[From Time Stood Still by Paul Cohen-Portheim]

II FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF KNOCKALOE

FIRST impressions are by no means always right but they are frequently decisive. My first impression of Stratford had been sickening; my first impression on seeing Knockaloe Camp in daylight was one of delighted surprise, brought about, no doubt, by the contrast with the scene that had met my eyes the previous morning. Stepping out of the but I found radiant sunshine, marvellously pure and bracing air, and a panorama of turfclad hills. That is how, in spite of all that was to follow, Knockaloe has remained in my mind, for I am what the French call a type visuel, which means that the look of a thing, place, or person matters most to me. When choosing a house or flat I have always been apt to consider the view from the window more important than more practical matters, and if I had to choose an internment camp - which I hope to God I shall never have to again - I should be guided by similar considerations. This is apt to annoy other people a good deal. Knockaloe was considered the most distasteful of all camps, the one where hardships were worst and conditions most unpleasant, that is why I feel apologetic to my fellow-prisoners when I state that I rather liked being there. It is only fair, however, to add that my stay there was short and that we had marvellous summer weather. The case of the men who were there for years and of those who were transferred there towards the end of the war or even after the cessation of hostilities, after having got used to the superior comforts gradually achieved in other camps, is, of course, a very different one. In 1918 and 1919 Knockaloe apparently contained hordes of completely brutalized or broken men - I say apparently because I have not seen that Knockaloe, but only heard about it from people I am inclined to trust. Not that one can altogether trust any other man's word on such matters as war or prison experiences ; facts are few ; it is the atmosphere which is all-important and that affects different people in a different manner. Thence the quarrels about war novels, some affirming that a book gives the exact truth : ' That is just what the war was like,' others contradicting them violently. There were as many aspects of war as there were soldiers, as many aspects of life in an internment camp as there were interned.

There was certainly little to charm one in that ' compound ' if one took no interest in the view. There were a dozen or more long, low wooden huts, each of which housed about forty men. When we arrived there our huts contained a long table and a heap of paillasses piled up in a corner, otherwise they were quite empty. Nothing was ready, everything but half-finished. Evidently the intention of the Government had been to finish the camp first and intern the people after, but they had given way to popular clamour, and now transports of prisoners were pouring daily into hastily erected camps, which were not prepared for their reception. We had had some sort of a meal, standing up, the night of our arrival, and the only good thing about it had seemed to me the butter which looked clean and fresh. I had ventured to say so and thereby earned a reputation for great foolishness, for the butter was margarine, an article of diet I may have tasted before but had never seen. Nor have I ever become an expert in spite of many years' acquaintance with it. I was tired enough to sleep; my troubles began when I wanted to wash next morning. The wash-house was yet to arise; so far there were only buckets which could be put on the ground somewhere after having been filled at the pump. I had no towel with me (having packed for ' a holiday '), but I managed to borrow one. I found washing en plein air rather pleasant, though it took an acrobat to keep an already washed foot clean while washing the other. By the time the lavatory arrangements were complete I was rather sorry to have to wash indoors. Those buckets were most useful, they served for everything: water for washing, soup, and well, everything. One tried to believe that they did not get mixed up.

The first morning was devoted to a most solemn ceremony. We were formed into a square to await the visit of the Commandant, overlord of all prisoners of all Knockaloe, who was coming to receive us into his realm. We waited what seemed a long time and then the great man appeared at last. He was or looked very old, rather peevish and at the same time rather shy. I believe he felt uncomfortable. All sorts of old colonels had been dug out of their retirement, and probably they did not choose the most eminent soldiers for jobs of that sort. On the other hand at that early period of the war the officers doing duty in the prisoners' camp were officers of the old army and very much preferable as a class to those who followed them later. This old man certainly was what one must-for want of a better or more intelligible term-describe as a gentleman, that is why he did not care for his job and did not enjoy this particular show. Also at that time he had to repeat that performance every other day, when a new lot of one thousand stared at him with hostility, fear, anger, or amusement, according to temperament, or more likely with a mixture of all these feelings.

He began his speech, that speech he had to make every other day, in a rather quavering but not unpleasant voice. What he said-or what I remember of his speech was ' If you will obey my orders I will treat you with kindness and consideration ' ; this sounded good, but he continued, without interruption and in the same low, monotonous tone: ' Anybody attempting to escape will be warned once and then shot '-and that sounded neither considerate nor particularly kind to my civilian ears. The continuation was unexpected. He pointed vaguely to the hills and said in a raised voice: ' The latrines will be finished soon [pause] I hope.' And that was all, but his hope did not materialize for many days, and then it materialized in the opposite direction to the one he had indicated. Meantime there were buckets and plein air and though it may sound absurd this was felt as extremely humiliating and disgusting by most. In fact, one could not get used to it ever (even a good many animals seek privacy on these occasions), only I must add that there were also quite a number of men who not only did not mind this but actually invited each other to proceed to that act in groups.

After the Commandant had had his say a German interpreter repeated his words. He was far more impressive: a soldier born. He shouted at the top of his voice: ' Der Herr Kommandant hat gesagt, etc.' And that ended the ceremony. And now, what next? Now there was nothing to do, nothing at all, nothing whatsoever, nothing-for how long? There was a sort of shanty called a canteen, standing just outside the wire, with its counter open to the camp, where one might try to buy something. No matter what, one had nothing one needed, so everything would be welcome. Hundreds were waiting already; I waited for about two hours and everything had been sold out when my turn came.

