FOOTNOTES:[1]Lieutenant Medlicott, R.F.C., was later murdered by the Germans on his tenth attempt to escape.
[1]Lieutenant Medlicott, R.F.C., was later murdered by the Germans on his tenth attempt to escape.
[1]Lieutenant Medlicott, R.F.C., was later murdered by the Germans on his tenth attempt to escape.
One morning just beforeAppell, a Frenchman came along the passage and announced in each room that Colonel Tardieu was not going out toAppellthat morning, and would be obliged if other officers would remain in their rooms when the bell went. We did not know exactly what the reason was, and I don't know now, but I think the Colonel had some right on his side—as much right as we usually had in Fort 9. Soon after this announcement a deputation of Russians waited on Major Gaskell to find out what the English intended to do. I may as well say here that Gaskell and most of the other Englishmen (myself included) did not altogether approve of this rowdyism onAppell, as we thought it might lead to serious restriction of our exercise and consequently of our chances of escaping, which was of course the only thing worth considering.
As the Russian colonel insisted on acting as interpreter for the deputation, the discussion lasted a quarter of an hour before we understood that the Russians thought it would be better to go out, as they considered it probable that the Germans would treat our refusal as an organized mutiny. But they were, they said, prepared to follow our lead.
Gaskell and I then went off to see Colonel Tardieu. The Colonel said that, though it was best for us to stick together, this case was a purely personal matter, and we could please ourselves—he could only say that he was not going out, and that the French would follow his lead. Gaskell and I determined to compromise by leaving the matter unsettled, but to go out ourselves toAppellvery late. In this way it was quite impossible for the Germans to prove organized mutiny against us, and equally impossible to holdAppelloutside—and the whole thing could easily be put down to mismanagement and the lack of clear orders on the part of the Germans. This was, in fact, just what happened. The Germans were furious, but we pointed out that they had given so many contradictory orders aboutAppellthat no one knew what they wanted. They soon saw that there was no case against us for organized mutiny and let the matter drop. The real trouble was that the Commandant was a man who was simply made to be ragged.
A more unfortunate choice for a C.O. of astrafecamp can scarcely be imagined. He was a short, thick-set, dark man, about fifty years old, with a large drooping moustache and an inclination to stoutness. His hair was rather long, and he wore pince-nez for reading. I think he had only been C.O. of Fort 9 for a few months when we first went there, but some of the prisoners had known him when he had been in command of another camp, and he then had the reputation for being a kindly and sympathetic commandant. But when we first knew him constant badgering had already soured his temper. He was rather likea schoolmaster whose form has got quite out of control, uncertain whether his boys were intending to be insolent or not. He never pretended to stand on his dignity—his appearance and behavior stamped him as an amiable shopkeeper cursed with occasional fits of violent temper. Then he laid himself open to be ragged so dreadfully. Although he knew little about the business of the fort and had to appeal to hisFeldwebelon almost every point, yet he insisted on attending personally to nearly every officer who came into the bureau. TheFeldwebeland two extremely efficient N.C.O.'s, known as Abel and the "Blue Boy," really managed the fort.
This reminds me of a most amusing caricature of theFeldwebelordering the C.O. about, which was pinned up in a conspicuous place. I think aReclamationor official letter was sent in to General Peters, protesting against this state of affairs, for which the author got a few days' "jug." A few days' "jug" was just a farce. The cells were always full, and when you got yourBestrafungyou were put on a waiting list and did your period of solitary confinement from three to five months later. One angry Frenchman wrote a furiousReclamationtalking of justice and favoritism because Oliphant had been allowed to do a "slice of four days' jug" out of his turn on the list. A sheaf ofReclamations(the word was pronounced in either German or French way) used to go in daily to General Peters on every conceivable subject, from serious grievances to humorous insults, from a protest against the filthy habits of Bavarian sentries to an accusation of poisoning a pet rabbit.
Some men used to spend a great deal of their time writingReclamationsconveying veiled insults to the Germans. It seemed to me rather a waste of time, but they caused a great deal of amusement. It was just like composing a sarcastically offensive letter to a Government department. Some of the results were really very humorous and witty, but I am afraid they were wasted on the Bosche, and I have no doubt they all went straight into Peters' wastepaper-basket—at any rate, I never heard of aReclamationhaving any effect except three days' "jug" for the author of the most offensive ones.
When we first came to the fort we were told that some of the French had sworn an oath to drive the Commandant off his head. He was pretty far gone. Some of the Englishmen, chiefly Oliphant, Medlicott, and Buckley, with these Frenchmen, used to get an enormous amount of amusement by baiting the old fool.
I remember once a conversation something as follows:—
Frenchman.—"The German food you give us is very bad."
Commandant.—"Es tut mir sehr leid, aber——"
Frenchman.—"And it is impossible for any one but a Bavarian to eat it without wine."
"Was meinen Sie, das dürfen Sie nicht sagen," answered the Commandant furiously.
"Why won't you give us wine?" shouted the Frenchman.
"You have got no right to speak to me like that."
"And you don't know how to speak to a French officer; it's disgusting that when you give," etc.
"Sofort aus dem Bureau gehen?" (Will you go out of the bureau?)
Both start shouting simultaneously:
"Why won't you give us wine?"
"Aus dem Bureau ... I will report you to General Peters."
"Je m'en fous de General Peters—I won't go out till you speak politely to a French officer."
"Go out of this bureau immediately when I tell you to."
"I won't go till you learn to speak politely to me."
The Commandant then rushed at the telephone and pretended to wind the handle violently, but without really calling up at all. He put the instrument to his ear and said:
"Herr General Peters. Are you there? I am Hauptmann L'Hirsch. There is a Frenchman in the office who won't go away. What shall I do?"
Slight pause for Peter's reply. Then to the Frenchman in French:
"The General says that you must leave the bureau immediately."
"Did the General speak politely?"
"Yes."
"Eh bien je sors."
