My Escape from Germany 32

My Escape from Germany 32

Within the next hour the compartment emptied, until we were left alone,

but for a German N.C.O., who, fat as a pig, was breathing stertorously

in his sleep. Tynsdale was slumbering behind his overcoat. I followed

his example for short spells, the uneasy feeling that I had something

or somebody to take care of following me into confused dreams.

 

At the Hanover main station our luggage went into the cloak-room and we

ourselves into the waiting-room and restaurant to have a cup of coffee.

 

I knew Hanover fairly well, and was to conduct my friends to the

Eilenriede, a huge public park encircling a quarter of the town. The

greater part of it is really a densely timbered forest, where we could

spend the morning, or part of it, in safety. Tynsdale and I in front,

Kent in the rear, we wended our way thither, as much as possible

through back streets.

 

It was a typical September morning, promising a hot day. The life of

the town was beginning to stir: people were going to work, milkmen were

making their rounds, a belated farmer’s cart rattled over the cobbles

now and again; from the main thoroughfares came the buzzing of trolleys

and the clanging of bells.

 

In the park Kent closed up, and we walked abreast for a time, talking

freely in German. We felt tired, and finally sat down in a secluded

spot, surrounded by thick timber and undergrowth. At long intervals

early-morning ramblers passed us, solitary old gentlemen, and several

couples who most decidedly felt no craving for further company, and

consequently took more notice of us than the old gentlemen. Near by,

two women were gathering wood and loading it into dilapidated “prams.”

They were usually out of sight, but we heard them all the time,

breaking the dry sticks into convenient lengths.

 

Gradually the sun sucked up the mists, but the haze of an autumn day

remained. Slanting shafts of light struck through the foliage, which

sent off scintillating reflections, where it moved in a very slight

breeze, while its shadows seemed to dance merrily on the ground. A full

chorus of birds warbled and twittered in praise of the warmth of the

waning summer. The hum of insects was in the air. A butterfly winged

past at intervals, and behind our seat a colony of ants was busily

engaged.

 

The leaves had begun to fall. They covered the ground between the

trees, but the branches themselves only showed the dark-green foliage

of summer.

 

Our surroundings moved me intensely. I had not seen in this way a green

thing in seventeen months of prison life. I had not been among green

trees for over three years. The seat, hard as it was, was comfortable

to our tired bodies. We felt lazy, and when we had discussed the

night’s events, and outlined the next move, the talk languished. We

were hungry, too. Two biscuits apiece and a rather generous allowance

of chocolate tasted good.

 

Kent told us that he had immediately found a seat in the train, the

night before. His compartment had emptied sooner than ours, and he had

chatted through most of the journey with his only traveling companion,

a lieutenant. I do not know how many lies he told him.

 

At ten o’clock we walked back to the town. The heat was oppressive

by now. A circuitous route, to waste time, brought us into the

main street, the Georg Strasse. In an arcade I entered a shop for

sporting-equipment, leaving Tynsdale to wait outside with Kent, and

obtained two military water-bottles and an extremely shoddy knapsack

at an exorbitant price. Kent bought cigars. A strong clasp-knife was

added to my equipment. At a tram-crossing I inquired from a policeman

about the cars to Hainholz. I intended to repeat the trick Wallace and

I had made use of ten months before, and avoid leaving from the main

station. It was too early to obtain a meal in a restaurant then--about

eleven o’clock--so we went into the famous Kafé Kroepke, where we sat

at different tables in the order of our entrance.

 

On the way back from the station, carrying our luggage and walking in

the usual order, I caught sight of a very detective-like individual

crossing the road toward us. He fell in behind Tynsdale and me, between

us and Kent. As well as I could I watched him, but we did not seem to

interest him. While we stood waiting for the tram, Kent closed up, and

I nearly choked with rage. I thought his instructions, “Do as we do,

but keep apart,” covered everything. Now he was asking me questions.

But, after all, it was only leveling up the score of the previous night

against _me_.

 

At Hainholz I went to the ticket-window and asked for two second-class

tickets to Bremen. Kent had asked for one ten minutes before, and had

been told to wait.

 

“Are you two traveling together?” asked the booking clerk.

 

“No, no. I’m traveling with my friend,” and I waved an uncertain hand

toward Tynsdale, who looked on with an impassive face from a seat

behind us.

 

“Do I understand you to want a pass for two, and you,” turning to Kent,

who was standing beside me, “for one?”

 

Kent signified his assent.

 

“I want two tickets to Bremen. Two!” said I.

 

“You see,” explained the man, “I have no tickets to Bremen in stock.

I’ve got to write out passes for you. It’ll save work, if two are

traveling together. I can make out a joint pass for two then.” Thank

heaven it was nothing else!

