FourFifty Miles to Freedom 5
The rock is too big, however, to go into a sack, so you shut your eyes
and whisper to your partner above you. He then lets down an old canvas
bath kept in the locker for this purpose. The periphery of the bath is
attached to a rope by several cords, the resulting appearance as it
is lowered towards you being that of an inverted parachute. The stone
is difficult to lift and your feet are very much in the way, but in
the end the load is ready. There is not enough room in the shaft for
the stone and the bath to be pulled up past your body, so you climb up
the ladder and help your partner to haul. This done, work is resumed.
A small sack is filled with bits of mortar picked away from round the
stone, and this too is pulled up the shaft, but the sack being small
you need not leave the hole.
Now your partner tells you that it is time for the next shift. You
leave the chisels in an obvious place, blow out the candle, and climb
to the locker. Here your partner is tapping gently against the door. If
your look-out says "All safe!" you push open the lid and emerge. The
big stone is hastily carried to an empty locker and the rubbish from
the sack disposed of as already described. The plank in the platform is
replaced, the bath and sack returned to the locker, the lid closed, and
the place once more assumes its normal aspect.
You then nip along to the nearest inhabited room, where you find your
relief waiting for you. One of these two is almost certain to greet
you with the words: "I suppose you got that stone in the corner out
straight away. I practically finished it off last night. It only wanted
a heave or two." It is useless to point out that, had it not been for
the masterly manner in which you had worked, the stone would still be
firmly embedded there. You merely bide your time, certain that within
a few days you will be in a position to make a similar remark to him.
Work was now being carried on continuously throughout the day. Besides
the diggers, there were 24 officers who took their turn as look-outs.
It was not possible to keep the work going at night, for from time to
time the sentries outside would patrol this wing of the barracks. In
the daytime, when they approached the point where we were at work, our
look-outs could stop the diggers, but this would have been impossible
after dark. Moreover, light from a candle would then have been visible
from outside through the cracks in the outer casing.
At this stage our plans received a rude shock. We were suddenly
informed that we were to be moved to the Prisoner-of-War Camp at Yozgad
(pronounced Useguard), eighty miles south-east of us. We were to be
ready, said Sami Bey, to start within a week. After our experience
of the departure from Kastamoni, we came to the conclusion it might
equally well be a month before the necessary transport was collected.
We determined, therefore, to push on with the tunnel at high pressure,
and if necessary to bring it out to the surface short of the spot
originally intended, and then one dark night to make a bolt for it. So
the work went on.
For the first three feet of the shaft we had found merely loose rubble
and stones easily excavated, for the next thirteen we had had to dig
out stones embedded in very hard mortar. Here we progressed only a few
inches a day. Below this there was solid concrete. Every few feet we
came to wooden ties holding the inner and outer casings together; but
fortunately these were on one side of the hole, and we did not have to
cut through them.
At the time the move was announced we were at a depth of 16 feet,
just entering the concrete. Here we were below the level of the lower
storey, so we broke through the inner casing into the space beneath
the platform. We now found, to our disgust, that the ground was on an
average barely a foot below the joists, and the surface, being composed
of dust which had been falling for eighty years between the boards of a
Turkish barrack-room floor, was very unpleasant.
Our disappointment, however, was counteracted by a stroke of good luck.
At each end of the barrack room above there was an alcove, and we found
beneath the nearer of the two alcoves an empty space 8 feet by 6 by 5.
In this we could dispose of a good deal of the spoil from the tunnel.
To get rid of the rest we should have to make a main burrow below the
floor, filling up the remaining space on either side between the ground
and the floor, and eventually packing the burrow itself with earth
excavated from the mine. Should this again not suffice, the surplus
earth would have to be pulled up by way of the shaft, and distributed
under the boards of the upper-room platform. All that now remained for
us to do before actually starting on the tunnel itself was to sink a
secondary shaft about 6 feet deep, so as to get below the level of the
concrete foundations. After this we could strike horizontally towards
the Angora road.
The method of moving about in the confined space was that employed by
the caterpillar that loops its back, draws its hind legs under it,
and then advances with its forefeet; and we found it a slow means of
locomotion. The burrow to the hollow under the alcove was completed,
and another in the opposite direction to the farther alcove was well on
its way when we started to work on the second shaft. Three feet down we
came to water. It was a great blow to us; and although with unlimited
time at our disposal the difficulty might have been overcome, under
present circumstances we had to consider ourselves defeated in that
direction, especially as we heard, a few days later, that transport was
already on its way from Angora.
