FOOTNOTES:[3]Captain Unett had been sent to Fort 9 as a punishment for escaping from Clausthal.
[3]Captain Unett had been sent to Fort 9 as a punishment for escaping from Clausthal.
[3]Captain Unett had been sent to Fort 9 as a punishment for escaping from Clausthal.
For the next six weeks life was rather hard. It froze continuously, even in the day time, in spite of the sun, which showed itself frequently, and at night the thermometer registered as often as not more than 27° of frost. The Germans, who had made many efforts to keep the ice in the moat broken by punting round in a steel boat kept for the purpose, now abandoned the attempt, and in consequence of this and of our escape across the ice we were denied the use of the inner courtyards. For the next six weeks the only place in which we could take exercise was the little outer court whereAppellwas sometimes held. It was only about 50 yards by 25, and was really an inadequate exercise ground for 150 active men. Still we kept pretty fit. Every morning all the English had an ice-cold shower-bath. Of the Frenchmen, Bellison, who lived in Gaskell's room, and one other, I think, had been used to take a cold bath every morning, but it was really astonishing what a number followed our example at Fort 9. When it was so cold that the water in the tubs above the shower-sprays was frozen solid, thirty or forty officers, by pumping the water from the well, used to take a bath regularly every morning. It was only when coalbecame so scarce that it was not possible to keep a fire going all day in the living-rooms, and when, if you took a bath cold you would never get warm again the whole day, that attendance dropped to some half-dozen men who, having before them the possibility of a ten days' march to the frontier in the dead of winter, looked upon the bath in the morning more as a method of making themselves hard and fit than as an act of cleanliness.
Every day a good many of us took exercise by running round and round the small court, to the astonishment of the sentries. Müller's exercises were introduced, and Medlicott and Gaskell, Buckley and I, and many other Englishmen and Frenchmen, did them regularly every day for the rest of the time we were in Germany. As a result of this strenuous life, though we were often very cold and very hungry, we were, with few exceptions easily traceable to bad tinned food, never sick or sorry for ourselves the whole time.
Unett, poor fellow, suffered severely from boils, and Buckley from the same complaint during his two months' solitary confinement. From this onwards, for all the winter months, the coal and light shortage became very serious. We stole wood, coal, and oil freely from the Germans, and before the end nearly all the woodwork in the fort had been torn down and burnt, in spite of the strict orders to the sentries to shoot at sight any one seen taking wood. So long as the Germans continued to use oil lamps in the many dark passages of the fort, it was not very difficult to keep a decent store of oil in hand, but after amonth or so the Germans realized they were being robbed, and substituted acetylene for oil.
We all wrote home for packets of candles, and considering the amount of oil we were officially allowed, the length of time we managed to keep our lamps burning remained to the end a source of astonishment to the Germans.
As it was Christmas time, and as Room 45 was well supplied with food, we decided to give a dinner to the Allies on Christmas night. A rumor had been passed round, with the intention, I have no doubt, that it should come to the ears of the Germans, that a number of prisoners intended to escape on Christmas night. The Germans were consequently in a state of nervous tension, the guards were doubled, and N.C.O.'s made frequent rounds. No one had any intention of escaping on that night as far as I know.
A piano which had been hired by a Frenchman was kept in the music-room, a bare underground cell of a place at the far end of the central passage, and we applied to be allowed to bring this into our room. To our huge indignation this was refused, on the grounds that we might use it as a method of attracting the sentries' attention.
However, we were determined to have the piano and a dance on Christmas night, so a party was organized to bring it from the music-room in spite of the German orders. I don't know exactly how it was managed, but I think a row of some sort was begun in the other wing of the fort and, when the German N.C.O.'s had been attracted in that direction, the piano was "rushed" along to the"ballroom." The dinner was an undoubted success. Room 45, with Medlicott as chef, spent the whole day cooking, and that evening about twenty of us sat down to dinner—the guests being all of them Frenchmen or Russians. After dinner we all attended a fancy-dress dance which some Frenchmen gave in the adjoining room. They had knocked down a wooden partition between two rooms, and had a dance in one and the piano and a drinking bar in the other. The French are a most ingenious nation, and the costumes were simply amazing.
There were double sentries all round the fort that night, and some of them stood outside the windows and enjoyed the dancing and singing. It was an extremely cold night outside, and I am not surprised that some of them felt rather bitter against us. I offered one a bit of cake, but he merely had a jab at me through the bars with his bayonet.
About midnight we sang "God Save the King," the "Marseillaise," and "On les aura," with several encores. This turned out the guard, and a dozen of them with fixed bayonets, headed by theFeldwebel, crashed up the passage and, after a most amusing scene in which both sides kept their tempers, recaptured the piano.
A few days after this, Medlicott and I learnt that four Frenchmen were cutting a bar in the latrine with the object of escaping across the frozen moat. We offered them our assistance in exchange for the right of following them at half an hour's interval if they got away without being detected. They agreed to this, as they needed some extra help in guarding the passage and givingwarning of the approach of the sentry whilst the bar was being cut. At the farthest end of his beat the sentry was never more than 40 yards away from the window where the operation was being carried out. Under these circumstances a very high degree of skill was necessary for the successful cutting of an inch-thick bar. Here Moretti was in his element. No handle to the saw was used; he held the saw in gloved hands to deaden the noise, and in four hours made two cuts through the bar.
