The Indian Contingent by Bowman Ghee

Author:Bowman, Ghee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The History Press

As they were doing hard physical work, they were on the ‘heavy worker’ ration scale but were still not eating meat as ‘German law forbids to kill cattle in the Indian fashion’. During the winter their work involved levelling the ground for roads and railways, for which they were paid seventy pfennigs a day. According to the Red Cross, they were well treated by their employers. The following summer they were digging out copper cables from the fort, working seven heavy hours per day, but coming back to camp ‘in quite a happy spirit. They all look much better now than in winter, as they enjoy being out in the green woods during summer.’21 Their transport was dangerous though; fifty of them were squashed into a truck designed to carry thirty. This led to two serious accidents, and on 3 November, Mir Alam, who had been Hexley’s orderly, was killed when a truck overturned. He is buried in the graveyard at Schoenenbourg Church, alongside Ghulam Rasul of the Rajputana Rifles, who died the same day.22 Their graves face towards Mecca, at an angle to the Christians buried nearby.

Although ordinary soldiers like these did not suffer the levels of boredom that officers did, they still needed to fill their leisure time. The ICF played a crucial role in their well-being, through their regular Red Cross parcels. Each week every prisoner received a food parcel containing dhal, atta and ghi.23 At the packing centre at India House they reached a peak of 6,500 parcels per week in 1944. The ICF became the official next of kin for all Indian POWs in Europe and was therefore entitled to send monthly clothing parcels as well. The fund became adept at sourcing ‘exotic’ ingredients: in 1943 the Brazilian government donated fifty tons of banana flakes and 102 cases of tinned milk, while the Mexicans gave fifty-five tons of rice. All prisoners acknowledged how important the parcels were in keeping body and soul together: their arrival was ‘a rare moment of pure joy’.24

Recreational pursuits in the camps included music and games, and at Annaburg at the end of 1941, ‘two plays of a social nature’ were put on by the Indian POWs.25 An article in Fauji Akhbar in July 1943 appealed for books for prisoners, in order to ‘keep their minds active and their interest unflagging’, and listed suitable topics including religious books, poetry, historical novels and dramas.26 A major source of anxiety was letters home. During 1943 only 15 per cent of the prisoners with Barkat Ali received mail from home, and when it did arrive it typically took eight months. Meanwhile in Britain, Hills and the India Office recognised the vital importance of letters in keeping up morale and preventing defection to the Germans, and so organised regular letter-writing sessions among the companies in Britain. Hills also enlisted retired Indian Army officers and dignitaries like Viscountess Chelmsford and Lady Ampthill to write to the camps.27 Sometimes sepoys used code to convey hidden messages in their letters.

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