The early move would also, of course, upset the aeroplane scheme, and
we sincerely hoped that the authorities at home would hear that we
had left Changri in time to prevent aeroplanes being sent. Although
the scheme sent to them had provided somewhat for this contingency
by arranging that the aeroplanes were not to land till they saw the
special signal from us, it was not pleasant to think that we might
be the cause of risk to valuable pilots and machines, and all to no
purpose. Apart from the move, however, it eventually turned out that
the scheme could not be entertained at home, as in April and May 1918
every available machine was being urgently required for making things
unpleasant for the Germans behind the main battle-front.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] = soldier.
[6] = code in this letter.
CHAPTER III.
AN ATTEMPT THAT FAILED.
Thus disappointed of two of our schemes, we looked around for other
ways and means of escape. Nobby had another of his brain-waves. In
search of dry firewood he had made several tours inside the roof of the
barracks: for the ceilings and tiled slopes were carried not by modern
trusses, but by the primitive and wasteful means of trestles resting on
enormous horizontal baulks, running across from wall to wall at close
intervals. Having entered the roof space by a trap-door in the ceiling,
it was possible to walk on these completely round the barracks, and eke
out the miserably green firewood we collected ourselves by chips and
odd ends of comparatively dry wood, left up there presumably several
decades before, while the barracks were in building.
Why not, said Nobby, disappear up there one night and leave the Turks
to infer that we had escaped, encouraging them in the belief by leaving
the bars of some window cut and forced apart? We could then wait until
the rest had left for Yozgad and slip out from the deserted barracks at
our pleasure.
There were, however, two obvious objections to this scheme. It was
hardly feasible as a means of escape for more than one or at most two
parties: the Turk might be deceived into thinking half a dozen fellows
had slipped past his sentries, but hardly twenty or more. Secondly, it
was quite conceivable that the escape of even a small party would lead
to the move being cancelled altogether: it is true it would be possible
for the stowaways to be fed in the roof by their companions below, but
the prospect of spending "three years or the duration of the war" in
that dark and musty garret took away from the otherwise considerable
attractions of the scheme.
In the end a very much modified form of the roof scheme was permitted
by a committee of senior officers, and our party of six, having been
adjudged by this committee to have the best chances of success on
account of our prearranged scheme when we reached the coast, was given
the privilege of making the attempt. As will be seen, however, it was
less an actual attempt than a waiting upon favourable circumstances
which would arise should our captors make a certain mistake. In any
country except Turkey the whole conception would have been absurd; but
we had seen enough of Turkish methods to know that there anything is
possible.
By good luck the party's preparations for escape were already far
advanced, although, apart from the move, we had not proposed starting
until June: the rains continue off and on till then, and the crops
would be in too immature a state at an earlier date.
At the cost of a good deal of time, temper, needles and thread, we
had each succeeded in making ourselves a pack: to furnish the canvas
we sacrificed our valises. Up till almost the last night, however, we
were busy repeatedly cutting off straps and sewing them on again in a
different place, in a wild endeavour to persuade our equipment to ride
with a reasonable degree of comfort.
Food was an item of vital importance in any plan of escape, and we had
decided to follow the example of Keeling's party and pin our faith
mainly to a ration of biscuits. We had also for some months past been
collecting from our parcels all tinned meat, condensed milk, and
chocolate.
We brought our biscuit-making to a fine art. One of the ground-floor
rooms had been set apart as the officers' shop for carpentry and
bootmaking--for we had long taken to making our own furniture and
repairing our own boots. Here then was started the "Bimbashi"[7]
Biscuit Department of Escapers, Limited. At one bench would be Grunt
and Johnny busily engaged in the uncongenial task of taking the stalks
off sultanas, and the pleasanter one of eating a few. At another stood
Perce with his bared forearms buried deep in a mixture of flour, sugar,
and sultanas, to which from time to time Nobby would add the requisite
quantities of water and eggs. The Old Man presided at the scales and,
weighing out the dough into lumps sufficient for twenty biscuits,
passed them on to Looney. Armed with rolling-pin, carving-knife, and
straight-edge, the latter would flatten out each lump until it filled
up the inside of a square frame which projected slightly above the
bench to which it was fixed. When a level slab had been obtained, the
ruler would be placed against marks on the frame and the slab cut five
times in one direction and four in the other. It then only remained to
transfer the twenty little slabs to boards, prick them with any fancy
pattern with a nail, and send them to be baked by one of our orderlies.
The biscuits were each about the size of a quarter-plate and half an inch thick, and when cooked weighed five to the pound, and were as hard as rocks. Their best testimonial was that, without being kept in tins, they remained perfectly good for six months.
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