Repeated halts had to be made, as the sentry passed the window every three or four minutes, and, as he was liable to examine the bars at any time, they sealed up the crack between each spell of work with some flour paste colored with ashes for the purpose. This made the cut on the bars invisible. I examined the bars carefully myself after they had been cut, and was quite unable to tell which one was only held in place by a thread of metal at each end.
The removal of one bar would leave only a narrow exit through which a man could squeeze and, thinking that this might delay them, the Frenchmen, rather unwisely I consider, decided to cut a second bar.
Now whether they were really betrayed, as we believe, by one of the French orderlies who for some time had been under suspicion as a spy, or whether some one on the far bank of the canal had happened to see or hear them, we never knew, but it is certain that the Germans learnt, without getting exact details, that one of the bars in the latrines was being cut. The "Blue Boy" visited the latrines four times in a couple of hours and examinedthe bars with care, but without finding anything wrong. At last the Commandant and theFeldwebelwalked up outside our windows, and the latter taking each bar in turn shook it violently. About the fourth one he shook came off in his hands and he fell down flat on his back.
The Germans brought up barbed wire and wound it round and round the bars and across the hole. Besides this, they put an extra sentry to watch the place. It seemed at first hopeless to think of escaping that way. The Frenchmen gave it up, but I kept an eye on it for a week or so, and as a precaution obtained leave from the Frenchmen to use it if I saw an opportunity.
One very cold night about a week later I was standing in the latrines and watching the sentry stamping backwards and forwards on his 20-yard beat, when it seemed to me just possible that the thing might be done. I fetched Medlicott and Wilkin, who had some wire-cutters. Medlicott took the cutters and, choosing a favorable moment, cut the tightest strand of wire. It seemed to us to make a very loud "ping," but the sentry took no notice, so Medlicott cut eight more strands rapidly.
Leaving Wilkin to guard the hole Medlicott and I rushed off to change in the dark, because if we lighted a lamp any sentry passing our window could see straight into the room. It was half an hour after midnight when we started to change, but by 1.15 a.m. we were ready—our rücksacks, maps, compasses, and all were lying packed and hidden. Over our warm clothes we wore white underclothes, as there were several inches of snow on the ground outside; and over our boots we had socks, as much to deaden thenoise as to prevent our slipping as we crossed the frozen moat.
Outside, the reflection from the snow made the night seem bright, but there was a slight haze which prevented white objects such as ourselves being seen at a greater distance than about 100 yards.
In the latrines it was as dark as pitch, so that, though we stood within a few yards of the sentry, we could watch him in safety. It was only safe to work when the sentry was at the far end of his beat; that is to say, about 15 yards away. Medlicott cut the wire, whilst Wilkin and I watched and gave him signs when the sentry was approaching. Owing to repeated halts, it was a long job. The sentries glanced from time to time at the wire, but all the cuts were on the inside of the bars and invisible to them. Removing the bits of wire when they had all been cut was like a complicated game of spillikins, and it was not till nearly 4.30 a.m. that Medlicott had finished. It was a long and rather nerve-racking business waiting in the cold to make a dash across the moat.
Medlicott and I tossed up as to who should go first, and he won. It was not easy to choose the right moment, for almost our only hope of getting across without a shot was when the two sentries were at their beats farthest from us, and one of these sentries was invisible to us, though we could hear him stamping to keep warm as he turned at the near end of his beat.
At last a favorable moment came and Medlicott put his head and shoulders through the hole, but stuck half-way. He had too many clothes on. We were only just intime to pull him out of sight as the sentry turned. He took off some clothes and put them in his sack and tried again, though we had to wait some time for an opportunity. Again he found he was too fat—and what was worse got hung up on a piece of barbed wire. We made what seemed to us a fearful noise hauling him in and disentangling him, but the sentry took no notice. Then Wilkin rushed off and got a second sack, into which Medlicott packed several layers of clothes. Another long wait for a suitable moment. We heard the sentry on our left come to the end of the beat, then it sounded as if he had turned and his steps died away. The man on our right was at the far end of his beat. Now was the moment. With a push and a struggle Medlicott was through the hole. I went after him instantly, but stuck. A kick from Wilkin sent me sprawling on to the snow on the far side. In a few seconds we were crossing the moat, I a couple of yards behind Medlicott, as fast as our heavy kit and the snow would let us. We were almost across when "Halt! Halt!! Halt!!" came from the sentry on our left. He had never gone back after all, but had only stamped his feet and then stood still. On the far side of the moat was a steepish bank lined with small trees; we tore up this and hurled ourselves over the far bank just as the first shot rang out. We were safe for the moment—no sentry could see us, but shot after shot was fired. Each sentry in the neighborhood safeguarded himself against punishment by letting off his rifle several times. Milne, who knew we were escaping and was lying in bed listening, told me afterwards that he had felt certain that one of us had been hitand that they were finishing him off. For several hundred yards we went northwards across the fields, only halting a moment to pull off the socks from our boots. Then we turned left-handed, intending to make a big circuit towards the south so as to avoid passing too close to the battery which flanks the fort.
When we had gone about 400 yards we saw behind us lights from several moving lanterns and realized that some one was following on our tracks. It was very necessary to throw off our pursuers as soon as possible, because there was little more than a couple of hours before the daylight, so we changed our plan and made towards a large wood which we knew was about a mile and a half northwest of the fort.
Just before entering the wood we saw that the lights behind us were still about 300 yards away, but now there seemed to be ten or a dozen lights as well, in a large semicircle to the south of us.
