The farmhouse door was opened by a girl of about sixteen, who turned back into the kitchen to call her mother, a woman whom incessant toil seemed to have aged beyond her years.
“May I speak to your husband?” I asked politely.
“He’s not at home.”
“Do you expect him soon?”
“No; he’s away,”—hesitating—“at Haltern.”
“Well, it’s this way. I am with a friend. We came from Bremen yesterday, and we’re on our way to Cologne for a holiday. We’ve relatives living at Klein Recken, and thought of spending a few days with them. We tried to walk there last night from Haltern, but in the awful weather we lost the road. My friend fell ill, too. Fortunately, we found your barn, and slept in the straw. We’ll pay, of course, for what damage we did. But the question is this: Can you put us up for a day or two, until my friend gets really better? We’ll pay you well, if you would.”
“You can’t stay here that long, but you may come into the kitchen and warm yourself. You may stay until twelve o’clock.”
I reflected. A few hours’ grace! We had better take it and see how things turned out.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll fetch my friend and our knapsacks.”
With the assistance of the son of the house, a strong lad about fifteen years of age, I got Wallace into the kitchen. We were given seats in front of the roaring kitchener. My friend seemed much better.
Our arrival was obviously an extraordinary event, as well it might be; but if the people did conjecture at all, they showed it only in a suppressed kind of excitement. There was no atmosphere of suspicion, and the few curious questions the woman asked us were easily parried.
There were three girls and the boy in the family, all approaching maturity. While the woman bustled about preparing a breakfast for us, two of the girls and the boy made ready to go out. I did not like that, and tried to find out where they were going.
“You’re going to church, I suppose?” This to the eldest girl.
“Yes,” shyly.
“Have you got one near by?”
“No. We go to Haltern to church. My sister will be back soon from the first service.” So there was a fourth girl!
“Did she go to Haltern, too?”
“Yes.”
“It seems a long way to walk on a day like this.”
Silence.
“You do get up early, even on Sundays, don’t you? I thought I heard you about very early, this morning.”
“We get up at five o’clock,” broke in the old woman.
“You don’t say so. I always thought there was little farm work to be done in winter. You don’t seem to take advantage of your slack time.”
“There’s lots to do.” And she ran through a list of duties.
“Do you feel the war as much as we do in town? How are you off for food?”
“We manage all right.”
“Well, we don’t. We’re chemists in an ammunition factory, and we’re worked to death and don’t get much to eat. There’s nothing one can buy. We applied for a holiday, being tired of the everlasting long hours, and got three weeks. A bit too late for Muller, here. He oughtn’t to have come, feeling as he did.”
The coffee was brewed, and bread, butter, and a plate of cut sausage were on the table. Both of us went at it cheerfully. In the middle of the meal the fourth girl, the eldest, came in, and the boy and his two sisters left. This was about half-past nine.
When I had an opportunity, I whispered to Wallace: “We’ve got to get away from here soon after eleven. Play up.” Then I addressed him aloud: “What do you think we’d better do?”
“I hardly know. I feel pretty rotten still.”
Turning to the woman, I asked: “It’s about two and a half hours to Klein Recken, isn’t it?”
“About that.”
“Do you think you can manage that, Muller?” I looked seriously at Wallace, who understood and answered, equally serious:
“No; I’m afraid it would be too much for me.”
“Well, then, we had better go back to Haltern and on to Cologne from there. Let me see what train we can catch.” Luckily we had kept our time-table. It came in handy now.
“There’s a train at eleven-fifty-four to Cologne. We might catch that, don’t you think?”
“Anything you like, Erhardt.”
“Right-o.” To the woman: “How long do you reckon to the station in Haltern from here?”
“You can do it in a little over three quarters of an hour.”
“That’s what I make it. We’ll leave here at eleven.”
A dollar and a quarter seemed to satisfy the old woman. Indeed, she obviously had not expected so much, but she quickly hid the money in her purse. Then we took our leave.
The weather had cleared somewhat. It was freezing slightly. The clouds were thinning here and there, and an occasional ray of sunshine drifted over the landscape. It was a regular Christmas picture. Two or three inches of snow covered the ground, reflecting strongly the dispersed light from the sky. Black and sharply defined, the woods were outlined against it or the unblemished white of the fields, where they stretched up the hillsides behind them. Each branch had a ridge of snow on its upper surface, and looked as if it had been drawn with India ink and a sharp-pointed pen on glazed paper. The boughs of the dark-green pines were bending under masses of downy white, lumps of which slid to the ground as we passed. Then the boughs, relieved from part of their load, swayed upward.
“You see why I wanted to be off,” I explained to Wallace as soon as we were out of earshot, glad to drop back into English, since nobody was about. “Our unexpected appearance at the farm was sufficiently extraordinary to make the girls serve it up hot and strong to their friends in Haltern. It’ll fly round the town like bazaar talk, and we’d have had the police coming for us in a couple of shakes. But what now?”
We talked it over. Again Wallace asked me to leave him, but my stern answer silenced his arguments. Again it was he who urged “carrying on,” although he admitted that to walk any distance was out of the question for him. He submitted a plan which did not strike me as particularly hopeful, but it was the best we could do under the circumstances.
We were to go back to a certain town in Germany, get help there, and rest in security until Wallace’s condition and the weather had improved sufficiently to make another attempt feasible.
Our exchequer was at low water, and I had my doubts whether we could reach the town. But we might try.
Sundry groups of people were coming from Haltern; some of them stared rather hard at us. Wallace was improving, and enjoyed the walk, but he seemed very weak, and his feet hurt him so that he limped painfully along.
The weather changed again for the worse, and as we approached the station it began to snow. I took tickets to a junction not far off. During the twenty minutes until the train was due we intended to wait on the platform.
“Why don’t you wait in the waiting-room? It’s beastly on the platform,” said the ticket-collector.
“Might as well,” I said indifferently, and turned back.
We took our seats and ordered coffee. At the counter opposite us stood a young lieutenant in the long green, peace frock-coat of a rifleman. We saw the ticket-collector come in and address him, whereupon the lieutenant walked straight up to us.
“Where do you come from?”
“We walked in from Klein Recken this morning,” I answered.
“Show me your papers!”
I smiled and addressed Wallace in English: “Game’s up, old man!” He nodded glumly. The lieutenant stared. Then I explained.
