Up to the beginning of May, 1916, the prisoners had to heat their food on spirit stoves as best they might. Then fuel for these stoves became unobtainable, and the prison authorities turned one of the large cells on the top floor into a kitchen, installing a number of gas-rings at the private expense of the British colony. For a charge the equivalent of a cent, one could obtain a pint of boiling water or use one of the rings for half an hour.
As long as vegetables were obtainable, we fared very well. On our declaring that we could not take the prison food, the authorities issued potatoes to us by way of compensation. Duringthe winter of 1916-17 the scarcity of this vegetable became so great in the “Fatherland” that mangel-wurzels were generally used instead, of which we got our scanty share. It was a severe tax upon our culinary skill to disguise them sufficiently to make them eatable. Palatable they could not be made. I was cook at the time for a small mess and the sauces I manufactured with the help of curry-powder, pepper, salt, vinegar, and mustard, would haunt a professional cook to the end of his days.
I am afraid I have dwelt a long time upon this question of food. But then, it was the most important one for us. We never could escape it. Three times a day at least we were reminded of it by the necessity of preparing a meal. Our attitude toward food and eating was largely influenced by a feeling of insecurity. “How long will it be before our parcels stop arriving?” was a question ever present in our minds.
It must be admitted that we seldom lost our appetites, despite the fact that we could take little exercise. Officially, the only place to get this was the yard. Paved with granite blocks, it did not offer altogether ideal facilities. The sun reached the bottom of this well in one corner only during the three best months of the year. In fine, mild weather it was always so packedwith humanity—and that not of the cleanest kind—that the air was worse than in the cells. Except in rainy or cold weather it stagnated, and engendered a feeling of lassitude which often was the precursor of a headache.
Generally speaking, the prison was badly ventilated, although seemingly ample provision had been made for a change of air in the building. At certain hours of the day smells of the worst kind pervaded the corridors. In the broken light of the evening, the pall of fetid and evil air surrounding the whole place became visible to any one looking from an upper window across the yard toward the bright western sky. In spite of all, however, Swedish drill at night, occasional fierce romps with our friends, or a few rounds with the gloves in a space which permitted only a stand-up ding-dong way of sparring, kept us in tolerable health.
We were fortunate in having a considerable number of private books. In addition to these, the Ruhleben camp library sent us consignments which we returned for others. From serious and instructive books to the lightest kind of literature, we were plentifully supplied with reading matter.
Sometimes we managed to get hold of an English newspaper. They were on sale in Berlin but strictly forbidden to us prisoners. The reason for this prohibition has always been to me one of the inexplicable vagaries of the German mind. The “Daily Telegraph” and the “Daily Mail” were read on the sly, mostly after lock-up time, by one after the other, until they fell to pieces.
The royal game of chess was a great consolation. It was played to excess, often resulting in staleness.
The first two escapers to arrive after me were C. and L., a happy combination of Scotland and Ulster. They had gotten away from camp in a very adventurous fashion, to be caught three days later by an unfortunate combination of love and flowers.
At dawn, one morning, they had found excellent cover in a clump of lilac bushes growing close to an unfrequented road. In the course of the morning a German soldier, fully armed, was passing their hiding-place, when he caught sight of the lilacs in bloom. Some flaxen-haired maiden must have been in his thoughts, for he started to gather a bunch of them. Only the best flowers would do, of course, but they were inside the thicket, away from the chance passerby. With his eyes lifted in search of the blooms,the soldier did not see the two fugitives until he trod on them. Before they had time to do anything, he had them covered with his rifle.
When C. and L. came out of “solitary,” they and Wallace and I soon became good friends. Naturally, we discussed the chances of another attempt to escape from prison. If possible, we would make that attempt together. For this purpose it would be desirable to be in one cell.
There were four big cells on each landing at the three corners of the courtyard. They were by far the most desirable, with good company to share them with you. They had a water-tap and a private lavatory, and their cubic capacity per man was considerably greater than that of the single cells. When one of these on the fourth floor became temporarily empty at the beginning of July, the four of us asked for and obtained permission to take it.
We all felt a little doubtful about the experiment at first, but it turned out magnificently; and for all purposes we were a very strong combination.
As far as I was concerned, the happiest time of the whole of my three years as a prisoner of war was spent in that cell. I slept well again, and I lost the restless feeling which had obsessed me while in a cell by myself, for I hadgone through a time of great spiritual loneliness before C. and L. arrived. Now I simply basked and expanded in this circle of congenial companionship. I seldom cared to leave the cell, and almost ceased visiting my other friends in theirs.
Generally speaking, the internment in the Stadtvogtei was no worse than the internment in Ruhleben camp. The latter was healthier, and there were ever so many more distractions, with opportunities for sport and serious work. The camp could be almost pleasant in summer, but it was terrible in wet or cold weather. The prison was always the same, neither hot nor cold. Climatic conditions, the changes of the seasons, did not affect us at all. Ruhleben was one of the dirtiest places in the world; Stadtvogtei was always clean and dry.
We worked hard, nevertheless, to bring about our return to Ruhleben. Whether any of us preferred the life in camp or that in prison, on one point we were all agreed: the camp was much easier to escape from.
So we sent periodical petitions to the Kommandantur in Berlin for transfer to Ruhleben, and on the rare occasions when a representativefrom the American Embassy or, later on, from the Dutch Legation, paid us an unexpected visit we never failed to complain bitterly about the injustice of being kept in prison. But these complaints did not avail. It was probably due to the comparative charm of the life in a big cell that no actual attempt was made by us four between June and October, 1916. Discussions of ways and means were frequent, of course, in secret meetings throughout the house. For a long time the plans under consideration always involved the destruction of iron bars in front of our windows and the erection of a light scaffolding made from table boards and legs. This scaffolding was to help us gain the roof, and less perilously than the method favored by our friend Wallace. But Wallace was a crag-climber in civil life. We understood perfectly that his hobby had affected his brain and would not allow him to climb to any high point unless he could, by stealth or cunning, do it in the most dangerous way. Under pressure, however, he was still sane enough to relinquish his idea—for this once. We applied the pressure. Once on the flat roof of our portion of the prison we were to traverse it for some distance, and then drop down the face of a blank wall, sixtyfeet high, by means of a rope we had plaited from strings saved from our parcels. I doubt whether the rope was quite long enough.
