My Escape from Germany 16

My Escape from Germany 16

I had had a foretaste of prison in Cologne in November, 1914, which had

not been encouraging. Consequently I felt apprehensive enough, while

mounting the stairs behind the N.C.O. on the morning of my arrival.

 

The prison being very full, only a convict cell ten feet long and five

wide was available for me, into which I was thrust without ceremony.

A small window, barred, and high up in the narrow wall, faced the

door. The bed on the left was hinged to the brick work and folded flat

against it. A stool in the corner by the door was balanced on the

other side by the hot-water pipes for heating. Farther along, toward

the window, a small double shelf, with three pegs underneath, took the

place of wardrobe, cupboard, and bookcase. It held a Prayer Book, a New

Testament, an earthenware plate, bowl and mug, a wooden salt-cellar, a

tumbler, and a knife, fork, and spoon. Against one side of it hung a

small printed volume of prison rules and a piece of cardboard, showing

a dissected drawing of the shelves, with the contents in regulation

order, and an inventory underneath. In the center of the wall a

small table was hinged and fastened like the bed. A Bible text above

decorated the cell.

 

When in the course of the morning bed-linen and a towel were issued

to me, I was vastly pleased. I had not expected such luxuries. The

former consisted of a coarse gray bedcloth, an enormous bag of the same

material, but checkered in blue, and another small one of the same

kind. The big bag was to serve as a cover for the two blankets, which

were to be folded inside; the small one was a pillow-slip.

 

Dinner meant another welcome interruption in the difficult task of

settling down, and, since it was Saturday, turned out to be bean soup.

Although the quantity was far short of what I required, particularly

in my famished state, it appeared so tasty, so far beyond anything I

had been accustomed to in camp as far as German rations were concerned,

that I was beginning to think myself in clover.

 

Still, I was in solitary confinement. How long was this state of

affairs to last? I had asked the man in charge of the canteen, a

British prisoner who paid me a visit in his official capacity. He did

not know. He had had four and a half months after his escape of the

previous summer. The N.C.O.’s refused to commit themselves, if they

answered my questions at all. So I tried to face the prospect of being

shut up in a small cell, with no company but my own, for five months.

On this basis I worked out the final date, made a very rough calendar,

and thereafter at 11 A.M., the hour of my arrival in the Stadtvogtei,

marked with great ceremony the termination of every twenty-four hours

in “solitary.”

 

I was not examined again, contrary to my expectations, and my clever

plans, framed in Vreden prison, of “diddling the Boche” into a

forgiving frame of mind could not be tested. My hopes of a glimpse

of Ruhleben camp and my friends were not realized. The term of my

solitary confinement evidently was regarded as a state secret, not

to be communicated even to the person whom it most concerned. This

was a policy always pursued by the _Kommandantur_ in Berlin--whether

out of sheer malice or callous indifference I don’t know. Since I was

the first escaper to be punished under a new regulation, there was

no precedent to form an opinion from; but I did not know that, and

consequently expected the same term of “solitary” as other men before

me. Those who came after me were not permitted to have much doubt about

the subject. We saw to that.

 

On the morning of the second day I was told that, in addition to

solitary confinement, punishment diet had been ordered by the powers

that were. One day out of every three (for four weeks) I was to

receive bread and water only. It sounded unpleasant. The canteen man,

who came to see me every day for a few minutes, assured me that this

was something new, quite outside his experience, and, being pressed,

cheered me vastly by consenting to my expressed opinion that it might,

perhaps, indicate a correspondingly short term of “solitary.”

 

As it turned out, the punishment diet proved the reverse of what it

was intended to be, an aggravation. In filling power, twenty-four

ounces of bread were far superior to the ordinary prison food, and much

more palatable than fish soup. Very soon I began to look forward to my

“hard” days.

 

On the morning of the third day a different N.C.O. took charge of my

corridor and me. I cannot speak too highly of him. Good-natured and

disinterestedly kind, he made my lot as easy as possible. Knowing a

little about prison routine by now, I had got up before the clanging of

the prison bell had sounded, apprehensive of being late. Then I set to

work cleaning my cell, scrubbing the floor and dusting the “furniture,”

and was quite ready when the doors were opened to permit us to empty

the cell utensils and get fresh water. This was soon accomplished, and

I lingered outside in the corridor to enjoy the “view.” Not far from me

a Polish prisoner was cleaning the balcony floor, and the N.C.O.--let

us call him Kindman--was trying hard to make the Pole understand that

the water he was using was too dirty for the purpose. The poor Pole,

not comprehending a word, was working away doggedly, while Kindman was

gradually raising his voice to a shriek in his efforts to make his

charge understand, without producing the slightest effect. He was not

at all nasty about it, as one would have expected from a German N.C.O.;

he merely substituted vocal effort for his lack of knowledge of Polish.

