My Escape from Germany 37

My Escape from Germany 37

I grabbed at a pole lying in the bottom of the boat. The water proved

too deep for punting, so I used it as a paddle, standing on a forward

thwart.

 

The boat was an enormously clumsy affair. Tynsdale snatched at the

painter when the bows touched the pier. “Get into your things, we’ll do

the rest.”

 

“Here’s the brandy.” Kent solicitously handed me the flask. I didn’t

need it, but thought I deserved a pull.

 

When I was dressed, I joined my friends, and we put our things into the

boat. Tynsdale, who had grown up among shipping, had swung her round,

so that her nose pointed downstream. We clambered in.

 

Kent and I were sitting in the bow when he pushed off, and started

to propel us across the river in proper waterman’s style with an oar

he had found in the bottom of the boat. Silently working it over the

stern, he guided her round the counter of the barge, underneath the

wire cable which connected the latter with the one lower down, and out

into the placid stream.

 

Not a word was spoken after we got clear. The large bulk of the empty

barge dwindled as the strip of water widened between us. The trees on

the bank we had left grew smaller, a trembling line of light glimmered

on the surface of the river from the winking window of the cottage.

Then the other bank grew distinct and high. The boat’s nose swung

upstream and touched. I am not quite sure who was ashore first, Kent or

I, but I am certain I had the painter.

 

“Don’t let her drift,” Tynsdale whispered from his quarter-deck, when

I had scrambled ashore. “Belay somewhere, if you can.” We found a post

with an iron ring on top, almost embedded in the ground, and made fast.

Our knapsacks were put ashore. Tynsdale left last, as befitted the

captain.

 

“Leave her there,” he counseled. “If we let her drift and get caught,

we’ll be charged with stealing her. They may not trouble to investigate

if they find her here.”

 

Hurriedly we retired among some bushes which dotted the hollows along

the river bank.

 

“Council of war,” I suggested in high glee. “What’s to be done now?

What time, Kent?”

 

“Twelve-forty-five.”

 

“What are your opinions? Are we to try to cross the frontier to-night

or not?”

 

“To-night, by all means to-night!” urged Tynsdale. We were all very

much excited, of course.

 

“Time’s getting short! Wait until to-morrow night!” counseled cautious

Kent.

 

The decision rested with me.

 

“Time _is_ getting rather short, but we might do it. Question is, can

we find cover if we don’t? It must be good, to serve its purpose in the

Sperrgebiet. I think we ought to dump everything we can spare, and go

forward as fast as possible. We can always alter our minds, until after

we get on to the morass.”

 

“Good!” grunted Tynsdale.

 

“As you wish,” Kent gave way gracefully.

 

“Then hurry!” I instructed.

 

Feverishly we went through our impedimenta, thrust the remainder of

our biscuits, escapers’ shortbread, chocolate, and such indispensable

things as were not already there, into our pockets, and shoved

rucksacks, overcoats, raincoats, and everything else underneath the

bushes.

 

I knew the map too well to want to look at it long. Had we not spent

days studying the stretch in front of us, often with the help of

magnifying glasses?

 

“What time, Kent?”

 

“One o’clock.”

 

“Give me exactly half an hour.”

 

Relieved of about thirty pounds in weight, I set the fastest pace in my

power downstream, along the river bank. I hoped to find a path there,

which was to take us to the “jumping-off place” to the north of us,

where I intended to get to the swamp. The path was there. The going

was easy, and comparatively safe. Bushes dotted the banks and gave

continuous shelter.

 

It cannot be denied that our procedure was risky. We took it for

granted that we should not meet any sentries along the river, in spite

of our information to the contrary. But slow and careful going seemed

equally risky at the time. Only speed could help us across the frontier

that night.

 

My decision in favor of trying to bring our venture to an immediate

conclusion was wrong. I ought to have seen that it was more than likely

that we should find cover along the river. Yet--I don’t know.

 

“The half-hour is over,” said Kent.

 

The river was flowing placidly on our right, swirling softly. Straight

across from us a back-water lost itself between tall reeds. This was

the spot I had hoped to reach. We filled our water-bottles and drank.