The wood proved useless for our purpose. There was scarcely any undergrowth, and it was just as easy to follow our tracks there as in the open field. There was only one thing to be done. We must double back through the lights and gain a village to the south of us. Once on the hard road we might throw them off. Choosing the largest gap in the encircling band of lanterns we walked through crouching low, and unseen owing to our white clothes. Once in the village we felt more hopeful. At any rate they could no longer trace our footsteps, and we believed that all our pursuers were behind us. Choosing at random one of three or four roads which led out of the village ina more or less southerly direction, we marched on at top speed. After walking for a quarter of an hour, we were about to pass a house and a clump of trees at the side of the road when we heard a noise from that direction, and suspecting an ambush we instantly struck off across the fields, putting the house between ourselves and the possible enemy. Then we heard footsteps running in the snow, and then a cry of "Halt! Halt!" from about 15 yards behind us. The position was hopeless; there was no cover, and our pursuer could certainly run as fast as we could in our heavy clothes.
"It's no good," said Medlicott; "call out to him."
I quite agreed and shouted.
"Come here, then," the man answered.
"All right, we are coming, so don't shoot."
When we got close we saw it was the little N.C.O. who looked after the canteen. His relations with the prisoners had always been comparatively friendly. He was quite a decent fellow, and I think we owe our lives to the fact that it was this man who caught us.
He only had a small automatic pistol, and, as we came back on to the road, he said, "Mind now, no nonsense! I am only a moderate shot with this, so I shall have to shoot quick." I said we had surrendered and would do nothing silly. He walked behind us back to the village, on the outskirts of which we met the pursuing party, consisting of the "Blue Boy" with a rifle and a sentry with a lantern.
The lantern was held up to our faces. "Ha ha," said the "Blue Boy," "Herr Medlicott and Hauptmann Evans,noch mal." Then we walked back to the fort under escort, about a 4 mile march. As we entered the outer door of the fort the sentry at the entrance cursed us and threatened me violently with a bayonet, but our N.C.O. stopped him just in time.
In the main building just outside the bureau we had a very hostile reception from a mob of angry sentries through whom we had to pass. For a few moments things looked very ugly. I was all for conciliation and a whole skin if possible, but it was all I could do to calm Medlicott, who under circumstances of this sort only became more pugnacious and glared round him like a savage animal. Then theFeldwebelappeared and addressed the soldiers, cursing them roundly for bringing us in alive instead of dead. I have treasured up that speech in my memory, and, if ever I meetFeldwebelBühl again, I shall remind him of it. He is the only German against whom, from personal experience, I have feelings which can be called really bitter. TheFeldwebelwished to search us, but we refused to be searched unless an officer was present; so we waited in the bureau for an hour and a half till the Commandant arrived. This time they took my flying-coat away and refused to give it back. They also found on me the same tin of solidified alcohol which had been taken off me before and restolen by the Frenchmen. They recognized it, but of course could not prove it was the same. "I know how you stole this back," said the senior clerk as he searched me. "You shall not have it again." He was a Saxon, and the only German with a sense of humor in the fort. We both laughed over the incident. I laughed last, however, as I got the tin back in about a week's time, as I will tell later.
The search being over, we were allowed to go back into our rooms, and had breakfast in bed.
Perhaps it may seem rather extraordinary that we were not punished severely for these attempts to escape, but the explanation lies not in the leniency of the German but in the fact that there were no convenient cells in which to punish us. The cells at Fort 9 were all of them always full, and there was a very long waiting list besides. They might have court-martialled us and sent us to a fortress, but our crime, a "simple escape," was a small one. They might have sent us to another camp; but the Germans knew that we would ask nothing better, as no officers' camp was likely to be more uncomfortable or more difficult to escape from. Any way, it would be a change. Sometimes, when there was a vacancy, they sent us to the town jail, but, as had been demonstrated more than once, it was easier to escape from there than from Fort 9. The Germans' main object being to keep us safe, they just put us back into the fort and awarded us a few days'Bestrafung, which we did in a few months' time when there was a cell vacant.
The weather became colder and colder, and for the next month we seldom had less than 27° of frost at night, and in the day time anything up to 20° in spite of the fairly frequent appearance of the sun. The countryside was covered by a few inches of snow, now in the crisp and powdery condition seldom seen except in Switzerland and the colder countries. After the experience of Medlicott and myself it was generally agreed in the fort that escape was almost impossible, unless a very considerable start could be obtained; so the greater number of us settled down to face the not altogether pleasant domestic problems of Fort 9.
Our allowance of coal was found to be quite insufficient to keep the room tolerably warm. It was the same in every room in the fort. Repeated requests for an increased allowance having as usual had no effect, we proceeded to tear down all the available woodwork in the fort and in our rooms and burn it in the stoves. We lived literally in a solid block of ice. Just before the long frost had set in, the ground above and round our rooms had been soaking wet, and the walls and floors had been streaming with moisture. Then came the frost, and everything wasfrozen solid, and outside in the passage an icy blast blew continually, and in places beneath broken ventilators a few inches of frozen snow lay for weeks unthawed inside the fort. That passage was, without exception, the coldest place I have ever known.
Down the walls of each of our rooms ran a flue in the stonework, intended to drain the earth above the rooms. For over six weeks there was a solid block of ice in it from top to bottom, in spite of the fact that the flue was in the common wall of two living-rooms.
