After waiting for an hour or two more in the clerks' office, I was solemnly warned by a nasty little N.C.O. that I would be shot immediately if I made a further attempt to escape, and was marched off with a couple of guards. One happened to be the fellow who had originally caught me and the other was the old fellow who had made such a point of guarding the door in the hut. They were both, rather naturally, very suspicious of me and never gave me half a chance. After a march of three miles or so, we came to a big factory which was used as barracks, and I was put into the guardroom. When feeding time came round, I was given a very good plate of excellent vegetable soup, of which they gave me a second helping when I asked for it, and as much hot water, colored to look like coffee, as I could drink. On the whole, considering they were a rough lot of soldiers, I was treated very decently indeed. One young fellow, in fact, went out of his way to be nice to me and to make me comfortable. He passed me a packet of tobacco when no one was looking, and later in the evening there was quite an amusing discussion on the war, aeroplanes, etc. I think it rather astonished them that an English officer, a "Hauptmann," was prepared to talk and be more or less friendly with them. I think they also rather appreciated the fact that I seemed to bear nogrudge against them for hitting me over the head with a bayonet; one of them in fact almost apologized for it by saying that they had been so enraged because they would have been heavily punished if I had escaped. They gave me some blankets, and I had an excellent night on a bench. One or two of them were thoughtful enough to warn me not to attempt to escape the next morning. Precautions had been taken, they said, and I would not have a chance.
Next morning I was marched off with my two old guards, and during the march, by orders from the Company H.Q., a third was added. We went by train to Gladsbach, and I was locked up in a strong room in the citadel. There was a spy-hole in the door, and a number of people came and had a look at me through it. Several plates of vegetable soup and a large hunk of very satisfying brown army bread were given to me later. An exhaustive search of the cell disclosed a book hidden in the straw mattress (which was verminous, by the way) on deeds of valor in the German army, so I passed a peaceful and not unpleasant day.
Next day I was given a ration of bread and cheese, and a pleasantly fat German, an Offizier Stellvertreter, with a humorous face, informed me that he had to conduct me to Clausthal, and then (in an aside) that he did not like the job a bit. There was a sentry with us, a tall, good looking man of fifty or so, who slung his rifle over his shoulder instead of carrying it at the "ready," as all my sentries had done for the last twenty-four hours. We got into a third-class reserved carriage at the station. The officer asked me some questions about my escape, and said thathe had been told I was a desperate character. "Are you going to try to escape again from me?" he said. I laughed, and said it depended on what sort of opportunity he gave me. "It will be a most uncomfortable journey," he said with a resigned sigh. Then he brightened up and said, "Why not give me your parole not to escape till Clausthal; it will be so much more comfortable?" "All right," I said, and we shook hands on it. The soldier immediately put his rifle, and the officer his revolver, on the rack. Then the latter got down a hand-bag, which was packed with food and a couple of bottles of wine, and we had a fine feed. We continued to have good feeds about every two hours all the way to Clausthal. During the lunch, I explained to him that if I had wanted to escape from him, he had given me several opportunities before I gave my parole. "Ah, what!" he said, "when you went to the lavatory?" "Yes," said I, "that was one of them; there was a door on the far side opening into the far carriage." "Ah, but that was guarded," he said, obviously rather startled. I knew that it had not been guarded, but it had not been worth my while attempting to escape, for many reasons. My clothes were badly torn and covered with blood, and it was broad daylight, so that I don't think I should have had any chance at all. My head was all bandaged up, and, if I had taken off the bandage to put my cap on, the wound would have started to bleed again. Also, I was beginning to feel the effects of my exertions, and had no map or compass, and very little idea of where I was. Consequently I was very glad to give my parole, and never regretted it. All my money had been takenfrom me, but in the most generous way he insisted that I was his guest and bought literature, beer, and food for all three of us on all possible occasions.
He said he could not understand how I managed to pass myself off as a German, as he would have known me by my accent for a foreigner immediately. Soon afterwards a pretty shop-girl got in (up to that time we had kept people out by saying it was a reserved carriage), and to my guard's surprise she had no suspicion of my accent. Eventually he told her that I was an Englishman, which she refused to believe till I owned that it was true, and then she edged away into the far corner and got out at the next station.
We got into Clausthal late at night and had a very dark walk up to the camp. My old fat officer and I parted the best of friends. He was a vulgar fellow but a good sportsman, and I am very grateful to him for his kindness. The fact of the matter is that he had been nearly two years at the front, and it was most noticeable that any German who had been at the front for any length of time became quite a decent fellow. It is the swine who has never been near the front who is intolerable. Very much the same contrast is noticeable in peace time between those Germans who have lived abroad (especially in England) and those who have always stayed at home. I suppose that an Englishman who has never traveled is a pretty intolerable sort of person to a foreigner!
The little lieutenant met me and showed me into a room in the German guardhouse, and told me to change into my uniform, and then to take any clothes I shouldwant for the night. I was put into a very nasty, bare, whitewashed brick room, next the pigsties. A Russian orderly brought me my food, and through him I had no difficulty in secretly exchanging notes with Nichol and others in the camp. I was allowed to have any food they sent me, so, being very hungry, I naturally overate myself. Exercise consisted of half an hour's walk morning and afternoon, and I found that quite insufficient. My cell was next the pigs on one side and next the motor for making electricity on the other, and was consequently both smelly and noisy, besides being dirty. I asked to be allowed to have a bath, but it was not granted me for some days—four, I think. There were no windows to the place, but there were two doors and one doorway; that is to say, when they shut me in, they first locked an iron cage in front of the doorway, and outside that a wooden door. The wooden door, however, did not quite come to the top of the doorway; there was a gap of about nine inches, and through this gap light and air were supposed to enter. There was a bed, a basin, and a horrible stove, which either got red hot or went out. Books and tobacco were sent in to me; but, even so, I spent a fairly uncomfortable fourteen days.