My dream had been some string, some ink possibly. But if I had not achieved my object I had yet not waited in vain; I had learned a new word which was more than a word, quite an illumination in fact. That word was Schiebung, and I think it was the most frequently used word in all prisoner camps. It is not to be found in any dictionary and I don't think it existed before the war. The verb schieben means ' to push', ' to shove', 'put a thing in some other place' ; after 1914 it came to mean all fraudulent dealing, all pushing oneself into someone else's place ; a Schieber became almost a recognized profession the more war restrictions made honest dealing impossible. And a Schiebung was every act by which you gained an illegitimate advantage, and in a prisoners' camp every advantage is illegitimate and everyone always suspected of trying to gain one. Some men there had shouted Schiebung perhaps because one man had tried to get in front of another, perhaps because someone had bought more than one bottle of ink (and might try to resell if there should be a shortage), perhaps simply as a joke. But that mentality was anything but a joke, it expressed all the envy, distrust, and hatred which that unnatural mode of life, that compulsory existence in common had already bred. From 1914 onward everyone in the belligerent countries lived under a system of coercion and it soon became apparent that it was not as difficult to coerce the peoples as some had feared and others hoped. All the Smiths were quite willing to do as they were told and to put up with all sorts of hardships or dangers. But on one condition only: all the Browns and all the Joneses must bear the same privations and face the same risks. Wherever there was preferential treatment accorded or achieved by push there hatred and malice arose, but this was intensified a thousand times in prisoners' camps, for two reasons. First, such a camp has no accepted hierarchy to start with, while civilian society has its class-distinctions and the army its grades ; secondly, there is nothing or next to nothing in such a life to turn away people's thoughts from the real or imaginary wrongs done to them. The original and primary wrong they resent is of course the fact of their imprisonment, the fact of being punished without having committed any crime, but they cannot go on thinking of this for years. Very soon hatred and suspicion turn against their enforced comrades in misfortune, for the contact with them is incessant and everlasting, presenting an endless variety of occasions for new friction, whereas they hardly come into contact and have no intercourse with their official ' enemies,' that is, the soldiers who guard the barbed wire and the officers who count their numbers twice a day.

I needn't say that this was by no means clear to me that first morning at Knockaloe. Schiebung had sounded vaguely ominous, but I soon forgot about it again. There was a slope covered with coarse grass where I went to lie down. The sky was blue overhead and the sun shone, why not take a sunbath ? This was really rather pleasant, I thought, a sort of boy scout or Wild West existence, not to be altogether despised. One could well put up with it for a week-for it might be a week or perhaps even a little longer before I would be released ... Meanwhile I had a feeling of great. rest, of calm after the storm, and I felt tired enough. The worst had happened. I could no longer be imprisoned, because I was imprisoned; I could only be released now. And the present state of affairs had great compensations ! The more I reflected the more I thought that even a month here might not be so bad. I gave no thought to the people around me, they played no part in my life as yet. I thought of myself only. There was a feeling of security here, nothing could happen to one, it had all happened. There was nothing to hide from anyone everyone else was in the same situation, there was not that unbearable strain of relations with one's surroundings. I discovered some very concise advantages I had never considered before : as a prisoner I should be allowed to correspond with my mother, I should at last get fairly regular news of all the people I was fond of over there, I should also be able to have money sent from abroad. Then, well, after a month or so I would be released, autumn would be near then and must surely mean the end of the war. Another winter was quite unthinkable.

In the afternoon I changed into what seemed to me clothes appropriate to the surroundings, white flannels. This amused a number of people exceedingly, and I was asked whether I intended to go on in that manner. I replied that I had every intention of doing so, which amused them more than ever. And yet it was a very wise move though quite an unconsidered one. I can imagine no circumstances where it is more necessary to stick strictly to the outward decencies and conventions of life. They cease to be taken for granted, they become an effort, but also they become a symbol of resistance to outward circumstances; they come to mean that one will not give in, that one remains oneself in no matter what company or place, they become a strong and most necessary moral support. One need not dress there, one need not shave every day or at all, one need not wash-in fact, there was absolutely nothing one need do except rise and retire at fixed hours and stand still to be counted. Otherwise you can let yourself go to any extent and in any way you like. That is exactly why one must create one's own duties and obligations, and one's inner conduct and outer appearance are inevitably interdependent; self-respect and shaving-brush live in mystical union.

Our luggage was distributed to us that afternoon, one of my two trunks had disappeared and it never turned up again. But there was quite enough left to embarrass me terribly, and no possibility of unpacking a thing. I had a great piece of good luck the next day, however, for I managed to get hold of two nails. Very few acquisitions in my life have given me greater satisfaction : one could hang up a few garments now, it was a beginning of a return to normality. The next day I was enriched by two small boards which a man sold to me. This was the beginning of Schiebung, of course, for no such things as nails or boards were to be bought legitimately, they could only be smuggled into camp with the help of outside agencies, and that help had obviously been paid for. These two slanting boards formed a head-rest, and sleep became more possible. Matters were improving. I rearranged the contents of my trunk, putting the more necessary things on top. But the trunk left to me did not contain many necessities; on the other hand, it was full of all the paraphernalia of evening dress.

Any comments, errors or omissions gratefully received The Editor HTML© F Coakley , 2021