I have already given a description of a scene which took place the first time I ever entered the bureau—and these sort of scenes used to happen daily and hourly. Whenever the Commandant lost his temper, which he did without fail every time, he threw his arms about, clenched his fists, gesticulated furiously, and shouted at the top ofhis voice. Soon after the Bojah affair, which I will describe later, when rows of this sort multiplied exceedingly, he was removed from the fort nothing less than a raving maniac with occasional sane intervals. In the court-martial which followed the Bojah case, the witnesses for the defense attempted to prove that the insane behavior of Hauptmann L'Hirsch was the main cause of all trouble in Fort 9. In an impartial court of justice, which this court-martial was not, I have not the smallest doubt that they would have succeeded in proving this, owing to L'Hirsch's behavior during the trial.
The food given us by the Germans was not only very nasty, but there was not enough of it to keep a man alive. Perhaps this is an exaggeration, as I know that a man can keep alive, though weak, with very little food. But lack of food to this extent, combined with the hardships of a winter at Fort 9, would, I am sure, be enough to kill most strong men. Every day each man received a loaf of bread, shaped like a bun, about 4-1/2 inches across the bottom and 2 inches in depth. It was of a dirty brown color and, though unpleasant, it was eatable. Some even said they liked it. I don't know what it was made of, but I should think from the taste that rye, sawdust, and potatoes formed the ingredients, the latter predominating. It was sometimes very stodgy, and sometimes sour, but on the whole was better bread than we received either at Gütersloh or Clausthal. Later on, the size of the loaf was reduced by more than a third and the quality deteriorated very much, the percentage of sawdust and other unpleasant ingredients being much increased. We never ateit unless we were very hard up, but, if left for a few days, it became as hard as a brick and was most useful as a firelighter. I remember an officer telling us that when he was a prisoner at Magdeburg in the early days of the war, the English prisoners had started playing rugger in the exercise yard with a piece of bread that had dropped in the mud. There was a terrible scene of indignation and excitement among the Germans. The guard turned out—fixed bayonets—charged—rescued the loaf—arrested every one, and I don't remember what happened after that, but all the criminals were severely punished. It must have been terrible to have been a prisoner in those early days. I heard hundreds of stories from the poor devils who were caught in 1914. Some of these stories were funny, some were filthy, that is to say, funny to a German mind, and some were enough to make a man swear, as many have sworn, never to speak to a German in peace time and never to show mercy to one in war.[2]
Besides this ration of bread, we were given a small basin of soup daily—it was just greasy hot water with some vegetable, nearly always cabbage, in it. The amount of meat we received used to provide each of us with one helping of meat once every ten days. Two or three times during my stay at Ingolstadt I remember the meat was quite good, and, if it was eatable at all, we enjoyed itenormously, as fresh meat was such a welcome change after the tinned food which we ate continually. Usually, however, it was impossibly tough, and sometimes merely a piece of bone and gristle. We tried keeping it for several days, but it always got high before it got tender. At the end of my time there, when Moretti had been elected chef of Room 42, we always used to make soup from it. Moretti used it five times for soup before he would throw it away, and announced, as he put the soup on the table, "La première," or "La troisième séance," or "La cinquième et dernière séance," whichever it was. The Germans also gave us a certain amount of perfectly undrinkable acorn coffee, and sugar at the rate of about two lumps per man per day. Sometimes they gave us some very nasty beans and sometimes some really horrible dried fish—I think it was haddock. It was very salt, and stank so that we used always to throw it away immediately—we simply could not stand it in the room. Room 39 used to hang all their fish outside the window during the cold weather—a revolting sight. It was their reserve rations, they said. Some of the Russians managed to eat their fish, and I believe there was a French room which had a special method of treating it, but it was generally voted uneatable throughout the fort. About one moderate sized potato per day per head concluded the food rations. This may seem a fairly generous allowance of food, even if it was not of very high quality, but in reality it was very little indeed. A day's rations would work out something as follows: one potato, one small plateful of hot-water soup, one cup acorn coffee, one lump of sugar,two mouthfuls of fish, one mouthful of meat, four or five beans, and the loaf of bread. If any one thinks he can live on that, I should like him to try for a few months in cold weather. We had not many luxuries and comforts in Fort 9, and we did look forward to and enjoy the good things to eat that came from home. It is only people who have never been hungry who can pretend to be indifferent about food—that is to say, if they are well and in hard training as we were. The arrival of the parcel cart was hailed with enormous enthusiasm. I think our people at home would have been well repaid for all the trouble they took in packing the parcels if they could have seen the pleasure it gave us receiving them. Excitement reached a high pitch when we knew that a map or compass was hidden in one of the parcels.
All the work of the fort—cleaning, cooking, emptying dust-bins, etc.—was done by French and Russian orderlies under the orders of German N.C.O.'s, and when our parcels came they were taken out of the cart and wheeled in on a hand-cart from the outside courtyard to the packet office. There they were sorted by Abel, a German N.C.O., with the help of a French orderly. When this had been done, usually the day after the arrival of the parcels, a list was put up of those who had received any, just inside the main gateway, on the official notice board. The giving out of thepaquetswas a pretty lengthy process, as each was opened by Abel or an assistant Hun and carefully searched. Each wing alternately was served first, and an orderly warned each room when the parcels for that room would be given out. This prevented there being along queue of officers waiting outside thepaquetoffice. A sentry stood outside the door and admitted three officers at a time. A couple of yards inside the door there was a counter right across the room, and on the far side two German N.C.O.'s stood, each armed with a knife and a skewer—the first for opening the parcels, the latter for probing the contents for forbidden articles. You signed for your parcels and paid 5 Pf. or 10 Pf. for the cost of carting them up.
The Germans, after showing you the address on the outside, cut them open and examined the contents, sometimes minutely and sometimes carelessly. Abel was an oily little brute, very efficient; we hated him and he hated us with a bitter hatred—not without reason on both sides. I think he hated the French more than he did the English, but he hated Medlicott more than all the rest put together. About two months before I left Fort 9 a rumor went round, to the intense joy of every one, that Abel was under orders for the West Front, and we all wished him luck, and he knew what we meant. Abel was just a bit too clever, and consequently got done in the eye sometimes; but I must own that he had a tremendous amount of work to do and did it very quickly and efficiently. His very capable assistant was the "Blue Boy," whose chief job was to lurk about the fort and try and catch us out. He was always standing in dark corners and turning up unexpectedly. It was his job to tap the bars of our windows with a sledge hammer every three days, and he took an active part in the pursuit if any one escaped.