We lived continually in our great coats and all the warm underclothes we possessed; we ourselves seldom, and our allies never, opened windows, and we pasted up cracks and holes; but still we remained cold, and crouched all day round our miserable stoves. Müller's exercises, skipping, and wood, coal, and oil stealing were recreations and means of keeping warm and keeping up our spirits. On top of this came the famine. For the last few months we had been so well and regularly supplied with food from home that we had never thought of eating the very unpalatable food given us by the Germans, and had at length come to an agreement whereby they gave us full pay—in my case 100 marks per month—and no longer supplied us with food. Up to the time of this agreement they had deducted 42 marks monthly, and this extra money was quite useful. Some time before Christmas we were warned that there would be a ten days' stoppage of our parcels in order to allow of the more rapid delivery of the German Christmas mail to their troops. In consequence we had all written home asking that double parcels shouldbe sent us for the two weeks preceding Christmas. However, Christmas passed and parcels came with almost the same regularity as they had always done. Christmas festivities, and the knowledge that double parcels were on their way, induced us to draw rather heavily on our reserve store. Then came the stoppage. Daily we looked anxiously for the parcel cart which never came. Reduced to our last half-dozen tins of food among six men we went onto quarter rations, helped out from a large supply of stolen potatoes. At length we had nothing whatever to eat but our daily ration of bread and almost unlimited potatoes. No butter, no salt, no pepper. It would not have mattered very much in warm weather, but in those conditions of cold and discomfort in which we were living, hunger was rather hard to bear.
A diet consisting entirely of butterless and saltless potatoes in various forms became after three or four days extremely tedious. It is quite impossible to eat enough of them to satisfy one's hunger. After a gorge of potatoes one is distended but still hungry. I forget how long the famine lasted—about ten days, I think, though I remember very well the arrival of a cartload of parcels which relieved the situation just when things began to get serious. It arrived on a Saturday, and the Germans said that they would be given out on Monday, as a certain time was necessary for sorting and registering the parcels. To starving men this delay was quite intolerable, and the prisoners adopted such a threatening attitude that the Commandant considered it wisest to give out a small portion of the parcels to keep us going till Monday.
Of course we might have asked the Germans to supply us with food when we were short, but I don't think such a course was contemplated seriously by anybody.
Perhaps it may be considered that the kindly Germans, knowing that their prisoners were nearing starvation, should have insisted on supplying us with food. But the Germans of Fort 9 were not accustomed to confer favors on us—if they had offered them we should have refused—and I have no doubt that they considered a little hunger very good for us.
So much for the famine; our parcels for the rest of the time I was in Germany arrived in large quantities.
About this time, on the strength of the convention agreed to between the English and the German governments, we obtained from the very unwilling Germans the privilege of going on walks for an hour or two a week on parole.
For the rest of the time I was at Fort 9 the parties of English and Russian prisoners, but not French, as I believe they had no such convention with the Germans, exercised this privilege once and sometimes twice a week, accompanied by an unarmed German N.C.O., who under these circumstances sometimes became quite human.
The walks were very dull indeed, as the country round the fort is very uninteresting. However, it was certainly a relief to get out of the place every now and then. The only other way in which we ever got out of the fort legitimately was when we were sent for from Ingolstadt for preliminary inquiries concerning a court-martial, or to make a statement concerning the vigilance of the sentrypast whom we had escaped. We always did our best to defend the unfortunate sentries, but I am afraid that they almost invariably were heavily punished.
The next incident of any interest was a turbulent affair which has become known to the one-time inmates of Fort 9 as the Bojah case. As I was not involved to any great extent in this storm in a teacup, I have rather a confused idea of what happened and why it happened.
I am not even sure how it started, but I believe the original cause was a very mild and commonplace theft by Medlicott. A German carpenter was putting up some shelves in one of our living-rooms when Medlicott and I entered the room. Quite on the spur of the moment Medlicott picked up the carpenter's pincers when his back was turned and handed them to me. I put them in my pocket and walked out of the room and hid them. Before the pincers were missed Medlicott also followed me out of the room. No one else in the room had noticed the theft, and naturally denied it indignantly when accused by the carpenter. Apparently the carpenter, being very angry, instantly informed the Commandant. About ten minutes later we heard a fearful row in the passage outside, and we all came out of our rooms to see the fun. In the doorway of one of the rooms was a seething, shouting mob consisting of several sentries with fixed bayonets, theFeldwebeland half a dozen prisoners, mostly French, and the Commandant. They were all shouting at the top of their voices and pushing, and the Commandant was brandishing his arms and generally behaving like an enraged maniac. What the Frenchmen were doing inthat room I am not quite clear, but I believe they had come into the room in which the carpenter had been after the latter had departed to report the loss of the pincers to the Commandant. When the Commandant arrived with his guard he insulted them and accused them of stealing the pincers and then ordered them back to their rooms. The Frenchmen—Kicq, Derobiere, Bojah, and a few others of the younger and more violent sort—were the last people in the world to take this sort of thing lying down; besides which they loved a row at any time for its own sake, and for once in a way they had right on their side. They denied the accusation and protested against the insults with some violence, and when ordered to their rooms by the Commandant refused to go unless they first had an apology. It is quite impossible to imagine the scene unless you realize the character of the Commandant. The one outstanding feature was his conspicuous lack of dignity and total inability to keep his temper. In his quiet moments he was an incompetent, funny bourgeois shopkeeper; when angry, as at this moment, he was a howling, raving madman. When the Frenchmen refused to move, the Commandant apparently ordered theFeldwebelto arrest them, and confused shouting followed, in the midst of which the Commandant hit theFeldwebeland, I believe, though I did not see it, also hit Bojah. There was a complete block in the doorway, and the passage was also blocked by a hand-cart, which happened to be there, and a large and cheering crowd of spectators. The sentries could not get in, and theFeldwebeland the Commandant, who were blocked in the doorway, could not move, andevery one continued to shout. Medlicott, who loved this sort of thing, tried to barge into the scrimmage, and I only just prevented him being struck by a bayonet. Then Kicq managed to get close to the Commandant and call him a "cochon." Two sentries effected his arrest. After that, I really don't know how things got disentangled without bloodshed, but eventually the Germans retreated amidst yells of derision, with Bojah, Kicq, and Derobiere in their midst.
