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.
When my visitors had left me, I remembered that, experienced jailbird
as I had become since the beginning of the war, I had a duty to
perform--a scrutiny of the walls of the cell for any records former
occupants might have left there. This leaving of inscriptions seems to
be “the correct thing” among German prisoners--criminals, I mean. They
are not always nice but invariably interesting, particularly under the
circumstances in which they are read. The walls of my abode had been
recently whitewashed, and there was only one inscription: “André--[I
forget the surname] evadé Avril 2me 1916, repris Avril 3me 1916.” Thus
a fellow-fugitive had been here only the previous day.
I very badly wanted my morning smoke, and unexpectedly I had found two
cigarettes in my pockets, but there were no matches; and I had been
warned that smoking was not permitted. A woman was walking about in the
garden at this time. I took her to belong to the house whose corner
I could see; she was probably the wife of the owner. I intended to
appeal to her compassionate spirit. After a time she was joined by an
elderly woman, perhaps her mother. Although they did not show obvious
interest in me, yet they kept passing in front of my window. At last I
addressed them, whereupon they stopped with alacrity. The elder woman
was certainly talkative. She pitched into me at once, going over the
whole register of my sins as an Englishman as conceived by the German
mind, and telling me what a disgusting lot of robbers, thieves, and
murderers we were. As soon as she had got it off her chest, she became
rather friendly. “You’d be in Holland now, if you hadn’t been taken
last night.”
“Surely not,” with a puzzled frown. “I thought I’d have another
two-days’ walk from here.”
“Oh, no. It’s only a four-hours’ walk by the road into Holland from
here.”
“In this direction?” I pointed east, into Germany.
“No, over there. You go through ---- and ----, then take the ---- road
on the right. It’s not more than four hours, is it?” turning to her
daughter, who nodded.
“What’s the use of your telling me now when I am behind the bars
again?” I groaned. Ingratiatingly: “Could you oblige me with a match? I
am dying for a smoke.”
“You aren’t allowed to smoke!” severely. Then they left me.
For a time small boys kept looking in at the window. Their advent was
always heralded by the sound of a scramble, from which I gathered that
there must be a fence or a gate between the building I was in and the
house on my right. Sometimes they were chased away incontinently by
somebody I could not see. That any attempt at breaking out would have
to lead through the garden was a foregone conclusion. The other side of
the building was on the public street.
At about ten o’clock the warder appeared, and I managed to be let out,
mainly to have a look around. When we returned, the Amtmann was waiting
for me. The first thing he did was to search me for the two cigarettes.
The women had split on me! Then I tried to find out whether I was to be
moved that day, but could not get a satisfactory answer. This made me
rather hopeful that the cell would have to harbor me for another night.
Of course, I professed myself most anxious to be sent off, which was
natural. The sooner the military authorities should take me in charge,
the sooner I should know my punishment and get it over. I was careful
to explain all this. Finally, the Amtmann asked me whether or not I
wanted any of the food he had taken from me. The answer was in the
affirmative. But although he repeated this question later in the day,
and promised to send me the sausage, I never got it. My request for
something to read he granted by sending me some German weeklies called
_Die Woche_ (“The Week”).
Then he left me, only to reappear at 11:30. This time he was very
solemn, and asked me to give him my word of honor that I was not an
English officer. Obviously one was at large in Germany; I could not
suppose that it was a shot at random. With feeling I assured him that I
was not an officer and never had been one. My questions regarding this
interesting subject fell on deaf ears.
The Amtmann’s parting words excited me greatly. He regretted that
I should have to spend another night in his village, because they
could not arrange for an escort on Sunday. It was difficult to hide
my exultation over this bit of news, but I believe I managed to look
dejected and resigned.
Soon after the Amtmann had gone, the warder brought me my dinner in a
dinner-pail. He left it with me and disappeared. The food was certainly
the best I had ever received from German authorities at any time. The
pot was full of excellent potatoes in brown, greasy onion gravy. A
decent-sized piece of hot, home-made sausage lay on top. I was very
hungry, but so excited that I was half-way through the mess before I
realized that I was merely swallowing it down without tasting a bit of
it. That was sheer ingratitude, and thereafter I went ahead slowly,
thoroughly enjoying it. The pot was empty far too soon; a second
edition would have been very acceptable. I complimented the warder on
the excellent fare in his prison.
“I told my wife about you,” he acknowledged, “and she said we ought to
give you a decent dinner anyway.”
When I had finished I thought the time favorable to begin operations.
After a substantial Sunday dinner--there was evidently no shortage of
food in that part of Germany as yet--the village was bound to be more
or less somnolent. Indeed, no sound was to be heard from the street.
The first thing was to make a thorough inspection of the ceiling. If
one could get into the loft the roof would offer little resistance, it
being, as I had seen, tiled in the ordinary way.
Where the splinter had broken off, two boards appeared affected by
dry-rot, a narrow one and a wider one next to it. Tentatively I pushed
against the narrow one near the end which was nailed to the beam.
There was some spring there, not the firm resistance of a sound board
well nailed home. Under the slowly increased pressure it suddenly gave
with a creak, and a shower of splinters and dust came down upon me and
the bed. I could now look into the loft and see the under side of the
tiles. Directly in line with my eyes was a hole where a tile had lost
its upper half. This would be the place to attack, once through the
ceiling.
