PART THREE
18
At the end of February 1942 Ralph had arrived in his new home: Arbeitskommando 3GW, at Šentilj (St Egydi to the Germans), north of Maribor, next to the old Austrian border and a small tributary of the Drava river. It was too rural for Ralph’s taste, but homely. Three or four barracks sat opposite a narrow green field, the railway line, and then the road. There was a cookhouse where meals were prepared, and the Drava tributary had several wooden footbridges running across it. Inside each barrack were metal-framed bunk beds, and feeble gas lights.1 At least there was more sunlight, and the Kommandoführer (work camp leader) in charge was hostile but not violent – the Screaming Skull, the prisoners called him. At first he insisted all Red Cross tins be opened on arrival to prevent smuggled contraband, which had the effect of creating a weekly feast.2 Once he’d accepted that the Red Cross was not smuggling, prisoners were allowed to store their tins.
Also good for Ralph’s self-esteem was that he could now collect his special-issue Red Cross parcel that he’d missed out on in solitary confinement. Inside was a new British battle dress, a sewing kit, a shaving kit, and a toothbrush.3 Ralph bathed, changed, and shaved. He also began the practice of writing a long letter to Ronte once a week. When his letters were delivered, Ronte replied weekly. The letters would usually arrive in bundles of six, but this correspondence helped ground Ralph’s thinking about how to plan his future.
Through the end of winter and spring of 1942, as he became accustomed to his new camp, Ralph reflected on his failed escapes and took stock of what he knew. His escapes had been motivated by distress: they had been unplanned, unprovisioned, and in winter. Only a handful of flights had succeeded, all before the onset of winter, and all by men brave enough and crazy enough to fight and usually die as Partisans. As far as we know, Ralph had no idea if those escapes even succeeded. Prisoners generally didn’t know when escapes failed either. Recaptured prisoners were usually transferred to a different Arbeitskommando, or another Stalag entirely. Their comrades remained in the dark about their fate. Then there was the problem of where to go. Getting out of a camp was easy; it was what came after that was the problem. Almost all of Europe was under Axis control. Transiting to a neutral country would require travelling through hostile territory for weeks. The nearest neutral nation, Switzerland, was 500 kilometres of patrolled mountains away. That left Sweden, Turkey, and Spain, all about 1,500 kilometres away. Passage would require excellent language skills, forged documents, ample food, money, and contacts.
One decent attempt that Ralph may have been aware of was Harvey Harold Pepper’s attempt to escape from Maribor. He’d saved food, procured a water bottle, obtained civilian clothing, and broken out and travelled south-west into the rugged hills of Pohorje. From there his plan was vague and ill-conceived. He hoped to cross the border into Italian-occupied Ljubljana Province. From there, he’d move from east to west across Italy, cross into France, and then presumably Spain. Harvey was caught moments after leaving Pohorje, challenged and arrested by a policeman in the city of Celje.4
The only escapes since Colin and John that had been successful were joyrides. ‘Jock’, a prisoner in Maribor, had bartered his Red Cross parcels for a pair of overalls, a ladder and some German money. Posing as a civilian labourer, Jock had walked out of the main gate carrying the ladder. He was not challenged, so he’d stashed the ladder in a bush and gone for a night on the town, spending the whole night drinking and eating and pretending to be an Italian merchant sailor on holiday. No one had challenged him, and in the morning Jock had returned to the camp, carrying the ladder. Again he’d not been challenged, and had resumed life as a prisoner.5
Officers had it easier: their camps were secure, and they were not put to work. They could spend all their time planning escapes and could also pool a dazzling array of technical and linguistic skills, as well as having the intelligence services on their side. MI9 had been created in London to help escaped prisoners and downed aircrews, and after 1940 all officers and aircrew had received instructions on what to do if captured. They had to form a secret escape committee and get to work.6 MI9 created fictitious aid organizations to smuggle equipment into prison camps: blankets made of fabric like that used in German uniforms; silk maps hidden in Monopoly boards, ink wells in chess pieces. This never involved Red Cross parcels, the supply of which could not be jeopardized.7
The men of XVIIID, on the other hand, were enlisted men, regarded as of little importance to the war effort, and no help was offered. None of those captured had received an MI9 briefing, so there was no escape committee. Ralph did not know about MI9, but he knew an unplanned escape was a fool’s errand. Success needed planning, fair weather, outside help, and skills he did not yet have.
