The Stove in Barracks 3

Outside the rain was pouring down.
Looking through the window I could see the postern (guard) outside the wire slowly meandering on his
beat from one guard tower to the next.
He looked about as happy as our cat on bath night.
He would get under and shelter and look round to make sure no one was watching, so he could stay
there a bit longer out of the downpour of rain.
Then he would set off and make for the next tower, but when he got to that one he would not tarry because it could be seen from the camp Commandant’s office.
If the Commandant was in a bad mood and noticed a postern taking shelter from the elements instead of trying to catch pneumonia for the Fatherland he could find himself on the next train for the Russian Front.
The wind was blowing the guard’s great coat open at the front so that his trouser legs were wet through with rain water.
The sooner he got back to the other tower the sooner he could get into shelter again.
Inside the barrack room it was warm and for a moment I felt a bit sorry for the bloke who having no choice but to stand or walk outside in this miserable weather.
Clouds obscured the moon and it was a cold wet night.
In the sentry towers the guards were stamping cold feet and although they were wearing gloves or mittens they looked uncomfortable and not very happy in their work.
Every now and then they would move to the other side of the tower, as the wind would blow the rain at an angle into the tower.
Bored, they would switch on the powerful searchlights and the beam would reach out over the camp searching into the shadows.
Tonight the light beam showed up the shimmering rain as it fell to earth, but it was cold and wet and as it landed on our roof we could hear the drumming of it.
I thought “well they started it all let ‘em get on with it, and I’ll go lay on my bunk and think of how I can stuff it up for them a bit more.
But having got comfy on my bunk I would close my eyes and think about Turner’s fish and chip shop in George Street back home in Barton-on-Humber in Lincolnshire, England.
And the cake shop with cream buns and iced cakes, sitting under those bright lights, and the fresh bread smell oozing out every time some one opened the door to go in and peruse the whacking great ham sitting on the bacon slicer on the counter.
Then my reverie was broken by the bloke in the next bunk, “you alright mate?” he queried, looking at me concerned, and the book he had been reading was now laid on his chest.
“Yea, why, wot’s up?” I asked.
“Nowt,” said he.
Then he continued “ony ah eerd yu whimper, ah thowt as mebbe yu had got summat caught a’tween t’ bed boords”?
“Not on these rations”, I quipped.
I put him at his ease and assured him all was well, but mentioned I was day dreaming about my favouritecake shop
“Oh aye” says he, his face lighting up, “ me mam used tu let me ‘elp ‘er when she wer cookin, she allus sed ah wer a bit like me dad, ----reet good at’ puttin’ creem in tarts.”
“An wot abaht when yu get a bag wi’ ‘ot chips in it an’ all t’ vinegar is in one corner an yu hold it up an’ suck it aht.”
And I thought, yea, happy days.
Then some one was thumping the end of my bunk.
“Mail up” said a voice, and the face peering to see if I was awake would disappear from the end of my bunk and I would get up and wander over to the stove area where most activity was on a cold wet day.
And I waited for the bloke with the mail.
It’s funny, but always when you are waiting for something good to happen why does it always take so long.
I mean we stood there like silly buggers as if hypnotised by the closed door.
One bloke waiting with us noticed two blokes playing draughts, so he went over and pointed to an
obvious move and the other bloke gave him a bitter look got up and said “ok smart ass, yu play ‘im.

I was a tin basher.
We had another bloke in our hut and he was also a tin basher.
We would spend hours working out new ways to use tins that at home would be discarded the moment they were empty.
But in this place every thing was perused with a view to “what can I make useful out of this”?
I made an assortment of sailing boats, one boat I made was powered by an old wind up gramophone motor.
Acquired by agreeing to make a boat for a guard who had a son who was interested in boats.
Having told me he had an old wind up gramophone but the spring was broken I said “take out the clockwork bit, but remember and bring the handle also, and I will do you a swap for a boat.
He was highly delighted, but so was I, because it would make a nice change to making tin trays all the time.
The Guard got his boat and I got my wind up motor.
For what it is worth the spring was not broken, it had just come off the retaining peg on the drum.
But I stripped it right down and having cleaned it, I oiled it, and re-assembled it, and re-bent the spring so it would not come off again and it worked like a charm.
I made numerous baking trays, frying pans, blowers for cooking on, and a wall clock.
I was proud of that wall clock, and when I first started to make it there were cries of “bloody nutter.”