After I had been in there for a week, Kicq was brought in and we shared the room, which was only about 10 feet by 6 feet. We had to put one bed on top of the other to fit the beds in at all. I was beginning to feel the disappointment of failure very bitterly, and should really have preferred to have been left alone to brood over it in peace. Kicq, however, did his best to make an exchangeof Spanish and English lessons a regular occupation, and we eventually spent a good deal of our time like that. It was a disgusting sort of existence, and for several days it was extremely dirty and uncomfortable. Eventually, after repeated complaints, some improvements were made. We were not allowed to have a bath in the main building, as we would have been liable to come in contact with the other prisoners; so Nichol sent us in a tin hip-bath. We also got leave from the lieutenant to have our outside door open for half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the afternoon. As the sentries changed every two hours, it was a simple matter to tell each sentry that we had not yet had it open for half an hour that morning, so by thisruse de guerrewe got a certain amount of light and air into the place.
One morning about 9.30, whilst we were in the middle of washing and shaving and having breakfast all at once, a General, an A.D.C., the Camp Commandant, and the lieutenant all suddenly appeared outside our "grill" and were admitted by the sentry. I was in pyjamas and a tunic, and Kicq even more undressed, with his face covered with shaving soap, but we gave the General as military a "stand to attention" as we could under the circumstances. He answered our salute very politely, taking no notice of our undress uniform, and turning to the Commandant, said, "Sie waren in dem Tunnel gefangen?" "Nein, nein," said the lieutenant, saluting violently, and Kicq and I grinned, whilst the lieutenant and the Commandant showed obvious signs of anger! For a long time we had believed that the Germans knew of our tunnel and were trying tocatch us red-handed in it, and this of course confirmed our suspicions. The General was told that we both spoke German, and asked us if we had any complaints. We objected to the place in which we were imprisoned, but otherwise had not much of which to complain. I then said that we should like to receive our punishment, since at present we were just under arrest "pending investigation." The General turned to his A.D.C., who, saluting between each sentence, said that the General had signed our punishment the day before and that we were sentenced to fourteen days'Stubenarrest, and that our punishment started from the day he had signed it. We thanked him, and said that was just the thing we were particularly anxious to know, and felt delighted that we had got off so lightly.
Two days later we went over into the old room in which Long, Nichol, and I had originally lived in No. 3 Barracks. The windows of the room were whitewashed, and there was a sentry in front of our door, the idea being, of course, to prevent us communicating with the other prisoners. This was quite absurd and nothing but red tape, as we were allowed to have the top part of the window open and we were separated only by thin wooden walls from the rooms on either side of us. It was only necessary to bang on the wall and shout anything you might wish to say. If we wanted anything, such as books, some one just threw them through the window to us. One day when the lieutenant was in the room, a book came hurtling through the window and hit him full in the chest. The German kept his temper very well and merely remonstrated with us,saying that it was unnecessary to break the rules when we could have anything we wanted by asking him. He was quite right, and I put it down to his credit that he kept his temper, but the amusement of disobeying rules slightly relieved our very monotonous existence. I have already explained that the whole camp was divided into two by torpedo netting. For the rest of our imprisonment at Clausthal, we used to take our exercise in this lower or southern section, all the other prisoners being cleared out of it for half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the afternoon for that purpose. The weather was beautifully fine, and, as the tennis-court was in this section, we decided we had better play tennis during our half an hour's exercise. We just banged on the wall and asked the people next door to leave two racquets and some balls outside our door. This was a great success. Kicq was not much of a player, but he improved fast.
The sentries were on the whole quite friendly. They were ostentatiously officious when another sentry was near, and did not care that an officer of any nationality other than English should see them talking to us. Most of them were physically unfit or badly wounded, and, though all seemed to be sick of the war, they did their duty in as inoffensive a way as possible. The old chap whom I had bribed was several times our sentry, and when he was on at night he would allow us to go into the room next door and see Nichol and Long. We in return gave him some good things to eat and hot chocolate and coffee when the nights were cold. When I was alone in the pigsty we had had a long talk in which he said that the N.C.O. of the guard hadtold him that I was actually over the frontier when I was caught. I am sure that this was not the case, however.
A few days before we expected to be released, the lieutenant came in and told us that the General had made a mistake and that ourStubenarrest, as opposed to ourUntersuchungschaft, did not start when the General signed ourBestrafung, but when the warrant was received by the Camp Commandant. Consequently, we should not get out till November 12th. I was extremely angry, as I was weary of the confinement, but Kicq took it very philosophically.
About this time I wrote home for the first time in code. The last time I had been home on leave from France before being taken, I had made up, with the help of the rest of my family, a very rough sort of code depending on the formation of the letters. I wrote a longish message, very small, on a piece of cigarette paper, and stuck it to the flap of the envelope, and then wrote a code message in the letter saying, "Tear open flap of envelope." The letter got through all right, but they failed at home to see that it was in code. The other letters I wrote in code, and I wrote many from Fort 9 (and much more important ones), all got through successfully.
At midday on November 12th we came out of prison. We had already been told that we were going to be sent to Ingolstadt; but, though Nichol made inquiries in the camp, no one seemed to know what sort of place it was. We had to leave Clausthal camp about 2 o'clock and walk to the station, so that we had about half an hour in the camp to say "good-bye" and pass on all we had learnt. Both Kicq and I did a good deal of talking during the last hour we spent at Clausthal, and when the sentry came to fetch us we were given a very cheery send-off, nearly all thecamp turning out. We had a two or three mile walk to the station, and were escorted only by an N.C.O. with a revolver. In fact, during the whole of this journey we were, quite contrary to our expectations, so badly guarded that I swore I would be properly prepared to escape the next time I had a train journey at night. The little lieutenant met us at the station, and proved to be the most incompetent traveler. Although he asked every one he saw, he never seemed to know how or where to catch any train. In fact, Kicq, who had studied the matter when we had had intentions of trying for Switzerland, knew much more about the route than he did. We had a pretty uncomfortable and very dull journey.
