My Escape from Germany 34
Three abreast we started again.
“There’s a sign-post,” said Kent, whose eyes were exceptionally good.
“To Molbergen,” it read, pointing along a straight by-road at right
angles to our direction.
“This is the one we are looking for,” I announced. “How do you feel,
Tynsdale?”
“I can hardly keep my eyes open,” he made answer.
“Well, we’ll soon get water,” I said, to console him.
“I’ll walk ahead as a pace-maker,” suggested Kent.
“Good!” It appeared a splendid idea. “I’ll take the rear. Tynsdale had
better follow you close, to get the benefit of your pace-making.”
Kent led with a swinging pace along the sandy, rutted road for an hour
and a half. The country stretched flat on each hand, often broken by
patches of forest. A telephone line on our left irritated me with the
monotony of its ever-recurring, never-ending succession of poles. I had
the old sensation of walking up-hill. We found no water. Then we came
to the northern highway, into which we swung by a turn to the left.
By this time my tongue was sticky. I had the feeling of a crust having
formed at the corners of my mouth. Neither Tynsdale nor Kent felt
thirst so acutely. A little way down the _chaussée_ I stopped.
“There is a house over there. I’ll see whether or not there’s a well.
They must have a water-supply,” I remarked.
Tynsdale and Kent waited in the road at first, but soon followed me.
The solitary building stood about fifty paces from it, and a well
with windlass and protecting roof faced its western side. No pail was
attached to the wire rope, but an old cast-iron pot lay on the ground
beside the stone coping. This we tied to the end of the rope with
pieces of string, and, turning the handle of the windlass cautiously,
let it down. When it came up, filled with very cold, wonderful water,
was there ever anything so delicious? We drank in turns, not once,
but many times; then filled our water-bottles, and drank most of the
remaining liquid.
We passed through another village in the course of the remaining hours.
Behind it we came to a large brook, not marked on the map, which rushed
gurgling underneath the stone bridge. I insisted upon another drink and
a replenishment of our water-bottles.
“I can’t keep awake any longer,” complained Tynsdale a little later.
“I suppose we had better take a rest, then. Don’t you think so, Kent?
We’ll just turn off the road and lie down underneath that hedge there.
Only for half an hour, mind. We must find decent cover before dawn.”
This was at half-past three.
We spread the oilskins as a ground-cloth and rolled ourselves into our
overcoats. I wanted to keep awake, but fell asleep as promptly as the
other two, not to awaken until an hour afterward.
“Get up, quick! No time to lose. Get up!” I aroused my friends. Not
more than about half an hour was left us in which to find good cover.
Already the air struck my cheek with the damp chill of dawn. It
“smelled” morning.
We packed in haste, and hurried along the road. Once, and again, we
turned into a by-road, which seemed to be leading toward a wood. But
scattered trees near the horizon produce in the dark the impression of
a forest, since only their outlines can be seen against the sky. We
found each time that we had been lured into a fruitless quest.
The eastern horizon was graying when we came to a small spinney at a
cross-roads.
“This will have to do,” I said, a little doubtfully.
Pressing toward the heart of the thicket, and using my torch to avoid
stabbing branches, I discovered a noose in a bush for trapping birds. I
showed it to my friends. “This doesn’t look like security, does it?”
In the densest part of the spinney we halted.
“Wait a few minutes, will you? I’ll see whether or not I can find
something better near at hand.” With that I left them. I explored
our immediate surroundings without success, located a house in the
vicinity, and finally had some difficulty in finding my companions.
When I thought I was near them I whistled softly, to be answered by
Kent, not three feet away. My friends had prepared a camp, and I lay
down by them on the oilskins. The two overcoats we spread over us, and
the oilsilks on top. The knapsacks served as pillows, and almost in a
moment we were asleep.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE ROAD THROUGH THE NIGHT
We woke up in full daylight, which revealed the scantiness of our
cover. By merely raising our heads we could see people and vehicles
pass along the roads, and the sound of voices and the creaking of
wheels were at intervals very distinct all day. That it is very much
more difficult to see into a thicket than from it, was a consolation
with which we reassured ourselves repeatedly. I do not think the others
felt any more nervous than did I, who thought we were safe as long as
we kept our recumbent position. We hardly moved during the sixteen
hours, I believe.
