My Escape from Germany 6

My Escape from Germany 6

When I went up the steps to the booking-hall, night was slowly

withdrawing before the vanguard of the approaching day. The electric

lights in the streets flashed once and were dead. In the station they

were beginning to show pale and ineffective.

 

To my relief, people were entering the station with me. Obviously,

there was a service of trains this early, though I had been in doubt

about it till then. The taking of a ticket to Friedrich Strasse

Station, one of the chief stations in Berlin, cost me some agitation.

It meant the first test of my ability to “carry on.”

 

“Friedrich Strasse! Ten minutes to six! I must find the restaurant and

have breakfast.” There is no sense in neglecting the inner man; no

experienced campaigner will voluntarily risk it.

 

Friedrich Strasse was a most uncomfortable place to be in. It swarmed

with soldiers, and its intricate passages and stairs were plastered

with placards: “Station Provost Marshal,” “Military Passport Office,”

“Passports to be shown here,” “For Military only.”

 

At last I found a snug little waiting-room and restaurant, where I got

a fairly decent meal, including eggs, which at the time were still

obtainable without ration-cards, and rolls, for which I ought to have

delivered up some bread-tickets, but didn’t. As soon as I had a chance,

I bought a newspaper and some cigarettes. Either might help one over an

awkward moment.

 

The train for Leipzig left from a station I knew nothing about except

the name. The easiest way for me to get there was by cab. A number of

these were standing in front of Bahnhof Friedrich Strasse.

 

“Anhalter Bahnhof,” I said curtly to the driver of the first

four-wheeler on the rank. Cabby mumbled something about _Marke_ through

a beard of truly amazing wildness. Then only did I recollect that it is

necessary before taking a cab from a station rank in Berlin to obtain

a brass shield, with its number, from a policeman stationed inside the

booking-hall. Back I went, overcoming as best I might the terrifying

aspect of the blue uniform close to me. Fortunately, the man was

extraordinarily polite for a Prussian officer of the law, and inquired

solicitously what particular kind of cab I should like, and whether it

was to be closed or open. It was to be closed.

 

I had twenty minutes to spare after I alighted from the cab in front

of my destination. This station appeared less crowded than the former

one, although a considerable number of soldiers were in, or passing

through, the big hall. The moment had come when one of the main points

of my plan was to be put to the test. Could I obtain a long-distance

ticket without a passport? I waited until several people approached

the booking-office, then lined up behind them. One of them asked for

a second-class ticket to Leipzig, and got it without any formality. I

considered myself quite safe when I repeated his demand.

 

The train, a corridor-express, was crowded. The hour was early for

ordinary people, and nobody seemed in the least talkative. To guard

against being addressed, I had bought enough German literature of the

bloodthirsty type to convince anybody of my patriotic feelings, but I

hardly looked at it. I was too much interested in watching the country

flashing past the window and in speculating upon what it would be like

near the Dutch frontier.

 

At Leipzig, where we arrived at 9:30 A.M., I had my little Gladstone

taken to the cloak-room by a porter, to give more verisimilitude to my

limp. For the same reason I made it my first business to buy a stout

walking-stick at the nearest shop. After that I got a good luminous

compass, whose purchase was another test case. When it was treated as

an everyday transaction by the man behind the counter my spirits rose,

and the acquisition of maps appeared a less formidable undertaking.

Nevertheless, I resolved to leave their purchase to the afternoon.

Should I find that suspicion was aroused by my request for “a good map

of the province of Westphalia,” I intended to nip away on the earliest

train, if I could reach the station unarrested.

 

The rest of the morning I spent limping through the town, keeping very

much on the alert all the time. The tortuous, narrow streets of the

inner town, with their old high-gabled houses in curious contrast with

the modern buildings and clanging tram-cars, were a delight to me as

well as a difficulty; the latter in so far as I had to keep account of

my whereabouts, the better to be able to act swiftly in an emergency.

Gradually I got into more modern streets, wide and straight. In passing

I had made a mental note of a likely-looking restaurant to have lunch

in later on.

 

At last I found myself in a public park, where I rested on a seat for

some time. A shrewd wind, which whistled through the bare branches of

the trees, made me wrap myself tighter in my greatcoat.

 

I started to walk back to the restaurant at midday, following

for the greater part of the way in the wake of three fat and

comfortable-looking burghers, who were deciding the war and the fate

of nations in voices loud enough for me to follow their conversation,

although thirty paces behind. In the restaurant I had a meal, somewhat

reduced in quality and quantity, for a little more than I should have

paid in peace times. Over a cigarette I then started to look up my

evening train in the time-table I had bought at the station. Unable to

find what I wanted, I grew hot and cold all over. I had by no means

speculated upon having to stay in any town overnight, and should not

have known how to act had I been forced to do so. This question had to

be settled there and then, so I went to the station and the inquiry

office. I was told that I could get a train at 7:50 or 8 P.M.--I forget

which--to Magdeburg, and from there catch the express for the west to

Dortmund.

