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Upstarts
The house I occupied with Bob Hughes and John Klas was cleaned daily by two
middle-aged German chambermaids, although it contained almost no furniture. Being
accustomed to sleeping on the ground, I laid out my sleeping bag on the floor and slept
there for the first week or so. Meanwhile, most of the other officers had managed to
scrounge up beds.
On the whole, our cleaning ladies did a good job for us, cleaning, dusting, and
swabbing the indoor privy, a primitive affair unattached to either a water supply or a
cesspool/sewer, but using a container which had to be emptied daily. However, though
they scrupulously swept and dusted the rest of the house, my bedroom got a lick and a
promise. Every morning as I lay on my back on my bedroll, I could see a cobweb at the
corner of the ceiling. Finally I got tired of the same old cobweb, so I hung around until
the housemaids appeared, took one by the arm, led her into my room, and pointed at the
cobweb. "Tsk, tsk, tsk," I said.
Apparently "tsk" is the same in German as in English, for that evening when I
came home, I found the cobweb gone. Moreover, my room now contained a bed, a chair,
a table, and a vase with flowers in it. Sometimes a wheel doesn't even have to squeak
very loudly to get the grease.
At other times, stronger measures need to be taken. A couple of months later,
there was a problem in one of the larger houses with the hot water supply. The "hot"
water ambled out of the pipes at just above blood heat. There was a coal-burning water
heater, and when our billeting officer complained to the German who tended it, the
temperature improved by about two degrees Fahrenheit .. The stoker said that was the
best he could do with the lousy brown coal which was all that was available. Get him
some good bituminous coal, and he could heat the water.
After several days of parley and a vain search for good coal, our lieutenant lost
patience. Grabbing the man by the shirt front, he said in his best Pidgin German, "Nichs
heisse Wasser, nichs essen!" Since all food was still rationed, this was no empty threat.
And from then on the water boiled out of the faucets.
Capt Van den Bark, a devoted family man, was appointed town Provost Marshall,
with the mission of keeping the soldiers of the battalion from violating laws or
regulations such as not entering any house or building inhabited by civilians, not carrying
their weapons except as required for guard or some other authorized duty, and not getting
drunk and/or disorderly.
Van didn't know much about law enforcement, but he took the job seriously and
set out learn as much as he could about Schwandorf and its possible pitfalls. For instance,
he immediately went to the German police chief and demanded the locations of local
brothels. The chief assured him, "Why, Lieutenant, you don't have to resort to that! You
can have any woman in town."
Van blushed heatedly and explained his purpose.
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