The officer did not seem very much surprised, and the miraculous way in which an armed soldier appeared at his elbow showed that he had been expecting a dénouement.
“I’ll have to send you to the guard-room at present,” he said. “Don’t try any tricks. My men are hellishly sharp.” I reflected a moment. Escape was out of the question for the present. Wallace’s condition, the tracks we should leave in the snow, etc., would make an attempt absurd.
“I don’t know whether you will accept our word that we sha’n’t run away while in your charge. We’ll give it, if you like. That’s right, Wace, isn’t it?” I turned to my friend with the last words. Wallace nodded.
The lieutenant had been in the act of turning away, but wheeled sharply when I had spoken. Looking us over carefully, he said: “Right, I will. Are you hungry?”
“We could do with something to eat,” Wallace spoke up for the first time. The officer turned to his soldier:
“You will take these men to the guard-room. Leave your rifle here. They are to have double rations of whatever you get.”
“Besten Dank, Herr Leutnant!” we acknowledged.
With a salute we turned and followed the soldier across the railway lines to the guard-room. It was in a wooden hut, and similar to all other guard-rooms. We had a wash and made ourselves as presentable as possible. Wallace shaved. I was still wearing a beard.
About five o’clock the lieutenant came over to search us. Warning us to give up everything of importance, he merely asked us to hand him what we had in our pockets, and glanced through our knapsacks.
At six o’clock we were taken to his office in the station building, escorted by two armed soldiers.
“You gave me your word that you were not going to make another attempt!” the lieutenant reminded us.
“Yes, sir, as long as we are in your charge, or that of your men.”
“Good. I shall have to send you to prison now. I can’t keep you in the guard-room. Don’t let the warder search you. I’ve done that. You are military prisoners, not under civil authority. If you prefer it, try to make him give you a cell where you can be together. Tell him I said you were to have one. You’ll be here for a few days before an escort can be got for you. Good-by.”
He called our escort in while we stood outside, nobody, seemingly, heeding us in the least. When he had finished with the two soldiers, we marched off. They were particularly nice chaps from the Rhine, not proper Prussians, and largely influenced by socialistic ideas. They twitted us good-humoredly about having been caught. Laughing and joking, we arrived at our destination.
The old prison building in a narrow side street near the market-place looked particularly uninviting. After much ringing of the bell and, at last, thumping with the butt end of a rifle, the door opened, and we were confronted by a large, flabby-looking man in uniform, with the placid, unlined face of a person whose life had flowed past him like a pleasant, quiet stream. He was something between a policeman and a warder, as it appeared. At the moment he was smoking a long pipe with a porcelain bowl.
Our arrival agitated him as much as his natural phlegm and his military training wouldpermit. For a time he seemed undecided what to do, and repeated over and over again every one of his sentences. This was a trick of his, which amused us considerably during the days we were under his care, but made conversation slow and unprofitable. As he collected his wits, he became more official.
“So, two Englishmen, are they? They are two Englishman, they are. You’ve brought two Englishmen. Well, well, well! Where are their papers? Have you got their papers? You must give me their papers. They are not quite in order; no, no; they are not in order; no, they are not in order.”
The soldiers explained patiently that they were.
“Well, well, well! Do they speak German? They speak German, I hope.” To us: “Do you speak German?
“Well, well, I must search you, my men. I must search you, I must; I must search you.”
“Hold on,” said one of our escort,“the lieutenant says they are not to be searched. The lieutenant saw to that. And you’ve got to do the best you can for them, and you are to put them in a cell together. Orders from the lieutenant!”
“Well, I must search them,” repeated the warder helplessly. “I must search them, you know; prison rules, you know. I must search them for concealed weapons!”
“Nothing of the sort. They were searched, and we’ve got orders to see that you don’t bother them again.”
“Have you any knives, pistols, revolvers, or other weapons on you?” Stubbornly the warder had turned to us. The habit of years is not so easily discarded.
“Oh, let’s give him our pocket-knives, Wace, and get it over,” I said, half laughing, half annoyed.
“Come into this room; come in here; come into this room. Now I’ll enter the articles in this book; yes, I’ll enter them in this book.” He began to write, speaking the words aloud: “No. 000000, one ivory-handled pocketknife. No. 000001, one horn-handled pocketknife.… Now, I’ll give them back to you when you leave, you see; I’ll give them back to you when you leave; yes, I’ll give them back to you.”
“Yes, but we want to get back ourselves,” said one of the soldiers.“Hurry up and show us their cell. We are to have a look at it, the lieutenant said.”
“All right, all right, all right! I’ve got a single cell will do for the two of them; a single cell for the two; yes, for the two.”
At last we were in the cell, which was of course as dark as the nether regions, having taken quite an affectionate farewell of our escort.
The lieutenant at the station, by his orders to us and the soldiers, had given us the cue for our behavior. Obviously, we must try to impress the warder with our standing as “military prisoners,” in order to be as comfortable as circumstances permitted.
We proceeded to do this with great ingenuousness. Long arguments and counter-arguments secured us the use of an oil lamp until eight o’clock at night. We went in force to obtain a second blanket, the warder leading the procession.
Our cell was very small, and very dirty. What little space there ought to have been was taken up by stacks of old bicycle tires, which had been confiscated six months before by the Government to relieve the rubber famine in the army.
During the three days we spent in Haltern prison we had no exercise at all. When the weather changed on the second day, and becamemild again, just about the time when we should have been close to the frontier if everything had gone well, we sulked with fate more than ever.
The reported arrival of our escort on the evening of the third day excited the warder to such an extent that he wanted us to get up at half-past five the next morning in order to catch a train about eight o’clock. We demurred, of course, and got our way, as usual. Ever since our arrest we had devoted a good deal of time to weighing the probability of being sent to a certain penal prison in Berlin.
“Where are you going to take us?” Wallace and I blurted out simultaneously at two shadowy soldiers in the dark passage of the prison the following morning.
“To where you came from, the Stadtvogtei in Berlin,” one of them replied. To say we felt relieved is putting it mildly.
“We’d better not take it for granted that we are going to stay there, though!” I said, as we tramped through the melting slush to the station.