Then I slid down the bank, raised here above the surrounding country,

and started due west, followed by my companions. Passing a few yards

of scattered bushes, with rank grass between them, I plunged into

a dense thicket of oak saplings. Pushing and straining, I worked

on, in order to get through what I imagined to be a narrow belt. It

would not come to an end, but grew thicker instead, finally making

progress impossible. In the light of the torch the small trees stood

impenetrably close.

 

“Here’s our cover; no time to work round this patch, and no need to,

either,” I said.

 

“Well, I’m glad,” commented Kent.

 

“I wish we hadn’t left our overcoats behind,” I reflected. “Let’s see.

Four hours till daylight. We’ll be damnably cold. Let’s go fetch ’em.

Heaps of time. Nothing else to do.”

 

Back on the river bank I tied my handkerchief to a branch, knee-high

above the ground. After a careful look round, to impress the contours

of the landscape on my mind, we started back.

 

I had not the slightest misgivings about our ability to find our

knapsacks and to disappear again into our hiding-place. The hollow

where we had left them? Gracious me! I could walk there blindfolded.

I could draw its shape now. My cock-sureness was not at all damped by

Kent’s dismal forebodings, on which he started as we approached the

spot.

 

We found the boat, but not our luggage; we searched for it more than

half an hour, quite recklessly at the last. There were thousands of

apparently identical hollows. They had multiplied exceedingly during

our absence. I thought I entered them all. But our luggage was lost,

and stayed lost.

 

“No use. We’ve got to go.” I fell in with the urging of the others at

last.

 

At about 3:30 we stretched ourselves on the dry leaves among the oak

saplings and fell asleep.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XXV

 

THE LAST LAP

 

 

Half an hour later we were awake again, shivering and with chattering

teeth. The wind was rising and rustling in the canopy of leaves over

our heads. It was dark and bitterly cold.

 

“I’m going to do something,” I announced. “We may have rain. I’ll build

a shelter.”

 

The oak saplings offered an ideal material for an arbor, although the

clasp-knife did not bite readily through their tough fibers. Jointly

we interlaced the crowns of six or seven stout saplings, growing in a

circle, and twisted long branches in and out of the stems. We made a

small but dense roof. The floor we covered with small twigs and leaves

to the depth of two or three inches.

 

The exertion made the blood course through our veins again. Before we

had finished, it was day.

 

The wind had increased to a gale, which shrieked and roared and

rustled among the foliage, sending occasional eddies even into our

hiding-place. It kept the rain off, which threatened now and again

during the forenoon. There were no mosquitoes. I do not think there

ever are any among oaks.

 

Several excursions to the river bank, in couples or singly, one of

us always remaining in the arbor, warmed us a little when we had got

chilled to the bone. The river path, and the belt of scattered bushes,

remained deserted all day. But we observed a considerable amount of

river traffic. Long strings of barges, mostly empty, were being towed

upstream by powerful tugs.

 

Tynsdale scouted toward the west, away from the river, and reported a

farm some distance from our hiding-place in that direction, and the

existence of a pond and a belt of marsh-land behind the thicket.

 

We slept in snatches of minutes, until the cold awoke us again, and

again sent us dancing or scouting about. It was the most miserable

camp we had yet experienced, but the safest, and the one where we were

the least thirsty. There was more water about us than was altogether

desirable, we thought at the time. Twenty-four hours later, looking

back, we altered our opinion.

 

The distance from this camp to the Dutch frontier was five miles to the

west-northwest, as the crow flies. Opposite to us the border traversed

an extensive swamp, the Bourtange Moor, twenty-five miles in length,

and between five and seven miles in width.

 

According to our map, neither road nor path led over it, which was

one of the reasons why we had selected it as the point to strike at.

“Information received” had encouraged our belief that the swamps

which extend along nearly the whole of the northern frontier between

Holland and Germany can be traversed in summer and autumn during normal

years. Other information tended to show that comparatively they were

negligently guarded. I had never forgotten a newspaper article which

I had read in Ruhleben in the winter of 1915-1916. A territorial had

described his duties as a frontier guard. There was one passage: “When

on duty I shared a small hut with another man.… We had to walk two

hours to the nearest post.” Two men to guard a two-hours’ stretch! Ridiculous! Camouflage! but still--