My second attempt to escape was even a greater fiasco than the first;
I had scarcely a run for my money. A cart daily conveyed swill from
the camp to a large piggery, this work being delegated to a French
prisoner. A man named Grantham and myself resolved that, whether we
went to the dogs or not, we would at least go to the pigs. With the
cognizance of the French driver, we hid ourselves between the swill
barrels, which were usually left in the cart on its arrival at the
piggery overnight. We were not missed from the camp, and remaining in
our unsavory quarters until dusk fell over the land; we then slunk away
like Arabs.
I have omitted to tell you that once again I had a compass. The other
one had been taken from me on my recapture, but I had purchased a
second from a Russian for the sum of seven shillings. We were without
food, and a dark night seemed to favor us, but before morning--we had
covered only six or seven kilometres--a couple of sentries simply ran
into us, and we were haled back to camp. It was ignominious, but
inevitable.
If one escape merited ten days' solitary confinement, a second
justified twenty-one. At any rate, that was my portion, and Grantham
got ten days. Once again I was trotted round the camp as an object
lesson on ingratitude for favors already received. It was after this
that the monotony of prison camp life was relieved by a gentle jaunt
to Russia. I am not surprised that people should imagine that I am
romancing when I speak of going from Germany to Russia. Yet I am
stating nothing but the bare truth. Eighty-nine men from the Münster
camp were told that they were to join a party destined for "unknown
regions," and as one of the officers put it to me, he considered I had
"better go, or I should go somewhere worse."
How that would have been possible none but a German mind can conceive.
At a railway station two thousand of us, sad-looking fellows most
of them, were assembled from different camps. We were in the train
for seven days, plus two days at Frankfort, before we reached our
destination. At Frankfort martial law was read, and we were politely
informed that we were to be asked three times whether we would work,
and if we refused we were to be bayoneted! It was to Windau, in Russian
Poland, that we were eventually taken, and the life there was a hell
upon earth.
The re-laying of railway metals torn up by the retreating Russians
and a certain amount of farm work were the duties imposed upon us.
The sights I have seen! I hate the very thought of them! Men were
continually being felled to the ground and kicked and bayoneted. I have
even heard captives, worn out and dispirited, beg the sentries to shoot
them and thus end their misery, and the poor wretches meant it, for
it would be better to die than to endure such slavery. One poor chap,
goaded into retaliation, was kicked viciously, had a bayonet thrust
through his leg, and was then flung, half dead and bleeding, into the
guard-room.
After this there was a wholesale refusal to work and much bludgeoning,
and general mutiny threatened. The Germans saw they had gone too far,
and they capitulated. They told us that if we behaved fair to them they
would be fair to us. All the time we were under martial law, and the
orders that were read out to us were signed by Hindenburg.
Escape now seemed farther off then ever, so I played 'possum, pretended
to have rheumatism and other ailments, and was sent back to Münster. I
was still wearing the red and white signal of my attempts to escape,
and one of the first things that I did on my return was to commandeer
a fresh coat, otherwise I should have been a marked man.
What new plan of campaign could I evolve? Two had been tried and
failed; yet I was just as keen and just as ready as ever to stake even
life itself on a desperate throw. It was now that I met with a bit
of luck, for I happened to fall in with Private Leonard Walker, of
Oldham, and Private Fussell, of Taunton, one a Welsh Fusilier and the
other a Somerset. They were bent on escape even as I was, and Walker
had also tried the game before, having spent five days and five nights
in the open with a chum, living on biscuits and a rabbit which they
picked up and steering a course by map and compass. They, like me, had
been caught, when crossing a railway line. A woman signalled to the
sentry; they were captured, and had undergone solitary confinement.
Walker, Fussell, and myself were a pretty good trio, with none of the
turning-back spirit in our composition. Lot's wife turned back, you'll
remember, but her fate was a shorter shrift than ours, and far less
uncomfortable. A grand chap for the job was Walker, and his experience
stood us in good stead. He studied the situation, weighed matters
carefully, was resourceful and cute, but nevertheless had that touch of
recklessness so necessary for such a venture.