WINTER'S TALE
By CAPTAIN B.A.O.R.* In Germany.
* The writer of earlier articles signed " Captain B.L.A." Welfare are not at fault. They have done a good job with imperfect material. Possibly the clubs for all ranks are inadequate, but then there is a housing shortage of appalling dimensions in this much battered country. Possibly the cinemas are too few and too scattered, but it should be possible for everyone to see a new film at least once and sometimes twice a week. The stage shows are poor, but then Ensa, for reasons recently much publicised, has become a by-word for the fifth-rate. An occasional Gielgud in Hamburg does not im- prove the rating of the average concert-party which really does tour the district and is the fare of the majority of us. All credit to them, it is not they we blame for lacking talent. And if the London star is reluctant to face the lbng lorried journeys, the sparse accommoda- tion, the poor pay, who, other than us, shall blame him? The war is over and there is money to earn in the West End theatre.
What of army education, which was also to have filled in the idle hour to purpose? So much depends on the enthusiasm and efforts of the local commander that generalisation is difficult, but it is known to be greatly handicapped by lack of equipment, of which the greatest deficiency is in instructional books. But whatever the cause, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that it has not been suc- cessful in giving interest to the spare-time flours of the majority. Most of us, therefore, not fully occupied by day, have to find our own amusement four or five nights a week.
But, says the civilian in England, we are far worse off than you. Our winter will really be a hard one. Our fuel and food will be short and only money will be plentiful. We envy you your leisure, your security, even your liquor. Here where all is in scant supply, your peace and plenty seem to us attractive.
I suggest they tell that to the soldier who is straining at the leash awaiting demobilisation, who has spent six years away from home, who knows he is redundant simply because the machinery does not exist to release hint when his job has been completed. Tell that to the soldier who has wasted six precious years and knows he must eventually compete in an open market with those who have been gaining priceless experience during his absence. Tell that to the man who is waiting to return to a wife he has scarcely seen for years, to a readjustment on which the success of his whole life depends. Tell that to the married man who is waiting for a house and furniture he cannot anyhow afford to buy, and sees his home, a six years dream, boil down to the reality of life with parent or in-law. Tell it finally to the soldier who looks to demobilisation as the release from prison and suffers the slow torture of watching his friends leave one by one before him, and who reads—if he be an officer—that he may be frozen on the military necessity clause, knowing as he does the military necessity! Certainly the Army has attractions—it just so happens that most of us would rather go home.
That is the back-cloth to the English soldier's winter scene—bore- dom, monotony, impatience. What of the German? It is not a pretty picture. Imagine a country in which the quite inadequate machi- nery of government is just, and only just, functioning. Thrust on to this machine the problems of a population which is living in conditions of appalling overcrowding, for whom there will quite certainly be little fuel except the wood and peat which they have been told to collect for themselves (there are eighty-four days when the temperature is below freezing), for whom there will inevitably be a bare subsistence ration (the harvest has been a failure). Throw on top of this the eight million homeless refugees expelled from Sudeten-Czechoslovakia and the " new " Poland, who are wander- ing the country in conditions of indescribable misery, sick and hungry and tired. Add all this together, and it is not surprising that quite responsible people are talking of ten million deaths this winter. Bad sanitation, overcrowding, under-nourishment, dirt— the conditions are ripe for scourge or epidemic. All that is lack- ing is the spark to ignite the tinder. Will it be carried across the border one dark night with the steady trickle of refugees who miss the frontier patrols?
Germany has been living on her fat this summer—her loot from Europe. The Army was surprised, last spring, to see the well- stocked larders, the stacked warehouses, the high quality of the clothes. Now the food, used to supplement the low-calorie-value ration, has been eaten. The clothing has been partially requi- sitioned to equip the Displaced Persons. The warehouses remain empty once their goods have been expended. Certainly industry is less damaged than was expected, but what use are factories if we cannot provide the coal to supply the power, if we are short of roll- ing-stock to bring the raw material, if we cannot organise the labour to drive the machine? Few consumer goods will come off the pro- duction belts in Germany this winter. There are cold days and long, dark nights ahead. There is a population which will almost certainly have to fight a frightful battle for existence. There are hundreds of thousands of Displaced Persons, trouble-makers and lawless in their idleness. There are the demobilised troops with, possibly, time on their hands now that the harvest has been gathered in.
Perhaps we are all a little tired, a little on edge, our nerves a little raw, but just now we sense in Germany pending tragedy almost upon us. And we, the British Army of the Rhine—once the British Liberation Army—have to live here and try, as well as we can, to stem the flood with buckets. It is not an agreeable prospect. Few of us are looking forward to the winter.
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