My Escape from Germany 4

My Escape from Germany 4

When these two men escaped, I was playing with the idea myself. It was

a very fine spring. In the afternoons I used to sit on the uppermost

tier of the big grand stand. High up as I was, the factory buildings

and chimneys toward the west, where Spandau lay, appeared dwarfed; and

gazing across with my book on my knees, I had a sense of freedom. I

used to dream extravagant dreams of flights in aëroplanes with Germany

gliding backward beneath my feet, with the fat pastures of Holland

unrolling from the horizon, with the gray glint of the sea appearing,

and the shores of England lying rosy under a westering sun. And then,

coming down to realities, I began seriously to speculate upon the

chances of “getting through.”

 

I soon came to the conclusion that a companion was desirable, a good

man who spoke German well, as I did; a man with plenty of common sense

about him. I found one in April, T----, a native of the state of

Kansas. Lack of money made an early attempt impossible. I had enough

for myself, but my friend was dependent upon the five shillings per

week relief money paid by the British Government to those who had no

resources of their own. I could not get hold of sufficient money for

the two of us at once, so I set myself to accumulate gradually the

necessary amount.

 

But the summer passed, the leaves began to turn yellow, and my

pocket-book still contained less than I thought necessary.

 

In June of that year a successful escape from camp and from Germany by

Messrs. Pyke and Falk set us all talking and wondering. Then, in quick

succession, two serious attempts by a couple of men each failed. News

was allowed to reach us that they would be kept in solitary confinement

until the end of the war. This inhuman punishment was not actually put

into effect, but the unfortunates got five months’ and four and a half

months’ solitary confinement respectively, and after that indefinite

detention in prison.

 

My companion and I heard only about the first sentence. It somewhat

staggered us; but we decided that, as we did not intend to be caught,

the punishment ought not to deter us, and that if we were caught we

could stick it out as well as the next man.

 

The days were growing shorter, the nights colder, the boughs of

the trees barer, and conditions generally more unfavorable, and

still we hung on. Then the military authorities began doubling the

number of wire fences around the camp and erecting plenty of extra

light-standards in the space between them. Also, the number of sentries

was increased. All this decided us to have “a shot at it” there and

then, before the additional fences were completed.

 

We had hoped for an overcast sky. Instead, the full moon was bathing

the camp in light. Feeling anything but comfortable, we walked up to

that part of the wire fence where we intended to scramble over. We

were just getting ready, when a sentry came around the corner of the

barracks outside the wire. We had never observed the man on that beat

before. He stopped short, and his rifle came to the ready. “We’re camp

policemen, if he asks,” I whispered to my companion. Lingering a moment

as if in conversation, we then walked slowly away. We decided not to

try again that night.

 

The next morning I was disgusted with myself and all the world. I

talked it over with my companion, and he agreed with me that it was “no

go” that year. Another week of light nights would see the wire fences

completed and the season so far advanced that the odds would be too

heavy against us.

 

For some days I chewed the bitter cud of disappointment. Then I told my

friend that I should be glad to go with him, if he had an opportunity,

but that in the meantime I should take any chance, if one came to me,

alone. He expressed approval.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER III

 

THE SANATORIUM

 

 

Toward the end of November an old Scotsman, a member of my barracks

(No. 5), was returned to camp from the sanatorium in Charlottenburg.

I questioned him about the place. It appeared that no desperate

illness was necessary to get there, as long as one was willing to pay

for oneself instead of coming down upon the British Government funds

ordinarily provided for that purpose.

 

This institution was a private medical establishment known as Weiler’s

Sanatorium. The camp administration, by now in our own hands, had made

arrangements with the proprietors to receive and treat such cases of

illness or ill-health as could not be treated adequately in camp, where

the accommodation in the infirmary, measured on civilized standards,

was of the roughest.

 

Having a big scar on my left thigh, the only reminder of a perfectly

healed compound fracture many years old, I believed sciatica a likely

complaint to acquire. Except in extreme cases no observable changes

take place in the affected limb, and the statement of the patient

is the only means of diagnosis. Forthwith I developed a gradually

increasing limp. With it I got grumpy and ill-tempered, the limp

preventing me from taking my usual exercise, and this soon had its

effect.