We finally hit upon another plan. Its attractions were very tempting in comparison with the first one, and we tried to put it into execution.
If we could get out of our cell at night and open a window on the first floor, we could easily drop into the street. As I have mentioned in an earlier chapter, the windows of the prison overlooking the street were not barred on the outside except on the ground floor. These were made impassable by iron gratings on the inside which opened like a door, and were unlocked by the same key that fitted the locks of our cell doors. The windows themselves were opened by a hollow square key. A pair of small strong pliers would do as well.
The corridors were almost incessantly patrolled at night. The necessity of trying to dodge the patrol would be not only disturbing but somewhat difficult.
Next the stairs, on each landing, was a room used for various purposes. These rooms were not patrolled. The one on the first floor which was naturally the most attractive to us was labeled “CLERK.” This too had the samelock as the cell doors. In there we should be quite undisturbed while attending strictly to duty.
We made a key out of a piece of thick wire and the tin lid of a priceless beer-glass. The lid was beautifully and appropriately engraved. So was the glass, which had a considerable sentimental value. Wallace, the rightful owner, sacrificed the lid on the altar of the common weal. With the wire as a core we cast the key in a plaster-of-Paris mold and filed it to fit. C. filed it. He would not let anybody else touch it. He now holds it as his most treasured souvenir of the war.
It was not at all difficult to obtain the plaster of Paris for the mold. The making of the key was an extremely simple affair altogether, though it sounds extremely romantic.
The opening of the cell door was an outside job, for the lock was quite inaccessible from the inside with any of the instruments we possessed. One of us had to get himself locked out by mistake, hide somewhere in the prison, and release the others at the proper time. Wallace volunteered to do this. He got the job.
On the top floor of the building, in a sort of blind corner, was the prison library. It was separated from the rest of the corridor by awood-and-glass partition. Above its door was an opening large enough to offer an easy passage for Wallace’s small but athletic frame. As the library would hardly be used after lock-up, Wallace would be more than reasonably safe there during his vigil.
We intended to walk from Berlin to the Baltic Sea and make the passage to the nearest Danish island in any kind of craft we could dishonestly come by.
“All there?” asked the N.C.O. in charge of our corridor at seven o’clock of the evening fixed for the new venture.
C. and I were sitting opposite each other at chess. L. was bending with knitted brows over another chess board. The stool opposite him was empty.
“Yes,” I answered absently, without lifting my eyes from the board.
“Where’s Ellison?” using Wallace’s surname.
I looked up and made a motion toward the privy our cell boasted.
“All right.Gute Nacht.”
“Good night, Herr Unterofficier!”
The door swung closed and the bolt shot home.L. continued playing chess with himself, still with that concentrated look of his. C. was mean enough to take an unfair advantage of my inattention and declared “mate” after ten or twelve more moves.
Then we talked disjointedly with long pauses after each remark. “Wace must have managed all right.” “Seems so.” “Too early to do anything yet.” “Oh, I don’t know. If they come in here again to-night, the game will be up anyway.” “Not necessarily; we might have luck.” “We certainly need it for the next ten days or so.” “Oh,” with the long yawn of nervousness, “let’s eat.” “All right, let’s eat.” We ate. Then we started dressing. Double sets of underwear in my case, and also collar and tie. I had almost finished, though my two friends still looked pretty much as usual, when we heard footsteps approach our door and the rattle of the key in the lock. With a white stiff collar around my neck, albeit without coat or waistcoat, I took a flying leap toward the door and into such a position that the whole of my person except my face would be concealed by one of our two-storied bed structures. It was our N.C.O. who appeared through the opening door. Without coming farther than half a stepinto the cell he handed me, who was nearest to him, a bundle of letters from “Blighty” and disappeared again.
We completed our preparations and then lay down on our bunks in order to get as much sleep as possible while there was a chance. We did not get much during the next five hours. We were under the nervous stress of having to wait for somebody else to act. The hours seemed to be of Jupiterian size. Occasionally one of us would turn over and mutter something, mostly commenting upon the situation we were in, expressing his views briefly and forcibly. Now and then I lost consciousness in brief spells of slumber. I think our emotions were not very different from those experienced by men who are waiting for the zero hour to go over the top. As my brief fighting experience was in the artillery, I cannot speak with authority.
At two o’clock, with a tremendous noise and without warning, a key turned in the lock and Wallace came into the room in his stocking-feet, carefully fastening the door on the inside by a little wooden latch. The latch was a strictly unofficial attachment of our own making.
We were up and around him before he had done with the door. “No use. We’re up against it,” he whispered.
We were not absolutely unprepared for this. We had been alarmed at something during the afternoon of that day. I forget now precisely what it was. It had been somewhat intangible. Yet it had puzzled us a good deal. As Wallace had needed some assistance in getting into the library, we had been forced to take one or two of our comrades into the secret. We felt, of course, as sure of their trustworthiness as we were of our own, but it is always possible to make a mistake.
“I’m certain they have a suspicion that something is afoot,” Wallace explained, “and are merely lying low in order to catch us in the act. They may not know who it is. When I came out of the library I passed X.’s cell. The door was a quarter open. There was a light inside and they were talking. That pig Doran [one of the N.C.O.’s] was in there. I then sneaked down to the clerk’s room in order to open the door. I couldn’t. Has none of you noticed that there is a countersunk screw through the bolt? Has any one of you ever seen that door used? Now, what are we to do?”
We decided not to go that night. We were unanimous. Briefly, Wallace told us the rest of his adventures while we crept between our blankets. I personally felt of a sudden very,very tired. But before I fell asleep I reasoned with mixed feelings that we might have pushed the attempt a little further.
We were up at an unusually early hour in order to remove all traces of our fell intent. We unpacked the two small grips we had wanted to take with us and put our extra clothes away. The cell, to appear as usual, required general tidying up.
