Wojtek the Bear [paperback] (9 page)

Still, it was autumn when Wojtek and the men of 22nd Company arrived at Winfield Camp and as yet the rigours of a Borders winter, and all that it entailed, were a few months off. Wojtek liked
his new habitat and was quick to explore its environs, tasting and eating new types of vegetation that he hadn’t previously encountered. He was completely invigorated by the change of locale
and energetically joined in the men’s tasks, such as collecting and breaking firewood for the cookhouse. There are no prizes for guessing the wages he demanded for his labours.

The 22nd Company shared Winfield Camp with other detachments of Poles who had never met Wojtek. Mindful of the incident in Italy when the bear had almost got himself shot
by straying into a tent full of strangers in the middle of the night, Peter Prendys took the precaution of chaining him up when he wasn’t around. Wojtek was now always chained up overnight
and occasionally during the day when there was no one to keep an eye on him. When his regular minders were around, however, he still had the run of the camp, and would go strolling round the Nissen
huts to greet his friends.

Not unnaturally, Wojtek was a big attraction to local children, who would often come up to the camp to see the huge, exotic animal. For them the excitement was simply to get close, to stroke his
fur or to give him a titbit, which he always accepted most politely. However, one day a local boy decided to play a prank on Wojtek, by wrapping a sweet paper round a stone and giving it to him.
Wojtek, who had a very sweet tooth, swiftly unwrapped his present using his highly mobile and dexterous lips. When he discovered he had been tricked he let out an angry roar and with lightning
speed grabbed his tormentor. The squeals of the captive boy and Wojtek’s roaring quickly brought Polish soldiers running to investigate the commotion and Wojtek released the boy. Order having
been restored, they questioned the lad about what had happened. Shamefaced, the boy confessed, and it was he, not Wojtek, who got the telling-off.

While Wojtek was eternally fascinating to children (and he liked them too), adults weren’t immune to his charms and often would stop by. One of the most regular visitors was my
grandfather, Jim Little. He called in several times a week to check that the men in the camp had everything
they needed, and no trip was complete without a social call on
Wojtek. Bear and man would stand there of an evening, communing sociably, Jim chain-smoking as usual. Every so often the bear would hold out a huge paw, asking for a cigarette and would usually be
given one, which he ate with great gusto. Oddly enough, the cigarette always had to be lit. If it wasn’t he would throw it away. He only ate lit cigarettes. Perhaps there was an aroma of
burning tobacco that he liked, or perhaps they had to be exactly the same as the cigarettes the men had in their mouths; no one has ever solved the mystery. He never appeared to burn himself as he
chomped on them.

It was a strange friendship between my grandfather and the bear. They may have shared the same small vice of cigarettes but there their paths diverged. My grandfather was a staunch teetotaller
while Wojtek would have sold his soul to the devil for a bottle of beer. He had a huge liking for alcohol and obviously enjoyed its effect. He was rationed to two bottles of beer a day when it was
available. But on high days and holidays, when he talked his way into a bottle of wine, he occasionally got tipsy and would go about the camp, as they say in Scotland, ‘by the light of his
eye’. A Happy Warrior, indeed.

On occasion, Wojtek’s bear side outweighed his human traits. When it came to food he was an incorrigible sneak thief, always with an eye out for the main chance. One bleak autumn day, with
a bitter wind blowing in off the North Sea which was visible from the camp, Wojtek was on the prowl. Coming from the cookhouse was the magnificent smell of freshly prepared food. The scent was
irresistible for a hungry bear. Everyone was aware of Wojtek’s weakness for food so around the cookhouse strict
security was always observed. The doors into the
kitchens were always firmly closed because Wojtek’s fellow soldiers knew that if he spotted a chink in the cookhouse defences there was absolutely no way of stopping him if he decided to make
a lightning raid. When a 500-pound bear is on the make, and hellbent on going through an incautiously open door to reach food, you just have to get out of his way.