Several hours later, after a change of trains, Wallace and I had been put temporarily into a compartment with other travelers, until it could be cleared for the exclusive use of ourselves andescort. Slipping into the only two empty seats, we found the burning interest of our fellow-travelers centered upon a man in the naval uniform of the Zeppelin service, who was holding forth about his adventures over England. With extraordinary frankness he was recounting the names of a number of air-ship stations, and the number of Zeppelins usually detailed from each for attacks on Great Britain, and predicting another raid seven days later.
“You give them h—— every time you fly across, don’t you?” asked a civilian, leaning far forward in his seat.
“Can’t say that there is much to boast about of late,” was the unexpected reply. “They’ve plenty of guns, and can shoot quite as well as we. There won’t be many more raids after the one coming off next week.”
As we saw in the German newspapers eight days later the raid took place as predicted, and it was the last air-ship raid for a very long time.
To be in the company of a friend, and to have some money in my pocket, made all the difference between this and my first return from the neighborhood of the Dutch frontier eight months before. We did ourselves quite well onthe journey, trying to discount in this way the punishment awaiting us.
At ten o’clock that evening we were welcomed to the Stadtvogtei by several of our old N. C. O.’s with roars of laughter, and conducted to two adjoining criminal cells in “Block 14,” a long way from our friends.
Before my eyes had become quite accustomed to the darkness, my cell door opened again, and our sergeant-major beckoned me to follow him.
“Take your things with you!” he said, and led the way to another cell, farther along the corridor, to separate me from Wallace.
“Come out here! I want to talk to you!” he ordered, when I had dumped down my luggage. “Who had the key?” he shot at me when I stood opposite him in the corridor.
We had expected this, and before our escape had rehearsed our answers to such questions in case one or more of us should be caught.
“Key? What key?” I asked.
“The key to the front door, of course!”
“I don’t know anything about a key.”
“How did you get out, then? How did you open the door?”
“We didn’t open the door. We found it open. It seemed too good an opportunity, so we slipped out as we were. We weren’t prepared at all! But you ought to know all this as well as I do. Haven’t you got your report from Haltern yet?”
His manner changed. He became quite paternal. He wasn’t a bad chap. Anyway, he knew he couldn’t screw anything out of us by turning rough. “Now, come! Don’t try to hoodwink me. We know well enough it was S. who had the key.”
“Well, if you know, why do you ask me?”
“Come on, tell me. It won’t be to your disadvantage! quite the reverse. Just say it was S.”
But of course I did nothing of the sort, and he gave it up.
“We’ll give you a hard time of it, this journey,” he threatened, rather mournfully. “Nothing but the prison food for you, no light of an evening.
“I thought you had shaved off your beard,” he remarked, before turning away. “I notified the police accordingly within the hour of your escape. We had all the stations watched. However did you slip out of Berlin?”
“Oh, rather casually,” I grinned. “Goodnight, Major!”
I felt by no means sprightly and unconcerned just then. I do not like solitary confinement.The stretch in front of me bade fair to exceed in discomfort the first one I had had. Still, we were lucky to be in the Stadtvogtei, near our friends, where, apparently, we were going to stay. With this consolatory reflection I rolled myself into my blankets without undressing. The next day we were going to be de-loused.
S. was arrested in Berlin on the morning following our arrival in prison, and lodged in a cell next to Wallace’s before we went into the yard for our exercise that afternoon. If I am not mistaken, a telephone conversation, during which he had made an appointment with a “friend,” had been listened to. Instead of a friend, a detective met S.
He got the same punishment as we did. At the time of his escape a criminal action had been pending against him. A month after our solitary confinement had come to an end, he was taken to the court one morning by a policeman. A few hours later the policeman turned up alone, considerably the worse for drink, and shedding bitter tears. His charge had decamped through the rear window of a café where he had been treating his escort. We never saw him again. He was still at liberty in June, 1917, and apparently in Holland.
G. was never captured. For several months rumors reached us that he had been seen here or there in Germany. I have not heard that he has arrived in England.
The German with the English name went to see his mother one day, two months after his disappearance from prison. The police were watching her flat in Berlin, hoping for just that event. Their prey got a term of solitary confinement in our prison, and was then drafted back into the army.
The sixth man, the German stockbroker, followed S. by a few days only. He was kept in prison for a week, and then definitely set at liberty.
On the evening of our second day in cells, we were warned not to go to bed, as our examination was to take place at nine o’clock. A quarter before the hour, S., Wallace, and I were taken down to the ground floor and thoughtfully locked into one cell, so that we were able to make the final arrangements for a consistent and uncontradictory account. This we did after a thorough inspection of the place which convinced us that no trap had been laid for us, and that we could talk freely until we should hear the key in the lock.
The following morning we were told of thecomment of Herr Kriegsgerichtsrat Wolf of the Kommandantur, who conducted the examination, upon our respective stories: “Those Englishmen have told me a pack of lies!”
The threat of the sergeant-major had not been an empty one. We were forbidden to have any food apart from the prison rations. Every third day for four weeks these consisted only of bread and water, so far as we were concerned. The parcels arriving for us in the meantime—there were many of them, for Christmas was approaching—were handed to our friends for safekeeping. We were debarred from the use of artificial light in our cells. It being within a month from the shortest day in the year, this was rather “off.” The dawn did not peep through the small windows before nine o’clock, and when we returned from the yard in the afternoon, it was again too dark to read. I think it took the authorities ten days to relent on the question of light. We then got the use of an oil lamp up to eight o’clock every night.
I feel quite sure that we had to thank the lieutenant for the extra punishment of criminal cells, prison food, and no light. He must have been badly rattled about our escaping, and his superiors may have been ungentle with himwhen he reported it. Naturally, he took it out on us, though to our faces he was quite polite.
The question of food was solved to our complete satisfaction within three days. Our friends knew, of course, that we were going for our exercise every afternoon at three o’clock. From the very beginning they were able to pass us sandwiches and small cans of food.
Not without a little difficulty the N.C.O. in charge of our corridor had been persuaded that “they are allowed to have their newspapers, of course.” His referring the question to higher authority had been discouraged. Why bother busy men with trifles? The newspaper man was one of us. He brought the papers round every morning, when the cell doors were opened for cleaning purposes, and also every afternoon. Frequently he did not exchange a word with us but simply pushed the papers into the blankets of our beds. After he had gone, sandwiches and a beer bottle full of hot tea seemed to have been hatched miraculously among our bed-clothes.
