My Escape from Germany 1

My Escape from Germany 1

My Escape from Germany

Author: Eric A. Keith

 

INTRODUCTION

 

 

There is an element of chance and risk about an attempt to escape from

an enemy’s country which is bound to appeal to any one with a trace of

sporting instinct. Viewed as a sport, though its devotees are naturally

few and hope to become fewer, it has a technique of its own, and it may

be better, rather than interrupt the course of my narrative, to say

here something about this.

 

As always, appropriate equipment makes for ease. But its lack, since

a prisoner of war cannot place an order for an ideal outfit, may be

largely compensated for by personal qualities.

 

In considering the chances of success or failure, it must always be

assumed that the route leads through a country entirely unknown to the

fugitive. Yet this is not so great a disadvantage as one might suppose.

Once free from towns and railways, a man with a certain knowledge

of nature and the heavens, and with some powers of observation and

deduction, can hardly fail to hit an objective so considerable as a

frontier line, even if a hundred miles or so have to be traversed,

provided he knows the position of his starting-point and is favored

with tolerable weather.

 

With the sky obscured, he must at least have a pocket compass by which

to keep his direction; though when the stars are visible it is easier

and safer to walk by their aid.

 

Next in importance come maps. With fairly good maps, as well as a

compass, the chances of evading discovery before approaching the

frontier, with its zone of sentries and patrols, are, in my opinion,

about even.

 

Another indispensable requisite is a water-bottle--a good big one.

My own belief is that a man in tolerable condition--let us say good

internment-camp condition--can keep going for from two to three weeks

on no more food than he can pick up in the fields. But thirty hours

without water will, in most cases, be too much for him. Under the

tortures of thirst his determination will be sapped. I was, therefore,

always willing to exchange the most direct route for a longer one which

offered good supplies of water. In my final and successful attempt,

when I was leader of a party of three and had to traverse a part of

Germany where brooks and streams are rare, I always preferred taking

the risk of looking for fresh water rather than that of being without

it for more than twenty hours between sources, relying in the meantime

on what we had in our bottles.

 

The more clothing one can take along the better--within reason, of

course. One is prepared to do without a good deal, but food must, if

necessary, be sacrificed for a sweater and an oilsilk. Two sets of

underclothing to wear simultaneously when the weather turns cold are a

comfort. Beyond this, any one will naturally take such food as can be

carried conveniently. Chocolate, hardtack and dripping, with a little

salt, is, in my opinion, as much as one wants. Being a deliberate

person, I usually managed to have enough of these in readiness before I

even thought of other arrangements for the start.

 

People are very differently gifted with what might be called the

out-of-door sense, though it is strong in some who have never really

led an out-of-door life. Those who have this gift will know almost

instinctively where to turn in an emergency, and will gather from the

lie of the land information denied to those without it. This raises the

question of companionship. As I am, fortunately, possessed of a fair

share of this open-air sense, it was little handicap to me to be alone

on my first attempt. In fact, as long as I was using the railways, it

was a distinct advantage. At critical moments a man can decide more

quickly what to do, if he has only himself to think of, than when he

has to consider and possibly to communicate with a companion, who may

be contemplating a better but quite different solution. To know that it

is only one’s own skin that is at stake gives one that promptness of

decision which is itself the seed of success; the thought of involving

another man in an error easily clogs the swiftness of one’s action.

 

On the march these conditions are reversed. One can walk only at

night, and the approach of actual danger is best met by falling flat

and keeping motionless, or else taking to one’s heels. It is under

trying conditions just short of the actual peril of discovery that

the soothing influence of a companion is of inestimable advantage.

Cross-country walking tries one’s nervous forces to the utmost. Hour

after hour passes, and no recognizable landmark appears. At last one

gets the feeling of being condemned eternally to tramp over fields,

skirt woods, and extricate oneself from an endless succession of

morasses. In time the sky seems to reel and the compass-needle to point

in all directions but the right one. It is then that the voice of a

friend, the touch of his hand, or merely the sound of his footsteps

behind one, restores the sense of normality which, if one is alone, can

be recovered only by a deliberate effort of will that is often very

exhausting.

 

Before starting I always knew roughly what lay before me, and what

I had to expect, until I met either with success or with complete

failure by being captured. Even when the chances seemed to suggest it,

I would never trust blindly to mere good luck, which I kept in reserve

as an absolutely last resource. Once in hiding for the day, I usually

worked out a detailed plan for the following night’s walk, and spent

hours looking at the maps in order to impress on my mind a picture, as

complete as possible, of the country directly in front of me and to

each side of my route.

 

When this book was first published I pointed out, that “It is one of

the penalties of an escape that, so long as others remain behind, it is

impossible for obvious reasons to give too precise details, and often

the moments one would most wish to describe have of necessity to be

camouflaged from the observation of the enemy.” Now that the war is

over and there is nothing to hinder it, I have been able to augment

my original story with certain details originally omitted for reasons

mentioned above. In its present form the book has been considerably

enlarged and no detail of my escape has been omitted.

 

E.A.K.

 

 

 

 

CONTENTS

 

 

CHAPTER PAGE

 

INTRODUCTION v

 

PART I

 

I THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE 3

 

II RUHLEBEN: THE SHEEP AND THE GOATS 13

 

III THE SANATORIUM 25

 

IV PLANNING THE DETAILS 31

 

V A GLIMPSE OF FREEDOM 39

 

VI IN HIDING 52

 

VII FAILURE 69

 

VIII A NEW HOPE 76

 

IX BREAKING PRISON 91

 

X CAUGHT AGAIN! 109

 

XI UNDER ESCORT 120

 

XII THE STADTVOGTEI AND “SOLITARY” 126

 

XIII CLASSES AND MASSES IN THE STADTVOGTEI 146

 

XIV PRISON LIFE AND OFFICIALS 154

 

PART II

 

XV A FRESH ATTEMPT 179

 

XVI FROM BERLIN TO HALTERN 190

 

XVII WESTWARD HO! 202

 

XVIII THE GAME IS UP 218

 

PART III

 

XIX FOOTING THE BILL 233

 

XX RUHLEBEN AGAIN 251

 

XXI THE DAY 265

 

XXII ORDER OF MARCH 292

 

XXIII THE ROAD THROUGH THE NIGHT 304

 

XXIV CROSSING THE EMS 319

 

XXV THE LAST LAP 333

 

XXVI FREE AT LAST 348

 

 

 

 

PART I

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER I

 

THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE

 

 

The date was April 7, 1916. The fat German warder backed out of my

cell, a satisfied smile on his face; the door swung to, the great key

clicked in the lock, and I was alone.

 

Prison once more! And only a bare three miles away was the frontier

for which I had striven so hard--the ditch and the barbed wire that separated Germany, and all that that word means, from Holland, the Hook, the London boat, and freedom.