We ate our rations in two instalments and with interruptions slept
a good deal. We never got as much sleep again in one day while in
Germany. I doubt that we got as much until all was over.
Occasional gleams of sunshine during the morning became ever rarer as
the afternoon wore on. Gray clouds threatened rain more determinedly
as the day grew old, but a strong wind which was soughing in the
branches overhead kept it off until evening, when it started with a
small preparatory shower or two.
When the light began to fail, we packed up and sat about in our
raincoats, talking in undertones and listening to the pat-pat-pat of
occasional drops among the leaves. The roads had become deserted as
darkness fell.
At 9:30 we started our second night’s progress.
Two considerations had determined my theoretical choice of route for
the night. One was the desirability of keeping well to the north of
an artillery practice ground on the hither side of the river Ems, the
other the question of water.
In order to carry my intentions into effect, we intended to leave the
first-class highway for a communication road which was to branch off
in a village about an hour’s walk ahead. It was to lead in a tolerably
straight line across a desolate stretch of country of no small
dimensions.
Soon after our start, the drizzle of rain turned into a regular
downpour which drummed noisily on oilskins and hats. A sign-post with
the distance from Cloppenburg gave us our exact position, and enabled
us to calculate the extent of ground covered on the previous night. We
made it 28 kilometers (17½ miles).
Again we looked in vain for the brook which we had expected to find
during the first hour. The water we carried was getting low, and I
was anxious to have the bottles full again, and to get a good drink.
In the first village we came to, the gurgling of a rain-spout was
too tempting, and in spite of the protests of my friends I drank
copiously and filled my bottle, whereupon they followed my example.
It was just as well that they did so, for more than twenty-four hours
were to elapse before we had another, and less enjoyable, opportunity
of slaking our thirst with more than a mouthful at a time from our
bottles, which was all we permitted ourselves between sources.
To our very circumscribed vision, the village, and all those we had
passed through so far, and would have to traverse yet, were of the same
type. At night their streets, ill defined among the loosely scattered
farm buildings, were wrapped in impenetrable blackness, and both safe
and difficult for men in our position to follow. Two steps to one side,
and one’s companions were lost to sight. To distinguish between the
road and a by-lane leading nowhere was frequently impossible, without
the help of the swiftly stabbing, instantly extinguished cone of light
from our torches.
In this and the next village we came to I would not risk taking any of
the likely-looking by-roads, without some extra assurance, such as a
sign-post would have given me, of finding the right turning. Sign-posts
were conspicuous by their absence. During the whole night we found only
two, neither of them any good for the purpose in hand, and they were
the last we saw for the rest of the journey.
Consequently we continued on the first-class highway, which was easy
to follow, until it joined the southern road again in the village of
Werfte. This was about half-past one in the morning.
The high-road from now on continued due west through flat, monotonous,
and swampy country. As fast as we could we pushed along, Kent making
pace with his usual swinging gait, hour after hour. For our objective
we had two small lakes, shown on the map as touching the road on its
northern side. They were to supply us with water before we went into
hiding. Close behind them, a single third-class road, impossible to
mistake, was to start us north on the third evening on our quest for
our proper latitude, and in avoidance of the northern end of the
artillery ground, by this time not more than eight or nine miles in
front of us.
The second sign-post we saw that night not long before dawn enabled
us to fix our position with accuracy, but a little later we came to
the conclusion that our maps had played us false again. The lakes were
nowhere in sight, though we ought to have passed or reached them. Since
we had left Werfte the track of the steam-tram had accompanied the road
on our right, and a screen of bushes and woods had interfered with
our view to the north. Now we burst through them, bent on finding a
hiding-place away from the road.
“There’s the lake!” shouted Kent, pointing over the black expanse to
where, like a shield of dull silver, the surface of the water glimmered
three quarters of a mile to the north-northeast. It was too late to
approach it then. To the north of us, a small thicket, looking as usual
many times its actual size, invited us to rest. We advanced toward it
over springy, heather-covered ground and across several wire fences.
On the banks of a deep ditch, scantily sheltered by bushes, young
trees, some furze and heather, we made camp. It was a fairly safe
place, for the reason that, as we saw later, there was no house within
a third of a mile--at the moment we thought there was no dwelling within several miles--nor any tilled land.
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