The last and crowning achievement was the ventilator dodge. The ventilator was a square hole in the wall above the door, inclined toward the cell. Just after our dinner time, when the N.C.O. on duty was likely to be otherwise employed, stealthy footsteps might have been heard passing rapidly along the balcony. Very frequently they were inaudible even to our strained ears. The scraping of tin against stone was a signal for us to hurl ourselves toward the door, to catch the Lyle’s syrup can, filled with hot meat and vegetables, or soup, which was sliding through the ventilator.
None of the N.C.O.’s knew about this. They marveled at our physical endurance, which permitted us to retain a flourishing appearance in the face of starvation. Sagely they counseled the taking of medicine, or soap for instance, to make us look weak and pale just before our “solitary” was to terminate. “It’ll never do to be seen with bulging cheeks and bursting seams by anybody in command.”
The chance of seeing old friends, if only for a few seconds every day, the knowledge that I should have their companionship again as soon as our punishment was over, and the fact that I was in familiar surroundings, lessened the depressing effect of my solitary confinement this second time. Wallace, too, kept in fairly good spirits. Nevertheless, I came to the conclusion that the game was not worth the candle. I toldWallace of my decision as soon as I could. When we were again in front of the gate I qualified it: “Never again, Wace, never again—except during the mild seasons, and when the chances are as good as I can make ’em.”
On Christmas Eve, the thirty-fourth day of our punishment, we were liberated, but we had to sleep in the criminal cells for some time afterward.
In time, however, Wallace got the single cell he coveted, and I, after three weeks, again joined my old friends in the big cell. For a fortnight dear old K. was the fourth man. Then he was sent to Ruhleben. Wallace was the fifth member of the mess, a sort of day-boarder.
A week after K. had left us, most of the Englishmen got into trouble. As a punitive measure we were ejected from the large common cells, and C., L., Wallace, and I were lodged as far apart as possible. C. and I were warned to be ready to go to a penitentiary. W. received “solitary” for an indefinite time. Another fortnight, and all our intimate friends were sent back to Ruhleben. Only those members of the English colony who preferred prison to the camp, and four escapers, who had made two attempts, remained in the Stadtvogtei—ten in all.But for Dr. Béland and one other prisoner, Wallace and I were almost confined to each other’s society.
We had a fairly miserable time of it. The loss of most of our companions had unsettled us. To crown our misery, we were officially informed that we could not hope ever to be returned to camp, or even a camp, as we were considered dangerous to the German Empire.
The announcement ought to have made us feel rather proud. As we knew it to be only one of their specious arguments, it did nothing of the sort. Very soon I left it entirely out of my calculations. Wallace did not, however, but continued to attach importance to it. I must say this, in order to explain my later attitude toward another attempt to escape from prison. In the course of months I grew more and more convinced that we should go back to camp one day. Then would come our chance! I cannot explain my conviction. It was a “hunch.”
Our belief, however, that we should have to wait did not serve as an excuse for inaction. Wallace and I pushed our preparations for the next escape as fast as possible, which was incredibly slow.
Our mainstay was an N.C.O. employed in the office. He was a queer individual, one of the plausible sort. His favorite saying characterized him sufficiently: “Eine Hand waescht die andere[one hand must wash the other].” His saving grace was the entirely frank attitude as to his outlook upon life and its obligations—lack of obligations, in his case. Through him we were able to take one great step forward—to procure maps. In the first part of this volume I have mentioned that the sale of maps to persons without a permit from the General Staff was forbidden in Prussia. According to the statement of our friend he got us the maps we wanted from a “relative” of his, who happened to be a bookseller. “He had these maps in stock and had forgotten to register them.” One or two of them were indeed slightly shop-soiled. They were good maps, covering a part of Germany from Berlin, and including it to the Dutch frontier. Their price—well, it made my eyes water. They were worth it, though. For a prisoner of war the collection must have been unique. We each had a compass.
Chiefly on my advocacy we postponed the start again and again. The chances of getting away from prison were, to my mind, infinitesimally small. One attempt by another partyearly in May was cleverly nipped in the bud. Our last attempt had not encouraged me to trust to luck, but I clung to my belief in a return to Ruhleben, which appeared as unlikely as ever, on the face of things. Once, however, we were ready to go, but almost at the last minute the help we had reckoned upon was not forthcoming.
Among the men who had tried their luck in May, 1917, were two who, very pluckily, had started to walk the whole distance between Ruhleben and the Dutch border. Unsuitable maps, in the first place, had been their undoing. They both spoke German—one like a native, the other not so well. They do not wish to be known, so, for the purpose of this narrative I will call them Kent and Tynsdale.
Tynsdale is a friend of mine. His pal Kent and he are good men. Do your best for them.—X.
Tynsdale is a friend of mine. His pal Kent and he are good men. Do your best for them.—X.
This, penciled on a slip of paper and addressed to Wallace and me, was given to us by Tynsdale soon after his arrival. The brief phrase did not overstate their merits.
Tynsdale was small, wiry, and, at times, very reticent; Kent, tall, bulky, and—not reticent. In due course we came to live in a large cell together. They were as eager as were Wallaceand I for a new venture, but they were quite determined not to break prison. The information they gave us about Ruhleben from the escaper’s point of view strengthened my prejudices against this course.
“Let’s wait a little longer. The weather will be favorable until October. If our hopes should prove vain, we can always make a desperate sortie. Before it comes to that, something may happen.” This was the final conclusion we arrived at.
Something did happen—several things, in fact.
The first was an unexpected visit from a representative of the Dutch Legation in Berlin. It found us well prepared with an impressive protest against being kept in prison any longer. The same evening I confirmed the interview in two identical and rather lengthy letters, to which almost all of us, including the five men then in “solitary,” subscribed their signatures.
One of these letters was delivered to the Dutch Minister by hand twenty-four hours after it had left the Stadtvogtei in the pocket of a person entirely unconnected with the postal service, military or otherwise. Consequently the German censor had no chance of perusing it. The other passed through the ordinary channels until it was, presumably, decently buried in the censor’s waste-basket.
A little later, German newspapers mentioned the fact that negotiations about the treatment of prisoners of war had taken place at The Hague, and that an agreement had been come to which was now awaiting ratification by the governments of Great Britain and Germany.