This particular day there were no doors open, and unsuspecting kitchen staff, many of them local girls who arrived daily to prepare meals for the camp, were going about their usual chores.
Wojtek, when he was casing the joint, had noted the kitchen windows were open to release the steam and heat from the boiling pots and pans in the kitchen. The scent of the cooking was irresistible.
With a great deal of misplaced optimism, he crept up to one of the Nissen hut windows and started to climb through it.

Peter Prendys, hearing first screams of alarm, then howls of laughter, knew instantly that the bear was involved. He dashed to the cookhouse as Polish servicemen began appearing from all
directions. There they found Wojtek firmly stuck in the metal-framed window, half in, half out.

Head in the kitchens, body outside, he was struggling frantically to escape. With the smell of food still in his nostrils, he was still bent on getting inside – a task that was becoming
even more difficult because a group of soldiers were clinging to his body and hind legs and were pulling him in the other direction. Watching this bizarre tug-of-war, the local workers trapped
inside the hut didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. After some considerable time, Wojtek was extracted from the window and given a thorough dressing-down by Peter for his bad manners and
disgraceful behaviour.

No one could chastise Wojtek like Peter. When on the receiving end of one of Peter’s scoldings, the bear had a well-practised penitent’s routine. First he
would pretend to cry, covering his eyes with his huge front paws. Then, after a decent interval, he would peep through them to check Peter’s reaction. If the response was good, without being
told, he would go into submissive mode and lie on his back as a sign he was sorry. But if Peter was still angry, Wojtek would stay in his childlike ‘crying’ position until Peter stalked
off, or until forgiveness had been made clear.

The cookhouse window incident proved to be a one-off. Later, when passing the building, Wojtek would sniff wistfully but confine his activities to loitering hopefully at the door. Occasionally
his sense of mischief would get the better of him – and he would give the door a quick push if it was ajar, and then beat a hasty retreat. He was no doubt testing the water to see if anyone
reacted; there was also a chance that by announcing his presence scraps might be forthcoming. But he had learned that a certain level of behaviour was required – namely, that he stay
outside.

The camp servicemen had to be careful with discarded tins, especially those with jagged edges which could have injured him; Wojtek was always on the lookout for new food sources. No receptacle
was left unexamined. Whether placed in rubbish bins or buried in the ground, it would take only a moment for him to unearth a tin and extract the most meagre morsel of discarded food with his long
claws. Thus nothing was left to chance. Tins were flattened and bottles emptied of their contents. The men knew the keen Wojtek nose was part radar, part windsock; if there was a food source to be
found he quickly homed in on its scent. But his ability to unearth hidden scraps of food was not
always unerring. Often it depended on which way the wind was blowing; if he
was upwind of a cache of forbidden tins he didn’t pick up its smell.

Wojtek’s keen powers of observation alerted him to upcoming entertainments at the camp. He very quickly realised that the preparation of large pots of coffee indicated that a gathering of
sorts, either for singing or dancing, was in the offing. Another giveaway was the sudden surge of activity in the ablutions hut as the men prepared themselves for the evening ahead with their
limited grooming aids. Carbolic soap, Brylcreem and a decent comb were about as good as it got, but there were the occasional gifts of scented soaps or lavender water (in lieu of aftershave) which
added to the sense of occasion. The men took great care with their appearance. In fact, it was not unusual for them to paint their fingernails with clear varnish. That may sound somewhat
effeminate, but that was far from being the case. They were as tough as (varnished) nails.

Preparing for a dance when Wojtek was around was sometimes difficult. To the bear, the badger hair shaving brush was always of great interest; so too was the tasty shaving soap which he licked
from the shaving mug. As for the act of shaving, that was a wonderment and he would force his way up close to watch the procedure. There must have been many a soldier who went to the dance with a
few shaving nicks thanks to Wojtek’s unwanted attentions.

The bear was also fascinated by mirrors. Gone were the days when, as a cub, he had run away, unnerved by the sight of his own reflection. It should never be forgotten that Wojtek didn’t
know he was a bear; he regarded himself as an equal among equals with his comrades. So it was obvious
these night-time revels were just as much about him as anyone else.