And “won’t work” and “d’yu think it’ll keep good time.
One bloke walked away muttering “that bloke is in a dream world, an if ‘e makes a clock I’ll ger ‘im tu mek me a pair ‘o bleedin’ wings tu fly out of ‘ere”.
And although some blokes would moan, “do we have to listen to tick f—g tock all day and night.
Some blokes would argue, “Yea, well it drowns out yu miserable bleedin’ wingin’, don’ it.
We would get an empty meat loaf tin, cut the bottom out, then cut along the seam and by crimping instead of cutting the corners, thus making it water tight, we made a flat tin tray about a half inch deep.
Now if we felt like it we could make some chips from potatoes if we could get some potatoes from some where.
Well you never know your luck in a big POW camp, “Know what I mean”?
Then there was Hawksly Hill on the top bunk.
This bloke was a dead ringer for the cartoon character ‘Flying Officer Kite’
With a big blond handle bar type moustache and mop of blond hair.
Reading a girlie magazine and chortling “Gawd, do you believe that, as he turned the magazine this way then that way and wishing the pic of the topless girl was in three D so he could poke his eyes out.
When the bloke in the tin bashing business making the tin tray started bashing on this tin, Hawksley lowered the magazine and drawled lazily, “I say old thing, do we have to have all that noise, do go somewhere else to bash that bladdy thing”.
“Ask the guard if you can have a transfer to another camp, preferably in Siberia, what?”
And some one else would rally to Hawky’s cause “ yeh, f-k off why don’ yer an’ tek yer f-g tin wit’ yer”.
However all this banter would cease as soon as the door burst opened.
And it’s funny, but at home, speaking for myself, we were always brought up to opening and closing doors quietly.
In the house you walk, don’t run, and so on, but in a POW camp you have to get in first, and it’s every man for himself, and if you don’t do it some one else will, y’know, that kind of mentality.
Anyway, enter the mailman, and the first time I was a bit disappointed, I can’t explain why but when I saw this bloke dressed like we were.
I mean I didn’t expect him to look like Father Christmas or the Easter Bunny.
Staggering under a massive sack bulging with parcels of goodies from home.
But a scruffy bloke needing a shave, wet through, with this pathetic little half of a hessian sack with a canvas strap sewn on it slung over his shoulder, the size of the which indicated it’s max capacity was a small package and about half a dozen letters.
Was it any wonder a lot of faces fell when the mailman withdrew his hand from the sack with only a few letters in it.
Water was beginning to collect round his feet as rainwater dripped from his clothes.
Meanwhile there was a buzz of conversation until a voice screams “QUIIET”.
It was as if some one threw a switch, you could hear a pin drop.
“Roit, lissen fer yu name” said the mail man,
“There’s no one called Wright in this barracks postie” piped up a thin voice, to which the postie glared and sniffed, ”Gawd, there’s a clever bugger in every barracks”
“Smiff” growled the postie“ ‘ere” piped a voice.
Jenkins, said the postie
“ ‘E went to the toilet wi’ a blankit wrapped rahn’d ‘im” piped the voice.
“Death” and the proud owner of the name sniffed loudly, “if you don’t mind old boy, the name is De-Ath, with a hyphen,” and some wit chortled “fust un fits better, ah meen lukat ’im “
But De-ath defended himself with, “Your no Robert Doughnut”
And someone else volunteered “Yu mean Donat”.
De-ath said bitterly, “I mean doughnut, look at him, face like an a----le with a tongue”.
Then he added “Go have wash and shave, then you can be a neat and clean looking a----le with a tongue, a----le”.
“Tenny” “over here” and my heart leaped, I had a parcel, and when I opened it it was a carton of cigarettes and a pair of woolly socks.
“Right pay attention” cried the mailman.
And pausing until it was quiet again he said, “I have been asked by the escape committee,
he paused because the door had opened.
A bloke so muffled up against the wild weather out side had to struggle to shut the door against the wind.
The bed nearest to the door got wet because the rain was being blown into the hut at such an angle.
The bloke had taken four strides into the room before he got to the end of the wet patch now on the floor inside the door.
“ I have been asked,” continued the mail man, watching the bloke removing all his anti storm gear, “to inform you that if any of you have got anything lined up for the next four or five days to forget it.”