At Halle, after we had waited an hour or two in a Red Cross dormitory, the lieutenant made some bad muddle about the trains, and there was also a difficulty because prisoners-of-war were not allowed to travel on a "Schnellzug" (fast train). However, eventually we got into a third-class coach, and after pushing along the corridor, to the surprise of a crowd of peaceful travelers, we got into a third-class wooden-seated compartment. The lieutenant was perfectly hopeless and helpless, and I several times felt inclined to take command of the party and give the conductor a few marks to get us a decent carriage. I had a longish talk that night with him, but he would insist on smoking strong cigars with the window tight shut, and his breath stank so that I was nearly sick. He gave me rather an interesting picture of the Russian front during the big German advance. He said the dirt and discomfort were absolutely horrible. The usual Polish village consisted ofhuge barn-like buildings where several families lived together with a swarm of children and some half-dozen adults of both sexes. They usually slept, as far as I can make out, on top of the stoves, which were of the big tiled variety. A large number of animals and chickens lived in the same house, or rather room. For billeting purposes as many men as possible were crammed in these places—half a company or more. The whole place was indescribably filthy, and he assured me that every soldier, from a Tommy to a general, was simply covered with lice, and never got rid of them during the whole campaign. He was wounded very seriously early on in the advance. He got a bullet through his "Herzbeutel" (the bag which contains the heart), he said. The lot of the wounded was a terrible one, as they had to be transported on carts, over the worst possible roads, for very big distances to the rail-heads. Altogether he looked back on the Russian campaign with horror.
We got to Nüremberg about 2 or 3 a.m. and were put in a room above the police station or guardhouse in the station. We were allowed to buy some coffee and bread, and later got a wash and shave. We got to Ingolstadt some time about midday without further incident, and walked up to the central office of the prisoners-of-war camp. Here the lieutenant said good-bye, and I can't pretend I was sorry to see the last of him. He was quite a good, honest fellow, but one of those hopelessly conscientious people, with no initiative and no sense of humor.
After waiting in the bureau for some time we were told we were bound for Fort 9, but could elicit no informationas to what sort of place it was. We were told that we should have to sleep the night at the men's camp, as the fort was about 7 kilometres out of the town, and it was either too late or inconvenient to send us out that night.
Ingolstadt is a town of some 30,000 or 40,000 inhabitants and is built on both banks of the Danube. The prisoners-of-war camp consists of half a dozen or more old forts, some of which lie on the north and some on the south bank. Fort 9 has the date 1870 above the gateway and as the others are on an almost identical plan, I expect they are much the same date. Besides these forts, which form a ring around Ingolstadt with a radius of about 7 kilometres, there is a camp for men on the outskirts of the town itself. As far as I know, all the forts except one, which is astrafecamp for N.C.O.'s who have attempted to escape, are used for officer prisoners-of-war. Fort 9, as we soon learnt, is the fort where the black sheep go. On our way to the men's camp we passed several working parties, mostly of French soldiers. As far as I could see, they showed no signs of ill-treatment, though I thought some of the Russians looked rather hungry and ill-kept. All we could see of the men's camp was a palisade with several strands of barbed wire on top. An extremely dirty, unsoldierly Bavarian sentry was sloping about outside, apparently having a beat of 200 or 300 yards long. He was merely typical of all Bavarian sentries. They are all, with rare exceptions, filthy and slovenly, and an incredibly large proportion have most unpleasant faces. Before I went to Bavaria as a prisoner, I had always looked on the South German as a kindly man—"gemütlich" is the wordthey like to use about themselves—but it did not take long to completely change these ideas. I had no longer any difficulty in believing that the Bavarians are justly accused of a very large share in the Belgian atrocities.
While I am on the subject I might mention here Kicq's story of how the sack of Louvain was started. The account is supported by what Major Whitton says in his bookThe Marne Campaign, and makes some excuses for the Germans, though it by no means frees them from blame. The Germans entered and occupied Louvain with little or no opposition, and pushed a fairly strong advance guard through the town in the direction of Antwerp. This advance guard was heavily attacked by a portion of the Belgian army, was defeated, and fled in panic and complete disorder back towards Louvain. The Germans in Louvain took these fugitives for a Belgian attack and fired on them, and they fired back. Very soon there was a general mix-up on a large scale. The defeated advance guard was being fired into by the Belgians on one side and by their own comrades on the other. The civilians in the town also thought that Louvain was being attacked and was about to be retaken by the Belgians. They were determined to do their bit, so they added to the general confusion by firing off all the guns they had left, and, if they had none, throwing furniture, hot water, and anything else handy on the heads of the Germans in the streets. A certain number of Germans were killed and injured in this way, and the German soldiers, furious not only at this but, when they found out their mistake, at having massacred their own comrades, got completely out of control and sacked and burnt the greater part of the town. Kicq, at the time when this happened, was in a hospital at Antwerp, so that his is only a second-hand account, but I think that most intelligent Belgian officers believe this to be a fairly true explanation.
To return to our story again—just inside the palisade was a group of wooden huts which I imagine were the offices of the camp. We were led through the guardroom, a filthy place with wooden benches running all down the middle, on which still filthier Bavarians were sleeping, drinking beer, or playing cards, and were locked into a small room at the end. We had some food left, and with the help of some nasty looking soup which the Germans brought us we made quite a good meal. There were wooden beds and mattresses in the room, and luckily not sufficient light to allow us to examine them too closely, so we passed quite a good night.
Next morning I asked to see the Commandant, who seemed quite a nice old fellow, and requested permission to go over the camp, so that I could testify to other officers that our prisoners were well treated. He answered that to grant my request was impossible. "In that case," I said, "I can only draw the conclusion that you will not let me see the camp because our prisoners are not treated as they should be." The old man said he was very sorry, but it was absolutely "verboten," but he assured me that the prisoners were well treated. An hour or so later an N.C.O. with a rifle turned up, and we were marched off to Fort 9. The whole country round Fort 9, which lies due south of Ingolstadt, is very flat and uninteresting. In fact, it is one of the few really ugly places I rememberseeing in Bavaria. There are a few small woods and clumps of trees about, but as there is very little undergrowth in them, they afford only a very temporary shelter to an escaping prisoner—as Medlicott and I found out later. The fort, as you approach it from the north, has the appearance of an oblong mound of earth, some 350 yards long and about 60 feet high. There is a moat 4 to 6 feet deep all around the place, but a small rampart on the outer side of the moat prevents the latter being seen from the south till the outer gate into the first courtyard has been passed.