It so happened that at this time we had unusual facilities for the secret purchase of English newspapers. In a copy of the “Daily Telegraph” we read that the agreement had been ratified. Another week passed and a copy of the same paper contained paragraphs concerning civilian prisoners of war. The report of a speech in the House of Lords by Lord Newton, I believe, either in the same paper or in some other bought at the same time, helped us to interpret these paragraphs so far as they seemed to refer to cases like ours. At any rate, it gave us a talking-point in favor of an interpretation as we should have liked it, and announced further that the agreement had become operative in England on August 1, 1917, already a few days past.
A memorial in the shape of two letters addressed to the Dutch Minister in Berlin was the immediate result of reading these articles.The letters went the same way as the former ones, and drew a good deal of good-natured chaff upon my head about “writing-sickness,” “Secretary for Foreign Affairs,” and charges to be made for every signature I came to collect in future.
Tynsdale and Kent had not been away from camp more than three months. They knew all the ins and outs of it, including a good deal of information not usually shouted from the house-tops. Wallace and I, after an absence of thirty and seventeen months respectively, were comparative strangers to Ruhleben.
“Will you two come with Wallace and me?” I asked our new friends one day. “I should like to have your help in getting out of camp,” I explained. “Later on I can probably be as useful to you.” And I referred to my record as an escaper, to my equipment, and to mymaps. They assented. They knew from previous discussions that I was not entirely in sympathy with their proposed route; or, rather, I had explained to them what I thought to be the advantages of a route I had in mind, which were confirmed by their own information.
As it appeared desirable that each member of the proposed expedition should be fully equipped as far as essentials were concerned,we set to work feverishly making tracings of parts of our maps. We had to finish this work while still in prison, because it would not be possible to secure sufficient privacy in Ruhleben for this kind of thing. Fortunately I had anticipated something like this months before, and possessed some colored inks and drawing-pens. Tracing-paper I manufactured from thin, strong white paper, which I treated with olive-oil and benzene. We finished three copies before we left prison, the original making the fourth.
On the 23rd of August, 1917, a strong guard of policemen escorted a highly elated batch of British civilian prisoners through a part of Berlin, then by rail to Spandau, and again,per pedes apostolorum, to Ruhleben camp. We were nineteen in all.
Four Britishers stayed behind voluntarily; five more were in “solitary,” having recently tried to escape and failed. Among the latter was our old friend L.
We arrived in Ruhleben shortly before noon, and were kept waiting for a long time just inside the gates, for the good of our souls. But then, the under dogs are always kept waiting somewhere for the good of their souls. So that was all right.
When our names had been called a number of times, and some supposedly witty remarks had been made by a sergeant, whose reputation in camp was no better than it should be, we were marched off to our barracks (No. 14), a wooden one, and the last one toward the eastern end of the camp, next to the “Tea House.”
Part of it was divided off by a solid partition and enclosed by a separate wire fence. This was the punishment place of the camp, called “the Bird Cage.”
The other and larger part was empty; had, in fact, been cleared that morning for our reception, much to the disgust of the former inhabitants, who had been very comfortable intheir home-made cubicles and corners. Now the place was absolutely bare, except for the litter of broken shelves and partitions on the floor.
We were still contemplating it doubtfully when we received our orders: “Beds will arrive presently. They are to be placed in two rows in the center of the barracks. Nothing shall be hung on the walls, or the beams and supports. No partitions or corners will be allowed. The barracks is to be kept bare, so that the inmates can be seen at any hour of the night. The electric light is to be kept burning all night and must not be obscured in any way.” Thus ran the gist of them.
We were pretty wroth. “Call that a return to the privileges and liberties of an ordinary prisoner of war?” rang our complaint.
At night our indignation broke forth again. We had to be in bed by 10P.M.At 10:45 a patrol of three privates and an N.C.O. came to count us, tramping noisily round and round in their ammunition boots, over the bare wooden floor. Not much to complain about in that. But they repeated it six times during the night, and that was distinctly “off.” For many of us, sleep, even during the intervals, was difficult on account of the glaring brightness of the electric light.
Our barracks captain protested strongly the captain of the camp. So did virtually every member of the barracks privately, and gradually this nuisance abated. The six times we were disturbed dwindled down to four, then to three; and sometimes we were inspected only twice, when the patrol considerately kept outside and counted us through the windows.
Our reception in Ruhleben was rather flattering. I do not know how many new acquaintances I made during the first fortnight; several hundred, I should think. Now and again, inevitably, I met a man who immediately told me what he would have done “if I had been in your shoes and got as far as you. They would never have broughtmeback alive!”
I had only to look at my barracks companions to see that we bore the prison stamp, and the remarks of my friends did not give me a chance to forget my own appearance. Compared with the Ruhlebenites proper, we looked more like animated corpses than living beings. Our faces were ashen gray, even our lips had paled. The skin around our eyes remained drawn and puckered, until the eyes had accustomed themselves again to the strong light of the open sky.
Prison life had taken its toll of our vitality,particularly among the long-timers. For a few hours the fresh air acted upon us like heady wine, and during the following days it simply sapped our strength.
Kent and Tynsdale were in comparatively good condition. Wallace was bad, but had an appetite, and recovered quickly. I was the worst of the four. My physical condition did not make me a desirable companion for an arduous venture, and since we found it impossible to “make a move” at once, as we had intended, I deliberately set myself to repairing the damage as quickly as I could. I took plenty of rest, and, avoiding any but the gentlest exercise, grew gradually stronger. About the middle of the second week I started some very mild training.
Yet I still remained nervous and distraught; more so than my companions, who showed signs of the same trouble. It was, however, merely the nervousness of inaction, for I was eager to start. The camp was not even as desirable as we had pictured it. Barracks No. 14 was far less comfortable in every respect than the barracks we had called our own before we made our first attempt. Everything was dirty, and we missed our accustomed privacy. The two daily roll-calls, which took place on the playing-field at seven o’clock in the morning and againtwelve hours later, were an unmitigated nuisance.
What, then, could be more tempting than to woo Fortune again? If she proved fickle, we would go back to the Stadtvogtei. Under the new arrangement the punishment for a “simple escape” by a military prisoner was to be a fortnight’s imprisonment. At first we interpreted the paragraph as applying to civilian prisoners also. Now we had become more doubtful about it. Our friends, who had been sent to prison after the 1st of August, had more than doubly exceeded the stipulated time before we left the camp. What more likely than that the Germans would treat the agreement as another “scrap of paper” and send us to comfortable winter quarters, if we were caught?