He was not so clever as Abel, but he had more time forspying and was more persistent. It always seemed to me to be worth keeping on fairly decent terms with these two. It was only necessary to refrain from being offensive to be on better terms than most people in the fort.
It was very different with that swine of aFeldwebel. He never walked about without a revolver in his pocket, and he never came alone down any dark passage; "et il avait raison," as the French said, as he had several pretty narrow shaves with brickbats as it was. At one time those tins and jars, such as butter, jam, quaker-oats, which had been packed and sealed in a shop, were passed over to us unopened, and only home-made and home-packed articles were examined. Later on, however, everything had to be turned out on a plate and the Germans kept the tin.
Although very nearly all our parcels arrived eventually, they used to come rather irregularly, and several times as many as twenty to thirty parcels would arrive for the six of us who were in one room. Consequently, if all the food had been opened immediately, much of it would have gone bad before we could eat it. To obviate this difficulty, the Germans made shelves in the parcel office, and each room or mess could leave there the food which it did not need for the moment.
At first sight it would seem that this arrangement would make the smuggling through of forbidden goods almost impossible, or at any rate that our difficulties would be greatly increased. In reality the business was simplified. As long as we knew in which tin or small package the map, compass, or what-not was coming, we could makefairly certain, by methods which I shall describe later, of getting it without it ever being opened by the Germans.
AfterAppellall the fort except the English had dinner. This was the hour when the potato, wood, oil, and coal stealing fatigues did their duty. For some weeks our French orderly used to steal potatoes for us as we needed them. He knew the ropes very well, as he had been in the fort for more than a year. One day, however, he said that this stealing in small quantities was a mistake, and that it would be safer to have one big steal once a month or so. Four of us, under the leadership of Carpentier, stole eight small sacks without much difficulty. It was just a matter of knowing the habits of our jailers and timing it accurately. The Germans were not so suspicious in those days as they became later. There was a small trap-door 6 feet up the wall in the central passage, which Carpentier knew how to open. He got in, filled the bags, and passed them out to us. To carry the full bags back to our rooms we had to pass under the eyes of a sentry. But that is just the best of a German sentry. He had had no orders to spot prisoners carrying bags, and he had also no imagination, so he took no notice.
Between the hours of twelve and two we did our lessons. From two till four we played hockey or tennis. Tea was at four, when some Frenchmen usually came in to see us.Appelltook place and the doors of the courtyards were shut about half an hour before sunset. After thisAppell, till the eveningAppellat nine o'clock, a sentry was left in our passage; but we could still communicate with the other wing. Bridge, reading, lessons, lectures, and preparationfor dinner took place during this period. The great amusement was lamp-stealing. During the winter the Germans allowed us, as we thought, a totally insufficient supply of oil, which only enabled us to burn our lamps for four hours out of the twenty-four. This meant going to bed at nine, which was of course ridiculous. The gloomy passages of the fort were mainly lit by oil lamps, and from these we used to steal the oil systematically. After a month or two the Germans realized that this was going on and reduced the number of lamps, and in the long passage where it was obviously impossible to stop us stealing oil they put acetylene lamps. Two lamps to a passage 70 yards long was not a generous allowance.
Between 5 and 9 p.m. the sentry in the passage had special orders, a loaded rifle, and a fixed bayonet, to see that these lamps were not stolen. As all the sentries had been stuffed up by theFeldwebelwith horrible stories about the murderous and criminal characters of the prisoners, it is not surprising that each sentry showed the greatest keenness in preventing us from stealing the lamps and leaving him, an isolated Hun, in total darkness and at the mercy of the prisoners. As any man came out of his room and passed one of the lamps, which were on brackets about 7 feet from the ground, the sentry would eye him anxiously and hold himself in readiness to yell "Halt!" and charge up the passage. The lamps were about 30 yards apart, and someone would come up, walk up to a lamp, and stop beneath it—the sentry would advance on him, and when he was sufficiently attracted, the officer would take out his watch and look at it by the light ofthe lamp. Meanwhile a second officer would come quickly out of his room and take down the other lamp. As soon as the sentry perceived this he would immediately charge, with loud yells of "Halt! Halt!" but as he turned both lamps would be blown out simultaneously, and the officers would disappear into their respective rooms, leaving the passage in total darkness. The amusing part was that this used to happen every night, and the sentries knew it was going to happen; but against tactics of this sort, varied occasionally, of course, but always ending with the lights being blown out simultaneously, they were quite powerless!
The evening, after the sentry had been withdrawn at 9 p.m., was spent in the ordinary occupations of gambling, reading, tracing maps, making German uniforms and pork-pie caps, with occasional fancy-dress balls or impromptu concerts. Sometimes mysterious lights would be seen in odd corners of the passage, where someone was industriously working at making a hole through the wall, removing the blocks of stone noiselessly one by one; and sometimes one would run up against a few men round a wonderful structure of tables and chairs in the middle of the passage, where someone was climbing up the skylight to inspect the sentries on their beats on the top parapet, but usually all was peace and quiet till about 11 p.m. At that hour the sentries were supposed to make us put out the lights in our rooms, but when they found that we paid little or no attention to repeated cries of "Licht ausmachen," and as there was no method, short of firing through the bars into a lighted bedroom, to makeus put them out, they eventually gave up these attempts, and, except for an occasional very offensive or conscientious sentry, we put out our lamps or candles when we wished.
SKETCH MAP OF FORT 9 INGOLSTADTSKETCH MAP OF FORT 9 INGOLSTADT
FOOTNOTES:[2]The Germans varied their treatment of their prisoners inversely with their prospects of victory. When things were going badly with them—during most of 1916, for instance—much unnecessary harshness towards their prisoners was relaxed. When once more their hopes of final victory were raised by the invasion of Roumania and the checking of the Somme offensive, the poor prisoners had a rough time. Such is the way with bullies.