We tramped along the main high road which leads over the Danube directly south out of Ingolstadt, and after walking for well over an hour we began looking about for some signs of a camp, but could see nothing resembling our previous ideas of one. The guard informed us, however, that we had only 200 metres to go, and soon we turned sharp to the right towards the mound before mentioned. We then saw a sentry on one of the two battery positions which flanked the fort, and another on the top of the mound. In another minute or two we came to an iron door in a half-brick, half-earthen wall. Our guard looked through a peep-hole in this and said we could not go in yet, asAppellwas taking place. I had a look through the peep-hole. Some 40 yards across a sort of courtyard was a moat, about 15 yards broad, over which there was a roadway with a heavy iron and wire gate, guarded by a sentry. The road led over the moat into another courtyard, at the back of which was a brick wall about 20 feet high with half a dozen large iron barred windows in it. Onthe top of the wall was some 40 feet of earth sloping backwards and upwards to the center "caponnière," the highest part of the mound, where a sentry stood. In the center of the wall was an enormous iron door leading, to all appearances, into the heart of the small hill in front of us. Through the peep-hole I could follow the moat for 50 or 60 yards in either direction. On the far side of the moat the ground sloped up slightly for 15 metres to a brick wall about 15 to 20 feet (surmounted by 4 or 5 metres of earth) with heavily barred windows at regular intervals all the way along it. The windows in this wall were the windows of our living rooms, and on the strip of grass between the windows and the moat sentries walked up and down.
In the courtyard about 200 prisoners-of-war of various nationalities appeared to be mixed up in a very irregular manner; in fact, a good deal of movement was noticeable among them, and from the confused shouting which went on I gathered something exciting must be happening. Suddenly the whole mob broke up and began to stream back into the fort through the main gate. A German from the inside opened the outer gate, and we were marched across the moat, a sentry unlocking the gate for us, into the inner courtyard. Suddenly I saw Milne, whom I had last seen at St. Omer in 25 Squadron. He was wearing an old flying coat and was bareheaded. He greeted me with enthusiasm and surprise. A sentry tried to stop us from meeting, but Milne took no notice of him, and we shook hands. Several other Frenchmen and Englishmen came crowding round us, and then some one began roaring out orders in German at the top of his voice about 10 yards off.I looked up and saw a German captain, who looked like a middle-aged well-to-do shopkeeper (which in fact he was), in a furious rage, gesticulating like a windmill. I gathered that Kicq and I were to be prevented from talking to the other prisoners. I thought that we had probably better obey him, but none of the other prisoners paid any attention whatever to the noise he was making till several sentries bustled us through the main door and into the Commandant's bureau. As we were going in, an Englishman in a beard passed by the side of me saying, "Have you anything to hide?" My compass, which had been given me by a Belgian at Clausthal, was hidden in my big baggage, so I shook my head.
A young French officer was in the bureau, and a furious discussion took place between him and the Commandant, who immediately began to shout and gesticulate. As far as I could make out, the Frenchman had been arrested atAppellfor refusing to stand still. The Frenchman answered that his feet got cold because, owing to the total incompetency of the Germans, they took much longer than was necessary atAppell. "Aus dem Bureau!" (Leave the office immediately!) yelled the Commandant. The Frenchman tried to speak again, but was drowned by the shouts of "No, no, go out at once, you must not speak to me like that." "Pourquoi non, il n'est pas la manière d'addresser un officier Français," answered the Frenchman; and as he spoke the door behind me opened and another Frenchman entered who, pointing his finger at the Commandant, said, "Oui, oui, je suis témoin, je suis témoin," and went out again. The first Frenchman bowedin a formal manner to the Commandant, who had started to yell "Posten, Posten," and went out of the door just as the sentry entered. The Commandant mopped his brow and seemed almost on the verge of collapse, when Kicq protested against the way he had spoken to us when ordering us into the bureau. This raised another small storm, in which Kicq easily held his own. The Commandant calmed himself with an effort.
We were then asked the usual questions by an Unteroffizier and told that we should be in Room 45. Our hand baggage was then searched, and my rücksack was taken from me. To reach No. 45 we went along a very dark underground passage dimly lighted by an oil lamp. At the end of the passage there were some enormous iron doors. These led to one of the two inner courtyards of the fort, and were then shut, as they always were duringAppell. A few yards before coming to the door we turned sharply to the right into an extremely dark arched opening. The whole passage was built of solid blocks of stone and had a vaulted roof. After groping our way round a turning, we came suddenly into another passage some 70 yards long, and also of stone. On the left hand was a bare stone wall running up 15 feet to the roof; on the right there were doors about every 4 yards with numbers on them ranging from 39 to 56. Light and air were brought into the passage by square ventilator shafts in the roof which ran up through the 15 feet of earth to the pathway above. At the top of the ventilators glass frames on very strong iron supports prevented the rain from coming in and the prisoners from getting out. Needless to say, thepassage was the coldest and draughtiest place it is possible to imagine. Owing to the mound of earth on top, no heat but much dampness found its way into the passage. At the far end were the latrines. These were very insanitary, and the smell of them pervaded the whole passage, into which our living rooms opened. In certain winds they became almost intolerable. A detailed description of them will have to be given later, as they played an important part in many attempts to escape.
Room 45 was about half-way along the passage, and we found Captain Grinnell-Milne, R.F.C., Oliphant, Fairweather, and Medlicott, R.F.C., already installed there. The dimensions of the room were, at a guess, about 12 yards by 5 yards. The floor was asphalt and the walls were whitewashed brick. The walls and the ceiling were both curved and together formed an exact semicircle. In fact, the room was very much of the shape and size of aNissenhut. This is an excellent shape from the point of view of strength, but not very convenient for hanging pictures or putting up shelves. The end of the room farthest from the door was mainly occupied by two large windows looking out over a strip of grass which sloped gradually down to the moat, 15 yards away. These windows were heavily barred with square one-inch bars, three to a window, and sentries passed along the strip of grass from time to time and glanced suspiciously in. If they saw anything that interested them they stood at the window and stared in. There was obviously no such thing as privacy. In each of these rooms five or six men lived and cooked and fed and slept.