Hoch, our N.C.O., thrust a startled face in upon us when he came to unlock the door at seven o’clock. As usual, L., wrapped in blankets up to his chin and over his ears, was placidly puffing clouds of smoke toward the ceiling. As usual, C. and I were performing our morning ablutions in front of the sink. As usual, Wallace was watching us sleepily from his elevated bunk next the door, waiting for his turn, and hoping that it might be long in coming.
Hoch, after his first swift survey while still in the corridor, had quickly advanced to the center of the room and looked immensely relieved when he had counted his chickens.
“Why, your door was unlocked!” he exclaimed. Wallace nodded sleepily.
“Yes, one of your fellows came in and disturbed us at six o’clock.”
“Who was it?”
“Don’t know. We were asleep and he woke us up. Very rude of him. He just looked in and walked away, and forgot to lock the door.”
Hoch laughed loud and long, like a man who has had a bad jolt and finds himself unhurt. He was an Alsatian and as such was always more or less suspected of disloyalty. In order to shield him as much as possible we had chosen a night when he would not be on duty, but even so, he would have found himself in difficulties had we got away.
Friend Hoch was a smart man, however. Nothing further was said about the open door, but he didn’t believe us; of that I’m certain. Nothing had happened, so he let sleeping dogs lie, but he made up his mind that nothing should happen. He was uncomfortably vigilant from then on. He never locked up, after that, until he had made sure that we were all in our cell.
The failure of our attempt had a stimulating effect upon us. Wallace, always ready to do anything at any time and under any circumstances, the more romantic and adventurous the better, nosed around on his own hook. C. and L. said little, but would have required no persuasion to do things which a person like me would have called foolhardy. I, myself, had been only too well aware of the many flaws in our previous plan to take its failure to heart. The biggest of these flaws was our intended procedure after we had broken prison. In the absence of a good opening I cogitated mainly upon the best way of action, once the start lay behind us. I will give here some of my reflections, because they shed light upon our subsequent proceedings.
To escape from the prison, a small amount of help from outside was more than desirable. To break out was not impossible; to do so carrying the necessary food and equipmentmeant minimizing our chances very considerably, and they were slender indeed, at the best. Once outside, what were we to do? Was it possible to walk through the streets of Berlin at night carrying bundles and hand-bags? It must be remembered that crime was rife in Germany, and the police as inquisitive as monkeys. Could one go to a hotel and wait there for an early train on which to get away? To walk out of the capital appeared impossible, for we had heard that a considerable number of military police, with power to stop anybody, were always about, looking for deserters and watching the roads to the country. None of us knew a friendly soul in Germany of whom we could ask assistance, nor had we a knowledge of the capital and its seamy side, which would have enabled us to disappear in the under-world of criminals and to purchase assistance there.
In August, two Englishmen, who had escaped from Ruhleben and who had managed to live in different towns of Germany for several weeks, had joined our band of prisoners. They had had false passports, an absolute knowledge of the German language, and had been caught only through their own carelessness. Both were awaiting trial on a charge of traveling with false papers, and on one othercount. G., a tall, distinguished-looking man with a drawling voice and stately manners, had nothing to lose and everything to gain by another attempt. C. was approaching his forty-fifth birthday, and hoped for an exchange.
In September, S., another man from Ruhleben, had turned up. He said he was an escaper, but I had my doubts. I don’t think he was British, even technically speaking, although the Germans considered him so. He was daring and clever, however, and had friends in Berlin, and there was no doubting his sincerity when he swore that he would not stay in the Stadtvogtei at the pleasure of the Germans, even if an attempt to escape cost him his life.
G. and S. chummed up with each other. A German with an English name, of doubtful calling in civil life but of powerful physique, joined them. Toward the end of October, Wallace found out definitely that something was afoot, S. being the leading spirit.
Without conceit I believe I can say that my friends and I were regarded by all who knew us as “dead safe.” Nothing on earth, not excepting faithlessness on the part of those we trusted, or had to trust, would have made us squeal. We must naturally have appeared an easy prey for any unscrupulous man, since hewould have nothing to fear. Private vengeance would have been far too costly for us.
This being so, Wallace’s questions received ready answers. S. was about to obtain a key for the main gate of the prison. A blank was being filed right then by one of his friends outside, to an approximate fit, according to a rough drawing he (S.) had made after a chance inspection of the key in the hands of the gatekeeper. When the rough key was delivered he would have to file it to a working fit. This done he and his party would wait for an opportune moment on a dark evening and walk out of the prison by the front door.
The scheme was an excellent one, as far as it went, and S. had no objections to our joining his party. On the contrary, he seemed to my liking far too pleased. Why should he receive us with open arms, when it was patent that the danger of discovery increased with numbers? Without promising definitely to join his party we agreed to help him in fitting his key and getting away. Almost three weeks went by before everything was ready, and this brought us into the middle of November.
This was another serious drawback. For a long tramp the weather was decidedly too cold. We could not hope to be able to take along evenan inadequate equipment. Under these circumstances the hardships would be such as to make sleeping in the open for a week, or a fortnight, impossible. The use of the railway would be imperative, which was against C. and L.’s chances. Neither of them spoke a word of German, and both were so striking in appearance as to make their arrest almost a foregone conclusion. C. was about six feet tall, broad out of proportion, and the picture of well-nourished health; while L., with black hair, black bushy eyebrows on overhanging bone ridges, a mustache the like of which had never been seen in Germany, and a typical seaman’s roll, could have passed about as well for a full-blooded Chinaman as for a son of the “Fatherland.” A word from Wallace or me would make them withdraw, but that word we could not easily bring ourselves to speak.
Wallace, on the other hand, did his utmost to convince me that we must not let this opportunity slip by. The other conspirators would certainly go, and their escape would close this one avenue forever.
“If you stay behind, I’ll go with the others.” Another quandary. He would not get through, I felt sure, for he proposed to throw in his lot with S., looking to him for help, which he wouldget only as long as it suited S. and no longer. As we had no maps, and Wallace on his first escape had walked only a few miles, and those with a guide, our only chance lay in striking my old route. On this second trip we might cover the distance in two nights, which meant spending only one day in hiding. My knowledge of the disposition of sentries along that stretch of frontier might possibly get us across, even under adverse circumstances.