The English and French prisoners who had seen this affair decided that, as the Commandant's conduct had been unbecoming that of an officer, we would hold no further communication with him. Most of us were content to act up to this passively, but when Batty Smith was summoned to the office he informed the Commandant of the decision and walked out. Buckley and Medlicott also took the earliest opportunity of doing the same thing.
As soon as they entered the office, Buckley delivered the following ultimatum. "Nous n'avons rien à faire avec vous parce que nous ne pouvons pas vous considérer comme un officier." They then right-about turned and marched out in military fashion, leaving the Commandant, as he himself said in his evidence at the trial, "sprachlos" with astonishment. Buckley's reason for speaking in French instead of German was that he did not wish him to be able to call any of the office staff as witness of what he had said. Soon afterwards Batty Smith was called again to the bureau, arrested, and sent to prison in another fort, where he remained in solitary confinement for over two months without any sort of trial. Buckley and Medlicottwere kidnapped in exactly the same way and thrown into improvised cells in the fort. Medlicott had only been in his cell for ten seconds, when he began, as usual, to think how to get out of it. Above the door was a glass window by which light entered the cell. The glass was already partially broken, so Medlicott standing on a chair smashed the rest of it and somehow managed to climb out through it. Soon afterwards Buckley also got out, and both returned to their rooms. Five minutes later the Germans placed sentries in front of the cell doors, but it was not till several hours afterwards that they found to their intense surprise that the birds had already flown.
We got a good deal of amusement out of this incident; but a few days later Medlicott was sent to another fort and Buckley was shut up in Fort 9. Both remained in close solitary confinement without any sort of trial for over two months.
We never saw either Derobiere or Kicq again, though I have heard from the latter since the armistice was signed. He had a series of perfectly amazing adventures and hardships, and eventually escaped successfully, after the sixth or seventh attempt, about the time of the armistice.
Of all the unusual happenings in Fort 9, that which I am about to describe is perhaps the most remarkable. To steal a large iron-bound box from the Commandant's bureau would be at any time a difficult feat, but when it is considered that the only opportunity for the theft occurred in the middle of the day, and also that the box contained compasses and maps by the dozen, several cameras,solidified alcohol, censored books, in fact all those things which we were most strictly forbidden to possess, it must be owned that it was an extraordinary performance. It was organized and carried out mainly by Russians with the help of a few Frenchmen.
About 11.30 one morning, just afterAppell, a Russian came into every room along the corridor and informed us that there would be a general search by the Germans at 12.15. We thanked him and hid all our forbidden property, for a hint of this nature was not to be taken lightly at Fort 9. We had no idea what was going to happen, and only heard a detailed account of it afterwards.
When a prisoner attempts to escape and is recaptured, he is taken by the Germans into the bureau and searched, and for those articles—maps, compasses, etc.—which are taken off him he is given a receipt and the articles themselves are deposited, carefully ticketed with the owner's name, in a large iron-bound wooden box which is kept in the depot outside the fort.
When, however, prisoners are removed from one camp to another, the articles belonging to those prisoners are handed to the N.C.O. in charge of their escort and are deposited in the depot of the new camp.
This time two Russians were being sent to another camp, and the iron-bound box in question had been brought into the bureau so that the senior clerk could check the articles as they were handed over. The theft of this box was carried out in the following manner. Just before midday a party of Frenchmen, I believe, went into the bureau and had a violent row with the Commandant—notan unusual occurrence, as I have already explained. As the row became more and more heated, other Frenchmen and Russians crowded into the bureau. A fearful scrimmage and a great deal of shouting ensued, in the midst of which a party specially detailed for the purpose carried the box unobserved out of the bureau and into our "reading room," which was only a few doors away. There men were waiting with hammers and other instruments. The lid was wrenched open and the contents turned out on to the floor. Some then fell on the box and broke and tore it into small pieces which others carried to the different rooms and burnt immediately in the stoves. Others again distributed to their owners or hid in previously prepared places the contents of the box, so that within five minutes the box itself had utterly disappeared and all its incriminating contents were in safe hiding-places. The row, which had been gradually dying down, now dissolved, and very soon afterwards the Germans discovered their loss. The bells went and we were all ordered to our rooms. Then, amid shouts of laughter from every room, two rather sullen and shamefaced Germans searched vainly for an enormous box which had only been stolen five minutes before and for which there was no possible hiding-place in any of the rooms.
Most of us got back some valuable belongings. I got a compass and some maps which had been taken off me at my first escape, but the most amusing prize was my box of solidified alcohol, for which I now held two receipts from the Germans as well as the article itself!
