My Escape from Germany 9

My Escape from Germany 9

“Who are you?” An armed soldier stood before me.

 

I gave a name.

 

“Where do you come from?”

 

“I belong to Düsseldorf.”

 

“So. Where do you come from now?”

 

“From Borken.”

 

“But you are not on the road from Borken!”

 

I knew that, but no other name had occurred to me. What I ought to have

said was “Bocholt,” I think.

 

“I am not bound to follow what you call the direct road, and, anyway,

what do you mean by stopping me and questioning me in this fashion?”

 

“Where are you bound for?”

 

For want of anything better, I created the imaginary country house of

an imaginary noble.

 

“Don’t know it,” said the soldier, eyeing me doubtfully and scratching

his head.

 

By this time a crowd had collected around us. Additions to it, mostly

children, were shooting full speed round the nearest corners, as I saw

out of the corner of my eye, helm hard a-port and leaning sideways

to negotiate the turn. But I was already hemmed in by four or five

stalwarts. Outside the crowd a small man was dancing excitedly up and

down demanding that I be taken before the Amtmann, the head of the

village. This man turned out to be the village doctor, the cyclist who

had passed me. “What a disagreeable, foxy face the chap has,” flashed

through my mind. The soldier was obviously still in doubt about me, but

was overruled in spite of all the arguments I could think of.

 

With the soldier by my side, two stalwarts in front and three behind,

and surrounded by the throng, I was marched through the streets. We

drew up before a farmlike building, and politely but firmly I was

urged to enter. We went into a big room on the ground floor. Two desks,

several chairs and tables, and file cabinets made up the furniture. A

telephone was attached to the wall next the door.

 

A young man jumped up from his chair in front of one of the desks, and

he, and those who had entered with me, regarded me suspiciously for a

moment without speaking. Then the young man--he seemed a clerk--caught

sight of the binoculars half concealed under my coat lapels. With the

shout, “He is a spy!” he rushed upon me, and with a quick movement of

his hand tore open my coat and waistcoat.

 

“Here, keep your dirty paws off me!” I grunted angrily.

 

He stepped back. At this moment the Amtmann came in, a young and

gentlemanly looking chap. My assailant at once collapsed in a chair,

and tried to assume a judicial attitude with pen in hand and paper in

front of him. Then they searched me, and the fat was in the fire. There

was, of course, no sense in continuing the bluffing game, when maps,

compasses, and some letters addressed to me in Ruhleben were on the

table. I had carried the latter as additional evidence of my identity

for the British consul, should I get through. What they did not find

was my British passport. That was cunningly, I think, and successfully

concealed.

 

The business part of the performance being over, they became more

genial. The Amtmann asked me whether or not I was hungry. “No.” Should

I like a cup of coffee? “I should, and a smoke, please.” With the aid

of two cups of coffee and three of my cigarettes, I pulled myself

together as best I might.

 

The soldier who had stopped me was in the highest of spirits about

the big catch he thought he had made, and obviously wanted all the

credit to himself. Perhaps he expected the usual leave granted for

the apprehension of fugitive prisoners of war, and the ten or fifteen

marks of monetary recognition. In his anxiety to establish his claim,

he forgot all about the indecision and hesitancy he had shown to start

with.

 

“I knew you immediately for an Englander! That nose of yours!”

 

I have the most ordinary face and nose, and I am of no particular type,

but I nodded with deep understanding.

 

“Where did you intend crossing the frontier?” he rattled on.

 

I pointed it out to him on the map lying on the table.

 

“You’d never have got across there,” he vouchsafed triumphantly. “In

addition to the ordinary sentries and patrols, there are dogs and

cavalry patrols at that point, and to the north of it.”

 

If only I could have got that information under different circumstances!

 

“What beautiful maps you’ve got, and what a fine compass! Would

it--would it--would you think me cheeky if I asked you for it as a

memento?”

 

Considering that it would be lost to me anyway, I expressed my pleasure

at being able to gratify his desire. And then the Amtmann gave me to

understand that it was time to be locked up.

 

The interview at the office had lasted some time, and the noses which

had flattened themselves against the outside of the windows had

decreased in number. Still, there was a fairly strong guard of adults

and children to accompany us to the village lockup.

 

This was a small building consisting only of one floor. Here I observed

for the first time another small man with sharp features who unlocked

the door. It was, of course, dark about us, and at this distance it is

difficult to determine what I saw then and what I learned in the course

of the following day.