In the early days of the war Fort 9, Ingolstadt, had been, according to the oldest inmates of the prison-house, a quiet, well-behaved sort of place, but for the past six months the Germans had collected into the fort all the "mauvais sujets" from the German point of view, and all those prisoners-of-war who had made attempts to escape from other camps. There were about 150 officer prisoners in the place, and of these at least 130 had made successful attempts to escape from other camps, and had only been recaught after from three days' to three weeks' temporary freedom.
When Kicq and I arrived, 75 per cent. of the prisoners were scheming and working continually to this end. Some had tramped to the Dutch or Swiss frontiers and had been captured there; some had taken the train (those who could speak German) and had been eventually caught by some mischance; and all firmly believed that it was only the blackest misfortune which had prevented them from crossing the frontier, and were convinced that, if once more they could get clear of the camp, they would reach neutral territory and freedom. Escaping, and how it should be done, what to beware of and what to risk, what food to take, what clothes to wear, maps, compasses, and how toget them, how to look after your feet and how to light a fire without smoke, where to cross the frontier and what route to take, and a hundred and one things connected with escaping, were the most frequent subjects of conversation and rarely out of the thoughts of the great majority of the prisoners at Fort 9. Each man was ready to give the benefit of his experiences, his advice, and his immediate help to any one who asked for them. In fact, we pooled our knowledge. The camp was nothing less than an escaping club. Each man was ready to help any one who wished to escape and had a plan, quite regardless of his own risk or the punishment he might bring upon himself. For courts-martial no one cared twopence, and nearly every one in the fort had done considerable spells of solitary confinement.
There were in the camp, mainly among the Frenchmen, some of the most ingenious people I have ever come across. Men who could make keys which would unlock any door: men who could temper and jag the edge of an old table-knife so that it would cut iron bars: expert photographers (very useful for copying maps): engineering experts who would be called in to give advice on any tunnel which was being dug: men who spoke German perfectly: men who shammed insanity perfectly, and many, like myself, who were ready to risk a bit to get out, but had no parlor tricks. One had escaped from his prison camp dressed as a German officer: another had escaped in a dirty clothes basket, and another had been wheeled out of the camp hidden in a muck tub: another sportsman had painted his face green to look like a water-lily and had swum themoat in daylight under the sentry's nose. It is impossible to recount all the various means that were tried, and successfully tried, in order to escape from camps. Forgery, bribery, impersonation, with an utter disregard of risks of being shot, all found their advocates in Fort 9. In spite of the fact that every man was ready to do his utmost, at whatever personal risk, to help a friend who was trying to escape, each man was advised to keep his own plans of escape strictly to himself. It was not that we were afraid of spies among ourselves, but it was impossible to be quite sure of all the orderlies, who were either Frenchmen or Russians. There was one French orderly of whom we had serious suspicion but could never prove anything against him.
It can be readily understood that the Germans, having herded some 150 officers with the blackest characters into one camp, took considerable precautions to keep them there. From the moat on one side to the moat on the other, the fort at the broadest part measured about 300 yards. On the southern side, as can be seen from the sketch map, the moat ran around the fort in a semi-oval, and steep grass banks sloped from the top of the ramparts to the edge of the moat, beside which was a narrow footpath patroled by sentries. On the southern side the ramparts were higher than on the northern, and the top must have been 50 feet above the moat. Along the top there was a narrow footpath where the prisoners were allowed to walk. From this path we got a good view of the surrounding country, which was completely under cultivation and very flat, with small wooded downs in the distance to relieve the monotony.From the path, we were able to see the moat, but, owing to the shelving of the bank, not the sentry in the path below. Just inside the parados there were at regular intervals heavily built traverses, and between the traverses glass ventilators poked up from the rooms and passages which lay under the southern ramparts. From the parados a grass bank sloped down to a broad gravel walk, and from this another steep bank dropped some 20 feet into the inner court. The barred window from the orderlies' quarters, the kitchen, and the solitary confinement cells looked out from this bank into the courtyard. On the northern side a similar bank, but without windows in it, sloped up to the gravel path, which ran all round the fort. Only a 7-foot parapet, over which we were forbidden to look, bounded the gravel path on the north side; but the rules did not forbid us looking into the outer courtyard, whereAppellwas usually held. On the south side the moat was about 40 yards broad and on the north only about 16 yards, and though we never found out the depth accurately we imagined it to be about 5 feet at the deepest part. The whole space inside was formed into two courtyards by a very broad central passage leading from the main door to the center "caponnière" on the south side. The earth ridge on the top of the passage formed the highest point in the fort. On it was a flagstaff where flags were hoisted at each German victory, imaginary or otherwise. A sentry was always posted there. In the day time there were eighteen sentries posted in and around the court, and at night time twenty-two posted as I have shown them on the sketch map.
It was obvious that there were only two possible waysof getting out: one was to go out by the main gate past three sentries, three gates, and a guardhouse and the other was to go through the moat. It was impossible to tunnel under the moat. It had been tried, and the water came into the tunnel as soon as it got below the water level. An aeroplane was the only other solution. That was the problem we were up against, and however you looked at it, it always boiled down to a nasty cold swim or a colossal piece of bluff.
All the members of Room 45, where I now found myself, had previously escaped from other camps. Milne and Fairweather, with Milne's brother, then at Custrin, had walked out of the main gate of a camp of which I forget the name, the brother dressed as a German officer, Fairweather as a soldier, and Milne as a workman. The scheme had worked well. They had walked into the commandantur as if to see the commandant, and then had pulled off their British uniforms in the passage and, leaving them on the floor, had calmly walked out of the other door of the commandantur and passed all the sentries without any difficulty. Milne's brother spoke excellent German, and they said that their "get-up" had been very good and had been the result of some months' hard work. Oliphant and Medlicott[1]had been caught together within a mile or two of the Dutch frontier. Poole and these two had escaped together from a camp by an audacious bit of wire-cutting in full daylight, suitable side-shows having been provided to keep the sentries occupied. After doing the march onfoot to the frontier at an almost incredible speed, they lay up in a wood a couple of miles or so from the frontier sentries, intending to cross that night. Most unluckily for them, the day being Sunday (always the most dangerous day for escaping prisoners, as there are so many people about), a party of sportsmen came upon them. Oliphant had his boots on and managed to get away, but Poole and Medlicott were collared. A sentry marched them along to a sort of barn, opened the door, and entered before them. They slammed the door on him and bolted. Poole got clean away and crossed the frontier that night, but Medlicott was caught after a short, sharp chase. Oliphant took a wrong compass-bearing during the night, lost his way, and was caught the following morning. They really had very bad luck. All three ought to have crossed, as they were very determined fellows, and all of them had had considerable previous experience in escaping.