[2]The Germans varied their treatment of their prisoners inversely with their prospects of victory. When things were going badly with them—during most of 1916, for instance—much unnecessary harshness towards their prisoners was relaxed. When once more their hopes of final victory were raised by the invasion of Roumania and the checking of the Somme offensive, the poor prisoners had a rough time. Such is the way with bullies.
[2]The Germans varied their treatment of their prisoners inversely with their prospects of victory. When things were going badly with them—during most of 1916, for instance—much unnecessary harshness towards their prisoners was relaxed. When once more their hopes of final victory were raised by the invasion of Roumania and the checking of the Somme offensive, the poor prisoners had a rough time. Such is the way with bullies.
When we had been a few days at the fort, and had had time for a good look round, Room 45 formed themselves into an escaping club. That is to say, our ideas and discoveries would be common property. If possible, we would all escape together; but if the way out was only for two or three, the rest would help those selected to go to the best of their ability. It was universally agreed that Fort 9 was the toughest proposition that any of us had yet struck. The difficulty was not so much the material obstacles, but the suspicious nature of the Germans.
Medlicott and Oliphant, as the most experienced prison-breakers, came to the conclusion that it was absolutely necessary to have more accurate knowledge of the numbers, positions, and movements of the sentries on the ramparts and round the moat at night than we already possessed. For this purpose it was decided that one of us must spend a night out. It was no job to be undertaken lightly. It meant a fifteen-hours' wait on a freezing night. For the first three and the last three hours of this time it would be almost impossible to move a muscle without discovery. And discovery meant a very excellent chance of beingstuck with a bayonet. Besides this, there were twoAppellsto be "faked"—theAppelljust before sunset and the early morning one. There was noAppellat 9 o'clock in those days. Our rooms were separated from one another by 3-foot thick walls, but in these walls were archways leading from one room to the other. These archways were blocked up by boarding, and formed recesses in each room which were usually employed as hanging-cupboards for clothes, coats, etc. Under cover of these we cut a couple of planks out of the wooden barrier and made a hole so a man could slip through quickly from one room to the other. These planks could be put back quickly, and it would have needed a pretty close examination to have discovered where the board was cut, once pictures had been pasted over the cracks and coats had been hung up in front. There was some difficulty at first in obtaining the necessary tools for the work. The first plank we cut through with a heated table-knife, but for the second one we managed to steal a saw from the German carpenter who was doing some work in one of the rooms, and return it before he missed it. It must not be forgotten that there was absolutely no privacy in the fort, and that a sentry passed the window and probably stared into the room every minute or two. A special watch had to be kept for him, and you had to be prepared at any moment to look as if you were doing something quite innocent. Room 43 was inhabited by Frenchmen, but as usual in Fort 9 they were quite willing to help us. We practiced the trick many times till every one was perfect in his part. The rehearsals were most amusing. One of us pretended to beAbel doingAppell. First he tapped at the door of 43 and counted the men in the room, shut the door and walked about 7 paces to the next door, tapped and entered. Between the time Abel shut one door till the time he opened the next, six to eight seconds elapsed. During those seconds it was necessary for the Frenchman to slip through the hole, put on a British warm (we lived in coats in the cold weather), and pretend to be Oliphant. Abel knew every man by sight in every room; but, as long as he saw the requisite number of officers in each room, he did not often bother to examine their faces. After we had done it successfully, several other rooms adopted the method, and the "faking" was done a very large number of times before the Germans discovered it four months later.
The early morningAppellwas really easier. For several mornings the fellow in the bed nearest the hole made a habit of covering his face with the bed-clothes. Abel soon got used to seeing him like that, and, if he saw him breathing or moving, did not bother to pull the clothes off his face. The Frenchman had simply to run from his bed, bolt through the hole and into the bed in our room, cover up his face, and go through the motions of breathing and moving his legs sufficiently but without overdoing it. All this had been practiced carefully beforehand. We had, of course, enormous fun over these preparations, stealing the saw and cutting the planks, pretending to be Abel doingAppell, and all the time dodging the sentry at the window. This sort of amusementmay seem childish, but it was the only thing which made life tolerable at Fort 9.
We cast lots as to which one of us was to sleep out. It fell to Oliphant. I own I breathed a sigh of relief, as I did not relish the job. The next thing to do was to hide him outside on the ramparts. The place was selected with great care, and was behind one of the traverses up on the ramparts on the south side, for our idea was for some or all of us to hide up there and swim the moat on the south side one dark night. Medlicott and Milne dug a grave for him, whilst Fairweather and I kept watch. Just before theAppellbell went we buried him and covered him with sods and grass. Of course he was very warmly clad, but he had a pretty beastly night in front of him, as it was freezing at the time. It was about 4.30 p.m. when he was covered up, and he would not get back to our room and comparative warmth till 8.15 next morning, when the doors were opened. The eveningAppellwent off splendidly, but the night was brighter than we had hoped, and we were rather anxious about him.
There was some anxiety also about the morningAppell, as we could not be quite certain which way Abel would take theAppell, up or down the passage: that is to say, which room, 42 or 43, would he come to first? It made all the difference to our arrangements. By careful listening we found out which way he was coming, and when he poked our substitute, who groaned and moved in the oft-rehearsed manner, we nearly killed ourselves with suppressed laughter.
About an hour afterwards, just as we were going out tocover his retreat, Oliphant suddenly walked in, very cold and hungry but otherwise cheerful. He had had quite a successful night, and had gained pretty well all the information we wished for. The bright moon had prevented him from crawling about very much, but he had seen enough for us to realize that it would be a pretty difficult job to get through the sentries and swim the moat even on a dark night.
