Then there was the electric-light boy, a sturdy young Frisian who, for some occult reason, had contrived to confine his active service in the war to six “cushy” months on the South Russian front. Theoretically he was Prussian, Pan-German, and all that was horrible; actually he was friendly and useful, though not, of course, to be trusted to the same lengths as the Letter Boy. He spoke good German and not the villainous dialect which made direct negotiation so difficult with most of the German-speaking personnel of the camp. He was good for any number of pocket electric torches, and an occasional bottle of Kriegs Cognac.
Another “string” was the sanitary man—the only civilian who was allowed into the camp without a sentry to watch his movements. This gentleman kept a wife and family on the adjoining premises and was always ready, in return for services rendered, to enrich his scanty larder with a store of English tins. He was difficult of access, as his duties did not as a rule take him into the buildings, and he was in a terrible funk of being found out; most of his business was transacted in innocent conversation with the orderlies over the state of the refuse bin, or in consultation over a choked-up drain. Ultimately his larder was found too convincingly full of English tinned foods and he disappeared from our midst; but he had contributed his quota.
There was a girl typist in the Kommandantur whom no one ever saw but who conducted a passionate love intrigue with an Australian Flying Corps officer through the agency of letters attached to a weight and collected by an accomplice sentry. Letters outward from the camp were dropped in this way from the window, picked up by the sentry, and so reached their destination in the Kommandantur. The inward mail used to be thrown up by the sentry and caught at the window. Whenever news of general interest was included in the love passages, an excerpt was made and handed to the senior British officer. As the girl worked in the Commandant’s office, there was often valuable material in these missives, and she also acted as a check on the information supplied by the Letter Boy. As to the satisfaction got out of the purely personal side of the affair, opinions might vary. An interchange of photographs was considered too risky, and it is believed that neither party to the adventure ever knew what the other really looked like at close quarters!
The orderly-barber had a similar affair, but was found out and banished to a men’s camp, forfeiting thereby a comfortable monthly income from cutting officers’ hair, and leaving an awkward gap both in the tonsorial staff, of which he was the only really efficient member, and the orchestra, in which he had for many months been the recognised authority on wind instruments.
An obliging canteen attendant, a patriotic Alsatian amongst the parcel room staff, and half a dozen frankly neutral sentries completed the list of what might be called, from our point of view, the German effectives.
The N.C.O.’s—to do them justice—were beyond suspicion. The majority of them would have been infinitely rather on the Western front than in their present uncongenial position. We never attempted to meddle with them, and indeed there was no need.
The interpreters, although in every way friendly and obliging, were too closely occupied with the multitudinous tasks of their daily routine to invite overtures. There were only three of them in the camp; and what with acting as intermediaries in disputes, visiting the cells, distributing letters, and dancing attendance in and out of season on their German superiors, they were the most hard-worked people in the camp and had hardly a minute to call their own.
Adders was a spotty-faced Dusseldorfian with a perpetual smile and a woman’s gait, and was regarded generally with perhaps unmerited distrust.
Grau had been interned early in the war at Ahmednagar in India, and would do anything for anybody who came from India and whom he hoped might be instrumental in restoring him one day to his beloved Nilgiris. “I do not care for Germany,” he would say; “I do not care for England. My heart is in India.” Poor Grau! He stands very little chance of getting back there. He must pay for the misdeeds of his countrymen.
And Wolff was a little cock-sparrow of a Frankfurter Jew, with an accent acquired on the other side of the Atlantic.