Wojtek was not averse to being groomed himself. Anything from a scrubbing brush to a small comb was used to pander to his ego. He considered himself an extremely handsome soldier. He loved to be
clean and well groomed, and he was in peak condition when he was living in the camp. His regular forays up trees often left him quite dishevelled but this was quickly put right by his attentive
comrades. Wojtek had several batmen working diligently to make him presentable at all times. But being a bear often overtook his ‘human’ side, and when a muddy puddle looked too
inviting to resist he would jump in, undoing all their good work. At this point Peter usually intervened and scolded Wojtek. The bear would stomp off in a huff, but his passion for food and human
company always took precedence over hurt pride.

Even in the worst periods of rationing and shortages after the war, there was one commodity the Polish soldiers never went short of – boot polish. Having been in the company of humans for
so long and never having shown any interest in boot polish, everyone assumed he would not eat it. And then one day he did. Not only did he smear the contents all over his face and paws, he also got
it inside his mouth. Because he had hidden the tin from sight, no one knew how much polish he had eaten, if it indeed was polish. There were all kinds of dangerous substances lying around, a
hangover from the war years. Many of these surplus supplies had been left intact since the nearby airfield had been mothballed. The problem was that without the tin the men had no way of knowing
precisely what he had eaten. In the end, Wojtek sheepishly volunteered the large, empty
tin of Parade Black polish. Surprisingly, he suffered no after-effects.

These were the lighter moments of camp life. There were less pleasant experiences for Poles in Scotland and that was one of the reasons my grandfather visited Winfield Camp so regularly. Jim had
a tremendous respect for the Polish soldiers, especially their bravery, fighting qualities and sheer levels of endurance. When I was small he used to say to me: ‘If it wasn’t for the
Poles, you wouldn’t be standing here as you are now, free. You owe them everything. Never you forget that.’

It was a strange thing for him to tell a little girl, and, to be truthful, I did forget until my involvement in this project brought it all back again. By then, of course, I had discovered just
how much the United Kingdom owes Poland, and I now understand why my grandfather believed the Polish war effort was instrumental in the defeat of Germany. In the Battle of Britain, when the average
survival period of fighter pilots was three weeks, it was Polish pilots who fought side-by-side with the RAF.

But my grandfather’s viewpoint was not one universally held by the Scots, or indeed, the United Kingdom. Despite the creation of the Polish Resettlement Corps, rampant xenophobia,
shamefully fanned by some MPs and officials in the Home and Foreign Offices, saw the Poles traduced as reactionary Fascists for their hatred of Communism. The Poles’ anti-Soviet views were
not popular among a public still deeply influenced by UK war propaganda which had been highly supportive of the Russians and silent on their treatment of the Poles.

Indeed, no Polish servicemen were invited by the UK government to take part in the official British Victory
Parade in June 1946 – save for a last-minute invitation
extended to Polish airmen after complaints by a handful of MPs. The invitation was declined, the airmen – who had fought in the Battle of Britain – preferring to show solidarity with
their Polish colleagues so roundly snubbed by the British Establishment.

Then, of course, there was the issue of employment. Although there were huge manpower shortages, particularly for coal miners and agricultural workers, trade unions agitated for – and got
– a government regulation which forbade potential employers from taking on Polish workers: ‘Foreign labour can only be employed when no British labour is available and willing to do the
work.’

In many areas this was interpreted by officialdom as meaning vacancies had to be left open just in case British workers might want the jobs at some time in the future. Jobs remained vacant while
Poles were forced to search for work further afield.

Clumsy handling of the situation reached its absolute nadir when the Attlee government was forced, following an ill-tempered debate in Parliament, to introduce special guidelines to stop Polish
musicians playing at dances and socials. The regulation stated: ‘No Member of Polish Units shall play in uniform in public outside the precincts of his camp, whether for a fee or
otherwise.’

That mean-spirited ordinance was most certainly ignored in the Borders. Polish musicians regularly played in schools at Christmas time and at dances they organised at the camp. In fact, the
local policeman was in the band! School children loved classroom visits from the camp’s musical groups, and would giggle when they sang well-known songs and carols in Polish instead of
English. The
men would play instruments such as penny whistles made from tins and cannibalised war surplus. These often would be left behind as presents for the schools.