Although we temporarily abandoned this scheme, owing in the first place to the difficulties which we only realized after Oliphant's expedition, and secondly because "faking"Appellwas a very chancy business for more than two people, we nevertheless made the most careful preparations to escape at the first possible opportunity. Several schemes were broached. One of these schemes I always considered a good one. In the low and flat country in which the fort was situated very thick fogs used to come down quite suddenly. As soon as it became foggy all the prisoners had to come into the fort and the doors of the courtyards were shut. Our idea was either to wait outside carefully hidden when the order was given to come in, or to have some method of getting into the courtyard in foggy weather; in either case we thought it would not have been a difficult business to cross the narrow moat on the north side during a fog in the day time. At night time there were sentries in the courtyards and on the ramparts, as well as three in front of our windows. In the day time there were none in the courtyards or on the ramparts, and only one in front of our windows. The difficulty was to get into the courtyards after we had beenlocked up. I climbed up a ventilator several times to see if it were not possible to cut our way out there, but the more one went into the details the more difficult it seemed.
In the meantime we went on with our preparations: map-copying (which was Fairweather's department), rations and equipment (of which Medlicott and Oliphant were in charge), intelligence department as to movements of sentries and habits of Huns (which was my job). Boots, socks, grease, home-made rücksacks, concentrated food and the correct amount of meat and biscuits for a ten days' march, maps, compasses, the route to follow, and numerous other details were carefully prepared, and the material hidden. We thought that it was unlikely that a larger party than four would be able to go, and Medlicott, Oliphant, Fairweather, and myself were selected to be the first party to try if anything turned up.
The next bit of excitement was the escape of Kicq and party. This happened when we had been in the fort about a month. Early on Kicq had left Room 45 and gone into a French room, 41. One afternoon he asked me if I would help him to escape, which I agreed to do. His idea was to dress up as a German N.C.O., and with six Frenchmen and a Belgian named Callens to bluff themselves out of the main gate at about 6.30 in the evening. The scheme seemed to me almost impossible—but Kicq was enthusiastic about it, and persuaded me that it would probably come off, if only because it was so improbable that any one would attempt such a thing. There were three sentries and three gates and a guardhouse to pass, and the realdanger was that, if they passed the first sentry and gate and were stopped in front of the second, they would be caught in the outer courtyard at the tender mercy of two angry sentries, and in my opinion would stand an excellent chance of being stuck with a bayonet. However, Kicq realized that as well as I did; and, as it is for every man to judge the risks he cares to take, I promised to do my part, which was quite simple.
About 6 p.m. I went into Room 41, and there they were all dressing up and painting their faces, etc., as if for private theatricals. Kicq was excellent as a German Unteroffizier. He had made a very passable pork-pie cap, of which the badge in front is very easy to imitate by painted paper. He had a dark overcoat on to which bright buttons, which would pass in the dark as German buttons, had been sewn, and he had a worn-out pair of German boots which had been given to one of the orderlies by a German. Some of the others had on the typical red trousers—but any sort of nondescript costume will do for a French orderly. They were timed to go as soon after 6.30 p.m. as the road was clear, and it was my job to give the signal. I was pleased to be able to report that I had never seen the sentry, who was on duty at the main gate, before, and it was most unlikely that he knew any of their faces. I stood about opposite the packet office, and Abel came along the passage and went in. Looking through the keyhole I saw that he was busy in there near the door and might come out at any moment. I reported this, and the whole party came and stood in the dark turning of the passage by the bathroom, from where theycould watch me peering through the packet office keyhole. At last I saw Abel sit down at his table and begin writing, so I gave the signal. Immediately a whole troop of French orderlies, carrying mattresses, blankets, and bedding on their heads, came clattering down the passage, laughing and talking to one another in French. A German N.C.O. was among them, and as he went along he collided with a German-speaking Russian, a great friend of ours known as Charley, who naturally cursed his eyes out in German. Kicq took no notice, but going just ahead of his orderlies he cursed the sentry at the main gate for not opening the door more quickly for them, and stood aside counting them as they went out. One fellow came running down the passage a bit after the others—Kicq waited for him and then went out after them, and the door closed.
I waited most anxiously for any noise which would show that things had gone wrong. But after ten minutes it seemed certain that they had got clear away.
After half an hour of subdued rejoicing in the fort, for by that time the story had gone round, we suddenly heard an awful commotion among the Huns. The guards were turning out at the double, clutching their rifles amid a regular pandemonium of shouts and orders, and the roar of the Commandant could be heard above the tumult. We turned out into the passages to see the fun. The C.O. was raving like a maniac. The minute he caught sight of us laughing at him he brandished his fists and shouted at us to go to our rooms. Oliphant and I started to argue that the bell had not gone and therefore we need not goto our rooms, but he told off a sentry, who drove us back at the point of the bayonet, Oliphant protesting in his worst German, "Sie dürfen nicht so sprechen mit ein English Offizier."
We cheered like mad and sang the Marseillaise and "On les aura"—in fact, celebrated the occasion to the best of our ability.
