My father died two months ago after a long, eventful and well-lived life. He was 93, so there was no surprise, but obviously much sadness.
My sister gave a magnificent eulogy and mentioned that he was, among other qualities, an animal lover and had an amazing cat that was with him as a POW during World War 2.
It’s a remarkable story. He was a Bren-gunner with the Transvaal Scottish in North Africa when they were surprised by the Italians. He told me his company were swimming naked in the Mediterranean at the time, so it was not the most dignified surrender.
While being force-marched to a camp in Sardinia, he and his gun-loader Fred Rodgers (Bren-gunners were a two-man team) noticed two abandoned kittens on the road, starving and dehydrated. Without saying anything, they picked the cats up and stuffed them into their greatcoats. Being homesick, Fred called his cat Zulu, so my dad named his Swazi.
Zulu and Swazi bunked down with their masters in several Italian POW camps, and my dad even trained Swazi to walk like a dog on a leash. The leash in this case was a tatty piece of string, and he says whenever he came back from working the fields to the crowded prisoner bungalows, Swazi would be there purring and happy to greet him.
In those early days they got Red Cross parcels and so it was not such a huge sacrifice sharing meagre rations with the two animals. The most distressing aspect was that Zulu was a frisky male and consequently Swazi was regularly pregnant. There was no food to spare, so the kittens were always drowned in a bucket of water, something that troubled my dad hugely, as he mentions it prominently in his diary.
Zulu died and Italy surrendered – although I don’t think the two events were connected. The Germans then stormed into the camp and forced-marched the inmates to Czechoslovakia. Swazi came too, tucked once more into the pocket of my dad’s greatcoat.
There my father worked on the coalmines in the most gruelling conditions imaginable. They no longer received Red Cross parcels. The POWs were stick-thin on starvation rations. Yet still Swazi got something to eat each evening as she waited on his bunk, purring at his return.
One night a fuel factory was bombed nearby and although there was no direct hit on the camp, the percussions blasted Swazi out of a window. My dad was convinced she was dead.
A week later she limped into camp and crawled into his bunk.
Eventually the camp was liberated by the advancing Russians. The freed-POWS were then jammed into cattle trucks and railed across Europe. In France, my dad, with Swazi in his pocket, got aboard a Lancaster and was flown to a camp in Brighton.
In England the Brits loved her. Whenever my dad walked her on her leash, she attracted huge interest, with locals giving her sweets and other delicacies. My dad says Swazi obviously remembered how he had shared his starvation rations with her in the POW camps, as she always brought whatever goodies she had been given to him.
After several weeks, the South African POWs were put on a troop ship back to Africa. When they landed in Cape Town, my dad took Swazi aside and told her she would have to hide in his rucksack or else the customs guys would confiscate her. She listened.
Then it was a train ride across South Africa to Komatipoort on the Mozambique border, as my dad lived in what was then Lourenco Marques. He was met by his mother and brother and finally – after five long, hard years of staring survival in the face – he and the starving kitten he had found abandoned in Italy were home.
Swazi died in 1947. On her death, my dad wrote this in his diary: “She brought me a lot of comfort and happiness when I needed it most. If there is a place where cats go in heaven, I am sure I will meet up with her again someday.”
I’m sure too, dad.