My Escape from Germany 10

My Escape from Germany 10

When my visitors had left me, I remembered that, experienced jailbird

as I had become since the beginning of the war, I had a duty to

perform--a scrutiny of the walls of the cell for any records former

occupants might have left there. This leaving of inscriptions seems to

be “the correct thing” among German prisoners--criminals, I mean. They

are not always nice but invariably interesting, particularly under the

circumstances in which they are read. The walls of my abode had been

recently whitewashed, and there was only one inscription: “André--[I

forget the surname] evadé Avril 2me 1916, repris Avril 3me 1916.” Thus

a fellow-fugitive had been here only the previous day.

 

I very badly wanted my morning smoke, and unexpectedly I had found two

cigarettes in my pockets, but there were no matches; and I had been

warned that smoking was not permitted. A woman was walking about in the

garden at this time. I took her to belong to the house whose corner

I could see; she was probably the wife of the owner. I intended to

appeal to her compassionate spirit. After a time she was joined by an

elderly woman, perhaps her mother. Although they did not show obvious

interest in me, yet they kept passing in front of my window. At last I

addressed them, whereupon they stopped with alacrity. The elder woman

was certainly talkative. She pitched into me at once, going over the

whole register of my sins as an Englishman as conceived by the German

mind, and telling me what a disgusting lot of robbers, thieves, and

murderers we were. As soon as she had got it off her chest, she became

rather friendly. “You’d be in Holland now, if you hadn’t been taken

last night.”

 

“Surely not,” with a puzzled frown. “I thought I’d have another

two-days’ walk from here.”

 

“Oh, no. It’s only a four-hours’ walk by the road into Holland from

here.”

 

“In this direction?” I pointed east, into Germany.

 

“No, over there. You go through ---- and ----, then take the ---- road

on the right. It’s not more than four hours, is it?” turning to her

daughter, who nodded.

 

“What’s the use of your telling me now when I am behind the bars

again?” I groaned. Ingratiatingly: “Could you oblige me with a match? I

am dying for a smoke.”

 

“You aren’t allowed to smoke!” severely. Then they left me.

 

For a time small boys kept looking in at the window. Their advent was

always heralded by the sound of a scramble, from which I gathered that

there must be a fence or a gate between the building I was in and the

house on my right. Sometimes they were chased away incontinently by

somebody I could not see. That any attempt at breaking out would have

to lead through the garden was a foregone conclusion. The other side of

the building was on the public street.

 

At about ten o’clock the warder appeared, and I managed to be let out,

mainly to have a look around. When we returned, the Amtmann was waiting

for me. The first thing he did was to search me for the two cigarettes.

The women had split on me! Then I tried to find out whether I was to be

moved that day, but could not get a satisfactory answer. This made me

rather hopeful that the cell would have to harbor me for another night.

Of course, I professed myself most anxious to be sent off, which was

natural. The sooner the military authorities should take me in charge,

the sooner I should know my punishment and get it over. I was careful

to explain all this. Finally, the Amtmann asked me whether or not I

wanted any of the food he had taken from me. The answer was in the

affirmative. But although he repeated this question later in the day,

and promised to send me the sausage, I never got it. My request for

something to read he granted by sending me some German weeklies called

_Die Woche_ (“The Week”).

 

Then he left me, only to reappear at 11:30. This time he was very

solemn, and asked me to give him my word of honor that I was not an

English officer. Obviously one was at large in Germany; I could not

suppose that it was a shot at random. With feeling I assured him that I

was not an officer and never had been one. My questions regarding this

interesting subject fell on deaf ears.

 

The Amtmann’s parting words excited me greatly. He regretted that

I should have to spend another night in his village, because they

could not arrange for an escort on Sunday. It was difficult to hide

my exultation over this bit of news, but I believe I managed to look

dejected and resigned.

 

Soon after the Amtmann had gone, the warder brought me my dinner in a

dinner-pail. He left it with me and disappeared. The food was certainly

the best I had ever received from German authorities at any time. The

pot was full of excellent potatoes in brown, greasy onion gravy. A

decent-sized piece of hot, home-made sausage lay on top. I was very

hungry, but so excited that I was half-way through the mess before I

realized that I was merely swallowing it down without tasting a bit of

it. That was sheer ingratitude, and thereafter I went ahead slowly,

thoroughly enjoying it. The pot was empty far too soon; a second

edition would have been very acceptable. I complimented the warder on

the excellent fare in his prison.

 

“I told my wife about you,” he acknowledged, “and she said we ought to

give you a decent dinner anyway.”

 

When I had finished I thought the time favorable to begin operations.

After a substantial Sunday dinner--there was evidently no shortage of

food in that part of Germany as yet--the village was bound to be more

or less somnolent. Indeed, no sound was to be heard from the street.

