My Escape from Germany 25

My Escape from Germany 25

CHAPTER XVIII

 

THE GAME IS UP

 

 

The farmhouse door was opened by a girl of about sixteen, who turned

back into the kitchen to call her mother, a woman whom incessant toil

seemed to have aged beyond her years.

 

“May I speak to your husband?” I asked politely.

 

“He’s not at home.”

 

“Do you expect him soon?”

 

“No; he’s away,”--hesitating--“at Haltern.”

 

“Well, it’s this way. I am with a friend. We came from Bremen

yesterday, and we’re on our way to Cologne for a holiday. We’ve

relatives living at Klein Recken, and thought of spending a few days

with them. We tried to walk there last night from Haltern, but in the

awful weather we lost the road. My friend fell ill, too. Fortunately,

we found your barn, and slept in the straw. We’ll pay, of course, for

what damage we did. But the question is this: Can you put us up for a

day or two, until my friend gets really better? We’ll pay you well, if

you would.”

 

“You can’t stay here that long, but you may come into the kitchen and

warm yourself. You may stay until twelve o’clock.”

 

I reflected. A few hours’ grace! We had better take it and see how

things turned out.

 

“All right,” I said. “I’ll fetch my friend and our knapsacks.”

 

With the assistance of the son of the house, a strong lad about fifteen

years of age, I got Wallace into the kitchen. We were given seats in

front of the roaring kitchener. My friend seemed much better.

 

Our arrival was obviously an extraordinary event, as well it might

be; but if the people did conjecture at all, they showed it only in a

suppressed kind of excitement. There was no atmosphere of suspicion,

and the few curious questions the woman asked us were easily parried.

 

There were three girls and the boy in the family, all approaching

maturity. While the woman bustled about preparing a breakfast for us,

two of the girls and the boy made ready to go out. I did not like that,

and tried to find out where they were going.

 

“You’re going to church, I suppose?” This to the eldest girl.

 

“Yes,” shyly.

 

“Have you got one near by?”

 

“No. We go to Haltern to church. My sister will be back soon from the

first service.” So there was a fourth girl!

 

“Did she go to Haltern, too?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“It seems a long way to walk on a day like this.”

 

Silence.

 

“You do get up early, even on Sundays, don’t you? I thought I heard you

about very early, this morning.”

 

“We get up at five o’clock,” broke in the old woman.

 

“You don’t say so. I always thought there was little farm work to be

done in winter. You don’t seem to take advantage of your slack time.”

 

“There’s lots to do.” And she ran through a list of duties.

 

“Do you feel the war as much as we do in town? How are you off for

food?”

 

“We manage all right.”

 

“Well, we don’t. We’re chemists in an ammunition factory, and we’re

worked to death and don’t get much to eat. There’s nothing one can buy.

We applied for a holiday, being tired of the everlasting long hours,

and got three weeks. A bit too late for Muller, here. He oughtn’t to

have come, feeling as he did.”

 

The coffee was brewed, and bread, butter, and a plate of cut sausage

were on the table. Both of us went at it cheerfully. In the middle of

the meal the fourth girl, the eldest, came in, and the boy and his two

sisters left. This was about half-past nine.

 

When I had an opportunity, I whispered to Wallace: “We’ve got to get

away from here soon after eleven. Play up.” Then I addressed him aloud:

“What do you think we’d better do?”

 

“I hardly know. I feel pretty rotten still.”

 

Turning to the woman, I asked: “It’s about two and a half hours to

Klein Recken, isn’t it?”

 

“About that.”

 

“Do you think you can manage that, Muller?” I looked seriously at

Wallace, who understood and answered, equally serious:

 

“No; I’m afraid it would be too much for me.”

 

“Well, then, we had better go back to Haltern and on to Cologne from

there. Let me see what train we can catch.” Luckily we had kept our

time-table. It came in handy now.

 

“There’s a train at eleven-fifty-four to Cologne. We might catch that,

don’t you think?”

 

“Anything you like, Erhardt.”

 

“Right-o.” To the woman: “How long do you reckon to the station in

Haltern from here?”

 

“You can do it in a little over three quarters of an hour.”

 

“That’s what I make it. We’ll leave here at eleven.”

 

* * * * *

 

A dollar and a quarter seemed to satisfy the old woman. Indeed, she

obviously had not expected so much, but she quickly hid the money in

her purse. Then we took our leave.