What happened as soon as the party got outside the first door, Kicq told me afterwards. The second obstacle they had to pass was the gate which barred the roadway over the moat. This the sentry opened for them without a word, whilst Kicq trod on his toes to distract his attention. As they passed the guardhouse in the outer court several men came out and shouted at them, but they were unarmed, and Kicq & Co. paid no attention. The outer gate consists of a double door which they knew would pull open without being unlocked, once the bar was removed. They got the bar off and tore open the gate, and found a sentry waiting for them with a rifle and fixed bayonet outside. "Wer kommt dann hier?" said he. Kicq was out first, and holding up his hand said, "Ruhig, einer ist los!" (Be quiet, a prisoner has got away), and rushed past him into the darkness. Without giving the sentry time to recover his wits, the rest pushed past, throwing their mattresses, etc., on the ground at his feet, and disappeared. Kicq and Decugis went on together for a bit, thinking that the rest must have been held up and expecting to hear shots. Then they saw other figures moving near them in the darkness and thought at first they were Germans searching, but found they were the rest of the party. Itwas not for some minutes afterwards that the alarm was given; but the whole party, after nearly running into a sentry on a neighboring fort, managed to get away from their pursuers. After a terribly hard eleven days' march they were all caught near the frontier. It was in the middle of winter, and they suffered most dreadfully from cold and bad feet. All of them, with the exception of Kicq and Callens, had gone out (according to English ideas of escaping) very badly prepared for such a journey at that time of year. They had quite insufficient food (though they had opportunities of carrying out any amount), insufficient socks, grease, and numerous other things. They also lost their way rather badly the first two nights. Then Kicq took charge, and the latter part of the journey they went by the same route which Buckley and I afterwards followed. None of them had thought of going into proper training, and to have reached the frontier under such conditions was a wonderful feat of endurance. They were in a terrible condition when they were caught. When within 70 kilometres of the frontier, just north of Stockach, they separated, the Frenchmen going on together and making a forced march of 60 kilometres in one night, and the Belgians coming on in their own time. Both parties were caught on the same day and about the same time; the Frenchmen because they got into a country close to the frontier where they could find no decent place to lie up, and, as there was a light fall of snow, their tracks were traced. The Belgians were caught in a very unlucky manner. Their hiding-place was excellent, but on a Sunday the Germans usually go outshooting, and a shooting party came on them. A dog came up and sniffed at them, and then an old German with a gun stared into the bush and said, "Es ist ein Fuchs" (It's a fox).
They soon found it was not a fox, and Kicq and Callens were hauled out. The Würtembergers treated them very well indeed, and said they were almost sorry they had captured them, as they had made such a sporting effort, or words to that effect. They were escorted back to the fort by a very decent Würtemberg officer, who was furious with the Commandant when he laughed and jeered at them for being recaptured. "Well," said Kicq in excellent German to the Commandant, "if you leave all the gates open, how are prisoners to know that they are not allowed to go out that way?" The Würtemberg officer remarked, as he said good-bye to them outside, that "the Prussians were brutes, but the Bavarians were swine." Which remark seems to me very much to the point. All the party, with the exception of a very young Frenchman called La Croix, had painful and swollen feet, and all without exception were ravenously hungry for a week or more after they had been returned to prison. One of them retired to hospital for several weeks, and I believe that there was a danger at one time that he would lose his feet owing to frost-bite. However, they healed in time.
As far as I remember they received no special punishment for this escape. They probably got five days' "jug," each, but, as I have explained before, this was a mere farce. Each of the three sentries whom they had passed got threemonths—and I don't imagine that was any farce at all for the unfortunate sentries.
During the spell of fine weather which we had before the winter set in, Medlicott and Buckley joined forces and made an attempt to escape by a method which, in my opinion, was as unpleasant and risky as any which was attempted in Fort 9. With the help of the Commandant de Goys they persuaded some French orderlies to wheel them out concealed in the muck and rubbish boxes. We buried them one afternoon beneath potato peel and muck of every description, heaved the boxes on to a hand-cart, and then from the top of the ramparts watched four orderlies escorted by a sentry wheel them out to the rubbish-heap about 200 yards from the fort. In the boxes they were lying on sacking, so that when the box was upset the sacking would fall over them. We saw the first box upset apparently successfully, but as they were about to deal with the second, which contained Medlicott, there was a pause. The sentry unslung his rifle, and it was obvious to us that they had been discovered. Buckley's account of what happened was as follows:—
"At about 4.45 Medlicott and I proceeded to where the boxes stood, and after some of the rubbish had been taken out we were thrust into its place by the willing hands of Evans, Milne, Fairweather, and Oliphant, and covered up again with rubbish. In due course the orderlies arrived, the boxes were loaded on to the cart, and the 'procession' started. All seemed to be going extremely well as far as I could judge from my uncomfortable position; the sentry was picked up at the guardhouse, and I heard with joy thegate of the fort being unlocked to let the party out. The orderlies stopped the cart at the rubbish-heap (or rather some hundred yards short of it, as we found out afterwards, our combined weight having made farther progress in the snow impossible), and started to unload the box in which I was concealed. As instructed, they unloaded us as far away from the sentry as possible. I felt my box taken off the cart and turned over. I lay still, and seemed to be well covered with rubbish and to be unnoticed. I heard Medlicott's box unloaded alongside of me, but just as this was being completed I felt some one tugging at the Burberry I was wearing, a corner of which was showing from under the rubbish.
"It had been arranged previously that if either of us was discovered the one discovered first was to give himself up at once and endeavor to conceal the presence of the other. I lay still for a few seconds, but as the tugging continued, I concluded the game was up and I stood up, literally covered in sackcloth and ashes. I must have looked a fairly awe-inspiring sight, and I evidently caused some alarm in the noble breast of a German civilian who had come to hunt the rubbish heap for scraps of food and clothing, and who evidently thought he had discovered a gold mine in the shape of a Burberry which he had been trying to pull off my back for the last few minutes. Anyway, he retired with some speed to a safe distance! The sentry, who up to the time of my getting up had noticed nothing wrong, at this point began to perform rifle exercise in the close proximity of my person, and generally to behave in an excited and dangerous manner. Then followed for the next few minutes the unpleasant and, alas! far too frequent experience of staring down the muzzle of a German rifle, held as it seemed with remarkable steadiness in spite of the excitement of the man behind it. The guard, whose attention had been attracted by the combined shouts of the civilian and the sentry, next appeared on the scene at the double. They were cold, hungry, and excited, to say the least of it.
"Having failed to convince my sentry that I was alone and that there was nobody under the other heap of rubbish, I warned Medlicott of the guard's approach and advised him to get up. This he did, and was at once set upon by the oncoming Landsturm, who really looked as if they meant to do him in. After a considerable show of hate, in which I received a hefty clout over the knee with the butt of a rifle, we were marched back to the fort. A wild and disorderly scene followed between Medlicott, the German Commandant, and myself, of which I have a very vivid recollection. It ended by my being ejected by force from the Commandant's office, but not before both Medlicott and I had either concealed our valuable maps and compasses or had passed them unobserved into the hands of the willing friends who had come to see the fun."