I had never felt so uncomfortable in my life as I felt when I had to explain to C. and L., that it appeared impossible to take them along with us, and my feeling of utter shamefacedness was only intensified by their immediate and good-humored withdrawal.
To take anything with us beyond what we could put in our pockets was not to be thought of. Could we send out a parcel or two and have them deposited at a station cloak-room? Neither Wallace nor I could. We had never sent parcels from the prison. S.? Yes. He was eternally sending them away. He proffered his services, which were accepted. A parcel was handed over to him to be deposited at a certain station, the cloak-room ticket to be handed to us. When the ticket came—there was only one—he showed it to me, but explained that he could not give it up, as some of his own luggage was booked on it. He would go with us for our parcel, or get it for us in another way. We were to meet him in Berlin anyhow, for we had accepted his offer to procure us quarters where we could stay a day or two in safety. His further assistance, which was to make our “getting through” a moral certainty, I had declined both for Wallace and myself.
On the morning of the 16th of November I said I would not go. At four o’clock I said I would, and meant it. Between five and six we went.
It was already dark at this time. On the ground floor and next to the stairs was the office of the prison. From its door one had an unobstructed view of the whole length of the corridor and of that part of the gateway connecting the street with the yard, nearest to the front gate. Fortunately the door was always kept shut at this time of the year on account of the cold.
The gatekeeper had his office in one of the cells off the corridor. He could not see the gateway without leaving the cell. The gateway was at right angles with the corridor, andnot very well lighted. Two steps led down to its level. In passing from the corridor into the yard the front door was to the immediate right of the steps.
At this period of our imprisonment the prisoners had access to the yard at any moment during recreation time. It was cleared for the day at half-past six o’clock. Wallace and I went there at the appointed time—five o’clock—wearing our overcoats, as usual, but our best clothes underneath. The others were already there.
A sixth man had been admitted to the party, a German stockbroker. This upset Wallace so much that the slightest attempt at persuasion on my part would have made him give up the venture altogether. But now that I had made up my mind I rather urged him on.
That morning an N.C.O. had come on duty at the gate who some months before had insisted upon being armed while on duty, and who had declared his intention of preventing any one from leaving the building alive, if an attempt should be made. Since he was bound to discover the open gate almost at once, we had a fair chance of getting hurt, which greatly perturbed G.
At length the moment of action came. S., followed by the rest of the conspirators, made as if to return to his cell. Once inside, he went straight to the front gate, while the powerful German put his back against the gate we had just passed through, to prevent anybody from following us. Wallace and I walked up the steps into the corridor and stood there, chatting, to screen S. while he unlocked the door. He failed in his first attempt. The second time he was successful.
We slipped through the door and found ourselves in the deserted street in front of the prison. The others, contrary to agreement, broke into a run and disappeared around a corner on the left. Wallace and I walked leisurely until we turned underneath a railroad bridge to the right.
We felt somewhat relieved when we had turned the corner. During the walk up the street we had expected every moment to hear the crackle of automatics beginning behind us. It is one thing to face a gun; it is another to expect to be shot in the back.
We were to meet S. and G. at a certain café close to the railway station where our parcel had been deposited, but it took us a long time to get there, as we did not know our way about Berlin, and were unable to hire a taxi ordroshky. They had almost given up hope when we arrived.
We sat down at their table in a well-lighted, large room. Everybody seemed at ease except me. I felt nervous, but tried to hide it. During the next half-hour S. left us several times to telephone, as he said, to the house where Wallace and I were to stay. Each time he came back saying he could not get the connection.
“Let us go and get our luggage, then,” I suggested.
“Didn’t you say you wanted to buy some things?” S. queried.
“Yes; we want to see whether we can get a couple of oilsilks, two water-bottles, a portmanteau, and, if possible, a couple of sleeping-bags.”
“You’d better hurry up, then. The shops will be open only for another hour. We’ll meet you at Café —— at ten o’clock. In the meantime I’ll arrange for your lodgings.”
I was doubtful, but we had trusted him so far; it seemed foolish and impolitic to show suspicion now. Moreover, to have to carry the parcel would be a nuisance if not a danger. So we agreed and left them.
In a big department-store we bought the articles mentioned. The sleeping-bags were thin, by no means waterproof and almost useless, but better than nothing. Clothed as we were, in ordinary town clothes only, I was much concerned to get what extra protection from the cold we could.
While I was completing this purchase, a shop-walker addressed me and followed up his introductory remarks with a reference to the latest air raid on London and a pious wish as to the fate of the d——d English. I heartily endorsed his sentiments, while Wallace, with dancing eyes, grinned facetiously at me. Just at closing time we left the store and took the hand-bag to the station cloak-room.
Walking about the streets to wile away the time until ten o’clock, we met S. and G. carrying their luggage. “Hullo, what the ——! It’s all right, boys; be at the place at ten.”
We were there at half-past nine. We were still there at eleven. Nobody came. Several times I made the round of the café, even though we sat close to the only entrance and could not miss them if they came. At half-past eleven we left, but returned in twenty minutes. Then we gave up hope.
The night was bitterly cold. The extraordinarily mild weather of the last weeks had changed at the most inopportune moment. A few hard flakes of snow were now and again driven into our faces by a searching wind. We were without shelter, without food for the walking part of our enterprise, without adequate clothes. In Wallace’s case a year and a half, in mine seven months, of prison life had not improved the condition of our health. We were decidedly too soft to stand a number of days of cold weather without at least some fatty nourishment.
I pictured us sleeping in ordinary townish winter clothes on a freezing day, perhaps with snow on the ground, in thin sleeping-bags consisting of an outer cover of canvas and a light lining of shoddy. We should be wet through in half an hour. The moisture would freeze on our garments as the generation of body heat, already at a low ebb for want of food, decreased. Then, we would go to sleep.
I imagined us trying to slip through between two sentries, five hundred yards apart, with patrols in between, and over bare fields, while the snow-light gave tolerable vision up to a mile.
I was so disheartened that I proposed that we should walk to the prison and give ourselves up. We could plead that we had gone away for a lark. Our punishment would almost certainly be light. There had been precedents which warranted this view. It was not impossible that the German authorities might come to the conclusion that one escape apiece had been enough for us. In this way we might get another chance under more favorable circumstances. If we persisted now, we had not one in ten thousand, and we firmly believed that after capture we should be sent to a penitentiary prison and guarded beyond hope of another attempt.