Now because he recognised the bloke as one of ours, he continued with the message, “a tip has been passed to us that the Gestapo and S.S. are out in force looking for a bloke who has been busy in our area blowing things up and they are extremely dischuffed, so we have to keep our heads down for a while until it blows over, o.k.?”
And disappointed murmers of, “Yea, yea, we hear yu, nik off why don’t yer and dig up some more mail.”
Since I did not smoke, the fags were as good as money, for barter that is.
I must point out here to save you from being confused later that my real name is Tom Barker of The Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, but I had changed I.D. disks with a R.A.F. bloke while in the showers.
I was now, as far as the Germans were concerned, Harry Tenny, Engineer, R.A.F.
Tenny and I had agreed that any letters that came for us were to be held by the Senior Brit in the camp and were to be delivered when and wherever possible to the rightful recipient.
Because parcels were bulky and could not be smuggled so easily we agreed to keep and use each other’s parcels to stop the Germans getting suspicious.
The purpose of this masquerade did have a dual purpose, one reason was to get the real Tenny back to England.
Being short in the Air Crew Department they could put a fully trained bloke to good use.
I, on the other hand had a sneaky feeling that the SS and Gestapo might suddenly wake up to the fact that where POW No 12244 (Tom Barker) was, a lot of trains were being tampered with.
So far my sixth sense had kept me out of trouble so I was inclined to take notice of it.
I did think that if indeed Tenny got to England as Tom Barker, Tom Barker would no longer be in Germany, so Jerry could not possibly find him.
But if Tom Barker (Tenny) got caught, Jerry would match fingerprints and photo’s and realise he wasn’t who he was supposed to be.
Then they would then look for the real one and both of us would be given a sharp tap on the back of the head with a 9mm slug next to a hole in the ground supplied by yours truly and the real Tenny.
Tenny did escape from a work Commando and got caught.
And I perspired.
Even today I cannot believe that the Germans never latched on to who he really was.
The Germans were always so thorough.
Also Tenny was dark with brown eyes and stood about 5ft 8ins while I was blond with blue eyes and stood at six feet in me boots.
I think what put the Germans off was that when I was taken POW and had my pic taken I
was so brown from the sun in the desert, plus I was minus hair it would have been difficult all for but an expert to pick me out.
The only way to tell for sure would be fingerprints
After a while in the cooler, the last time I saw Tenny, was waving ta ta to me from the back end of a work Commando, just going out of the main gate.
So I wandered back to the stove and got my empty meat loaf tin with the wire handle on it and sighed,
“ Here we go again!”

Nimbly nipping into the wash room adjoining our hut and nonchalantly nicking half a pint of H2O from the nearest tap I nipped back to the stove.
I put my tin next to all the other tins that were gradually getting warmed up, and had a natter with another bod, who like me was waiting patiently for a brew the noo.
When it brewed I was going to raise my tin mug to Barker (Tenny) and hope he made it the second time round.
A couple of tins in the middle were boiling merrily.
Sadistically I thought for a brief moment, “If they can’t be bothered to check their tins then let the buggers boil dry.
But since my Mother had always taught me, “ Be nice,” I looked at the little metal tag attached to the handle and read the number and shouted the numbers so the owners could come along and dunk their tea bags into them.
Sometimes the owner was pre-occupied, and if five minutes later the tins were still there boiling away then one would remove them from the hottest part of the plate and put them on the outside of the group of tins on the plate.
As tins boiled and were removed, the outsiders inched their way to the hottest part of the plate in the middle and of course they in turn boiled, so every one was happy.
One- removed ones tin when boiling by using a metal hook, because the wire handle could and did sometimes burn fingers.
One could not put paper or cards on a tin, and some one tried to paint a number on his tin, but because the stove would some times be red in the middle it would burn these off.
So some enterprising bod came up with these little disks about the size of a penny.
Made from tin lids and a number stamped on each, the number would be stamped on the metal by holding a nail and tap tapping it with an iron fish plate (that’s the metal bar with four holes in it.)
The curious will find two of these locking one railway line to the next with four heavy nuts and bolts, “where on earth would one get a fish plate”? One might casually warble.
When in adversity one nicks anything that’s not nailed down, even if one doesn’t need it at that particular time.
There is a special name for that kind of junk.
It’s called “come in handy gear”, and one wouldn’t believe the gear some blokes stored, nails, bits of wire.
One bloke had a metal washer from the bolt that secured two fish plates together between two railway lines, and as he lay on his bunk he would juggle it down between his fingers.