In the meantime the sun shone through another hole which I could not
see, and, through the crack upon my bed. To pull the board back into
its original position had no effect. Where there had been a narrow
crack in the morning another splinter had become detached, and there
was the scintillating beam of light cleaving a path through the dust
motes, a traitorous tell-tale. After a moment’s thought, I rolled my
oilsilks into a long sausage and shoved it past the raised board into
the loft in such a fashion that it would roll over the crack when the
board was lowered. It worked, and after a critical inspection I decided
that none but an exceptionally observant individual would ever notice
that the ceiling had been tampered with.
All this had not taken very long. Absolute silence brooded over the
place. Fearing that the narrow board might be insufficient to let me
into the loft, I tried to get the wider one next to it loose. When
it resisted the pressure of my hands, the battering-ram was brought
into play, with the overcoat wrapped round the end of it to deaden the
noise. Using it with discretion, I could make no impression. So I left
it at that.
Having removed all traces of my work from the bed and the floor, I
stood near the door and kicked my heels against it. This I did to have
some explanation, should anybody have heard the battering-ram at work.
Then I quieted down, resolving not to do any more until soon after the
next visit.
I was now quite convinced that I should get out of the prison during
the night. My one anxiety was for the weather to keep fine. I had
a fair idea of how to proceed as long as I could keep my direction.
Without a compass I was dependent upon the stars. There was no sign of
a change in the sky; nevertheless, I kept an unceasing and apprehensive
watch upon what I could see of it.
At three o’clock the Amtmann came back: “The people next door complain
that you disturbed them in the night. There were thumping and bumping
noises coming from this cell.” I had slept almost like a log through
the night. The involuntary expression of astonishment on my face at
this complaint was a more convincing answer than I could have made
verbally to the Amtmann, who was watching me narrowly all the time. I
protested, of course, and then volunteered the information that I had
been kicking my heels against the door a short time ago, apologizing
with a contrite mien.
“Oh, these people always seem to imagine things!” was his reply,
wherewith he left me. I thought I had got well out of it. Obviously
there was a misunderstanding, and the noise which had attracted the
attention of “the people next door” was that of my efforts an hour or
so ago.
At four o’clock the warder brought me coffee and bread and butter. He
had a small retinue with him. When I had finished, I asked him to fill
the coffee-pot with water and leave it with me. Not only was I very
thirsty; I wanted to absorb as much moisture as I could while I had the
chance.
As soon as he had gone I got on the bed again. The sun had now traveled
far enough to the west to make the roll of oilsilks superfluous.
If, as I believed, the cell wall was an outer one, the board could
now be fast only at the end above it. Applying my strength at the
other end near the beam ought to give me a tremendous leverage, which
should force it loose with little effort. It resisted, however, until
I fancied I could hear my joints crack with the exertion. The strain
lasted a few seconds; then the board came away above the wall with a
rending crash. Simultaneously something heavy fell to the ground on the
other side. The sound of it striking the floor, and the slant of the
board, revealed the existence of a third room in the building, across
which it had extended to the real outer wall of the prison, and at the
same time explained its strong resistance to my efforts.
With thumping heart and bated breath I listened for any suspicious
sounds from beyond the wall or from the street, but nothing happened.
Still the board, which now ought to have moved easily, resisted.
Getting my head into the loft, I found it littered with heavy lumps
of metal and plenty of broken glass, the remnants of old street-lamp
standards. Some of the metal things projected over the opening; as soon
as I had pushed them away the board moved up and down freely.
This was all I dared do at the moment in preparation for the escape.
The rest could easily be accomplished by the sense of touch in the
night. For the present, the board had to be fitted back into place. I
accomplished that, or nearly so, and trusted to the blindness of the
average mortal for my safety.
When I had removed the dust and splinters from my bed, and everything
looked in order, I saw the woman from next door walking in the garden.
I was quite taken aback, and watched her for some time, but she seemed
unconcerned enough. She could hardly have seen me except by putting
her face close to the window, for the eaves projected a considerable
distance beyond the walls, and were not more than eight feet from the
ground. Consequently it was never light in the cell, and less so now
when the sun was nearing the sky-line.
About half an hour afterward she came to my window, bringing two girls
with her, who obviously had come on purpose to see the wild Englishman.
The taller was a strapping, Junoesque maiden with apple-red cheeks
and considerable assurance. Her friend, a foil to her, was more of a
Cinderella, gray, middle-sized, reticent, but pleasant to look upon,
and with intelligent eyes and a humorous mouth. She said never a word
during her friend’s lively chat with me, only gurgling her amusement
now and then.
When they had gone I continued my intermittent watch of “the little
patch of blue that prisoners call the sky.” Gradually it changed to a
rosy hue, then the color faded, and a few stars began to twinkle feebly.
With the approach of evening the temperature had gone down, and the
overcoat had become a comfort. To my surprise, an inner pocket,
crackling ever so little, gave up a piece of map not larger than my
hand. It was from the more useless map I had bought, but the most
important part of it, the only piece I had kept when setting out from
Haltern. Being printed on thin, unbacked paper, it had escaped the
attention of my captors the more easily as they had found the other
complete map in my coat pocket. It did not tell me much more than I
knew already, but, kept before me until darkness fell, it undoubtedly
helped me visualize the country I was walking through later on.