We had intended to start within a few days of our arrival in camp. This we found impossible, but for two reasons the delay was fortunate. It permitted us to recruit our health and get accustomed to the open air, and it brought us nearer to the time of the new moon in the middle of September.
About a week after our arrival, Wallace decided not to come with us. For months he had had a plan of his own, which recommended itselfneither to Tynsdale, Kent, nor me. He rather liked the idea of playing a lone hand, and his strong desire to see a little more of his friends in Ruhleben finally decided him. Tynsdale, Kent, and I “carried on.”
Our plans were simple enough, once we had got out of camp. First of all we intended to make for Berlin. From the capital a railway journey of about twenty hours (including a break of seven) was to take us to a small town in the northwestern part of Germany, sixty kilometers from the Dutch frontier as the crow flies. From there we intended to walk, the distance by road being rather more than seventy miles. One considerable river would have to be crossed, we did not quite know how, but we were all fairly powerful swimmers.
Tynsdale’s knowledge of German was not good enough to make it possible for him to travel on the railway without a companion to do the talking. Kent, his particular chum, was more than willing to take the risk of being Tynsdale’s courier, and proposed that he and his friend should always travel in one compartment, while I traveled alone in another. This arrangement was obviously unfair. Granted the wisdom of traveling in two parties, Kent would be taking the greater risk all the time. Wefinally agreed that Tynsdale was to be alternately in Kent’s and my charge.
We had maps and compasses. I had a water-bottle and a knapsack, and Kent obtained another knapsack in camp. A third and two water-bottles would have to be bought en route.
Ordinary wearing apparel, dictated by the railway journey, we had; also sufficient underclothes for cold weather, and two thick overcoats between us. Two oilsilks of mine would protect my friends on rainy days. I insisted on carrying a heavy naval oilskin, sufficiently large to make a decent ground-cloth for the three of us. If possible, we intended carrying food for ten days; cabin-biscuits, dripping, compressed beef, chocolate, cocoa-and-milk powder, sugar, and raisins.
A friend of mine, whom I have mentioned several times in this narrative, spoke to me one morning. “Take,” he began oracularly and with a twinkle in his eye,“a pound of real Scotch oatmeal, a pound of dripping, and a pound of sugar. Mix well. Roll out the dough until it is about three quarters of an inch thick, and bake it in a hot oven for four hours. The result will resemble shortbread. It is immensely sustaining. That it will crumble easily into a coarse powder need concern you only in so far as you will have to carry it suitably wrapped. Handkerchiefs will do. At a pinch, a cake per day, smaller than your hand, will keep you going indefinitely. And,” he added readily, “if you’ll give me the material, I’ll do them for you. But mind you chew ’em well when you eat ’em. It’ll take some time to masticate them properly. You must do that, to get the full benefit of the oatmeal.”
The square cakes, a little smaller than the palm of a man’s hand, which he handed to us in a parcel a few days after, were rather heavy for their size. We thought of carrying ten per man, reduced the biscuits to two per day, and discarded meat and cocoa altogether.
To carry all this during the railway journey, we had a cheap German portmanteau, which I had bought for this purpose in prison, and two small leather hand-bags. As to money, I was fairly well supplied. My companions got hold of smaller sums, and between us we had enough even for an emergency.
In the meantime we managed to be seen together as little as possible. Escaping was in the air. Two attempts from other barracks failed during the first fortnight. What was worse for us, three men from our barracks tookthe bit in their teeth and went one night. They were in cells again before dawn.
The camp authorities were wide awake and slowly strengthened the guards. More police dogs were reported to be arriving almost daily. (I doubt whether these reports were correct.) N.C.O.’s patrolled the sentries incessantly, or concealed themselves and watched places for hours where they thought fugitives would pass. As long as we knew beforehand where these places were this did not matter much, but it certainly increased my nervousness and impatience. I believe I was a sore trial to my friends with my incessant, irrational pleading for “something to be done.”
Kent and Tynsdale had made their first escape from camp by simply bribing the sentry at the gate and one other, and walking out. We had hoped to repeat this performance. Both these sentries were still in camp on guard-duty. Immediately after our arrival we sounded them as to their willingness to earn a few hundred marks easily. We did not do this ourselves, but made use of the good offices of a friend of Tynsdale’s, who had extensive dealings of a different nature with the two German soldiers and who could bring a good deal of pressure to bear on them. To appreciate the importance ofthe help he rendered us, it must be remembered that no soldier was allowed to talk with a prisoner. It would have been difficult for us to establish direct communication with the two soldiers. Not only was the punishment barracks least suited for anything like secret meetings, but its inmates were kept under more continuous surveillance than the rest of the interned.
The two soldiers were quite willing to do business, but maintained that the most they could do was to take an entirely passive part. The old, easy way was out of the question. The camp authorities were too suspicious of the existence of irregularities among the guards and of the danger of fresh attempts now that the “gang” was back in camp. “If we get certain posts, we won’t challenge during a specified time,” was what the soldiers gave us to understand.
The situation became worse when one of these soldiers was suddenly sent to the front. His manifold activities for the benefit of the prisoners—payment being made with English food—had at last got him into trouble. The other man, his associate in most of the deals, went about expecting the same fate and became quite intractable for a few days. As nothing happened to him, he gradually assumed his normal state of mind.
We intended to leave camp at the western corner. This was farther removed from the escapers’ barracks and nearest to Spandau. Our route was to lead us through part of Spandau.
A box in Barracks No. 8 was our headquarters. There our equipment was kept, and there we intended to dress.
The windows in the loft of Barracks No. 4 gave upon the enclosure of the Visitors’ Barracks. They were about two feet square and covered with wire netting which could easily be removed. As the loft of this barracks was divided into a large number of small cubicles, only the inhabitants of one cubicle needed to be taken into our confidence to any extent. They undertook with alacrity to have everything ready at a few hour’s notice, including the rope we should have to descend by. Once in the enclosure of the Visitors’ Barracks we should have only one wire fence to climb to get into the space between this and the outer wooden fence. The wire fences consisted of strong chicken-wire with barbed-wire strands along the top. They were about eight feet high. The wooden fence extended only a little way. The rest had been destroyed by a fire which had occurred in camp in June of that year. Along part of the waywe should be partially protected from the view of the sentries by the wooden fence and the structures about us.