With splendid pluck and determination Wallace talked me round. No, he was not going to do anything of the sort. Let them catch him, if they could, but no voluntary surrender for him. I could do as I liked, but we might find it easier than we thought.
“All right! Let’s go to a hotel!”
“That isn’t safe. We must try to get somewhere else.”
I intended to have my way now.“No fear! From what S. told us, it is safe enough. We both speak German pretty well. If we leave the place before eight o’clock we’ll be all right. Look at C. and G.! They never had to show their passports at the hotels. This way to the station for our luggage! Say, do you know a small hotel hereabouts?”
“Yes, there is the ——. I stopped there once. But it is a good long way from here.”
“Let’s try it, anyway.”
I had pocketed the luggage-ticket. At the station I could not find it. An agitated search through my pockets failed to reveal the square thin paper. We were standing in front of the cloak-room, and I was still hunting through my pockets when a man approached us.
I had caught sight of him out of the corner of my eye while he was still some yards away. If ever there was a detective in plain clothes, he was one. Deliberately I half turned my back toward him. He stepped up close to my shoulder and peered over it, listening to what we were saying. I dared not take any notice. Wallace’s eyes, boring for a moment into mine while he lolled against a counter, are still clear before me.
A few months earlier I had received an answer to one of our petitions, in a fine officialenvelop with a huge blue seal on the back. With an indefinite idea that the seal might be used as an effective camouflage, I had kept the envelop by me. I drew out my pocket-book, and while searching through it, held the back of the envelop conveniently exposed to the eyes of the detective.
“I must have left it at the hotel. Let’s go there and send for the luggage,” I said aloud in German. The detective turned away. So did we.
A single cab stood in front of the station. I turned toward the station police-office to get the brass disk, but was met half-way by the policeman, who had been watching us. He handed it to me without a word.
The hotel at which we wished to stay was full. After some palaver cabby took us to one near by, where we got a room. It was a very small place. The night-porter seemed to be the only servant on duty. He appeared somewhat suspicious, but said nothing about it.
The double-bedded room we were shown into looked very nice. We thought it ridiculously luxurious, but Wallace went to bed at once. It was about one o’clock. While undressing I found the luggage-ticket in an inner waistcoat pocket.
I had still about two hours’ work ahead of me, for I had to map out the route for the following day. I was quite convinced that Berlin was too hot for us. We had not yet discussed our further plans, but had bought a time-table at the station.
Finally, having considered a number of alternative routes, I selected a slow train, which was to leave the Zoölogical Garden Station, where our luggage was, at 10:24A.M.for Hanover, and was due to arrive some time after 6P.M.I went to sleep, dead tired, at about 2:45.
We got our knock and hot water at 6:30, as ordered. Having dressed, we went into the breakfast-room. A nice, comfortable-looking body presided there; I believe she was the proprietress. We had foreseen the formality of the visitors’ book, and had our names and addresses pat. The landlady peered at them, then at us. I had to negotiate with her for our breakfast, for we had no bread-cards and wanted something to eat.
“You are foreigners, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Good gracious, no! Why do you think so?”
“I thought so from your accent.”
“We’re not from this part of Germany, as you can see by the visitors’ book.” I was goingto add that we had lived a long time abroad, etc., but, if I recollect rightly, I did not. I don’t believe it safe to volunteer information, unless one is telling the truth.
“That’s quite all right, then. We have to be so careful about strangers! Just sign these emergency slips for your bread-cards. Thank you, sir.”
During a very sketchy breakfast consisting of coffee, rolls, and butter, a young lieutenant passed down the room, and with a bright smile saluted us civilly. Wallace and I looked at each other, grinning covertly. What a lark! If he knew!
At a quarter to eight we left the hotel and slowly made our way toward the station. Having plenty of time, we entered a café to have a chat and another breakfast, even more sketchy than the first. We were the only guests in the place, and had to wait for the milk. Here I outlined my plans for the day. At last Wallace assented.
“Come along, then,” I said, rising. “Let’s see what we can buy in the way of food. Chocolate first.”
In a high-class confectioner’s we were told that chocolate was out of the question, butchocolateswe could have.
“What price?”
“Nine marks [$1.75] a pound!”
We could not afford more than two pounds, because the things we had bought the night before had made a big hole in our joint capital of $125.00—in German money, of course. Next we obtained two small tins of sardines at $1.10 each. Our efforts to buy something in the way of meat or fat were not crowned with success.
At the station, however, things went well, in spite of my extreme agitation when buying the tickets.
Within the first half-hour we passed Ruhleben camp, and had a glimpse of the grand stands, the barracks, and the enclosure, which we knew so intimately from the inside.
At about 12:30 the train stopped for over an hour at Stendal. The station restaurant supplied us with a fairly ample fish meal, beer, and coffee. Another long stop occurred later on.
During the journey we passed a considerable number of prisoners’ camps. They seemed as a rule to be situated close to a railway line, within easy distance from a small station. The aspect of the huddled hutments, the wire fences around them with watch-towers at the corners, and the sentries on guard, was indescribably forlorn. At one station at which we stopped a transportof Russian prisoners entrained under a guard of ancient territorials.
Wallace was in high spirits all the time. I was, on the contrary, moody, irritable, and worried. My feelings were in complete accord with the weather.
A lowering gray wrack of clouds was being torn and driven by a whistling wind above the naked fields and copses. Occasionally showers of hard snowflakes could be heard rattling on the glass of the carriage windows. Our compartment was over-heated, as trains always are in Germany. Yet, I shivered occasionally, as I looked out of the window, while trying to construct a small optimistic raft to cling to in a sea of despondency. I made a bad companion that journey.
Hanover was reached on time, and the luggage temporarily disposed of in the cloak-room. The town greeted us with a brief but thick blizzard—about the worst thing that could happen to us short of arrest. Confronted with it, my spirits improved.
“Snow, or no snow, we’ll make the best attempt we can at the frontier,” I whispered.
“Just what I think,” Wallace agreed heartily.