Arbeitskommando 3GW also had a Vertrauensmann (man of confidence) and an Übersetzer (translator). The Vertrauensmann was elected by the prisoners to represent their interests to the camp authorities and to any company for whom they worked. Ralph was furious when he learned this was standard practice: a Vertrauensmann would have gone a long way in Werndorf’s quarry. 3GW’s Vertrauensmann was a New Zealander, Sergeant William Fagan.8 Bill was a kind and gentle man, who everybody liked. He never tried to assert himself with the Germans, seeming to lack that instinct that bolshiness can work, but he often succeeded with the gentle touch.
The Übersetzer was another Kiwi, Lance Corporal Roy Courlander. Very tall and slightly odd-looking, Roy was popular, keeping his comrades entertained with his incessant leg-pulling and far-fetched tales. Highlights included his mother being the beloved cross-dressing singer Ella Shields, that he was the child of Baltic nobility or White Russian émigrés, and that for a short while he’d lived in Germany and had been a member of the Hitler Youth.9 His stories kept the men amused, though a few gullible prisoners believed every word. The Hitler Youth anecdote particularly upset those prisoners, and confused others.
At 3GW Ralph turned his attention to learning more German. Soon after his arrival, there was an escape attempt. A member of the Šentilj crew, New Zealander Jeff Stuckey, made a break for Switzerland. He did well, getting nearly halfway in a week, surviving on a few stashed tins, berries, and an unfortunate hedgehog. But Jeff was recaptured near Villach. He was briefly put in solitary confinement in Stalag XVIIID, but spent a few days out in the general camp population before being transferred. In that time, he met a member of the working crew who had returned to XVIIID to see the doctors, and news of Jeff’s exploits were passed along.10
Ralph found 3GW to be similar to Wudinna: small, isolated, and strange. Wal and Gerry were gone, probably still in Werndorf, and there was little hope of a reunion. However, there was one man he did recognize: the tall, skinny Australian he’d sorted limestone with. The fellow seemed shy and nervous, so Ralph determined to do them both a favour and make a friend. He introduced himself: Ralph from Adelaide. The lanky man looked at Ralph and paused for a moment before responding. Kit Carson, he introduced himself: Tamworth, New South Wales. It was clear why he spoke so little: poor Kit had a stutter like a machine gun. With a shy grin and a lot of concentration, he managed to call Ralph a c-c-c-crow eater.
‘Crow eater’ was Australian slang for a South Australian, the myth being that the first European settlers there had taken to eating crows and cockatoos. ‘Crow Eater’ had a much flashier ring to it than ‘Ralph’, and soon, even to the British, he was ‘The Crow Eater’, and then ‘The Crow’. Ralph’s unkempt state when he arrived had helped the label stick.
Shaving became a dividing line in 3GW, between those meticulous about their toilet and those who weren’t. Guys like Courlander shaved once a week and didn’t bathe enough for their comrades’ liking.11 Soon Ralph fancied himself the flashest man in the camp. Griffin Rendell, a tall New Zealander, begged to differ, and the pair of them ended up in a grooming competition. Ralph grew a moustache and styled himself on Hollywood’s Ronald Colman – he’d already modelled his ‘Adelaide posh’ on Colman, so this was a natural progression. Kit, also a farming man from a farming family who had been sent to the ‘family school’ in the city, was in the neat squad too. He’d boarded at the prestigious King’s School in Parramatta, west of Sydney, a school of strict discipline and with a military uniform that included a slouch hat. The pair stuck close to each other on the worksite.
The nature of the work also lent itself to camaraderie. The prisoners were not confined to the same pit all day or split among individual farmers, but were digging out an enormous bend on the road that ran south from Austria to Maribor, to make it straight. Removing a minor obstacle to traffic seemed a waste of 100 men, but they didn’t mind working on a white elephant – after all, who were they to question the wisdom of the Reich? Work was supervised by a few guards and civilian workers from a local construction firm. Red Cross parcels supplemented German rations, so they ate well, and morale was high.
Bill Fagan was a keen rugby player, so he marked out a small field near the barracks and procured a ball. Whether this was homemade or sent through the Red Cross is not known. Locals would sometimes look on in bafflement at this strange foreign game. Ralph studied German, though the only German books available were propaganda pieces. With a bit of flattery directed at the camp guards, however, he was able to get hold of a German grammar book.12 Ralph read it obsessively in the hope of bringing his grammar up to the same level as his vocabulary. Karla Todt’s lessons had given Ralph a refined Hochdeutsch accent, a German ‘Adelaide posh’. Ralph hoped it would be the tool to get him out, and get him home.