Imprisoned in six houses on the southern outskirts of the town, formerly the old Jewish Ghetto, seven hundred and eight Allied prisoners were miserable, cold, and badly treated. Most worked for fourteen hours a day, reconstructing the large airfield, as well as creating new military and industrial areas around the Red Air Force site.
They had been nearly a thousand when the work had started, but the harshness of the regime and the climate took their toll. The work was now complete, but for a few minor matters that the POW’s strung out as best they could, purely on the basis of ‘better the devil you know’.
Seven hundred and eight became seven hundred and seven, as blood loss and shock claimed the Indian soldier, victim of heavy kicks from a rogue horse.
The Sergeant orderly relinquished his hold on the man and stepped back, allowing the mean light to illuminate unblinking eyes.
“He’s gone, Sir.”
Dryden cursed.
“All for the fucking want of the right kit. Another fucking life lost. For God’s sake!”
His helper, Hany Hamouda, an Egyptian 2nd Lieutenant, started to remove the equipment from the huge thigh wounds, incisions made by Miles Dryden in an attempt to patch up the arteries that had been torn by the shattered bones of both femurs.
As he did so, he spoke the inventory aloud, a routine agreed by the medical staff to avoid leaving valuable equipment in a casualty.
“Three clamps.”
“Check.”
“One stainless steel retractor.”
“Check.”
“Four wound hooks.”
“Check.”
Handmade from deer antler, they hooked into the flesh of the casualty and held open wounds for Dryden to work.
Simple but effective.
“Scalpel.”
The officer removed it from Dryden’s hand, the naval surgeon seemingly reluctant to give up the blade; it had been a huge concession by the camp’s commander.
“Wound frame.”
The frame was a simple folding square that served the same purpose as the hooks, holding open an area for the scalpel to work.
“Four needles.”
“Check.”
“Horse hair thread, one bob.”
And so the list continued, not one that would have graced a proper surgical facility, but the prisoners had done well to acquire the few bits that offered Dryden and Hamouda even the smallest opportunity to save lives.
“Soldering iron.”
“Candle.”
“Six body straps.”
“Check… check… check…”
“List complete, Sir.”
It did not take long to inventory the medical equipment in Camp 130.
“Ask the senior Sikh NCO to come and see me immediately please, Hany.”
“Sir?”
“They have their own ways with their dead. I would not wish to cause offence.”
As a Muslim, Hamouda could understand fully, and was surprised at himself for not thinking of it.
“Sir.”
The Lieutenant left, to be replaced by the hospital dogsbody.
“Tea, Sir, milk, and two sugars, as normal.”
A mug of something steaming made its way into Dryden’s hand; it wasn’t really tea, just a concoction flavoured by some of the local flora. Milk and sugar were nothing but distant memories to all the prisoners in 130.
Drinking the warming brew, Miles Dryden watched the nimble Egyptian pick his way across the snowy landscape before entering the hut set aside for the Sikhs and Gurkha soldiers.
The Egyptian Officer had no place on the battlefields of Europe; his presence in 130 was a pure freak of happenstance.
He had become a prisoner of the Germans during the first Battle of Alamein, and endured a long captivity, only to be freed by British forces in April 1945. For some reason, known only to Hamouda, he avoided returning to his homeland, and somehow attached himself to the 15th Scottish Division’s medical services in Lubeck, post-war.
He was captured by the Red Army on the second day of the new war, when his small hospital was overrun.
Dryden’s own path to Camp 130 had been less fraught, as his naval detachment in Murmansk was bloodlessly taken into captivity on the 6th August.
The two shared the medical responsibilities for their charges, although the naval man did the majority of the surgery, Hamouda’s broken glasses hindering him too much for the delicate work.
The senior Sikh arrived with a bearer party shortly afterwards, and they took their kinsman away.
His ward round completed, Lieutenant Commander waited for the card school to form, the ‘hospital’ being the only place where light in the dark of night would not draw unwelcome attention from the guards.
The players arrived together as usual, and the pack of cards, dirty and damaged, was dealt out four ways.
To Dryden’s left was Acting Major Kevin Roberts, a Canadian, wounded and taken prisoner at Tostedtland on 13th August.
“Pass.”
The next to act was Albert Barrington, a Canadian Lieutenant taken prisoner in the same battle.
“One heart.”
The next in line made a great play of examining his cards.
“Aye, I’ll pass.”
RSM Robertson looked at the naval man, challenging him silently, which challenge Dryden met with a deadpan face.
“One spade.”
“Pass.”
His partner could not resist a dig.
“Any chance of ye playing the game, Major, Sah?”
Roberts grinned.
“No speech play, RSM. You know the rules.”
The grins were universal.
“Two diamonds,” Barrington announced with considerable gusto.
“Ah’ll double ye, Sah.”
Dryden laughed the sort of laugh that could easily be imagined to originate from a vulture circling a dying beast.
“Three spades.”
Robertson was fit to burst, and his partner’s pass did nothing to assuage his concern.
Barrington milked the moment.
“Four spades.”
“Get ye the fuck, Lieutenant, Sah!”
Dryden leant forward.
“I’m unclear about that terminology. Is that a pass, Sergeant Major?”
Robertson looked down his nose in mock anger.
“Aye, that it is, damn your black hearts!”
“Good. Pass.”
Roberts accepted the NCO’s scathing glare for his final pass.
The hand was never played.
Within moments, the doors of the hospital flew open and in charged members of the security detail, shouting, screaming, sometimes lashing out.
“Collect up everything now, Doctor.”
“What?” Dryden sat there in the midst of chaos, still clutching his hand of cards, staring at the Soviet officer.
“You’re leaving tonight, Doctor, so get everything you need ready… in ten minutes. These men will help. Dawai”
Before dawn started to spread its light across the land, the four bridge players, Hamouda, the two orderlies, and four guards were onboard a small freight wagon, heading southeast.
Behind them, the seven hundred prisoners of Camp 130 were efficiently liquidated.
“A routine probing attack… nothing more, Walter.”
“Are you sure, Brad?”
Bedell-Smith spoke into the receiver again, questioning the General on the other end more closely.
From the nods, the rest of the officers assumed that the answers he received were positive.
“Thank you, Brad. If anything changes, let me know immediately.”
“General Bradley says that Simpson states it’s normal stuff, Sir. Every day of late, somewhere along his line, the Reds probe early in the morning. Nothing too dramatic, probably just enough for their infantry commanders to report stiff resistance, and then curl back up in the warm for the rest of the day.”
With the exception of the morning skirmishes, whole sections of the front had become relatively quiet. The temperature outside recognised no uniforms or causes above any other, and was equally harsh on the soldiers of both sides. Most of the frontline had become an area of stalemate, where no attempt to advance was made.