We used to talk bitterly of prisoners' luck at Ingolstadt, and one of the things which induced us to keep on trying was the belief that our luck would turn. Medlicott especially had had four or five attempts before he came to Ingolstadt. One of these was most spectacular, and I must give a short account of it. I am not sure out of which camp the escape was made, but one-time inmates will perhaps recognize it. A road ran alongside one of the main buildings of the camp. On the far side of the road was a steep bank with a barbed wire fence on the top, and from there terraced gardens sloped steeply up a hill and away from the camp. The building was several stories high, and Medlicott and a companion decided that it would be possible to fix up a drawbridge from the second-story windows, and from there jump over the road and the wire on to the terrace. Every detail was fully thought out. They had a 9-foot plank, the near end of which they intended to place on the window-sill, and the far end would be supported by a rope from the top of the window. This would form an extremely rickety bridge, but though they would have a considerable drop, 12 feet or so, they had only quite a short distance to jump forward, as the road was quite narrow. Arrangements had been made to put out the electric light and to cut the telephone wires simultaneously, as a sentry was posted in the road and they had to jump over his head. The most suitable room was occupied by a Belgian general, and they decided to make the attempt from there. When they entered the Belgian's room on the selected night and informed him of what was about to happen, he absolutely refused to allow his room to be used for such a purpose. Medlicott explained to him (in bad French) that they were going from that room at once, whatever the general said, and that if he made a noise, they would be compelled to use force to keep him quiet. The general started shouting "Assassin!" and "A moi!" "A moi!" but they sat on him and gagged him and tied him to the bed. They then got out their plank and successfully jumped over the road and got clean away. They were recaught, however, about four days afterwards, I don't remember how. At their court-martial they were complimented by the President on their escape, and were given the lightest possible punishment (about two months apiece, I think) for the numerous crimes they had committed. The Belgian general was brought up as a witness against them, but could say nothing without making himself a laughing-stock or worse!
The other Englishmen at Fort 9 all lived in Room 42. They were Major Gaskell, Captain May, Captain Gilliland, Captain Batty Smith, Lieutenant Buckley, together with Lieutenant Bellison, a Frenchman, who spoke English with complete fluency, though with a bad accent. I know that when I first went to Ingolstadt they had some scheme on for tunneling out of the inner court through the rampart so as to come out half-way up the bank above the moat on the south side. It was a good idea, but never got very far, as the beginning of the tunnel was discovered by the Germans—without Room 42 being incriminated, however. I do not remember any time in Fort 9 when there was not some scheme or other in the English rooms for escaping, and we all occupied some hours nearly every day in perfecting our arrangements for escaping. There were several excellent maps in the fort, especially amongst the Frenchmen, and very many laborious hours were spent in copying these in different colored inks. Several people even made two or three copies, so as to be ready to try again immediately in the event of their being recaptured with a map in their possession. A certain amount of map copying was done by photography. Cameras were strictly prohibited, but there was at least one in the fort, which had got in I don't know how, and which did a lot of useful work.
The Frenchmen in the fort were, as a whole, a most excellent lot of fellows, and the English and French werethe very best of friends. Colonel Tardieu, the senior French officer, was one of the old school. "He thanked whatever gods there be for his unconquerable soul," and would have no truck with the Germans. He asked no favors from them, and would show no gratitude if they offered him any. He protested formally but vehemently against such insults as being asked to sit at the same table as the German officer who was guarding him on a railway journey. He said that eating at the same table was in a way a sign of friendship, and to ask a French colonel to eat with a German was an insult. I hear he was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment for this and many similar offenses. How could we all help having the greatest admiration for the unbending spirit of this man, who had his own rigid ideas of honor and lived up to them to the letter, in spite of a feeble body by no means fit to withstand the strain of continuous antagonism and physical discomfort? Commandant de Goys, who escaped from Germany a few months after I did, was in the French Flying Corps, and a very well-known man in it, I believe. At one time he had been sent by the French to reorganize the Turkish aviation corps, and told some amusing stories of his meetings with Germans there who were simultaneously reorganizing the Turkish army. He had escaped from some other camp in a clothes-basket, and had very nearly got across the Swiss frontier. He had a perfect mania for attempting to escape in baskets, and tried twice more at Ingolstadt. He was a good-looking, strongly made, athletic fellow of forty or thereabouts, and a great friend of Major Gaskell's. Through Major Gaskell Ivery soon got to know de Goys very well. Then there was Michel, a big fat man, whose father had been in a very high position in the French army but had retired just before the war. He was an extremely nice fellow, and very keen and quite good at games. He and Desseaux, also a charming fellow, were the best French hockey and tennis players in the fort. One of the most interesting people in the fort, and certainly the best read in French literature, was Decugis, the son of Colonel Decugis, who took some considerable part in the invention of the French 75 mm. gun. I gathered that he had led a pretty fast life before the war. He was a small dark fellow, very strong and wiry, and French to his finger-tips. He used to give me French lessons, and he learnt to talk English very quickly. Le Long, La Croix, and de Robiere and several others were nothing but children, and they were always in irrepressibly good spirits. They were great men at our fancy-dress balls, when they usually came marvelously got up as ladies of no reputation, with immense success. They were ready to attempt to escape, play the fool, or be a nuisance to the Germans at any time night or day with equal good humor. Room 39, where they lived a sort of hand-to-mouth existence, was always untidy and always noisy. They preferred it like that.