One of his mates in the next bunk said to him one day, “yu gittin’ pretty good wi’ that thing aint yu”.
Matey with the washer looked at it wistfully and replied, “Yea, it reminds me of somethin’ but ah can’t put mah finger on it.”
“But if Jerry locks me in the cooler ahm goin’ tu crawl through that little hole”, indicating the hole in the washer, “And ah’m away”.
Mind you, if we moved most of it had to be left behind sometimes, “One can only carry so much,” as the elephant said just before giving birth to twins.
One could buy a number tag with wire to attach to one’s tin, it would cost you two cigarettes.
The stove was simplicity itself, a bricklayer had built an oblong box of bricks about the size of a dinner table with a hole at one end to feed fuel into and an iron plate about a quarter of an inch thick was laid on the top.
About six inches from the floor inside the stove were iron bars set into the brickwork so as the wood burned any ash could fall through.
We would take it in turns to clear and empty the ash daily, also the top of the stove would get a good scrape to remove any food that had spilled on the plate causing smoke and cinders.
A bloke called Coulson was a R.A,F. bod, he was also a painter, and our stove had a brick chimney which was about two feet square, and on this chimney was a notice board where local gossip and notes about wanted to swap, one tin of meat loaf for a tin of herrings, or two fags for a hair cut, or tin of sardines for a packet of custard powder, and so on.
Coulson the painter was painting in water colours a picture of a Lancaster 4 engine bomber.
I sat for a while and watched him.
“You paint?” he queried after a while, glancing side ways at me, and not missing a brush stroke, and I replied, “Yes, but not like that”.
“Oh you paint in oils?” he asked with a smile.
I said, “No, I meant my paintings are pathetic”.
With a grin he said, “Practice and you will get better, but whatever you do don’t give up on it”.
Today in 2003 at the age of 82 I paint with oils, gratis Coulson.

Coulson also painted a girlie picture about two feet square.
If you have ever seen those pics the Yanks had on their bomber aircraft.
A girl in a tight blouse, looked like she was a water melon smuggler.
Had legs all the way up to her shoulder blades, encased in equally tight shorts or mini skirt.

When that pic was finished and hung on the peg above the notice board, word got round the camp and it looked like Sutherby’s in London had just announced that they were giving away free antique furniture.
There was a queue out side our hut you would not believe, and that was next doors mob, wait till word gets to all the other huts.
To cries of, “Move on through the hut once you have had a look” were coming from the occupants of the hut because suddenly it was getting difficult to move past our notice board because of the crowd drooling over our new pin up girl.
The next day to cries of woe the picture was removed by order of the hut leader.
Some one countered the removal of the picture by suggesting it would be a good cloak for a map, so in due course we got the picture back.
But as soon as the door was bolted for the night it was turned round and on the other side we had a map of where the Russians were and where the Allies were.
Flags were stuck in so any one could wander past and see the latest moves but at midnight it was turned to the wall again minus the flags, just in case Jerry decided to catch us by surprise and do an early (like two a.m. in the morning) search.
One of the problems we had with our stove was if someone tried to escape, wether he got home or was recaptured made no difference.
Our fuel for the stove would be revoked for about a month, and instead of hot showers we got cold ones and if the Commandant’s Missus said “no” when he went home for the weekend he would come back and we would get no parcels for a fortnight.
So with no fuel we had no heat, we could not cook, but if it was winter time with no heat to warm the barracks and ice forming on the inside of our window panes due to condensation it could get to be a bit parkey.
This situation became more aggravated because when one can’t get warm one soon starts to devise ways to stimulate the flow of blood.
And one bloke had a valid point in that he suggested that if we did press ups and other exercises we had nothing to show for the energy used.
On the other hand if we dug a tunnel we had something to show for it, also if the Commandant suddenly woke up to the fact every time he stopped our fuel we dug tunnels to keep warm or perhaps so we could go somewhere were it was warmer.
He might think again next time he is about to cancel our cumfey stuff.
Digging tunnels is not unlike story telling where you get so far and every thing caves in, so you start again, but this time you think, “Ah, I need a different approach etc.”
When you begin again you think, “Now if I had some boards I could shore up the sides of the tunnel and collapses would be a thing of the past.”
“Boards!” there are boards under everybody’s bed, of course! and they are just the right size”.