Soon after the recapture of Kicq and party, the moat froze over, and though the Germans for several days were able to keep it broken by going round in a boat every day, they at last had to give it up. It was rather hard to get any conclusive proof as to whether the ice would bear or not, but one evening, after testing the ice with stones, we decided that if there was a frost that night we, that isto say, Oliphant, Medlicott, Milne, Fairweather, Wilkin, and myself, would run over the south rampart and across the ice just before the eveningAppell. We made complete preparations, and every one had ten days' rations and everything else necessary for a march in winter to the frontier.
However, it never came off, as at morningAppellnext day the Commandant informed us that the doors into the inner courtyards would not be opened again until the moat thawed. This was rather a blow, because I felt sure that if we had only had the courage to try, the ice would have borne us the evening before.
About this time, or perhaps rather earlier, there were one or two attempts to escape on the way to the dentist. Du Sellier and another Frenchman and Fairweather were all booked to go one afternoon to the dentist at Ingolstadt. They went under escort, and if they could delay matters so as to return in the darkness it would be the simplest thing in the world to get away. However, they made an awful mess of things, and though they came back in the dark, owing to good procrastination by Fairweather, only Du Sellier got away, and the other Frenchmen knocked up the sentry's rifle as he fired. This was a badly managed business, as all three men ought to have been able to escape from a single sentry in the dark. Du Sellier did not get very far, as the weather was very cold and he was insufficiently prepared. Being alone too was a great handicap. His feet got very bad and he had practically to give himself up, or at any rate to take quite absurd risks after being three or four days out, and wasrecaptured. The real risks were taken by Fairweather and the other Frenchman, and I don't quite know how they failed to get "done in" by an enraged sentry.
Another rather ingenious but still more unsuccessful attempt was made on the way to the dentist by Frenchmen. The idea was to go into one of those large round urinals which are fairly common in French and German towns. Inside they did a very rapid change, put on false beards, spectacles, etc., and walked out at the other end. Unfortunately the sentry recognized them.
In what I have written and intend to write it must not be imagined that I am giving an exhaustive account of all that happened at Fort 9. I can give a fairly detailed account of the main incidents of my own prison career, but even this is not chronologically correct. Otherwise, I can only note a certain number of incidents and stories which will help to illustrate the sort of life we led in this prison. Most of these incidents have to do with escaping or attempting to escape. But it must not be imagined that this is the only thing we ever did or thought about. It was our work, so to speak. Just as at the front, whilst fighting is the main business, soldiers nevertheless manage to amuse themselves pretty well behind the line in rest billets by sports, gambling, sing-songs, and dinners, so with us, whilst escaping was the main object in life, a large part of our time was taken up with lessons in languages, most vigorous games of hockey and tennis, poker and bridge, cooking and eating food, dancing and music, reading the German papers and discussing the war news (we were pretty good at reading between the lines), and attending lectures which were given nearly every night on subjects varying from aviation to Victor Hugo.
After a week or so of hard frost a thaw set in, the ice melted on the moat, and we were again let out into the courtyards. Hockey started once more, and we had some very good games. Some time before this Oliphant's sentence had come through, and he was sent off to Wesel for six months' imprisonment in a fortress; as a punishment, I believe, for attempting to escape, and for things incidental to escaping, such as cutting wire and having maps and other forbidden articles in his possession. When it started to freeze again, I thought of the last time and determined not to miss another opportunity. One morning after testing the ice by throwing stones from the top of the bank I determined to make the attempt that evening. TheAppellbell went about 5 p.m., and about 5.30 it became dark. My idea was to start as theAppellbell went, believing that they would not be able to catch us before the darkness came down. We had to run down a steep bank on to the ice, about 40 yards across the ice, and then 200 yards or so through one or two trees before we could put a cottage between ourselves and the sentries. There was certain to be some shooting, but we reckoned that the sentries' hands would be very cold, as at 5 p.m. they would have been at their posts for just two hours, and they were armed with old French rifles, which they handled very badly.
Wilkin agreed to come with me, and Kicq, when he heard what was up, said he would like to come too. He had always a surprising faith in me. He had scarcelyrecovered from his last escape, but although he was not very fit, he was, or would have been, a great asset to the party, as he knew the way. This was especially valuable as our maps at that time were only copies of copies, and consequently not very accurate. The plan was to carry out rücksacks and other equipment nearly to the top of the south bank and hide behind one of the traverses just under the path. From there we should be hidden from the prying eyes of the sentry on the center "caponnière." The 5 p.m.Appellbell was the signal for two parties, one headed by Major Gaskell and one by Captain Unett,[3]to distract the attention of the two sentries by throwing stones on to the ice. We would then seize our opportunity and rush down the bank, and we hoped to be most of the way across the ice before the firing began.
The question which really was causing us some anxiety was, "Would the ice bear?" I felt confident it would. Wilkin said he was beastily frightened, but he had made up his mind to come and he would go through with it. Kicq said that, if I thought it would bear, he was quite content, and I really believe that the matter did not worry him in the least. It would have been a very unpleasant business if the ice had broken, as, with the heavy clothes we had on, I doubt if we could have got out again. Still, any one who lets his mind dwell too much on what may happen will never escape from any prison in Germany.
Our equipment was pretty complete. I had very thick underclothes, two sweaters, a thick leather flying coat anda tunic, and socks over my boots so as not to slip when running across the ice. The others were dressed much the same, except that Kicq had a cap which had been stolen by Oliphant from the Commandant. He said it might come in useful in impersonating a German N.C.O. conducting two English prisoners.
In our rücksacks we had ample rations for a ten days' march and enough solidified alcohol for at least one hot meal per diem. We managed to get our bags and coats up into the jumping-off place without being seen by the sentry and without much difficulty. I remember walking across the courtyard about 4.30 with Gilliland, picking up stones for him to throw at the ice. I think he was more nervous about it than we were: as is often the case, this sort of thing is more of a strain on the nerves for the onlookers than for those actually taking part. We were all in our places and in our kit, with our sacks on our backs, a few minutes before five. Whilst we were waiting for the bell to go, there were several prisoners walking up and down the path in front of us, along the top of the rampart. Of course they took absolutely no notice of us, except one Frenchman who spoke to us without looking round and assured us that the ice would not bear—a cheerful thing to say under the circumstances. "Mais oui, vous allez voir," we answered.