There was a sunken path which was well lighted by electricity, and well guarded. The sentries walked on top of a bank and were able to see most of the space between the wire and the wooden fence. Post No. 2 was at the corner of the wooden fence, where the path met the road which ran along the front of the camp, and extended along the path for about seventy yards. Then came Post No. 3. The end of the wooden fence was nearer to the road than to the other end of Post No. 2.
The attempt was to be made when our man was on duty. He was to be deaf and blind. This would leave us free to concentrate our attention upon Post No. 3.
“Next Sunday!” Kent told me at length on a Friday. “Are you ready?”
“Good heavens, man, I’ve been ready these two weeks past!” Then I began to ruminate: “Sunday? That’s rather awkward!”
“It is, but do you think we ought to delay it on that account?”
“No, certainly not! Does Tynsdale realize the state of affairs?”
“Haven’t discussed them with him. If we two come to an agreement, he’ll be sure to take the same view.”
There were two objections to the day proposed—one because it was a Sunday, which made getting into Berlin rather risky, the other because it happened to be the 16th of September, which made getting away from the capital additionally difficult.
As to Sunday, food was scarce in Germany, especially in the capital, and illegal trading was rife. Every Sunday the inhabitants flocked into the country in multitudes to buy farm produce from the peasants direct, offering prices much higher than those fixed by law. To stop this, the police frequently detained passengers who were traveling into town on the trunk and local railways, in the Underground, and on trams, and inspected their baggage. A search of our bags and bundles would mean immediate arrest.
Secondly, at 2A.M.on the 17th of September—the Monday after the day we had chosen—summer time was to change to astronomical time. Consequently, trains all over the country would leave independently of the printed timetables during several hours before and after thehands of the clocks were moved back. Thus we could not be sure whether or not we could catch the train we had selected.
We came to the conclusion that we should have to risk it. But could we not minimize the first, the greater of the two risks, by reducing the amount of our luggage? “We’ll take only one of the small hand-bags, discard these and these articles, and carry food for six days only,” we decided.
The amount of food which we finally took with us worked out per man per day as follows: a bar of chocolate, two small cabin-biscuits with dripping, one cake of the famous “escapers’ shortbread,” two or three pieces of sugar, and half a dozen raisins. A tin of Horlick’s malted milk tablets was carried in reserve, and also a small flask of brandy.
On the 16th of September, 1917, our man was on guard at Post No. 2 from 7 till 9P.M.and again four hours later. He had instructions to expect something between 8 and 9 o’clock, or, failing that, during his next shift. The latter part of his instructions had been an afterthought. It was part and parcel of our plan to catch the train from the Lehrter Bahnhof in Berlin at 11:47P.M.It would have inconvenienced us very considerably if we had had to delay our departure. If everything went satisfactorily as far as the sentry was concerned, he was to receive his reward the following morning, no matter what happened to us.
That evening we were to be counted for the last time that season at 7 o’clock. The roll-call took place on the playing-field in the center of the race-course. This was outside the strongly protected camp proper, and it was beginning to be too dark, at the hour mentioned, to let theprisoners outside of any of the three wire fences surrounding it.
As soon as the ranks broke after passing back into the inner camp enclosure, we made our way casually and separately to Barracks No. 8. The box we entered was quite deserted. Two of its inhabitants could be seen talking near one of the entrances to the barracks, from where they could hail any chance visitor who might intend to look them up in their quarters. We dressed as rapidly as possible, yet were somewhat later in getting ready than we had expected to be. Our baggage had been taken to the selected cubicle in the loft of Barracks No. 4 during the afternoon by men not specially interested in our venture.
The cubicle of our friends was in darkness. The open window opposite the wood-framed pasteboard door admitted a faint rose-gray after-glow from the western sky. The confined space seemed crowded with dimly seen forms who whispered that all was ready.
Somewhat perversely, I thought, Tynsdale suddenly demanded that I accompany him “to have a look at the gate.” It was a double gate, plentifully protected by barbed wire, which gave entrance to the enclosure of the Visitors’ Barracks during the weekly half-hour when visitorswere allowed to see the prisoners. Without heeding my protest in the least he disappeared, and I had to follow after.
“I think we had better climb over the gate instead of dropping from the window,” was all he answered to my questions about his unexpected vagary. To my somewhat heated opposition against any alteration in our oft-and well-considered course of action he turned a deaf ear.
“I’m going to climb over here,” he announced truculently after a brief inspection, and almost immediately began to suit the action to his words. As little attention as he had paid to me, he paid less to some twenty or thirty men, mostly sailors, who were lounging near the spot. And then a very fine thing happened. As soon as these men saw what Tynsdale was up to, and without any perceptible hesitancy, they began walking carelessly about and around him, shielding his activities in this fashion more effectively than they could have done by any other means. As for myself, I hurried back to the loft.
“Come on,” I whispered breathlessly to Kent, “quick! Tynsdale is climbing over the gate. He’s stark, staring mad.” I grasped the rope, squeezed through the window, and was in such a hurry to get down that I let the rope slide through my fingers. Naturally a good deal ofskin stuck to the rope. I landed with a bump and had just time to roll out of the way as Kent’s two hundred pounds came crashing after me. We got up, both with smarting palms, while overcoats seemed to be raining from the window above. We managed to catch the two grips as they fell. During all this time we could hear Tynsdale making a terrific din among the wires. As soon as he had negotiated the first two obstacles he started to overcome the third fence, while Kent and I carried our paraphernalia to the foot of it. Then Kent went over the top, and I heaved the things over to Tynsdale, who stood ready to receive them. Kent was a heavy man, and he appeared to me more than a little awkward at that moment. How he ever managed to get over the fence without bringing the whole guard about our ears I cannot yet understand. My own performance probably sounded as bad to them.
As I let go my last hold, a stage-whisper from the window about fifteen yards away, reached our ears, “Drop, you fools, drop!” The men in the loft could see the sentries over the top of the intervening low wooden barracks. To judge from the suppressed excitement in their voicesone of the sentries must have been coming our way with much determination.