 

The first thing was to make a thorough inspection of the ceiling. If

one could get into the loft the roof would offer little resistance, it

being, as I had seen, tiled in the ordinary way.

 

Where the splinter had broken off, two boards appeared affected by

dry-rot, a narrow one and a wider one next to it. Tentatively I pushed

against the narrow one near the end which was nailed to the beam.

There was some spring there, not the firm resistance of a sound board

well nailed home. Under the slowly increased pressure it suddenly gave

with a creak, and a shower of splinters and dust came down upon me and

the bed. I could now look into the loft and see the under side of the

tiles. Directly in line with my eyes was a hole where a tile had lost

its upper half. This would be the place to attack, once through the

ceiling.

 

In the meantime the sun shone through another hole which I could not

see, and, through the crack upon my bed. To pull the board back into

its original position had no effect. Where there had been a narrow

crack in the morning another splinter had become detached, and there

was the scintillating beam of light cleaving a path through the dust

motes, a traitorous tell-tale. After a moment’s thought, I rolled my

oilsilks into a long sausage and shoved it past the raised board into

the loft in such a fashion that it would roll over the crack when the

board was lowered. It worked, and after a critical inspection I decided

that none but an exceptionally observant individual would ever notice

that the ceiling had been tampered with.

 

All this had not taken very long. Absolute silence brooded over the

place. Fearing that the narrow board might be insufficient to let me

into the loft, I tried to get the wider one next to it loose. When

it resisted the pressure of my hands, the battering-ram was brought

into play, with the overcoat wrapped round the end of it to deaden the

noise. Using it with discretion, I could make no impression. So I left

it at that.

 

Having removed all traces of my work from the bed and the floor, I

stood near the door and kicked my heels against it. This I did to have

some explanation, should anybody have heard the battering-ram at work.

Then I quieted down, resolving not to do any more until soon after the

next visit.

 

I was now quite convinced that I should get out of the prison during

the night. My one anxiety was for the weather to keep fine. I had

a fair idea of how to proceed as long as I could keep my direction.

Without a compass I was dependent upon the stars. There was no sign of

a change in the sky; nevertheless, I kept an unceasing and apprehensive

watch upon what I could see of it.

 

At three o’clock the Amtmann came back: “The people next door complain

that you disturbed them in the night. There were thumping and bumping

noises coming from this cell.” I had slept almost like a log through

the night. The involuntary __EXPRESSION__ of astonishment on my face at

this complaint was a more convincing answer than I could have made

verbally to the Amtmann, who was watching me narrowly all the time. I

protested, of course, and then volunteered the information that I had

been kicking my heels against the door a short time ago, apologizing

with a contrite mien.

 

“Oh, these people always seem to imagine things!” was his reply,

wherewith he left me. I thought I had got well out of it. Obviously

there was a misunderstanding, and the noise which had attracted the

attention of “the people next door” was that of my efforts an hour or

so ago.

 

At four o’clock the warder brought me coffee and bread and butter. He

had a small retinue with him. When I had finished, I asked him to fill

the coffee-pot with water and leave it with me. Not only was I very

thirsty; I wanted to absorb as much moisture as I could while I had the

chance.

 

As soon as he had gone I got on the bed again. The sun had now traveled

far enough to the west to make the roll of oilsilks superfluous.

 

If, as I believed, the cell wall was an outer one, the board could

now be fast only at the end above it. Applying my strength at the

other end near the beam ought to give me a tremendous leverage, which

should force it loose with little effort. It resisted, however, until

I fancied I could hear my joints crack with the exertion. The strain

lasted a few seconds; then the board came away above the wall with a

rending crash. Simultaneously something heavy fell to the ground on the

other side. The sound of it striking the floor, and the slant of the

board, revealed the existence of a third room in the building, across

which it had extended to the real outer wall of the prison, and at the

same time explained its strong resistance to my efforts.

 

With thumping heart and bated breath I listened for any suspicious

sounds from beyond the wall or from the street, but nothing happened.

Still the board, which now ought to have moved easily, resisted.

Getting my head into the loft, I found it littered with heavy lumps

of metal and plenty of broken glass, the remnants of old street-lamp

standards. Some of the metal things projected over the opening; as soon

as I had pushed them away the board moved up and down freely.

 

This was all I dared do at the moment in preparation for the escape.

The rest could easily be accomplished by the sense of touch in the

night. For the present, the board had to be fitted back into place. I

accomplished that, or nearly so, and trusted to the blindness of the

average mortal for my safety.

 

When I had removed the dust and splinters from my bed, and everything

looked in order, I saw the woman from next door walking in the garden.

I was quite taken aback, and watched her for some time, but she seemed

unconcerned enough. She could hardly have seen me except by putting

her face close to the window, for the eaves projected a considerable

distance beyond the walls, and were not more than eight feet from the

ground. Consequently it was never light in the cell, and less so now when the sun was nearing the sky-line.