It was a bad five minutes waiting there. Then the bell went, and almost immediately I heard laughter and shouting and the noise of stones falling on the ice. Then we jumped up and bolted over the path and down the slope. I was slightly ahead of the other two, and when I got tothe bottom of the steep bank I gave a little jump on to the ice, hoping it would break at the edge rather than in the middle if it were going to break at all. But it bore all right, and I shuffled across at a good speed. About half-way over I heard repeated and furious yells of "Halt!" followed soon afterwards by a fair amount of shooting, but I have no idea how many shots were fired. I was soon up the bank on the far side, through a few scattered trees, and over the frozen stream by a plank bridge. Then I looked back. The others were only just clambering up the bank from the moat and were a good 100 yards behind me. What had happened was this. I had made a small jump on to the ice, thus avoiding the rotten edge. The other two did not, but stepped carefully on to the edge, which broke under their weight and they fell flat on their faces. For the moment they were unable to extricate themselves. Wilkin says he got somehow upside down and his heavy rücksack came over his head so that he was quite unable to move. Then Kicq got himself free and pulled out Wilkin. At first he thought of beating a retreat up the bank again, believing naturally that the ice would not bear, but then he saw me three parts of the way across and heard the sentries shooting apparently at me, so he and Wilkin, keeping a bit separated so as not to offer too large a target, ran across after me. The sentry in the center, who had been well attracted by Gaskell and the stone-throwing party, only caught sight of me when I was well on the ice, but then he started yelling "Halt!" and loading his rifle as fast as possible. He then ran to the edge of his "caponnière" and dropping on oneknee fired and missed. Cold fingers, abuse, and perhaps a few stones too, which were hurled at him by the gang on the pathway just above his head, did not help to steady his aim. After one or two shots his rifle jammed. Yells and cheers from the spectators. He tore at the bolt, cursing and swearing, and then put up his rifle at the crowd of jeering prisoners above him. But they could see that the bolt had not gone home and only yelled the more. The other sentry had started firing by this time, but he was out of sight of the prisoners in the fort, and Unett and Milne, who had been distracting his attention (Unett said the sentry nearly shot him once), ran off to prove an alibi. I don't know how many shots were fired altogether. Not a large number, as owing to the appearance of some civilians they stopped firing when once Kicq and Wilkin had got well on to the far bank of the moat. When I was half-way across the space between the moat and the cottage, I saw on the main road on my left a large four-horse wagon with a knot of gesticulating men in civilian clothes. We learnt afterwards that they were carters from a munition factory in the neighborhood, and were fairly strong and healthy fellows. They were only about 150 yards away, and started after us led by a fellow with a cart-whip. The going was very heavy, as there were two or three inches of snow and heavy plough underneath, so we made slow progress, as we were carrying a lot of weight in clothes and food. They quickly overtook me, and the fellow who was leading slashed me across the shoulders with his whip. I turned and rushed at him, but he ran out of my reach. The rest of them then cameround and I began to see that the game was up, especially as at that moment I saw some armed soldiers coming on bicycles along the road from the fort.
The next thing to do was to avoid being shot on recapture. I stood still, whilst they all snarled round me, and beckoning the smallest man said to him in German, "Come here and I will give myself up to you." The fellow with the whip immediately came forward. "Not to you, you Schweinhund," I said; "you hit me with that whip." The little fellow was quite pleased, as I think there is 100 marks reward for the recapture of an officer, and caught hold of my coat tails, and we started off towards the fort. Wilkin had given himself up to two or three others by this time, but I saw that Kicq was trying to sneak off without being noticed while the mob was occupied with us. However, a few seconds later they saw him. Two or three gave chase, and he was brought in soon after us. We had not gone more than a few steps towards the fort when I saw theFeldwebelrunning across the snow towards us. He came up in a furious rage, cursing us and brandishing a revolver. We waved him aside and told him not to make such a fuss, as it was all over now, and he soon calmed down. Some soldiers then came up and marched us in, the Frenchmen cheering us as we came through the gate. Before we came to the fort we had to cross a bridge over the stream; and, as we walked along, I tore up my map and dropped it into the stream. I forgot to say that Kicq, when he went off by himself just before being taken, had managed to get rid of the Commandant's hat by stuffing it down a hole. As Kicq crossed the bridge he tookout his map to throw it into the water, but was seen by his guard, a horrid little fellow who used to help with the clerical work in the bureau. Kicq dropped the map, and a scuffle ensued. Kicq got much the best of this and kicked the map into the stream.
There was quite an amusing scene in the bureau. We all of us had to take off most of our clothes and be searched. I had nothing I could hide, but both Kicq and Wilkin had compasses, which they smuggled through with great skill. Kicq had his hidden in the lining of his greatcoat, and Wilkin kept his in his handkerchief, which he pulled out of his pocket and waved to show there was nothing in it, at the same time holding the compass, and then put it back into his pocket. All our foodstuffs and clothes were returned to us, with the exception of my black flying-coat. I complained about this, and appealed to a German general who come round to inspect the fort a few days later, and it was returned to me, but was eventually confiscated when I tried to escape in it a week or two later. We had several tins of solidified alcohol with us for smokeless cooking purposes. These were taken, though we protested. For all the things taken off us we were given receipts by the Germans and told, rather ironically, that we could have them back at the end of the war.
Just as we were going out I saw my tin of solidified alcohol, which was valuable stuff (we used to manufacture it in the fort from paraffin and soap), standing almost within my reach, and very nearly managed to pocket it as I went out. However, I found Decugis outside, and explained to him the position of the tin, and suggestedthat he should take in one or two pals, have a row in there, and steal it back for me. This is the sort of expedition that the Frenchmen loved and were absolute masters at. Within ten minutes I had my solid alcohol back all right and kept my receipt for it as well.