There are lots of boards made for the job, so without more ado, now and again every Tom Dick and Fred will nick a few boards from this bed and a few from that bed when the owner is abroad trying to flog his spam for fags.
Because the fuel ration has been stopped some lads have been nicking boards from beds other than their own to make a brew on the stove, and heads have been scratched to queries of, “I thought Jerry had stopped the fuel issue, so how are come they are making tea?”
And it was not long before the penny dropped.
We had in our midst, a, or perhaps, some, bed board bandit, or bandits.
So a notice was posted on the notice board, “It has come to my notice that there is a BBB in this hut
(bed board bandit) and I will not rest until the culprit is apprehended,” and some one had pencilled in over the next line,” or till I get some replacement boards.
Signed, Big Fred, Barracks Chief.
Due to the fact that some blokes are now trying to sleep balancing on three bed boards, instead of the issued twenty, it’s not long before two or three blokes during the night turning over, dropped in on the bloke below.
Cries of, “s--t, where did you come from” and nick off this is my bed, and, “Oh, so sorry, I thought yu looked lonely, so ah dropped in fer a quick chat”.
The angry owner having been wakened just when he was chatting up Betty Grable in his dream, retorts “Well now yu had yu b----y quick chat, ger aht me bed or ah’l bleed‘n’ do yu”.
And the next morning one might see one or two blokes in the showers with a distinct mark across their backsides and shoulders that resembles the graining pattern of a pine plank.
You will also be juggling with your health if you pass a remark like, “ Looks like yu ‘ad a rough night.
Well, you feel sorry for the blokes.
But when they slowly turn and focus their bloodshot red rimmed eyes on you, and one might snarl
“Nick orf afore yu ger a bunch o’ fives in yer gob”, so with a limp smile and hugging the wall you scamper out to the safety of your bunk leaving wet foot prints leading all the way to your bunk, and you wish you had some ferns or the like to brush over the wet marks so they don’t lead to your bunk.
Only when they are dry and can no longer be seen, do you relax and even think of sleeping.
Next day the scouts would be out foraging for more boards, and it got to the stage where one or more of our blokes were sleeping on the floor.
But even this had it’s lighter hilarious moments, you see Jerry had built all these barracks on stilts so the dogs at night could roam underneath and thwart any attempted escape in the downward direction, from a barrack room that is.
The blokes lay on the floor, and while trying to get to sleep would perchance hear, “Sniff sniff” from some where under the floorboards.
And some crafty devil sees a knot in the wood and pushes it out and the dog, now attracted by a kissing noise emanating from this hole in the wood above, investigates it with his nose.
The bloke above knows that it is a physical impossibility for the dog to lift his leg and leak through this knothole above its head.
So assisted by gravity he leaks on the sniffing nose instead, and the dog retreats sneezing and whining and shaking a now wet smelly head, while a smirking bloke above is nudging his mate and chuckling, “I p----d that dog off good”
Some blokes would overcome the fuel shortage by approaching me with a slack hand full of fags, with the request “make me a blower mate” and I would get some tins, the main one being an empty
Canadian powdered milk tin (Klim) and after about an hour I could swap a blower for said fags.
So now clutching his new blower the bloke would make a beeline for the wash house.
Where a scrap of paper and a couple of twigs would soon have a blacksmith’s forge going before you could say “stroll nonchalantly to starboard”, but even that had it’s down side because soon lots of blokes had blowers.
And in the morning when the first brew was being made Jerry thought the barracks were on fire.
All hell was let loose.
Whistles would blow and an armed contingent of Guards surrounding the irate Camp Commandant
would stomp into our compound.
“Was machen sie hier den,?”snarled the German Sgt, and the Camp Interpreter trying to sound like an Oxford Dux asked, “ The Camp Commandant would like to know what you are trying to accomplish with all this smoke, are you trying to signal someone?”
And some burly bloke would laugh and say with a grin, “Mornin’ tea, yu know drinkies” and because the Germans looked at him stony faced, his little laugh petered out and he groaned, “Oh Gawd, why bovver.?”
When we showed the irate Commandant the source of the smoke, he was quite carried away by our ingenuity, and as he was leaving he turned and wagged a finger at us, and the Interpreter translated his parting shot, “I don’t mind you burning rubbish, it keeps the camp tidy, but woe betide any one caught breaking wood from the barracks to burn,-- Oh, and stop p-----g on my dogs.”

Tom Barker 1st A&SH

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