The Great Desert Escape by Keith Warren Lloyd

Author:Keith Warren Lloyd [Lloyd, Keith Warren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lyons Press
Published: 2019-01-10T00:00:00+00:00

Later in the evening the wind began to rise, stirring the leaves of the shade trees in the prisoners’ gardens and carrying with it the rich, earthy scent of a desert storm. The light of the winter’s moon was blotted out by a bank of rain clouds. Above Papago Park the skies began to grumble and would soon open. The soldiers on night watch would spend the early hours of Christmas Eve 1944 listening to the rain beating steadily on the roofs of their guard towers.

The camp awakened to a sky washed clean by the rainstorm, though more sodden clouds lingered on the horizon. Rivulets had formed in the sandy arroyos coursing down from the buttes, and murky water brimmed the ruts formed by jeep tires on the patrol roads. Through this depressing landscape, made even more melancholy by the fact that it was Christmas Eve, the prisoners of war plodded their way to breakfast with a thick paste of gritty mud clinging heavily to the soles of their GI shoes.

To the soldiers of Service Command Unit 1982, the Germans seemed to while away the afternoon hours that followed like any other lazy, rainy Sunday. The defiance and vitriol of the previous evening seemed to have largely subsided. Perhaps the krauts had gotten it out of their system and a pleasant Christmas could be expected after all. Except for a few foreign voices coming together to sing familiar-sounding carols behind the open doorways of their barracks, it was relatively quiet in Papago Park.

A few minutes after four o’clock, acting First Sergeant Eugene Hoya walked briskly through the rain and entered Compound 1A. With him was the translator, Corporal Gebhart, to assist with conducting the evening roll call. One of the first prisoners Hoya and Gebhart encountered was Gerhard Ender, a gaunt and creepy character with thick spectacles who had served as a petty officer aboard the ill-fated blockade runner Burgenland and was reputed to be a fervid Nazi with ties to the Gestapo.

Have the prisoners gather in the mess hall for a head count, Gebhart told Ender, so the men would not have to stand out in the rain. Slowly the Germans filed into the building, and Eugene Hoya sighed as he glanced at his roster. There were thirty-nine men present—there should be sixty-two. By half past four o’clock, there were still twelve officers and eleven enlisted personnel who had not come forth to be counted.

Where were the rest of the men? Gebhart asked of Ender. Barely able to suppress a sinister grin, Ender shrugged his bony shoulders and professed his ignorance.

Hoya and Gebhart left the prisoners in the dank mess hall and made their way through the driving rain to the orderly room. The officer in charge of Compound 1A was Lieutenant Watson, who at first could not be located, but Hoya happened to know that the stockade executive officer, Captain Homer Davis, was enjoying a movie at the base theater. Hoya called the theater and had the captain paged.

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