His boots did not fit him well, and I urged him to buy bigger ones. A suitable pair, shown tous in a shop, cost $15.00, too much for our declining purse. When Wallace looked up at me from his chair, mutely shaking his head, I could not insist on the expenditure.
After that we walked about the streets, looking for a likely hotel. We decided on a dirty fifth-rate one, to which we resolved to return later, and then wandered back to the brighter, fashionable part of the town. We had dinner in a big restaurant. The warmth, the lights, the show of gaiety around us, and an ample but meatless meal accompanied by a glass or two of decent lager, made me feel subduedly optimistic. Wallace was nearly jumping out of his skin withjoie de vivre.
At ten o’clock we went to our hotel. It was unnecessarily low-class. We did not seem to fit into the scheme of things there, and consequently were regarded with half-concealed suspicion. Nevertheless, no questions were asked. Our room was cheerless and cold. We waited until our luggage was brought; then Wallace crept into bed, while I sat in my overcoat near the guttering candle, looking up trains.
I intended to get to Haltern the following evening. The main railway lines lay across our route, and several changes were necessary, there being no direct trains over the branch lines wehad to use. My task proved a difficult one. Few trains were running in Germany at that time. The fast corridor expresses, which we could have taken over comparatively small stretches, had to be carefully avoided, for we knew now of the existence of passport controls on them. The slow trains did not usually connect. After much comparing, testing, and retesting, I was fairly satisfied at last.
I had resolved not to leave Hanover from the main station. Detectives might be watching for us there. By using electric trams we could get to Hainholz, a village near Hanover, and there pick up our train. At about 12:30 we should be at Minden. A two-hours’ wait there, and a journey of about one and a half hours would take us to Osnabruck by about 5P.M.Forty minutes later a non-corridor express would carry us to Haltern, where we should arrive at 7:30.
I was nearly beat when I tumbled into bed at two o’clock, envying Wallace, whose regular breathing had filled the room for hours past.
Bang, bang, bang! bang, bang, bang!
“All ri—” I began.
“Danke schön, danke![Thank you],” shrieked Wallace, to drown my voice.
I opened my eyes foolishly, to a dark room. A match spluttered, the wick caught, and Wallace’s eyes glittered reproachfully into mine from behind his glasses. “I say, do you know what you said?” This in German.
“Well, I—”
“Shshsh, you chump,Deutsch!”
“We’d like breakfast, please!” This to a youth in the bar-room.
“Have you got your bread-cards?”
“No. We’re travelers; we’ll sign travelers’ slips.”
“Nothing doing. You can have a cup of coffee.”
“Look here, we got bread at a restaurant last night without them. Why can’t you give us some?”
At this suggestion the uncivil youth lost his temper completely, and we were fain to content ourselves with a cup of German coffee-substitute.
Before eight o’clock we were out of the place. Our luggage was again in the cloak-room of the main station. A long walk got rid of most of the time before us. At ten we tried to buy some nuts. The oil they contained would supply our bodies with fuel; but none were to be had.
Having got our luggage, we took a tram to Hainholz, where we arrived far too early. The cloak-room and ticket-office of the small station were closed. Some minutes after eleven the train left. It was a pleasant change to get into the hot carriage after the cold station.
At 12:30 we arrived at Minden. The huge dark waiting-room seemed full of intangible menaces. We spent an exceedingly uncomfortable time there, but were recompensed by an excellent meal. A considerable piece of veal, with plenty of vegetables, blunted our fears and appeased our ravenous hunger.
At the station where next we had to change we found our train waiting on a siding, and at 7:30P.M.we arrived in Haltern.
The weather had been much the same as on the preceding day, a little colder, a little more snow. With the prospect of getting within walking-distance of Holland, my spirits were not so depressed. It is such a bonny feeling to get on “your own feet,” instead of having to wait in a railway carriage or station, expecting to feel a hand on your shoulder, and hear a voice asking you for your papers!
Until we got out into the open country I was to walk in front, carrying the portmanteau, which was a little too bulky a load for a man of smaller stature than mine. Wallace was to follow twenty or thirty paces in the rear, but not to lose sight of me.
Into the town and the market-place it was plain sailing. Without looking at the sign “To Wesel,” the existence of which I had forgotten, I turned into the right lane, recognizing it from its general aspect. Nevertheless, the darkness made the ground which I had traversed in daylight look different.
At the cross-roads a long procession of street lamps disappeared down the street which ought to have been the right one. On my first escape I had failed to notice these standards on what then looked like a country road. They are not very conspicuous in daylight. I had had my eyes fixed upon the landscape generally, rather than upon details close to me, which had nomeaning for me at that time. Furthermore, I had very soon taken a path on the left.
For the moment I was confused, and, not being able to take bearings in the dark, I walked ahead, up a lane, pondering the situation. Here were no lights, which was inviting. A woman passed me, and a moment after Wallace closed up rapidly.
“Did you see that woman?” he asked. “She turned and looked after you. She’ll inform the police. We’ve got to get off the road!”
“All right! It’s dark enough for anything. There is no danger. Just let’s get off the road and see whether anything happens.”
We waited some time, but nothing occurred. Nothing could, as a matter of fact, for we didn’t wait long enough.
“I can’t recognize this road,” I complained. “The darkness makes everything look different. We’re too far east. That road with the lamps along it is the right one, after all.”
“You’re absolutely wrong,” came the quite unexpected opposition from Wallace. “We’re too far west.”
I had only been soliloquizing aloud, to give Wallace a chance of understanding every step we took.
“How can you know that?”
“I saw a sign, farther back, ‘To Wesel.’ That means we are too far west.”
“Are you sure you saw the sign, and did we pass along the road in its direction?”
“Absolutely certain!”
“I can’t understand it at all. We simply can’t be too far west!” Wallace had seen the sign in the market-place. This being the starting-point, his conclusion was not warranted. But he could not know that. I, on the other hand, was sufficiently doubtful on account of the lamp standards, and Wallace’s opposition turned the scales.
“All right,” I conceded ungraciously, for I am rather touchy about my woodcraft, “if you’re so sure of it, we’ll walk straight north. In that way we’ll come across the road we are looking for, if you’re right. If not, we can turn back. Now we’ll find a place to pack our knapsacks and get rid of this beastly bag.”