 

We rushed to the platform only just in time--and waited for half an

hour for the overdue train, another one of the parliamentary variety.

 

Tynsdale and I got the last two seats in a compartment occupied by a

well-dressed and well-groomed man, four flappers with school-maps, and

a very pretty woman.

 

I felt much relieved when the train started. Another part of our

venture had come to an end! We had now left the direct route toward

Holland, the route by which the authorities would expect us to travel.

Cloppenburg, which was the ultimate objective of our railway journey,

lay in a straight line not so many miles to the west of us. Yet we were

going to spend another seven and a half hours in getting there, and had

to change the direction of our flight twice.

 

It was, therefore, with considerable composure that I sat listening to

the chatter of the flappers and the occasional snores of the man, and

watching the landscape through the window.

 

It stretched flat to the horizon, dancing in the heat haze. Toward four

o’clock, white clouds made their appearance in the azure sky, followed

presently by gray ones. When we drew into Bremen Station, where we had

to wait forty minutes for another train, due to start at half-past

five, a heavy shower was drumming on the glass roof.

 

Our traveling companions remained with us all the way. About half an

hour before we reached our destination, the pretty lady next to me

began to make ready for her arrival. Her hair, an abundance of it,

required a lot of patting and pulling about, which did not alter its

appearance in any way to the male eye. She sat forward in her seat, and

with her back straight and her arms raised, she assumed the captivating

pose of a woman putting the last deft touches to her toilet. Although

anxious not to appear rude, I tried to lose none of her movements,

which were the more charming to me as I had not seen a woman of her

class close to me for over three years. Her rounded, well-modeled arms

and shoulders showed dimly through the thin blouse. Fortunately, she

was half turning her back toward me and my companion, and we could gaze

our fill.

 

“Wasn’t she pretty!” were Tynsdale’s first words in the station

restaurant after four hours of silence.

 

“Wasn’t she!”

 

* * * * *

 

We were having a cup of coffee, sociably sitting together at the

same table. I went out to buy the three tickets and have a wash. To

my astonishment, there was real soap for use, not merely to look at

as a curiosity, in the station lavatory. I made a remark about this

extraordinary fact to the attendant, who told me quite frankly that he

made it a point to have real soap, and that it was profitable for him

to buy it at eighteen marks per pound in bulk. This implied illicit

trading, and the outspokenness of his statement was illustrative of the

general evasion of the strict trading laws and price limits.

 

The journey to Oldenburg, our next stopping-place, took half an hour

only, but was the most trying part of our escape. We were on the main

line to an important naval and air-ship center, Wilhelmshaven, and

although we did not approach it within fifty miles, the fact never left

my mind. Furthermore, the compartment Tynsdale and I were in was so

crowded that we had at first to stand. As soon as a seat became vacant,

Tynsdale slipped into it. It was next the window on the other side

of the car, happily away from an inquisitive and extremely talkative

individual, who, having been rebuffed by an officer and earned the

hostile glare of a man in naval uniform, lapsed for a short time only

into comparative silence. Before he opened his sluice-gates again, I

had sat down beside Tynsdale, covertly watching the dangerous lunatic,

as I called him, and sending up heartfelt prayers that my friend would

stick to reading the book which he held in his hand as usual. He would

not do so, however, but kept looking out of the window, giving an

opportunity every time, I felt, for our conversational friend to open

fire.

 

The scheduled thirty-five minutes would not come to an end. Even when

my watch told me that they were past, the train still kept stopping at

small stations and in the open country, and jogging on again after a

short halt. My anxiety was great, but at last I had my reward when we

arrived at Oldenburg.

 

What is it that makes one place feel “safe” and another menacing?

In most cases it is difficult to explain. The comfortable assurance

of security I had here, I put down to the absence of crowds in the

station, and to the fact that a booking-office between the platforms

permitted the purchase of new tickets without the necessity of passing

through the gates with their hostile guard of soldiers. Eighteen months

earlier the shutters in front of the windows of a similar intermediate

office at Dortmund Station, had caused me to reflect that the

authorities wanted to force all passengers to come under the scrutiny

of the guard and the ever-present detectives. Now the face of the clerk

on the other side of the glass appeared a good omen. We were not in

Prussia, by the way, but in the Duchy of Oldenburg.

 

Our train was due to leave in twenty minutes from the time of our

belated arrival. After a short wait on the platform it was shunted

in. We all three bundled into the same compartment, but took seats in

different corners. We did not carry through very carefully this show

of not belonging together, as nobody joined us. Kent bought two small

baskets of fruit from a vendor who passed along the train, and we were

sufficiently hungry to start munching their contents at once.