In the earlier chapters of this book I have mentioned the fact that some months previous to my capture my people at home and I had invented a simple code which would enable us, to a very limited degree, to correspond, if ever I were unlucky enough to fall into the hands of the Germans.
This may seem to have been morbid anticipation of a lamentable occurrence, but I assure you it was only a most obvious precaution. Not only did I belong to the R.F.C., in which the chances of capture were unavoidably greater than in any other service, but my brother had been badly wounded and captured at the second battle of Ypres, and for over a year we had received no news of him that had not been most strictly censored. Soon after my arrival at Ingolstadt I wrote home several sentences—it was difficult to write much more—in our prearranged code, and received answers in the same way. But to obtain my mother's efficient coöperation in plans of escape some more detailed instructions than could be compressed into our code were necessary. We desired accurate maps about 1:250,000 of the country between Ingolstadt and the Swiss frontier, a luminous compass, saws for cutting iron bars, cloth which could be made into civilian hats, condensed and concentrated food of all sorts, and in addition detailed instructions must be sent as to how these things were to be hidden in the parcels. As we were only allowed to write one letter a fortnight and one post card a week, to send the information home by my code would have been an almost endless task, so I took the risk of writing a couple of letters in sympathetic ink, merely using my code to say "Heat this letter."
The results were successful beyond my wildest hopes, for not only were instructions obeyed, but my family showed very great ingenuity in packing the required articles. In due course two luminous compasses and two complete sets of excellent maps were received safely. Each set of maps consisted of about six sheets each a foot square. The letters came from England quicker than the parcels, so that, at the same time as my mother sent off the parcel containing the maps or compass, she sent me a post card to say in what parcel it was coming and in what article it was concealed. After that it was my job to see that I obtained the article without it being examined by the Germans. Watching a German open a parcel in which you knew there was a concealed compass is quite one of the most amusing things I have ever done. Most of the maps came baked in the middle of cakes which I received weekly from home, and as I was on comparatively good terms with the Germans who searched our parcels, they used to hand these over to me without ever probing them.
One of the compasses came in a glass bottle of prunes, and I was not surprised when the Germans handed this tome without searching it, as it looked impossible that anything could be hidden in it. A second compass came in a small jar of anchovy paste, and, as I dared not risk asking for it, I told the German to put it among our reserve store of food and found an opportunity of stealing it about a fortnight later.
I remember decoding one post card from my mother, and making out the message to be "Maps inOswego." But what was Oswego? No one had any idea.
When the Hun opened my parcel, I was feeling rather nervous. Almost the first thing he picked up was a yellow paper packet. He felt this carefully, but passed it to me without opening it, when I saw with joy that "Oswego" was marked on it. There was a large bundle of maps in the middle of the flour. Another "near thing" was when the whole of the crust on one of my cakes was entirely composed of maps, though the baking had browned the oilpaper in which they were sewn so that it looked exactly like cake. Altogether there is no doubt that I was extraordinarily lucky to get all the things I did without being detected.
Many other Frenchmen and Englishmen in the fort had maps and compasses smuggled through to them, though owing to the energy of my people at home, and sheer good luck on my part, I doubt if anyone was more successful than I was. However, in one way or another, by bribery, stealing, and smuggling, I am pretty sure there was an average of at least one compass per man throughout the fort, and traced maps in any quantity, though originals were scarce.
There was rather an amusing incident which happened when Moretti was chef in Room 42. Buckley was in the habit of receiving dried fruit from home, which, for purposes of his health, he kept for private use. One day Moretti raided this store, in order to give the mess stewed fruit for dinner, but, when he was cooking them, messages from home were found floating about in the stew. Examination showed that the prunes had been cut open very cleverly and a small roll of paper substituted for the stone. I have given the above description of one of the methods by which maps and compasses were obtained, not only because the possession of the things was of immense importance in our ultimate escape, but because it illustrates a fact, which many people believed with difficulty, namely, that the Germans are extremely inefficient when the use of the imagination is necessary to efficiency. They believed they were searching with the greatest possible thoroughness: every tin, for instance, was opened by them and the contents turned out on to a plate, but it was obviously impossible to examine every small packet in every small parcel, so that a certain discretion had to be used as to what to examine and what to pass, and it was quite extraordinary how they invariably spotted wrong. I have often wished to know whether the German prisoners in England smuggled forbidden goods into their camps with the same ease as we did.
One set of maps I cut down and sewed into the cuff of my tunic, and the smallest compass I stowed away in the padding on the shoulder. The rest of the stuff I divided between Moretti and Decugis, both of whom had been verygood friends to me. It was from the latter indeed that I received information as to the position of the sentries on the Swiss frontier at Riedheim, where Buckley and I ultimately crossed into Switzerland.