A patch of weeds on our left was the only cover near us. Grabbing the second portmanteau, which was still lying near the fence, I dived for it headlong and fell down beside Kent. Tynsdale, who had gone forward, beat a hasty retreat toward us and disappeared from view on Kent’s other side.
There we lay, out of breath, and dangerously near the lower end. I did not dare to raise my head even, and then after a long, long interval, the suppressed voices sounded again, straight from heaven: “All clear. Go ahead.”
We reached the end of the wooden fence. The enemy sentry was nowhere to be seen. A few quick, long steps carried us across the sunken path, into the potato-field and beyond the circle of the glaring electric lights. Kent was in the lead. Suddenly he dropped, and we followed his example just as the gate of the soldiers’ barracks, perhaps fifty yards on our left, clicked open. Then it slammed shut.
Potato-vines offer very good cover for a man in a prone position. It was dark, too. But, lying there, I had the uncomfortable feeling that some large and conspicuous part of my anatomymust be sticking out into plain view. I flattened myself as much as possible and vainly tried to decrease my bulk by general muscular contraction, but seemed to swell to ever greater dimensions. When I lifted my head after some time I saw two round gray-and-black objects above the potatoes. These were my companions. We had all given way to the same impulse at the same time. Nothing menacing was to be seen. Silently we got to our feet and shortly after gained the road.
From now on we were to play the parts of harmless German civilians, and consequently the need for silence had passed. “What made that gate open and slam?” I asked Kent. “I didn’t take the time to look, myself.”
“Two soldiers came out of the barracks and went toward camp.”
“Well, it’s all right, I suppose. You know this road. You lead.”
Kent turned and walked off, closely followed by Tynsdale and me. We had not taken many steps when I suddenly saw the end of a cigarette glow up in the dark ahead of us. Kent hesitated, stopped, and whispered to us.
“Oh, go on!” I answered irritably. “We can’t stop here.” Kent walked on and past two soldiers standing by the roadside. Theystepped forward, barring our way. I made as if to pass them, but they did not move aside to make room.
“What are you doing here?” one of them asked.
“What do you want?” I countered.
“We want to know who you are and where you come from.”
“What right have you to stop us in this fashion and ask us questions?”
“What do you mean by stopping anybody on a public road?” Kent’s voice amplified my question. I had not noticed that he had turned and joined our group. “This is a public road, you know.”
Tynsdale, who could not speak German very well, kept discreetly behind Kent and me and felt, no doubt, as if he were intruding.
“This isn’t an ordinary public road. There is an English prison camp down that way. Our instructions are to keep an eye on the traffic along here, what there is of it.” It was always the same man who was doing the talking. His statement sounded a little odd to me since neither he nor his companion was conspicuously armed, and neither one wore a helmet, two signs that they were not on duty.“Unless you have a passport or can establish your identity by some other means you will have to come with us, so we can make sure who you are.”
“No, I haven’t a passport,” I said slowly. “You don’t always require one just walking back and forth from your work.” I was trying to think of the right thing to do or to say, and particularly whether to risk about ten years in a penitentiary, if the only move which seemed open to us should fail.
“Oh, anything will do,” the soldier continued, “an envelop addressed to you, for example.”
I had made up my mind. “Right. I’ll give you something. Here’s my passport,” and I handed him a one-hundred-mark bill from my pocket-book.
The soldier looked at the bill, then at me. He poked his companion in the ribs with his elbow and showed it to him.
“See what that fellow calls a passport? Is that all right?”
“That’s all right,” said the other.
“Boy, boy! You are some guys, you are! Say, are you only going for a night in Berlin, or are you not coming back?”
“That is as it may be,” I told him.
“Say, what barracks are you fellows from?”
“You needn’t worry about that yet. You’ll hear all about that in the morning.”
“Oh, all right! But you beat it now, quick!” and they turned to go. But I had an idea of making further use of them.
“Say,” I called, “we want to get into Spandau. Is it likely that we shall be stopped? Are there many sentries about there? Which is the best road to take?”
“Plenty. Walk straight on and then turn to your left across the railway.” They went away.
When I looked about for the grip, which I had put down in order to get at my pocket-book, I found it gone. Kent had walked on. Tynsdale was still hovering close to me.
“Where’s that portmanteau?” I asked him excitedly. “I put it down here.”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “Didn’t see it at all. Where did you put it down?”
For a few seconds we looked underneath the bushes without success. “A man who will take a bribe will steal,” was a not unnatural conclusion to come to.
“Wait a minute,” I flung over my shoulder, and started in hot pursuit after the two soldiers. It was the larger of our two grips that was missing, containing the most important part of our equipment.
“What the hell do you want now?” is the waythey received me. Neither one of them was carrying anything.
“Oh, nothing,” I replied airily. Being unable to catch them in the act I dared not take the risk of accusing them. “I thought I had lost something,” I said.
The one who spoke muttered something threateningly. They were naturally very anxious to get rid of us now.
“Come along,” I said to Tynsdale, resignedly, when I had rejoined him. “We’ve got to make the best of it.” A little farther down the road Kent was waiting for us in the shadow of a bush, with both grips. He had picked mine up when he started to walk ahead and had caused me a few bad moments. Here, we brushed ourselves with our hands and handkerchiefs. A short walk through wide, deserted streets, most of them flanked by factory buildings, proved pleasantly unexciting.
It was still early in the evening, but the wide thoroughfare of Spandau, not far from the railway station, was deserted, except for a small group of people between two tall light-standards, who, like us, were waiting for a tram to Berlin. The arc-lights fizzed slightly now and again, and cast fleeting purple shadows over theisland, which served as a platform for the tram-cars.
We three stood a little apart, occasionally exchanging a word or two in German. We were hot with excitement and exertion. I was carrying the large portmanteau and an overcoat over my arm. Kent had the other bag, Tynsdale an oilsilk wrapped in his overcoat.
The first tram was crowded, but a second, immediately behind, was only moderately full. As prearranged, we got on the driver’s platform, the darkest part of the vehicle, and the least sought after.
For the first quarter of an hour of our ride, tram-lines and street ran parallel to, but on the other side of, the railway, which passed along the front of the camp. The eastern gate of Ruhleben camp was at one point not more than two hundred yards from a stopping-place, where officers and men of the camp-guard usually boarded the trams when going to town. Hardly half that distance away a sentry patrolled.