A GLIMPSE OF FREEDOM
Contrary to my expectations, I hardly felt any excitement during
my last day at the “Linden Allee.” My mental attitude was rather a
disinterested one, as if I were watching somebody else’s escape.
When I got into bed at the usual time, I immediately fell asleep,
having first made up my mind to wake at 3:30 A.M. I awoke an hour
sooner, and went to sleep again. It was close on four o’clock when
I opened my eyes for the second time. Getting up noiselessly, I
carried the Gladstone and a big hand-bag containing my clothes, boots,
etc., into the bath-room on the first floor. There I lathered my
shaving brush and shaved a few hairs off my left forearm, leaving the
safety-razor on the washstand, uncleaned, to create the impression that
I had shaved off my beard. I dressed as rapidly as I could, throwing my
pajamas on the floor and leaving generally a fair amount of disorder
behind me. A breathless trip to the loft of the house to conceal my
cord suit behind some beams was executed with as much speed and
caution as I could manage. With my bag in one hand and my boots round
my neck, I descended again by the light of the electric torch, slipped
into my overcoat in the hall, and, snatching my hat from the rack,
entered the dining-room. From there a French window gave upon a porch
to which a few steps led up from the garden. The window offered no
resistance and, fortunately, the protecting roller-blind was not down.
A few women, probably ammunition workers, passed the house, and when
they were out of hearing I stepped out.
It was still dark, though the dawn was heralded in the east. In a spot
previously selected for the reason that it was screened by bushes, and
from which I could survey the street without being seen, I got over the
fence. I had barely done so when a cough sounded some distance behind
me. With a chill racing up and down my spine, I walked on. Turning the
near corner, I threw a hasty glance over my shoulder, but could see no
one. Nevertheless, I thought it wise to walk back on my tracks around
several blocks, before I made for the big thoroughfare which led toward
Berlin.
A number of people were about, men and women, going to work. Keeping
on, I came after a lapse of about fifteen minutes to a station of the
Elevated. It was now five o’clock.
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.
Walking as briskly as my limp would permit, I wandered about the
streets, diving into a factory yard here and the hall of an office
building there, as if I were a commercial traveler, taking good care
not to linger long enough for other people to become interested in me.
All the time I felt uncomfortable and dissatisfied with my performance
at the station and the pretense I was putting up, and thus it came
about that the photograph of a friend of mine in Ruhleben disintegrated
under my fingers in my pocket, to be dropped bit by bit into the road,
lest, if I were arrested, the original should get into trouble.
It was a relief when ten o’clock was past and train-time approached.
I got my portmanteau from my friend in the cloak-room, who was
fortunately busy with other people, and got into an empty compartment.
Between stations, during the twenty-minute run, I looked at my maps, to
form an idea of how best to get out of Haltern in the right direction.
This small town is about half a mile from the station, which is an
important railway junction. I was quite unacquainted with this part
of the province of Westphalia. The maps showed it as not too thickly
populated, with plenty of woods dotted all over it, and plenty of water.
The train thundered over the big railway bridge crossing the river
Lippe and drew into the station, and I, feeling pretty good, landed on
the platform with something like a skip and a jump, until I recollected
my leg. Then slowly I limped after the other people the train had
disgorged. In front of me I could see the church steeple rising above
the roofs of the compact little town in the middle distance. Half-way
toward it I passed a detachment of English Tommies sitting on top of a
fence, smoking pipes and cigarettes. About an equal number of Poilus
were standing close to them, laughing and criticizing the appearance of
the passing women. The only guard I could discover was leaning sleepily
against a tree on the opposite side of the road. I suppressed an almost
overwhelming desire to exchange greetings, and passed them instead with
a stony stare.