Towards the end of our strict confinement in Fort 9, while the moat still remained frozen, the prisoners became very restless and a large number of abortive attempts to escape were made. These mainly consisted of attempts to burrow through the walls or in some way to obtain access to the inner courtyards during the night. Once in the courtyard it was thought that it would be easy to run between the sentries across the moat if the night were only reasonably dark. Three Frenchmen actually did get out, and, owing to successful "faking" ofAppell, their absence was not discovered, but they were caught in the courtyard before they had crossed the moat. On another occasion some Frenchmen, by piling tables and chairs on top of one another, had managed to get up to one of the ventilators in the passage outside our rooms. Unfortunately they were seen by the sentry on the ramparts, who crept up to the ventilator, without apparently being observed, and fired two shots down through the glass into the crowd below. By some extraordinary chance no one was hit, and before theFeldwebeland about a dozen soldiers with fixed bayonets could arrive, the temporary structure beneath the ventilator had been cleared away and everyone was looking as innocent as possible, especially the culprits. Several men, including myself, who were gambling or walking quietly in the passage, only escaped being bayoneted by displaying considerable activity at the critical moment.Some of the Frenchmen spent three weeks of most skilful labor in making a hole through 4 feet of masonry into the inner courtyard. As these walls were inspected daily by the Germans the stones had to be replaced every day so as to leave no trace of the work. I inspected this place myself several times in the day time, and am prepared to swear that it was impossible to tell which stones were solidly imbedded and which were loosely held together by imitation plaster. Somehow or other this also was discovered when it was almost finished. A sentry was placed outside the hole. In spite of the sentry, however, the Frenchmen removed and threw down the latrine all the stones which they had loosened, leaving in their place a placard on which was written, "Représailles pour le Château de Chauny." In France the Germans had wantonly destroyed, only a few days before this, the beautiful Château de Chauny. Bar-cutting was also attempted by several Frenchmen and Englishmen—Bouzon, Gilliland, and others; but somehow unforeseen circumstances always turned up at the last moment to prevent an attempt to escape being made.
On one work, a tunnel,[4]in which Gaskell and I were assisting, an immense deal of labor was spent in vain. In Room 49 the Corsican colonel and Moretti and about four other Frenchmen had sunk a hole in the corner of their room close under the window. This shaft was about6 feet deep—that is to say, to the water level of the moat. Farther one could not go, as the water came in. From here a gallery was bored through the foundations of the wall—4 or 5 feet of very solid masonry. This alone took them three weeks. For the next few yards the tunnel made better progress until, owing to the nature of the soil, they found it necessary to revet the tunnel with wood as they advanced. The gallery was so small—only 20 by 24 inches as far as I remember—that it was impossible to crawl along it. You had to drag yourself along on your stomach, and soon the conditions under which the work was carried on became so unpleasant that two Frenchmen gave it up. Gaskell and I came in as the new recruits. It was a horrible job. Most of the time one lay in water and worked in pitch darkness, as the air was so bad that no candle would keep alight. Gaskell was so large in the shoulder that he could not work down the tunnel, and I am so long in the arms that I could only do it with the greatest difficulty and exertion. After a time it was found necessary to pump air to the man at work by means of a home-made bellows and a pipe, and this made the work slightly more tolerable. From the window, the ground, starting at about the same level as the floor of our rooms, sloped down to the bank of the moat, dropping about 3 feet 6 inches, and from there there was a sharp drop of about 2 feet 6 inches to the water or, at the time we started the tunnel, to the ice.
Our object was to come out in the steep bank of the moat on a level with the ice and crawl across on a dark night. With the ice there I think the idea was an extremely good one, and as nearly certain of success as anything could be in Fort 9, but it is obvious from the dimensions given that the tunnel towards the end must necessarily come within a few inches of the surface of the ground. Actually for the last 3 or 4 yards we were within 6 inches of the surface, and were able to drive a small tube up through which we could breathe. Working in the tunnel was a loathsome task, and one hour per day, in two shifts, was as much as I could stand. You had to lie 12 yards or more under ground, in an extremely confined space, in total darkness and in a pool of water. The atmosphere was almost intolerable, and sometimes one had to come out for a breath of fresh air for fear that one would faint. But we did this unwillingly, as it took quite two minutes to go in and about four minutes to get out, and so wasted much time. By getting into an excruciatingly uncomfortable position, it was possible to shovel earth into a wooden sledge made for the purpose, and when this was full, at a given signal it was dragged back by a man at the pit-head, whose job it was also to work the bellows. To your left wrist was tied a string, and when this was twitched you stopped work and lay still waiting for the sentry to tramp within 6 inches of your head, and wondering when he would put his foot through, and if he did whether you would be suffocated or whether he would stick you with a bayonet. Our safeguard was that the top 8 to 12 inches of ground were frozen solid, and as long as the frost lasted we were fairly safe, and later on we revetted the tunnel very thoroughly with wood.
All the earth had to be carried in bags along the passageand emptied down the latrines. This was Gaskell's self-appointed task, and he must have emptied many hundreds of bags in this way. Considering that there was a sentry permanently posted outside the windows of the latrines it needed considerable skill and judgment to avoid being detected. We soon found that we needed more labor, and two more Frenchmen, de Goys being one of them, joined our working party. Moretti was not only chief engineer, but also the most skilful and effective workman in the tunnel, and it was entirely owing to him that it came so near to being a success. I was a mere laborer, and not entrusted with any skilled work.
Unfortunately before the work was finished, the thaw came, and we had to make other and much more complicated plans for crossing the moat.
It was generally agreed that we could not afford to get our clothes wet through in crossing the moat. Moretti, the Colonel, and the two other Frenchmen in their party decided to wade through the moat naked, carrying two bundles sewn in waterproof cloth, one containing their clothes and the other their food and other necessaries for a ten days' march and life in the open in the middle of winter.
