26
It was still early spring, and at 05.00, the sun wouldn’t rise for another hour. Thanks to ‘Eggy’ Len Austin, the carpenter, the barracks was well heated and divided into sections of eight, which gave some semblance of privacy. This section had the old-timers, who had been together from Šentilj all the way back to the Maribor work camps. It had two Australians, Ralph and Kit, then three Kiwis, Bob McKenzie, Griffin Rendell, and trumpet player Phil Tapping. The northern hemisphere was represented by the three Britons: Leslie, Len, and Leslie’s best mate Andy Hamilton.1
Some of the other sections slept in while the cooks prepared breakfast. In the old-timer section, everyone rolled out their kits for a shave. Ready for the day, they had a hearty breakfast washed down with hot tea and assembled outside the barracks at 06.30.2 The guards made a count, checking no one had gone missing, fallen ill, or overslept. Ralph, Len, and two cooks stayed behind in Maribor.
The other prisoners, with another cook, ‘Shorty’ Humm, then moved out and, along with twelve guards and six Fritz Schlie foremen, boarded a little two-carriage train to take them to their day’s work as a tracklaying party on the railway. The carriages were ancient, with dusty wooden bench seats. It was first light when the steam engine came to life. It puttered across the Drava to south Maribor, then turned west to follow the river upstream. Some men snatched a little sleep; others watched the valley go past. White frost dusted the pine trees. The Drava surged through its narrowing valley, fuelled by the spring thaw.
The locomotive halted at the town of Ruše, where ‘Shorty’ Humm stayed behind to prepare a lunch for the workers.3 The train continued on another few stations before its passengers disembarked. Most stations here were seldom used or staffed; they consisted of a standing area and a small office for railway technicians. South of the track lay a sheer ascent up Pohorje. North lay the river and, beyond that, Austria. The foremen ordered the prisoners to start work, and tools were retrieved from locked sheds. The guards got a fire going and settled in to play cards and pass the time.4
Arbeitskommando 1046GW was a model of non-work. The crew could disassemble, strip, and relay ninety metres of railway track a day at a modest pace. An official agreement was made with Fritz Schlie to this effect. The prisoners worked backwards from there. Ninety metres would be the most daily progress. Generous delays were taken for any snowfall, rainfall, or air raids. The guards had no desire to work in these conditions – and, like the prisoners, they were subcontracted to the company, which made the prisoners and their guards working-class comrades.5 If the firm did not look after the guards, the prisoners would drop tools until the matter was solved. This bought an enormous amount of goodwill, and gave the prisoners leverage to get their way with work grievances.
The prisoners lost tools at an astonishing rate: the Pohorje side of the track was lined with dense shrubbery, and men tossed railway jacks and pickaxes into the bracken, then wandered about, remarking how clumsy they’d been to mislay an expensive tool. Others were more active in sabotaging the track. They hammered nails into holes where screws should have gone. Workers from the railway would inspect the track, whacking the new rails with a hammer, and would have fits of apoplexy when the whole line wobbled. The prisoners understandably had little faith in their own work: when a freight train passed, the whole crew would scatter up the hill, fearing derailment.6
Leslie did not partake in the manual labour. He’d persuaded the guards that his precious pianist’s fingers could not lay track. As the Übersetzer, a somewhat infrequent responsibility, he would try to convince the railwaymen and foremen that the wobbly track was an honest mistake, though sometimes his German wasn’t up to the task, and The Crow would have to catch a train and come out to resolve the situation.
Aside from that, his duties on the working party were to fetch water and make tea.7 Once the crew were getting down to work, Leslie would take two wooden pails and head off to get some water, often ignoring colleagues’ wolf whistles. His journey used to be made under guard, but by March or April he went alone. The nearest water well was in the yard of a railwayman’s cottage up the slope, opposite the village of Ožbalt.
He became a familiar figure to the cottage’s residents and, hearing Leslie approach, two small children would often come running out. When they came up to him he embraced them as though they were his own. The little boy, who was called Stanko, was six; his sister, Mitsi, three. They reminded Leslie of his four children so far away. Les would bring Red Cross sweets for the children, who would chase him around the yard as soon as he brought them out of his pocket.8
Their mother’s name was Elisabeta ‘Lisa’ Zavodnik. Her husband Avgust was usually away working on the railway. Once Les had got to know her and her family during these days out with the working party, he would enjoy a coffee and a chat in passable German with Lisa while the crew’s tea was brewing.9 Sometimes he brought Lisa some Red Cross soap, and she would teach him some Slovenian. He agonized over how to gather information from her about the Partisans and resolved to continue to earn her trust.