 

“I tell you, you are to use clean water, not dirty water, clean water,

not dirty water, dirty water no good, no good,” shaking his head.

Pause, to get a fresh breath. Roaring: “Clean water, clean, clean,

clean!” Despairingly he glanced in my direction. I fetched my own pail,

full of clean water, put it beside the Pole’s, and, stirring it with my

hand, nodded vigorously. Then, pointing to the thick fluid in the other

pail, I made the sign of negation. The Pole understood.

 

“You cleaned your cell before opening time this morning?” Kindman asked

a little later. “You needn’t do that. I’ll get you a _Kalfacter_--a man

to do the dirty work for you. You’re a prisoner of war. You are allowed

these privileges. There are plenty of Poles here who’ll be only too

glad to do it for a mark a week.”

 

After some hesitation I assented. In camp I had perhaps taken a foolish

pride in doing everything myself, with the exception of washing my

underclothes. Now, in prison, I had a Kalfacter to scrub and clean.

Instead, I began to do my own washing, not liking to entrust it to the

doubtfully clean hands of a Pole.

 

“I’ll get you a better cell,” was Kindman’s next announcement. A few

days after I moved into one of the remand cells with its comfortable

bed, its nice red “lino” floor, and a bright electric light burning up

to nine o’clock, while hitherto I had sat in darkness of an evening.

 

So far so good. There were no terrible physical hardships to endure.

It was unpleasant not to have enough food. I did get some help from my

fellow-countrymen, but parcels were arriving irregularly just then, and

it was little they could spare me. My own had stopped altogether, and I

had only very little money to buy things with, and that borrowed, and

consequently it had to be hoarded like a miser’s until I could get some

of my own. I was always hungry, and often could not sleep for griping

pains, while pictures of meals I had once eaten, and menus I would

order as soon as I got to England, kept appearing before me.

 

It was a red-letter day when my hand-bag arrived from the sanatorium.

Besides the clothes, it contained several tins of food, which I

determined to consume as sparingly as possible. That, however, was

easier planned than done. Knowing the food to be within reach, I

simply could not keep my hands from it. It all went in two days. I

remember getting up in the middle of the night to open a tin containing

a Christmas pudding, and eating it cold to the last crumb. Marvelous to

relate, I went peacefully to sleep after that.

 

The actual treatment in “solitary” was much better than I had hoped for

in my most optimistic moments. Mentally, however, I suffered somewhat

during the first fortnight or three weeks. I had to battle against

the worst attack of melancholia I had ever experienced. I never lost

my grip of myself entirely, but came very near succumbing to absolute

despair. The uncertainty about the duration of my punishment, the

cessation of all letters and parcels from Blighty at a time when I most

wanted them, the fear that my correspondence would merely wander into

the waste-paper basket of a German censor, and last, but not least, the

lack of response from my friends in camp to my post-cards--all combined

to depress my spirits horribly.

 

I began to wish heartily that I had made a daylight attempt from the

guard-house, which certainly would have ended my troubles one way or

another. The drop from the balcony to the stone flags below had an

unholy fascination. For a number of days I gazed down every moment of

the few minutes I was allowed outside my cell.

 

In the beginning of the war I had read of the attempted escape of a

British officer from a fortress in Silesia. When he was apprehended

somewhere in Saxony, he committed suicide with his razor. “What a

fool!” had run my unsympathetic comment to my friends; “what did he

want to do that for?” Now I could not forget his tragic end, and not

only understood his action but almost admired him for it.

 

* * * * *

 

Every afternoon the other men in solitary confinement and I spent an

hour--from three to four o’clock--walking in single file round the

yard. An N.C.O., with a big gun strapped to his waist, kept guard over

us, and had been ordered to see that we did not talk together. With an

indulgent man on guard it was occasionally possible to get in a word

or two, even to carry on a conversation for ten minutes or so. In this

way I made the acquaintance of all the other Englishmen who were in the

same position as I.

 

As I became more cheerful, I began to relish the books which were sent

to me by the other English prisoners, and to look about for means of

snatching what enjoyment I could under the circumstances. Two visits

to the prison doctor for the treatment of “sleeplessness” gave me

opportunities of chatting for half an hour with my friend Ellison, who

faked up some complaint on the same days.

 

My punishment diet was to end on the 8th of May. That over, I expected

another four months under lock and key, until the 10th of September.

 

On the 7th of May, while tramping round the yard, the sergeant-major,second in command, came in and beckoned me to him.