My Escape from Germany 39

My Escape from Germany 39

The incident decided me. “South,” I called over my shoulder.

 

A short time later, the peat holes grew scarcer.

 

“West!”

 

There were the slimy patches again! We went around a few. Most of them

we crossed in a bee-line. They seemed firmer here. A few much smaller

sheets of water! Then again a flat, unbroken, springy surface.

 

We were all going strong, out to make westing as fast as we could put

our feet to the ground; no thought, now, of crouching.

 

* * * * *

 

A barbed wire, behind it a deep, wide ditch, beyond that a plowed

field, were in front of us.

 

The human mind is a queer contrivance. We had just negotiated some

rather ugly ground. We had not bothered about, hardly become aware of,

the risks we had taken. Now we were hesitating for a few moments in

front of a ditch with firm sides which, at the worst, we could easily

have waded. At last we jumped, landing in the water half-way up to our

knees. I lost my precious aluminium water-bottle there. Then across the

field, across another ditch, and so four times.

 

On the way I asked Tynsdale: “Nothing to remark about our course?”

 

“I thought you altered it, and swung due west at one point.”

 

“Yes, after the shots.”

 

“Intentional?”

 

“Sure!”

 

“Thought so.”

 

A canal, seemingly in course of construction, was crossed on a large

tree-trunk, which bridged it. Kent and I did it astride. Tynsdale

walked. Two hundred yards farther we stood on the banks of another

full-grown canal.

 

“We must be in Holland,” I remarked.

 

“I wouldn’t like to say so,” replied Kent. “You know there’s a canal

parallel and close to the frontier on the German side, forty or fifty

miles farther south.”

 

“Yes, and it’s marked on our map, and this isn’t.”

 

“A river, not a canal, was to show us we were in Holland!”

 

“True, but they may have turned the river into a canal. Man, the

frontier runs across the swamp. We’re off the swamp. We’re in Holland,

I bet you what you like.”

 

“I don’t think you ought to be so cock-sure.”

 

“But I am. Here, do you want to swim across?”

 

“No.”

 

“All right! We’ll turn south along its banks!”

 

Soon we came abreast of a house which lay a hundred yards or so to the

east, toward Germany.

 

“Let’s go have a look,” I suggested. We did so.

 

The whole character of the cottage, for such it was, struck me as

un-German. I pulled out my torch: “This isn’t German. Look at that

front door. Decorated with painted flowers!”

 

Kent arrived breathlessly from somewhere: “This can’t be Germany! There

is a big dish, full of potatoes, on the table in the front room!”

 

“Let’s knock!”

 

We knocked. We had no time to ask questions, for, before the last rap

had sounded, “Holland! Holland!” called a male voice from within.

 

Holland! We stood and looked at one another silently, then retreated a

few steps.

 

“Cheers, boys,” I said. “Hip, hip, hip--”

 

Three feeble cheers seemed to be immediately swallowed up in the

darkness. How thin, weak, and far away our voices sounded!

 

Then we turned, to make our way to the nearest village.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XXVI

 

FREE AT LAST

 

 

We had only gone a few steps when a man came running after us. His

Dutch and our German made conversation possible. Kent was rather good

at understanding and imparting his meaning.

 

“Orlog gefangenen?” the man asked.

 

“Yah, yah!”

 

“Roosland?”

 

“Nay, nay; Engelsch!”

 

“Engelsch?” He gripped our hands and shook them warmly. Then we had

to accompany him back to his cottage. He ushered us into the room

where Kent had seen the “big dish, full of potatoes.” His wife, in

picturesque undress, fired a volley of questions at her husband,

clasped her hands, shook ours, and began lighting the kitchener. Two

daughters--or were there three?--emerged from cavernous cabin beds, let

into the wall. Shyly they dressed in front of us.

 

Then the table was loaded with things to eat. We had fried veal,

bread, butter, and plenty of milk and hot coffee. All this was offered

us spontaneously in a farm laborer’s cottage at 2:30 in the morning.

Enviously I watched my companions enjoying their meal. I was too done

up to make more than a show of it.

 

A little later the man accompanied us to the nearest village,

Sellingen. He walked in front with Kent, Tynsdale and I followed in

the rear. The walk was a nightmare to me. Our guide carried a lantern.

I could not keep my eyes off its reflex on the ground. The direct

rays stabbed intolerably into my eyes. It seemed to hang in a Gothic

archway, which always kept receding in front of me. I was almost

convinced of the reality of the archway.

 

“Can’t we get through that gate?” I asked Tynsdale.

 

“What gate? Here, where are you going?” and he pulled my arm and

saved me from walking slap into the canal. After that I pulled myself

together and felt better. Both my friends were much fresher than I.

 

We arrived at the village at last, and were given a delicious bed on

plenty of straw, with plenty of blankets.

 

Kent was up early next morning. He accepted I do not know how many

successive invitations to breakfast, while Tynsdale and I slept until

half-past seven. In the course of the morning we were taken to a

military station at Ter Apel by the village policeman, who appeared in

his best uniform, with two huge silver tassels at his chest.

 

The very atmosphere was different. A sergeant in whose special charge

we were placed regretted that he could not put proper rooms at our

disposal. “But since the gentlemen will have to be quarantined first,

they will perhaps understand if we keep them away from upholstered

furniture.”

 

We had a wash, and an excellent meal, with a bottle of port.

 

“Did you meet any sentries?” we were asked.

 

“Not one.”

 

“Where did you cross over?”

 

“North of Sellingen.”

 

“You came over the swamp, then?” with elevated eyebrows.

 

“Yes, right across.”

 

“You were lucky. Up to a fortnight ago, sentries stood along the

frontier at one hundred-meter intervals. Then they were withdrawn,

because the swamp became impassable. You were fortunate, too, in

getting across the Ems. A great many fugitives get drowned in it.”

 

“Once, during my first attempt, I got caught on Dutch soil by the

Germans,” I remarked in the course of the conversation.

 

“What? On Dutch territory? Where was that?” The sergeant was very much

interested.

 

“I can show it to you on a map. It was northwest of Bocholt.”

 

He disappeared and returned with maps and telegraph forms. I told him

my story, and he made notes and wrote two telegrams.

 

“What you say is possible,” he said at last. “Our men stand three

hundred meters behind the actual frontier.”

 

The next two nights we spent in a hutment in Coevorden. We met a number

of Russian privates and N.C.O.’s there, who had made good their escape

and were, like us, waiting to be sent to a quarantine camp. Among them

were three who had crossed the same night as we, but through the woods

at the northern end of the swamp. We were indebted to them and their

dead comrade on German soil for the warning shots at midnight.

 

There followed a fortnight in quarantine camp in Enschede. Under the

Dutch regulations, any person “crossing the frontier in an irregular

manner,” without a passport, viséd by a Dutch consul, is subjected to this quarantine. We tried to shorten our stay there, pleading that we came from a healthy camp. We were unsuccessful.