Then there was a French colonial colonel and Moretti, both Corsicans. The colonel had been in command of the disciplinary battalion of the "Joyeux," that is to say, the French criminals who do their military service in Africa in a special military organization. You can well imagine that the colonel of the battalion, to which the most incorrigible cases are sent, is likely to be a pretty hard case himself. The French used to say that all Corsicans, as soon as they get a command of any sort, imagine themselves to be budding Napoleons. This was rather the case with the colonel. He had been badly hit on the head by a bit of shell, and was not always quite sane. He was a middle-sized man, very strong and active, with close-cropped hair and rugged face, and I am sure he would stick at absolutely nothing to gain his ends. He considered himself a great strategist (with regard to escaping at any rate), but it was Moretti who had the brains and ingenuity, as well as the skill to carry out the plans.
Moretti was very short but wonderfully well made, with a round cheerful face and a funny little flat nose. He was always laughing or ragging some one. He and Buckley were inseparable companions in crime and stole oil, potatoes, coal, or wood together, keeping up a continuous flow of back-chat all the time. He had been an adjutant chef (sergeant-major) in a "Joyeux" battalion at the age of 28, which is extraordinarily young, considering that only the very best N.C.O.'s can be used for such work, and had won his commission in France. Having been employed for the eight years previous to the war in managing and outwitting the most ingenious criminals that exist when they tried to escape, he knew just about all there was to be known about stealing, cutting iron bars, picking locks, etc. He told wonderful stories of the doings of his "Joyeux" in France. He used to say they were the best troops in the world, and I believe they were extraordinarily good astroupes d'assaut. He told us howin the early days of the war 450 of his "Joyeux" had stormed a trench system and killed 600 Germans with their knives alone. That was at Maisonette, I think. He had some wonderful stories of the second battle of Ypres, where the Germans were driven back into the canal which they had crossed at Bixschoote, and were killed almost to a man. He saw more corpses there, he said, than at Verdun. When his "Joyeux" were billeted behind the lines, a special warning had to be sent to the inhabitants to lock up all their belongings.
There were, of course, a number of other Frenchmen who helped us, and whom we helped at various times, and who practically without exception were our very good friends, but I think I have mentioned those with whom we came most in contact. Among the Russians there were several excellent fellows, but as a whole we did not find them very interesting. Curiously, few of them spoke any language but their own really well, and except for Oliphant, and afterwards Spencer, none of us spoke much Russian. They were very generous fellows, and whenever they did have any food, which was seldom, they used to give dinners and sing-songs. With regard to escaping, if you needed anything such as a leather coat or a greatcoat (the Russian greatcoat can, with little alteration, be turned into a very respectable German officer's greatcoat), you could be sure to get it as a gift or by barter from the Russians if they could possibly spare it. The difficulty of saying anything about them is added to by the fact that I cannot recall their real names.
"Charley" was a very rough diamond, but as generousand kind-hearted a fellow as one could meet anywhere; he and Buckley were good friends. He spoke German perfectly and played hockey, so I also got to know him a bit better than most of the others. Lustianseff was a Russian aviator. He spoke French well, and used to teach me Russian. So did Kotcheskoff, a regular Hercules of a fellow, but mentally an absolute babe—a sort of Joe Gargery. He was universally liked, and continually had his leg pulled by the Frenchmen in de Goys' room, where he and Lustianseff lived. Kotcheskoff could talk English not much better than I could talk Russian; he also talked French and German very badly; consequently he and I could never manage much of a conservation with one another without the help of all four languages. There were, however, several Russians, real good fellows, whom I never got to know well. One of them had escaped from a camp with some friends, and had reached the frontier after walking for over thirty days. His friends had got across, but he had been recaptured. I heard a short time ago that he had escaped and had crossed the Swiss frontier at the same place as Buckley and I did.
Our day at Fort 9 was regulated to a certain extent byAppellsor roll-calls. When I first went to Ingolstadt there were threeAppellsa day—at 7 a.m., at 11.30 a.m., and between 4 and 7 in the evening, according to the time of year. After I had been there a month or so a fourthAppellwas added at 9 o'clock at night. After this fourthAppell, the door leading from each wing to the center of the fort was locked and bolted, so that the two wings were cut off from communication with each other.The 7 a.m.Appelltook place whilst we were still in bed. A German N.C.O. came round and flashed a torch in each of our faces or satisfied himself that we were all there. Immediately afterwards the great iron doors leading into the inner courtyards were opened. It was in these inner courtyards that we played hockey and tennis and football, and did our exercises, etc.
The rules of the fort stated that the 11.30Appellshould take place either in our rooms or in the outer courtyard, the place where it was being held when Kicq and I first arrived, at the discretion of the Commandant. As the feeling between the Germans and the prisoners became more and more bitter, theAppelloutside became really very exciting, and from the German point of view an almost intolerable performance. We always used to object to this outsideAppellowing to the nuisance of turning out and to the waste of time, as the Germans never managed to count us in less than half an hour. I will say that they had a pretty difficult task; we never stood still and gave them a fair chance, as the general spirit of Fort 9 was to be insubordinate and disobedient whenever possible, so the Germans more or less dropped this outsideAppelland only had it when the C.O. had some order orStrafeto read out to the prisoners as a whole. If the Germans wished the 11.30Appelloutside, they gave one ring on an electric bell which sounded in our passage, and if inside, two rings. As 11 a.m. was our usual time for breakfast, we used to listen for the second ring with some impatience. About ten minutes after the bell had rung for outsideAppellthe greater part of the prisoners would congregatein the outer courtyard. They turned up in any sort of costume, smoking cigarettes and talking and shouting and laughing. In the courtyard on the far side of the moat a guard of some twenty or thirty Hun soldiers was drawn up, and on either side of the main gate stood eight or nine more villainous looking Bavarian soldiers with rifles and fixed bayonets.
The C.O. usually kept us waiting for a minute or two, being perhaps under the delusion that we might get into some sort of order if we were given time. He came from the bureau through the main gate followed by hisFeldwebel(sergeant-major) and several N.C.O.'s, and, though the majority used to take no notice of him whatever, he was usually greeted by some confused shouting in four languages. By this time nine-tenths of the officers had ranged themselves very roughly five deep on the right-hand side of the main gate, which was immediately closed by a cordon of sentries. Several officers would continue to stroll about behind the ranks or wander from one part to another to talk to friends; and in several parts of the line, and especially at the English and French end of the line, little knots of men would hold animated discussions of the latest news. The front ranks stood firm, but the rear ranks paid little or no attention to the Germans. On the left of the gateway the orderlies were drawn up and stood in a fairly regular and silent mob, highly amused at the disorder in the ranks of the officers. The C.O. would stand in front for perhaps a couple of minutes, hoping vainly that things would calm down. He then saluted us formally. A few Frenchmen, and most Englishmen andRussians, who happened to be looking in that direction answered his salute. Then a scene something as follows used to take place.