We left the road definitely now, close to a church which stood dark and lonely among open fields. We were still near Haltern, but the night increased the distances.
A drop of rain struck my face. Delighted, I turned to Wallace, who was behind me:“I say, I believe it’s coming on to rain. It would be fine if the weather got mild again!”
Behind a wall, which enclosed a churchyard, we stopped to get ready for the road. We packed our knapsacks as best we could in complete darkness, for our only flash-lamp refused to act. While we were doing so, it really began to rain, and we slipped into our oilsilks. Then we started out across-country, due north, walking by compass.
The going was terrible. The ground was frozen hard and the rain on coming in contact with it congealed to ice, which caused us to slip and stumble on the unyielding ridges between the furrows, and now and again to come down hard. The exertion kept us warm. When I took off my hat for a moment, to wipe my forehead, I found the brim full of solid ice.
We proceeded for about half an hour, up-hill all the time. Then the edge of a wood stopped us. That decided me: I knew now that we were following the wrong course.
“Look here, Wace, there’s not a shadow of a doubt in my mind that we are too far east. Haltern is bearing south. If we were anywhere near the right road, it ought to lie in a southeasterly direction. If we had been too far west, we should have come to the woods much sooner. We can make one very decisive test. We’ll go east, until the eastern extremity of Haltern bears south. Then we shall know that we are too far to the east!”
We altered our course accordingly and proceeded in this new direction. Suddenly the ground disappeared from underneath my feet, and I fell headlong down the banks of a deep, hollow road. Wallace was saved by being last. Up the other side and across more fields we came to another road. Here we almost ran into a man, whom our sudden appearance frightened out of his wits, to judge by the way he hurried off toward the town.
“Now, then, Haltern bears almost southwest now. Back we go to the cross-roads. Southeast will take us there in a straight line. Come along.”
On the way back I noticed for the first time a change in my companion. His steps, all of a sudden, seemed to have lost their elasticity, while I grew stronger and more contented every minute.
“What’s the matter with you?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Of course there is. I know it from the way you walk!”
“I don’t feel extra well. Something wrong with my stomach. It’ll pass soon, I expect.”
That was bad news. We came to a lonelywooden hut, like a very small barn. I stopped. “Tell me frankly if you think you can’t go on. In that case we’ll break in here. We’ll have a certain amount of shelter inside. There is no danger. To-morrow will be Sunday and nobody is likely to come near us. It is much better to stop in time, before you have drawn too much upon your reserve strength. The situation is not precarious enough for that. You’ll want that later on.”
“No,” he insisted; “I can go on.”
At last we turned into the road we were looking for. The rain had changed to sleet. The road was slippery with ice. Progress would have been slow under any circumstances, but it was slower on account of Wallace’s failing strength. He was plucky, however, and he kept going.
The usual thirst began to trouble us. Fortunately we had filled our water-bottles at the hotel in Hanover. To husband our supply on Wallace’s behalf, I contented myself with sucking the ice which I peeled in lumps from my hat brim.
In due course we came to the first clearing. The outlines of a barn on the right, and a house on the left, seemed familiar. “Let’s rest a bit,” I proposed to Wallace, for he seemed almost done. He propped himself in a sitting posture against the wall of the barn, while I scouted around.
There was a farmyard behind the structure. The barn itself consisted of a loft, reared on strong uprights. Only half the space below was enclosed by boards, and filled with compressed straw. The other half was open, and contained a big farm wagon. Between its wheels and the straw a number of clumsy ladders were tightly wedged. In the gable of the loft an open door showed a black interior.
“There will be straw up there,” I said to Wallace. “The cattle were given a fresh bed to-day, probably. Nobody will want to fetch straw on a Sunday. We’ll be quite safe.” And I went through the same argument as before.
Wallace was undecided for a moment, I believe. But, to tell the truth, I had spoken rather too sharply to him a little time before. My only excuse is that I was exceedingly worried. Rotten as he felt, he was bound to be nettled. “No,” he said; “I will go on.”
It was obvious that he was suffering from an attack of something akin to indigestion. I was unable, though, to make head or tail of his attack. When I pressed him for information,he told me he had swallowed some shaving-soap, mistaking it in the dark for chocolate. He had hardly any pain, but our pace decreased gradually to a crawl as we neared the crest of the spur of hills, where the path which I had used on my first escape branched off. Not having a torch, I missed it, but discovered my mistake about two hundred yards beyond. We had come out of the forest. Plowed fields on our right had given me the first hint of my error.
“We’ll have to turn back. I’ve missed the path,” I informed my friend.
“I can’t move any farther. I must lie down,” answered Wallace indistinctly, swaying on his feet.
Too miserable to say anything, I led him back, and some way into the timber got out his flimsy sleeping-bag, and put him inside. Then I felt his pulse. It was going at the rate of about one hundred and thirty a minute.
“How do you feel?” I asked.
“Done for, old man. But don’t you worry. You go on. No use spoiling your chance. You leave me here. I’ll be all right.”
“I’m not going to leave you, except for a few minutes. I want to find that path. I’ll be back in a quarter of an hour. You’ll be all right that long, won’t you?”
I was still hoping for a miraculous recovery, although Wallace’s rapid pulse had upset me sorely. My mind was tenaciously holding to the idea of “carrying on,” and I wished to know how to get my companion on the right road without wasting his precious strength.
It took me less than ten minutes to find the path. The groping about in the darkness of the wood had taken my mind off the real issue. Now, on my way back, I had to face the ugly situation we were in.
I had not enough medical knowledge to gage the insignificance of the accelerated heart action, and thus almost feared the worst. If only he could be sick! Perhaps he was going to die on my hands! If he lived through the night, could I hope that his strength would return to him on the morrow and allow us to proceed?
One thing was out of the question: I could not leave him alone, even if he was out of danger and in shelter, for we were both fully persuaded that, in the event of capture, we should be sent to a penal prison. But what was to be done? Wallace could not lie out in the cold the rest of the night and all the next day. The only shelter reasonably near was the barn, which we had passed some time before. Weshould have to go back to it. We had to reach it, even if I had to carry him.