While the men were working on the railway, back in Maribor The Crow had his hands full. He was responsible for Red Cross parcel delivery, not only for 1046GW but also to all other Arbeitskommandos in the area.10 Farms, factories, lumber mills, and others were scattered across the region, each with anything between ten and a hundred prison labourers. The entire economy of the region depended on Allied prisoners of war. The Crow would pay visits, deliver parcels, and pick up gossip, though it was never very useful. Everyone whispered about the Partisans, but no one had any solid facts.
Ralph also had to deal with more attention from a tougher German intelligence service: the Abwehr had been superseded by the SS intelligence service, the Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS (Security Service of the Reichsführer-SS), or SD.11 The Crow’s paperwork showed the prisoners consumed all their Red Cross coffee – the evidence of black-market purchases had been eaten or drunk. But now the prisoners’ quarters were searched with regularity by the SD. Kit Carson found these searches particularly uncomfortable because SD uniforms reminded him of those of his boarding school, the King’s School. It was like vengeful prefects bullying him all over again. Gross, however, endeared himself further to his charges by insisting that all quarters be left as found: if an SD agent took a bed apart looking for contraband, he had to put it back together again.12
Australian Sergeant Ernest Stevenson, chief Vertrauensmann for Stalag XVIIIA and head of the camp’s new secret escape committee, was a man held in high regard across all Arbeitskommandos in the region. His deputy, both officially and on the escape committee, was Padre John Ledgerwood. Ledgerwood had travelled to Maribor in April to conduct an Easter Service, and it was probably he who brought Stevenson’s unwelcome news:13 Roy Courlander, Ralph’s predecessor as Übersetzer, had defected to the Germans. Roy was free and traversing POW camps, recruiting members for a British unit to fight the Soviets on the Eastern Front. Stevenson was notifying all Vertrauensmänner that Courlander was considered a traitor.14
What have you got yourself into, Roy? thought Ralph. Ralph had always taken Courlander for a misfit too fond of leg-pulling for his own good, but a traitor? Ralph didn’t know how to process this. He feared Roy would turn up in Maribor and attempt to recruit. That could start a riot. Ralph hoped that, with Gross’s help, the German authorities might be convinced to bar Roy.
A few weeks later he had a chance to ask. He was attending a peculiar event: a business conference in Graz that brought all Vertrauensmänner and their Kommandoführers together in one forum where working and living conditions, pay, safety, and other issues could be discussed. The conference was led by Stevenson and Major Benedikt from 891st Landesschützen Battalion. The latter was responsible for the main XVIIIA camp and, therefore, all Arbeitskommandos under it. Ralph and Gross arrived on a pleasant passenger service from Maribor. There are no detailed accounts of the occasion, but two incidents were recalled by Ralph. Courlander did indeed try to show his face, wearing an SS uniform with a British flag on the sleeve, and was chased out by the first man who recognized him.15 Gross also arranged for Ralph to meet Benedikt.
The Major had a complex relationship with the prisoners. Unlike in 1046GW, conditions for most POWs in the area could still be hellish if the Germans in charge willed it. Benedikt did not lift a finger when, on 15 April, an unstable German NCO murdered two prisoners.16 Benedikt was also suspected of pilfering Red Cross aid, handing parcels instead to Graz locals, though this may have been an act of mercy to provide help after an air raid.17 Whatever his attitude towards the prisoners, however, Benedikt had no love for turncoats. He told Ralph that no orders about Courlander’s activities had been received. However, if Roy showed his face in Maribor, POWs must do no more than give him the cold shoulder.18 Roy did not make a visit to Maribor. Instead, orders came for Gross to distribute a pamphlet to the prisoners, which read:
As a result of repeated application from British subjects from all parts of the world wishing to take part in the common European struggle against Bolshevism, authorisation has recently been given for the creation of a British volunteer unit.
The British Free Corps publishes herewith the following short statement of its aims and principles of the unit.
1. The British Free Corps is a thoroughly British volunteer unit, conceived and created by British subjects from all parts of the British Empire who have taken up arms and pledged their lives in the common European struggle against Soviet Russia.
2. The British Free Corps condemns the war with Germany and the sacrifice of British blood in the interests of Jewry and international finance, and regards this conflict as a fundamental betrayal of the British people and the British Imperial interests.
3. The British Free Corps desires the establishment of peace in Europe, the development of close friendly relations between England and Germany, and the encouragement of mutual understanding and collaborations between the two great Germanic peoples.
4. The British Free Corps will neither make war against Britain or the British crown, nor support any action or policy detrimental to the interests of the British people.19
The pamphlet met with nothing but abuse. The ‘repeated applications of British subjects’ were an invention. The British Free Corps’ strength never reached more than a few dozen. It was a collection of fascists, oddballs, and naive depressives – and, in some cases, individuals who simply wanted not to be tortured any more.20