Gaskell and I and de Goys and his partner disliked the idea of being chased naked in the middle of winter carrying two bundles, each weighing 20 pounds or more, so we decided to make ourselves diving-suits out of mackintoshes. After waterproofing the worn patches on them with candle grease, and sewing up the front of the neck, where a "soufflet" or extra piece was let in to enable one to enterthe garment from the top, and binding the legs and arms with strips of cloth, we felt pretty certain that little or no water would enter during the short passage of the moat. Whether or not this would have been successful I cannot say, for thank Heaven we never tried. As the ground gradually thawed, and as the tunnel approached the moat, the question of revetting became ever of greater importance. In some places the earth fell away and left cavities above the woodwork, which we blocked up to the best of our ability. There still remained a 6-inch layer of frozen earth above us, but for the last week of the work we could never be sure that a heavy-footed sentry would not come through if he trod on a tender spot. Towards the end, the difficulty of obtaining sufficient wood became very acute, for a large part of the woodwork of the fort had already been burnt in our stoves during the winter. We all of us reduced the planks in our beds to the minimum, and Moretti, by means of a false key, entered some unused living-rooms which were kept locked by the Germans, and stole and broke up every bit of wood he could find—beds, furniture, stools, shelves, partitions and all. He was one day occupied in this way in one of the empty rooms when the sentry outside the window saw or heard him, and shot into the room at him from about 3 yards' range but missed, and Moretti retreated with the wood. At last, after three months' work in all, the tunnel was finished, and a night selected for the escape. As the sentry who walked between our windows and the moat was never, even at the far end of his beat, more than 30 yards from the exit of the tunnel, we considered it essential thatthere should be sufficient wind to ruffle the surface of the moat, and not too bright a moon. To a certain extent by skill, but mainly by good luck, we had come to the exact spot on the bank at which we had aimed. The place was close under a lantern which was always hung at night near the edge of the moat, but owing to the way in which the shadows fell we reckoned that the light would dazzle rather than help the sentry to see the mouth of the hole when it was opened. In the day time the open hole could not fail to attract immediate attention, so that we intended to cut through the last few inches of earth only an hour or so before the escape.
The Colonel and Moretti were to go first, and then the two Frenchmen in their room, as these had done five weeks' more work than the rest of us. Gaskell and de Goys played baccarat to decide which team should be the next, and we won. Then Gaskell and I played to decide who should go first of us two, and I won. De Goys and his partner lived in the other wing of the fort, so that it was necessary for them to fakeAppelland remain over in our rooms after 9 o'clock at night. This was carried out successfully by help of most lifelike dummies in their beds, which breathed when you pulled a string, and when the German N.C.O. came round on our side de Goys and partner just hid under the beds. We got a great deal of innocent amusement out of this sort of thing.
During the afternoon preceding the night on which we intended to go, I had a bad fit of nerves, and for half an hour or more lay on my bed shaking with funk at thethought of it. However, I completely recovered control before the evening.
The night was not a particularly favorable one; we should have preferred a good thunderstorm, but considering the thaw which had set in we could not afford to wait. An hour before the time for starting someone went down to open the species of trap-door which we had made at the far end, which would enable us to close the exit after our departure. In the meantime the Colonel and Moretti got ready. I really felt sorry for them. We, the non-naked party, would be reasonably warm, whatever the result might be. The Colonel stripped nude and greased himself from head to foot, and then wound puttees tightly round his stomach, as a "precaution against a chill," as Moretti said. There was good need for precautions, it seemed to me, as there were still large lumps of ice floating in the moat, and it was nearly freezing outside. Moretti just got out of his clothes and picked up his bundles and was apparently looking forward to the business, but I think he was the only one who was.
As soon as they were ready to go, Gaskell and I went back to our rooms to put on our diving suits, and in the passage were standing three German soldiers. Close inspection showed that they were Bellison, May, and another Frenchman excellently got up.
They felt perfectly certain, and we were inclined to agree, that it was impossible for eight of us to get across the moat without someone being seen and shot at by the sentry. We knew from Buckley, who had special opportunities of observing this whilst in solitary confinement,that when the alarm was given, all the guard turned out at the double from the guardroom inside the fort and rushed in a confused mob to the outer courtyard. These three, dressed as Germans, after having opened all the intervening doors by means of skeleton keys, intended to join the guards and rush out with them. I think the idea was quite excellent, and that their chances of escape were much greater than ours.
When we returned to Room 49 we found consternation among our party. The man who had been down to open the trap-door said that it could not be done, owing to unexpected roots and stones, under two hours' work, and by that time the moon would have risen. After a hurried consultation we agreed to abandon it for that night.
The next three nights were still and calm and clear without a ripple on the water; an attempt would have meant certain failure. On the fourth morning a pocket about 6 inches deep and a foot in diameter appeared in the ground above the tunnel. All that day the sentry did not notice it, and that night was stiller and clearer than ever. It was impossible to go.
The next day the N.C.O. whom we knew as the "Blue Boy" came round to tap the bars of our windows, and the sentry drew his attention to the place where the earth had sunk. He tested it with a bayonet, and later a fatigue party came along with picks and dug the whole thing up, and all our labor was in vain. It was rather sad; but, as I said before, looking back now, I feel rather thankful that we never made the attempt. The only result, as far as I know, was that the members of Room 49 were split upamong other rooms in the fort, and a sentry was put on guard over the mouth of the hole. Moretti came into Room 42 and was instantly appointed chef. He also started to dig another tunnel somewhere else, which was also discovered. Personally I had had enough of tunnels, and swore I would never try and escape that way again, so I returned with renewed energy to my Russian lessons.