The snow, which had come on again, was whispering in the trees when I entered among them, groping in the thick darkness for his recumbent form. It sifted straight down through the still air, while the wind shrieked and roared overhead. He called feebly when I came close to him in my blind search.
“Well, how goes it?” I inquired, with seeming cheerfulness.
“I think I’m better.” This through chattering teeth. “But I’m aw-aw-awfully cold.”
“Get up. I’ll help you.”
“I-I-I don’t want to.”
“But you can’t stay here,” I protested. “You’d be frozen stiff before morning. We’ve got to get back to that barn we passed.”
“A-a-aren’t you going to lie down, too? We might keep each other warm.”
“No, I’m not,” very emphatically. “Get up, d’you hear, get up!”
Partly by sheer force I got him out of the thing we had bought for a sleeping-bag. Already the wet had penetrated in places. While Wallace stood leaning against a tree, I groped round for our knapsacks.
Carrying the double burden, which privilege cost me another struggle with Wallace, I led back over the ground which we had covered on our way up, my friend lurching drunkenly by my side. Then he fell and lay in a faint, but recovered quickly. After I had got him on his feet again, I kept his arm, supporting him as much as I could. Every few hundred steps or so he half collapsed, his knees doubling under him. When this happened I let him slide to the ground, thus to get some rest.
I do not know how often this had occurred when I noticed something wrong about the road. The clearing on the left, with stumps standing black against white snow patches—surely I could not have twice missed noticing it! The ground, too, fell rather sharply. “Traveling toward the Wesel road!” I thought. “I remember no villages there, if I recollect the map.”
Wallace had been sitting on the ground all this time. I helped him to his feet and urged him on: “We’ve got to be traveling! Up hill now! Awfully sorry, old chap, but I missed the road.”
Three rests, and the old track was under our feet. Three more, and we were drawing near to the little settlement.
“It’ll not be very long now, old man; cheer up!” I said encouragingly.
“Mus’ get into warmth. Knock first house come to. Can’t stick it,” Wallace muttered in reply.
“Try to make that barn, won’t you? It’s close by.”
We came abreast of a house with a light in the passage, which showed dimly through some panes of glass above the front door. The time must have been about 2:30A.M.
Wallace stopped and peered at it. “Is that a house?”
“Yes.”
“Knock!” and with a contented sigh he slid to the ground.
I was not prepared to give up so soon. That is what his command meant, as it appeared to me. My pal moved and struggled into a sitting position.
“Knock!” he repeated.
I knocked. No answer. I knocked again, but less determined. The same result. The third time my knuckles met the wood with a nice regard for the sleepers inside. I did not intend them to hear me; it was only for Wallace’s satisfaction that I went through this performance.
“They don’t hear,” I announced, having gone back to my companion. “Come on, make another effort. Let’s get to the barn. It’s only a few more steps,” I urged.
“Did you knock?” he asked suspiciously.
“Yes, three times!” I replied, with veracious if somewhat misleading detail, and I dragged him up and on.
At last we reached it. Wallace was soon resting in the same place as he did hours before, while I went to get a ladder. Three of them were wedged in on one side between a wheel of the wagon and a support of the barn, and by the compressed straw on the other. I tore, and heaved, and struggled with berserk rage until I got one out, the sweat pouring from underneath my hat brim. It was an enormously clumsy affair, and trying to rear it against the barn and into the door opening off the loft, I failed again and again by an inch or two. After a brief rest I went at it again. The last inch seemed unattainable. Another effort! Suddenly it leaped right up and into position. Turning in surprise, I saw my friend standing behind me. His little strength had been added to mine just at the right moment.
“I’ll go up first and have a look!” I told him. The rear of the loft was four feet deep in clean-smelling straw. Thank God for that! We should be warm!
“Up you go!” I was on the ground again to help Wallace up the ladder. He managed to ascend it, and then pitched forward. I let him lie and fetched our knapsacks. The ladder I left in position for the time being. If a few hours’ rest would improve my friend to such an extent that it became feasible to “carry on” during the following night, I intended to drag it up after us, and hide it at the rear of the barn, where I proposed to conceal ourselves. It would not be missed on a Sunday.
A hearty heave and shove sent Wallace sprawling on the straw. Soon I had a hollow dug for him, into which he crawled, and I covered him as best I could. Then I flung myself down by his side, too fagged to care for overcoat or covering.
Fighting against the drowsiness which immediately stole over me, I must have fallen asleep for a short spell, for I felt suddenly very cold. Too tired to move immediately, I lay shivering, listening to the dying wind and the faint beating of snow against the thin walls and the roof of our shelter. When the cold became intolerable, I crawled with stiff joints into the corner where I had flung our knapsacks, got my overcoat out,and put it on. The exercise cleared my dulled brain, and I perceived that I had better look after Wallace. His teeth were chattering when I bent over him. As well as I could, I got him warmer after a time. I now kept wide awake, trying to piece together what was left of our hopes.
I did not anticipate hearing any one stirring in the few houses around until late daylight, and dully wondered at the sound of voices which penetrated to our hiding-place, hours before some chinks in the roof showed faintly gray. We could not see the door from where we rested.
With an effort I turned to Wallace. “Are you awake?”
“Yes.”
“Do you feel you’ve got to get into warmth?”
“Yes.”
“That means going to a farm and meeting people!”
“Yes.”
Poor Wallace! His voice sounded so flat and tired! I have often wondered since whether I ought not to have made another effort to keep him where he was, and to proceed with him the next night. He might have stood it. I don’t think he quite realized what it meant getting into shelter. I believed at the time that he did.However, I acted according to my lights, without another word.
Sliding from the straw I approached the door, to stop in wonder for a moment before going down the ladder. Long icicles had grown from the upper edge of the opening almost to the floor of the loft in the few hours we had been inside, and between them the cold light of a winter morning, strongly reflected by a white, unbroken surface, met my eyes. It was eight o’clock by my watch. The icicles snapped with a glassy sound and fell noiselessly outside when I broke through their curtain.
Beyond it the world was white,—the ground, as far as I could see it; the air, thick with dancing flakes; and the sky. What mattered it now whether we stayed in the loft or sought the shelter of a farm?