The C.O. called out, "Meine Herren," then louder, "Meine Herren, etwas Ruhe bitte." This had some small effect, though there would be one or two cries of "Comprends pas," "Parle pas Bosche," of which the Germans took no notice. One or two Englishmen whose breakfasts were getting cold would try to make the Frenchmen shut up, but only added to the noise. Two N.C.O.'s were then sent off to count us. One went along the front and one along the rear of the ranks trying to get the officers to stand in files of five. As the prisoners were continually moving about this looked an impossible task, but they eventually used to manage it, though they sometimes had to give up in despair and start again. As soon as this was over the numbers were reported to theFeldwebel, and two more N.C.O.'s were sent into the building to count the sick who had remained in their rooms, while we stood stamping our feet in the cold and waiting for them. Perhaps some Frenchman would call out to an Englishman, "Savez-vous combien de prisonniers Bosches les Anglais out pris hier?"—"Onze mille trois cent quatre vingt deux Bosches." A certain amount of laughter followed, and the ranks would break up more or less and start walking about and talking. After ten minutes' wait, the N.C.O.'s who had been counting the sick would return and give their counts to theFeldwebel. Sometimes the tally was right and sometimes wrong—if the latter, the whole thing had to be done overagain, accompanied by cries of derision, contempt, and impatience from the prisoners.
Very often the riot got so bad that the C.O., after glancing anxiously over his shoulder, beckoned the guard to come in to overawe us. The old Landsturm, as they came pouring through the gate over the moat, were greeted with hoots and yells. At the order of an N.C.O. they loaded—this had no effect on the Frenchmen, who laughed and ragged the C.O. and sentries in French and bad German. But why did the Germans never shoot? It is not difficult to understand. We had no reason to suppose that the Commandant was tired of life, and we knew that hisFeldwebelwas an arrant coward; and the one thing quite certain was, that if the order to fire on us was given, the first thing we should do would be to kill the Commandant and theFeldwebel, and they knew it very well—and that was our safeguard.
Many times during those outsideAppellsat Fort 9 I was sure we were pretty close to a massacre—and the massacred would not have been confined to the prisoners. There were in that small courtyard only about forty armed Germans, all oldish men, and there were of us, counting the orderlies, nearly 200 extremely active men. We should have won easily—and the Germans knew it. At any time we wished, we could have taken that fort and escaped, though if we had, none of us would have got out of the country alive. You must understand then that the Germans did not tolerate this insubordination because they liked it or because they were too kind-hearted to fire, but because for the sake of their own skins they dared notgive the order to fire. The prisoners, on the other hand, were prepared to risk a good deal for the sake of demonstrating how little they cared for German discipline, and for the sake of keeping up their own spirits, but most especially just for the fun of ragging the hated Bosche.
Towards the end of my time at Ingolstadt, the Germans, as I have already said, only hadAppelloutside when they had something to announce to the prisoners. In the momentary hush which usually occurred when we were expecting the Commandant to dismiss us, theFeldwebelwould step forward, produce a paper, and start to read in German. This was always the signal for a wild outcry—"Comprends pas!" "Assassin!" "Assassin!" (for, as I will show later, theFeldwebelhad good reason to be unpopular), "Parle pas Bosche!" "Can't understand that damned language," "Ne pomenaio!" (Don't understand) from a Russian, etc. TheFeldwebelwould carry on, white with funk, till the end, when the C.O. would seize the first moment in which he could make himself heard to dismiss us with the words, "Appell ist fertig, meine Herren." If the cordon of sentries in front of the main gate happened to hear the dismissal, they got out of the light quickly; if not, they were brushed aside before they knew what was happening. Why no one ever got stuck with a bayonet I never could make out.
So much for the 11.30Appell. Very much more often than not it took place in our rooms. We carried on with our breakfasts or whatever we were doing, and an N.C.O., after giving a tap at the door, came in, made certain that every one was present, and went out again. Five minutesor so later the electric bell would ring, andAppellwas over. The doors into the inner courtyard were then opened again—they were always closed duringAppell—and everything was done with the minimum of inconvenience to ourselves. The time of the nextAppellvaried with the time of the year. It took place about half an hour before dark, and after it the doors into the inner courts were shut for the night, but the two wings were not locked off from one another till after the 9 o'clockAppell, when we were visited in our rooms in just the same way. Between 4 and 9 a sentry was left in the long passage in each of the wings. Poor chap! He used to have an uncomfortable time trying to stop us from stealing the lamps in the passage. After 9 o'clock he was withdrawn, and, as I have already said, the doors at the end of the passage were locked and we were left to our own devices.
The above description of an outsideAppellis by no means an exaggeration. Certainly they were sometimes less rowdy, but not often. I remember oneAppellwas taken by General Peters in person. General Peters was the C.O. of all the camps of Ingolstadt and appeared one morning with some specialStrafeor reprisal to read out to us. If I remember right, it had something to do with alleged ill-treatment of German officers in France. The General was not popular, and even more noise was made than usual. Just before the cordon was drawn across the door, a French captain walked down the whole front line carrying a chair and sat down throughout theAppell. When theFeldwebelstood forward to read his document, he was greeted with the usual cries of "Assassin!" and"Parle pas Bosche!" and finished in a storm of howls which completely drowned his voice. The interpreter then proceeded to read a French translation, which was listened to with attention, the reading being merely punctuated by cheers and laughter and hoots at the interesting points. After the Russian shooting affair, which happened towards the end of our time at the fort, one Russian always used to turn up with a large Red Cross flag on a pole. When things began to get really exciting, I own I used to edge away from the flag, as I felt sure the Germans would fire their first volley into the group round it.