 

We entered through a big door into a place where a fire-engine--a

hand-pump--was standing. A door on the left having been unlocked, the

Amtmann and the small man preceded me through it. The light of their

electric torches revealed a cell, with a sort of bed along one side,

consisting of a straw paillasse on some raised boards and two blankets

rolled up at the foot of it.

 

They had left me in possession of my overcoat, oilskins, oilsilk, and

sweater, so I should be all right, though the night was very cold.

Alone in the cell in pitch darkness, I heard the key turn in the lock,

the footfalls recede, the outer door close; then all was silent.

 

As my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, I could make out a

small window at my right, shoulder-high, and traversed by the black

streaks of three vertical iron bars. The cell was so dark that I had

the impression of being in a vast black hall. I took three steps

forward and rapped my nose against the wall. Very miserable and much

disappointed, almost in despair, I groped to the window and shook the

bars with all my strength. They were firm and unyielding. Feeling my

way to the bed, I put on all my things, disdaining the blankets, which

felt filthy, then lay down and was soon asleep.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER VIII

 

A NEW HOPE

 

 

I awoke, much refreshed, just before the clock from the church steeple

chimed six. For some time I lay quiet, groping my way back into

reality. When the recollection of my last-night’s disaster drifted back

into my brain, I felt almost physically sick with disappointment and

rage, until awakening determination came to my help. “No use repining.

Is there no way to repair the damage? Hullo! it’s Sunday to-day.

Sunday! A village jail can’t be so awfully strong! I’ll be moved

to-day, though. Will they take me away in a car? Those gendarmes aren’t

easily fooled! But, after all, it’s Sunday. Perhaps that’s a reason why

they won’t move me!” The idea took such a hold on me that I was up in a

jiffy.

 

The cell, as I could see now, was square and very small, four paces

across. The only article of furniture was the bed, which took up about

one third of the floor space. There was nothing else in the room.

The window was in the wall opposite the bed, the door on the right.

The former was strongly barred, as I knew already. Moreover, several

ladders hung in front of it along the outside of the wall. The door

seemed fairly strong and was made of rough boards. So was the ceiling.

A beam extended from above the window to the opposite wall. The ceiling

boards at right angles did not run through from wall to wall but

terminated on top of the beam, as could be seen from their different

widths on each side of it. Standing on the bed, I could place my hands

flat against them without stretching my arms to the full. In one place

above it, and near the left wall looking toward the window, a splinter

had come away from the edge of a board. Although the wood at that point

showed signs of dry-rot, I did not investigate it thoroughly just then.

 

It was a great find, I thought at the time, when I discovered under the

bed a big piece of timber, the sawn-off end of a beam, about three feet

long. To pounce upon it and hide it under the paillasse was the work of

seconds. It would furnish an excellent battering-ram.

 

Up to now I had depended upon my ears to warn me of anybody’s coming.

After the discovery of the battering-ram, I made sure, by trying to get

a glimpse of the next room through cracks in the door, that nobody was

watching me. A part of the fire-engine could be seen, and on it a clean

cup and saucer. “Somebody must have been in that room to-day! Nobody

would have placed it there last night. Besides, I didn’t see anybody

carrying anything. Couldn’t have been done while I was awake. Better go

slow!”

 

Outside the window was a kitchen-garden with some fruit-trees. To the

right, the corner of a house and a pigsty with a solitary undersized

occupant terminated the view. My horizon was bounded by the roofs of a

few houses which stood behind trees.

 

It was past seven o’clock when I heard the key turn in the outer

door. Soon the door of my cell flew open, and in marched the short,

sharp-featured man of the night before, with a pot of coffee, a cup

and saucer, and something done up in paper, which turned out to be

excellent bread and butter. Butter, mind you! With him entered a

very young soldier, who nonchalantly sat down on my bed to survey me

gravely. Around the opening of the door clustered the elder boys of the

village, pushing and straining. Behind them were the girls, giggling

and whispering nervously. All devoured me with their eyes. In the

rear were the small fry. They overflowed into the street, where the

urchins, feeling perfectly safe from the bad man inside, indulged in

catcalls and disparaging shouts at my expense, while I had breakfast. I

chatted the while with the man whom I shall call the warder, although

he probably had many functions in the village. My efforts to obtain

information from him as to whether or not I was likely to be taken away that day proved unsuccessful.