 

At regular and short intervals I went to see the doctor. To start with,

I got sympathy from him, and aspirin. But nothing did me any good,

though I admitted to an occasional improvement when the weather was

fine and dry. At last I was taken into the _Schonungsbaracke_ and put

under a severe course of sweating. I stuck it out, but came dangerously

near throwing up the sponge before I was released at the end of a week

of it. By that time I had made up my mind that my sciatica ought to be

cured, at least temporarily.

 

I kept away from the doctor for some time, but after a fortnight,

during which my limp had gradually increased again, I was back in the

surgery. He admitted that under camp conditions a lasting cure, even

of a mild case like mine, was hardly to be thought of; but since the

Schonungsbaracke was full, there was nothing for me “but to stay in

bed as much as possible” and to swallow aspirin. This treatment suited

me excellently well.

 

I kept hanging about the surgery complaining mildly until the first

days of February, when the weather was rotten. I had a serious attack

then. I knew the Schonungsbaracke to be still full, and this gave

me the opportunity of asking to be transferred for treatment to the

sanatorium.

 

My case being considered urgent, I left the camp the same afternoon,

accompanied by a soldier and a box-mate of mine who had volunteered to

carry my luggage--for I was unable, of course, even to lift it. With

somewhat mingled feelings I looked my last upon Ruhleben for many a

long day.

 

My new home had originally been intended for nervous cases only--a

private lunatic asylum, to put it bluntly. The arrangement with the

camp authorities for the treatment of all kinds of ailments among

a population of over four thousand was taxing its capacity to the

utmost. So many of our men were there at this time that they not only

filled the original institution but were housed and treated in several

dwellings leased by the proprietors in addition to the asylum.

 

This was a large building with an extensive garden at 38 Nussbaum

Allee, Charlottenburg. The appellation “Nussbaum Allee” distinguished

it from the other houses, of which there were four, if I am not

mistaken. I forget their names, however, with the exception of “Linden

Allee.”

 

There were two classes of patients, whose food and accommodation

differed according to the amount they paid, or which was paid for them

by the British Government through the American Embassy. First-class

treatment cost at that time twelve marks per day exclusive of medicines

and special treatment. Without exception the expense had to be defrayed

by the patient himself. In the second-class eight marks per day was

charged. Neither class could expect private bedrooms for this, except

where infectious ailments or other medical reasons made separate rooms

imperative.

 

I had offered to pay my own expenses, to avoid delay by having my case

referred to the American Embassy. It was a matter of indifference to

me what class I was put into. The points of comfort I was looking for

were easily opened windows, etc. I liked fresh air at any time, but now

was particularly impressed by a theory of mine, that fresh air could be

admitted in sufficient quantities only by windows not too high from

the ground and large enough to admit, or rather to give exit to, a

fairly bulky man.

 

The windows looked all right, but, from my point of view, they were

_not_. They had diamond panes set in cast-iron frames; and even if they

opened, a dog could not have got out of the aperture. All the corridor

doors were kept constantly locked. There was no passing from one part

of the building to another without the help of a warder or a nurse. The

idea of having to sleep in the same room with six or eight people, one

or two of them seriously ill, did not appeal to me. One of them was

always sure to be awake at night. Straightway I applied for first-class

treatment, for this would get me sent to the “Linden Allee Villa,”

where these lunatic-asylum precautions would probably be absent.

 

I was taken there in the course of the following morning. My assumption

proved correct, for things were different. Twelve patients nearly

occupied the available accommodation. The staff consisted of only a

nurse and three servant girls, and no military guard was about the

place. The biggest bedrooms contained three beds. A garden surrounded

the house, accessible through at least three doors and a number of

windows of the ordinary French pattern. A low iron railing separated

the garden from the streets, which in this part of the town were very

wide, and which frequently had two causeways, lined with trees, and

divided by stretches of lawn and thick shrubbery.

 

Not far from “Linden Allee” a big artery ran right into Berlin.