Fortunately, however, they were only the advance guard; the main party from Schwarmstedt had yet to come, and when the nakedness of the land and the bleakness of the immediate exchange prospect was really discovered, the wires were set in motion and injunctions passed to the remainder to save what could yet be saved. Anything edible had long since disappeared down the throats of the Russians and would, in any case, have been difficult to reclaim from our unfortunate Allies. But other things of less immediate value were salved; and the main party from Schwarmstedt pulled out in their turn from the bog camp, resigned at least to a temporary stay in their new abode, and properly equipped with the more essential things. It was a regal transport. There were 200 of them, not to mention their hand-luggage, which assumed vast proportions, since everything that was left behind as heavy luggage stood an even chance of being lost in transit, even if transport exigencies in the Fatherland permitted of it ever being put on board a train.
What an arrival that was—the main body from Schwarmstedt! We raw ‘seventeeners,’ fresh up in our ordnance boots and Tommies’ tunics from the sorting camps of Heidelberg and Karlsruhe in mild Baden, could hardly credit it. We had what we wore, plus, perhaps, an odd shirt which the Belgian ladies in Courtrai might have given us. Here was an eye-opener—Schwarmstedt Camp come to Holzminden under a camouflage of suit-cases! We leaned out of the windows of “A” Barrack as they staggered in at the main gate, and the Schwarmstedt advance party hailed their friends as the stream rolled on through the inner gate into the camp grounds, and bawled out amidst the general babel disparaging comment on the new camp and its personnel.
Irish Mick in our room was in great form. “Bury your notes,” he sang out, “bury your notes. They sthrip ye mother naked.” Every one in three of the incoming cortège had not less on him than 50 marks in German currency notes. (Strengstens verboten, of course, and a search on arrival was the accepted thing.) So, taking Mick at his word, they sat them down on the dusty Spielplatz, made unobtrusive graves with pocket knives, and dedicated their money to the land. Perhaps they were seen. Perhaps the scratches were in some cases too obvious. At all events the Germans became wise; and one of their N.C.O.’s going round betimes next morning before the party had been able to see to their investments unearthed no less than 2000 marks! The Schwarmstedt party lost the first round.
We have digressed somewhat: but those first few days at Holzminden were days of digressions, of alarums and excursions, of administration too chaotic even for a serious strafe. The best organisation in the world will not get 500 more or less passive resisters satisfactorily transplanted from one place to another without considerable difficulty, and the German arrangements at Holzminden were ludicrously insufficient for their task. The buildings were there, and that was about all. The crockery had not arrived; there were three large boilers in the German cook-house to cater for the bodily wants of 500 English officers and 100 Germans; there were two or three wretched cooking-stoves for our private use; there were about half a dozen British orderlies—the rest, we were told, were on their way; the bathroom had not even been begun; the parcel room was not yet open, nor was the canteen; the German staff were incomplete, new to the ropes, and totally inefficient. The Commandant was a kindly old dodderer of about seventy who left everything in the hands of the Camp Officer; and the Camp Officer, as we were to know before very long and as a good many knew quite well already, was the most plausible villain and the biggest liar in Germany. Hauptmann Karl Niemeyer will figure perforce largely in these pages. Let him be introduced to the reader as he introduced himself to us on our arrival in the camp. It was one of his stock ‘turns.’
Twenty-five of us had arrived at midnight from Heidelberg, dead tired and hungry, and had been greeted in fluent Yank beneath the flaring electric lamp at the door of the Kommandantur by someone whom at first sight and sound we took to be rather a genial and sympathetic person. He told us that he was glad to see us, that he was always glad to see any Englishman, that he had been great friends with the English himself before the war, and that he hoped to be so again. But that in the meanwhile war was war. That we had better, y’know, write straight away to our friends for our thickest clothes, y’know. It was very cold here in winter, y’know—(he did not then add that there was also very little fuel and that wood was going to cost us 18 marks a pailful). He concluded his speech of welcome on a note of old-world hospitality which made us think of bedroom candles and a comforting ‘night-cap’:—
“So now, yentlemen, I expect you will be glad to go to your bedrooms. I will wish you good-night. You will be searched in the morning.”
We crawled upstairs full of hope and were sorted out into three of the upper rooms reserved for newcomers. There was nothing to eat and no night lingerie to slip into; and we were locked in because we had not been searched.
In the morning we appeared again, empty and unshaven, for the search. Our kind mentor of the night before must have pierced our secret, for almost his first enquiry was whether we had breakfasted. A menial was then despatched to bid the cook provide breakfast for the Herren with all despatch, and we solaced our impatience with unreasoned thoughts of a sizzling rasher, or at least some wurst. Breakfast, when it came, was one cup each of ersatz coffee, and lukewarm at that. But the genial Karl pretended not to understand our disgust.
It must be admitted that he did not confine his innocent pranks to the newly captured. All was fish that came to his net. The only difference was that he got so little change out of those who knew the ropes. They, for instance, might have guessed what “breakfast” (German 1917 version) meant. Also they knew their rights and how far he—and they—could go, pretty well to the last centimetre. So, be it added, did he. It was one thing for the whole camp to laugh at him on appel (roll-call). Laughing and shouting on appel—Homeric ripples of merriment or short sharp barks from the entire assembly—were recognised as means of entering effective protest when the Germans began to exceed their prerogatives. But it would be quite another thing to tell Niemeyer to his face to shut up. One officer did this and was promptly marched off to the cells. These two had waged bitter war since Ströhen days and the Englishman had renewed the offensive by openly refusing to shake Niemeyer’s hand on arrival at Holzminden. It was natural that the latter should get back on him as soon as the opportunity arrived. Holding, as he did, all the scoring cards, Niemeyer never went out of his way to avoid trouble. On the contrary, he welcomed it. His power to deal with the situation to his own satisfaction only failed when, as sometimes happened, his temper passed completely beyond his control.
Under him, and in charge of Kaserne A, was one Gröner, a saturnine, sallow, heavy-moustachioed fellow, reputed a schoolmaster in civil life, and from all appearances a worthy exponent of Kultur. By the Schwarmstedt lot he was known and loathed, and his stomach bulged temptingly as he stalked on to our appel.