 

The weather had cleared somewhat. It was freezing slightly. The clouds

were thinning here and there, and an occasional ray of sunshine drifted

over the landscape. It was a regular Christmas picture. Two or three

inches of snow covered the ground, reflecting strongly the dispersed

light from the sky. Black and sharply defined, the woods were outlined

against it or the unblemished white of the fields, where they stretched

up the hillsides behind them. Each branch had a ridge of snow on its

upper surface, and looked as if it had been drawn with India ink and a

sharp-pointed pen on glazed paper. The boughs of the dark-green pines

were bending under masses of downy white, lumps of which slid to the

ground as we passed. Then the boughs, relieved from part of their load,

swayed upward.

 

“You see why I wanted to be off,” I explained to Wallace as soon as

we were out of earshot, glad to drop back into English, since nobody

was about. “Our unexpected appearance at the farm was sufficiently

extraordinary to make the girls serve it up hot and strong to their

friends in Haltern. It’ll fly round the town like bazaar talk, and we’d

have had the police coming for us in a couple of shakes. But what now?”

 

We talked it over. Again Wallace asked me to leave him, but my stern

answer silenced his arguments. Again it was he who urged “carrying on,”

although he admitted that to walk any distance was out of the question

for him. He submitted a plan which did not strike me as particularly

hopeful, but it was the best we could do under the circumstances.

 

We were to go back to a certain town in Germany, get help there, and

rest in security until Wallace’s condition and the weather had improved

sufficiently to make another attempt feasible.

 

Our exchequer was at low water, and I had my doubts whether we could

reach the town. But we might try.

 

Sundry groups of people were coming from Haltern; some of them stared

rather hard at us. Wallace was improving, and enjoyed the walk, but he

seemed very weak, and his feet hurt him so that he limped painfully

along.

 

The weather changed again for the worse, and as we approached the

station it began to snow. I took tickets to a junction not far off.

During the twenty minutes until the train was due we intended to wait

on the platform.

 

“Why don’t you wait in the waiting-room? It’s beastly on the platform,”

said the ticket-collector.

 

“Might as well,” I said indifferently, and turned back.

 

We took our seats and ordered coffee. At the counter opposite us stood

a young lieutenant in the long green, peace frock-coat of a rifleman.

We saw the ticket-collector come in and address him, whereupon the

lieutenant walked straight up to us.

 

“Where do you come from?”

 

“We walked in from Klein Recken this morning,” I answered.

 

“Show me your papers!”

 

I smiled and addressed Wallace in English: “Game’s up, old man!” He

nodded glumly. The lieutenant stared. Then I explained.

 

The officer did not seem very much surprised, and the miraculous way in

which an armed soldier appeared at his elbow showed that he had been

expecting a dénouement.

 

“I’ll have to send you to the guard-room at present,” he said. “Don’t

try any tricks. My men are hellishly sharp.” I reflected a moment.

Escape was out of the question for the present. Wallace’s condition,

the tracks we should leave in the snow, etc., would make an attempt

absurd.

 

“I don’t know whether you will accept our word that we sha’n’t run away

while in your charge. We’ll give it, if you like. That’s right, Wace,

isn’t it?” I turned to my friend with the last words. Wallace nodded.

 

The lieutenant had been in the act of turning away, but wheeled sharply

when I had spoken. Looking us over carefully, he said: “Right, I will.

Are you hungry?”

 

“We could do with something to eat,” Wallace spoke up for the first

time. The officer turned to his soldier:

 

“You will take these men to the guard-room. Leave your rifle here. They

are to have double rations of whatever you get.”

 

“Besten Dank, Herr Leutnant!” we acknowledged.

 

With a salute we turned and followed the soldier across the railway

lines to the guard-room. It was in a wooden hut, and similar to all

other guard-rooms. We had a wash and made ourselves as presentable as

possible. Wallace shaved. I was still wearing a beard.

 

About five o’clock the lieutenant came over to search us. Warning us to

give up everything of importance, he merely asked us to hand him what

we had in our pockets, and glanced through our knapsacks.

 

At six o’clock we were taken to his office in the station building,

escorted by two armed soldiers.

 

“You gave me your word that you were not going to make another

attempt!” the lieutenant reminded us.

 

“Yes, sir, as long as we are in your charge, or that of your men.”

 

“Good. I shall have to send you to prison now. I can’t keep you in the

guard-room. Don’t let the warder search you. I’ve done that. You are

military prisoners, not under civil authority. If you prefer it, try to

make him give you a cell where you can be together. Tell him I said you were to have one. You’ll be here for a few days before an escort can be got for you. Good-by.”