You Nazis
will never win!” She cried out as the guard prodded her with the
barrel end of his rifle. “Rule Britannia!”

He could hear
her singing
There’ll always be an
England
as she was half-led, half-dragged
out of the office and over to where a punishment quarter had been
set aside.

The following day was no
better. The senior British officer had also been called to the
office along with Warrant Officer Rollings. If she was unprepared
to make concessions in his presence, then there would be no
alternative but to process her and immediately send her away. He
wondered whether one of the Italian guards had been persuaded to
co-operate with the misfits, but still the woman refused to offer
any further information. With such an insolent prisoner, a
hand-over to higher authority was the only option left. This
hospital camp was not set up to deal with difficult prisoners and
Specht did not want the bother. Getting through each day with its
draining heat and blowing wind was quite enough to sap the energy
out of one and so a quick decision had to be made.

“
I’m sorry
you have not seen the importance for self-disclipine, Warrant
Officer. You will have to be transported immediately to one of our
secure POW camps. We do not have their type of facilities. From
this point you will be treated as any other prisoner.”

He sat looking intently
at her wondering what had motivated her to act like that. Could she
not see that by flirting with the young soldiers, she was
undermining army discipline? A prisoner should show the same
respect for discipline as anyone on the field. It was unfortunate
for her that she had decided to play such a dangerous game and had
she not been caught, what would have been the outcome? It would be
sheer stupidity to pretend nothing had happened and keep the nurse
with them. She had left him no other choice.

He sent for the senior
British medical officer to explain why disclipinary action was
necessary. They saluted each other and the British officer removed
his hat and stood easy.

“
The
necessary papers for Nurse Warrant Officer Rollings to be relocated
have been completed. You must understand, Colonel, that discipline
must be maintained, not only for our soldiers and medical staff but
for your medical personnel as well.”

“
Is there no
hope for a reprieve, Hauptmann? I am sure that I will be able to
control that type of behaviour so that it will not happen again.
She is very young, you know, full of spirit but has learnt by her
mistake.”

“
I cannot
wave any decision I have made, Colonel. You had failed to keep army
discipline in your ranks and Nurse Warrant Officer Rollings has
attempted to undermine the discipline of the German army. Such a
disregard of camp authority cannot be dealt with in a lenient
manner. Regarding the others: they will be trucked away first thing
in the morning with the rest of the newly captured soldiers. The
nurse will leave in three days time. Until then, she will be kept
under constant guard and you will be denied any further contact
with her.”

The Colonel watched in
silence while Hauptmann Resmel shuffled the papers together and
stowed them away in an envelope. He then stood and both men saluted
before the Colonel turned and left the room.

Almost a month to the day
later, more prisoners arrived as further attempts by the Allies to
capture Tobruk failed. The senior ranks had to be interrogated and
processed before being transported to camps further from the front
lines.

This is one
of the drawbacks of having such an excellent fighting
force
,’ Hans thought.
We overwhelm the enemy to such an extent that we end up
taking all these prisoners and are left with little choice but to
send them on to more secure camps.

So far, it looked as
though the Afrika Korps could do no wrong on the battle field even
with the difficulty of getting supplies through to the front line.
The achievements provided quite a boost to the moral of those in
the camp who were given the job of guarding the British. There were
many evenings when men poured many bottles of good Italian wine
down their throats and sang raucous army songs which could be heard
thundering out from their quarters. It was usual to find two
separate groups of guards ; at one end, the Italians; at the other,
the Germans . . . comrades in arms yet not accepted as drinking
partners.

Hans did not
join in with these rowdy evenings. He preferred to take walks
within the confines of he camp, not as a duty, for neither he nor
the Oberstleutnant had such mundane duties to perform, but he liked
to walk in the cooler time of the day, a time when he could relax
and think his own personal thoughts. Duty and obligations. This was
not the life he had imagined for himself when he finished his
studies and set out in the world.
Loyalty
is expected, regardless of
what one’s inner thoughts and feelings were. He had shown loyalty.
He had done whatever had been asked of him. But where was the
honour in that, sitting behind a desk interrogating prisoners of
war? In
two months
’
time his duty here will end and
then he will leave and be assigned another task. He hoped to get
back into a fighting unit. That is where he would find honour: to
be able to play an active role in one of the victories of a winning
army.

A few weeks before he was
due to leave, Hans, as usual, had decided to make his tour of duty
around the camp. Numbers had been constantly swelling as the Afrika
Korps overwhelmed the British forces. There were so many prisoners
to process: fingerprinting, medical checks, listing ranks and
service numbers. Then, there were numerous interviews during which,
it was hoped, someone would make the mistake of divulging
information, information that might prove useful to
intelligence.

With the increase in
numbers, it became necessary to transport those prisoners who had
superficial wounds to other camps yet those left behind still had
very little elbow room and the camp appeared just as over-crowded
as it did before. Any man who could hobble around on crutches was
only seen by a nurse when his dressings needed changing. When Hans
made his rounds, he stopped and chatted to those he could, making
small-talk, asking them about their families they had left behind
and about army life in general. Not much difference really between
the ordinary soldiers of the two opposing armies. Just the top
brass. Hans noticed that some of their own men who had been
assigned guard duties in the camp were either too soft and
vulnerable, or seemed to carry some vindictive streak and had to
have their own behaviour closely monitored. Respect and discipline
was just as important for gaoler as for prisoner.

Suddenly, the siren
sounded. The wail rose and fell and rose and fell. Those on guard
let off a volley of shots upwards. At first, it was difficult to
see what they were firing at but out of the glare of the desert
sun, two armed spitfires crossed the camp and climbed back upwards
into the sky. Everyone waited, scanning the milky sky for the
return of the planes. But they did not return.

Those men who had
crutches waved them wildly in the air as they cheered the vanishing
planes in the distance. Camp guards rushed around like sheepdogs
trying to herd the unruly mob into the centre square but the dust
they had kicked up was making the job more difficult than usual.
Oberstleutnant Specht had decided a line-up was warranted and he
had ordered an immediate roll-call to be taken.

“
Schnell
!
Schnell
!
Line up! Line up!”

Everyone was scrambling.
Some hopped on one leg as they furiously tried to get their shoes
on. Others grabbed at jackets and hats, running and dressing at the
same time. Guards zigzagged across the campus all the while urging
the mass into some sort of order. Finally, the quadrangle was
formed and the rush of bodies slowed down. Rifles were set. Barrels
pointed inwards. Hats on. Jackets buttoned. The British senior
officer gave the order for attention. Two hundred feet stamped in
unison. One huge cloud of dust rose high into the air obliterating
the assembled men for alost five complete minutes.

The calling of names
began as soon as the air was clear. New names from the intake that
had been captured during the past few days. First, the names of the
fighting men. Finally, the names of the medical officers.
Oberstleutnant Specht stood motionless his eyes fixed on the rear
line of the men on parade.

Hauptmann Resmel stood to
attention half-way between the main group of prisoners and the
smaller number of prisoners who made up the medical corps. First,
the names of the fighting men. The roll-call was slow and
deliberate. Beads of sweat began to form on every face and
shoulders dripped a wet stain down the shirt backs of every man and
woman who sttod and had to endure the harshness of the desert sun.
As each one heard their name, they took a step forward until the
entire block had moved one pace towards the front.

“
. . .
Smith, Smith - Tooley - White, Wilson, Wittney -
Yeoman.”

A second voice began
calling out the names of the smaller group.

“
Abbey,
doctor: Armitage, nurse . . . King, nurse; Knight, doctor . . .
Newton, nurse . . . Turner”