 

The first part of the afternoon I spent in several cafés, unhappy

to be within four walls, yet wanting to rest as much as possible.

Toward five o’clock I nervously set forth to buy the maps and some

other less important things. I passed several booksellers’ shops

with huge war-maps displayed in the windows, but my feet, seemingly

of their own volition, carried me past them. When I finally plucked

up enough courage to enter a shop, my apprehension proved quite

unnecessary. I came away with a fine motor-map and another one,

less useful generally but giving some additional information. After

that the rest of my equipment was rapidly acquired: a pair of night

binoculars, wire-clippers, a knapsack, a very light oilskin, and a

cheap portmanteau to carry these things in. By a fortunate chance I saw

some military water-bottles in a shop window, which reminded me that I

had nearly overlooked this very important part of a fugitive’s rig-out.

I got a fine aluminum one.

 

By this time it was getting dark. The best way of spending what

remained of my time in Leipzig was to have a leisurely meal in the

station restaurant.

 

While I was waiting to be served, a well-dressed man at a table

opposite attracted my attention. He came into the room soon after me,

and seemed to take a suspicious interest in my person. He stared at me,

openly and otherwise. When he did the former, I tried to outstare him.

After he had twice been worsted in this contest he kept a careful but

unobtrusive watch over the rest of the people in the restaurant, but

took no further notice of me, not even when I crossed the room later

on to buy at the counter as many sweet biscuits and as much chocolate

as I dared. After that I sat reading a book with a lurid cover whereon

a German submarine was torpedoing a British man-of-war among hectic

waves. Taking advantage of the short-sightedness implied by my glasses,

I held it close to my eyes, so that onlookers might have the benefit of

the soul-inspiring cover, and look at that instead of my face.

 

A porter, whom I had tipped sufficiently to make it worth his while,

came to fetch my luggage and see me into the train, where I had a

compartment to myself. As soon as we were moving, I executed a wild but

noiseless war-dance to relieve my overcharged feelings, and then had my

first good look at the maps.

 

At Magdeburg I had only a few minutes to wait for the express to

Belgium, which was to arrive at midnight. It turned out to be split

into three sections, following each other at ten-minute intervals. I

took the first of the trains. The second-class compartment I entered

was occupied by an officer of the A. M. C. and two non-commissioned

officers. The latter soon left us, having bribed the guard, so it

seemed, to let them go into the first-class. In this way the medical

officer and I had the whole compartment to ourselves. We lay down at

full length, and I slept with hardly an interruption until 4:30, half

an hour before the train was due at Dortmund.

 

At Dortmund the waiting-room I went to was almost empty. I left my

luggage in the care of a waiter, and went out to have a wash and

brush-up. This expedition gave me an opportunity to learn something

about the station before I got a fresh ticket. I saw that to do

this I should have to pass ticket-gates which were in charge of an

extraordinarily strong guard with fixed bayonets. The importance of

Dortmund as a manufacturing town, coupled with its situation in the

industrial district of the West, the vulnerable point of Germany,

explained these precautions.

 

Back in the waiting-room, a liquid called coffee and a most

unsatisfactory kind of war bread had to take the place of a Christian

breakfast. From the time-table I learned that there was a local train

to Wanne at about 6:30. It just missed connection with another one

from Wanne to Haltern, if I recollect rightly. The prospect of having

to wait over two hours in a small town on the edge of the industrial

district, before I could get a train, was not particularly inviting,

but there was no alternative. My ticket was taken only at the last

minute; then Dortmund was left behind.

 

For most of the way to Wanne I traveled in the company of two young

civilians, massively built and pictures of health. When they had left

I hastily packed my impedimenta in the new portmanteau, leaving the

Gladstone empty, with the intention of depositing it in a cloak-room as

the best means of getting rid of it without leaving a clue.

 

Having arrived at Wanne at eight o’clock, I handed my two pieces of

luggage in at the cloak-room window, asking for a separate ticket for

each.

 

The man behind the counter, to whom I took a great dislike from that

moment, stared at me in silence for some seconds, until I could no

longer stand it, and started a lame explanation: I wanted to leave

the small bag for a friend of mine to fetch later on from whom I had

borrowed it in the town about a week ago, name of Hugo Schmidt. The

other I would take away with me as soon as my business in Wanne was

finished. The fib sounded unconvincing enough to my own ears. The

wooden face of my antagonist on the other side of the window gave no

indication of thoughts or emotions. All that mattered really was that

he gave me two tickets, and that I found myself in the street still unarrested but feeling unaccountably hot.