GUTERSLOH AND CLAUSTHAL
I believe the camp at Guetersloh had formerly been a lunatic asylum. It
was composed of six or seven large independent barrack-like buildings.
One of these buildings was a civilian camp, and one was a quarantine,
used also as a solitary confinement or _Stubenarrest_ prison; another
was used as the quarters of the commandant. The ground was sandy, and I
should think comparatively healthy and dry even in the wettest weather.
In hot weather the heat was much accentuated, but there were patches of
small pine trees in the camp which gave a pleasant shade. The camp area
could not have been less than eight acres altogether, enclosed by two
rows of barbed wire, with arc lamps every seventy yards or so. The
prisoners comprised some 1200 officers--800 Russians, over 100 English,
and the rest French or Belgians. We were marched up to the camp through
a quiet village, and were put into the quarantine, where we remained for
about a week. The morning after our arrival, we were medically inspected
and questioned as to our name, rank, regiment, place of capture, age,
where taught to fly, etc., all of which questions evoked a variety of
mendacious and romantic answers. We were then put to bed in the
quarantine and treated with some beastly anti-lice powder--most
disagreeable! The food was insufficient in quarantine. We had no
opportunity of taking exercise, and were all much bored and longed to be
sent into the main camp, which we were told was the best in Germany.
This was not far off the truth, as subsequent experience proved the
administration and internal arrangements of this camp to be admirable.
Originally English, Russian, and French prisoners had lived all mixed up
together, but now the nationalities were mainly in separate buildings,
and always in separate rooms. In the English building there was a common
room in which there was a daily English paper and two monthly magazines,
all typewritten in the camp. From an artistic point of view the
magazines were excellent, rather after the style of _Printer's Pie_, and
the daily paper consisted of leading articles, correspondence, and
translations out of German papers.
The canteen was very well run by a Russian on the co-operative share
system, but when I was there it was becoming more and more difficult to
buy goods in Germany. I don't think any food could be bought in the
canteen, but wine, and, I think, whisky also, could be obtained, as well
as tennis racquets, knives, books, pencils, boxes, and tobacco of all
sorts.
The feeding in the camp was very bad indeed, the quantity quite
insufficient, and most of it almost uneatable. However, we were hungry
enough to eat it with avidity when we first came in.
Most wisely the Germans gave us ample facilities for playing games in
the camp. There were ten tennis courts, and two grounds large enough for
hockey and football, so we spent our time in playing tennis and
exchanging lessons in modern languages, for which of course there were
unique opportunities. We had two roll-calls a day, which lasted about
ten minutes each, but otherwise the Germans interfered with us very
little, and I think most of us found the first month or two of captivity
a real rest cure after the strain and excitement of the Somme battle. I
did, at any rate.
Long and I had been less than three weeks in this place when all those
flying officers who had been captured on the Somme were removed from
Guetersloh to Clausthal. Looking back on the life at Guetersloh, one thing
strikes me more now than it did whilst I was there, and that is the fact
that all the officers, with the exception of a small section of the
Russians, had apparently abandoned all hope of escaping. The defenses of
the camp were not strong enough to be any reason for this lack of
enterprise, and I can only attribute it to the encouragement and
opportunities given by the Germans for game-playing, which successfully
turned the thoughts of the prisoners from escaping.
Of the journey to Clausthal, in the Harz Mountains, I only remember that
it was quite comfortable, and that we arrived at night. The camp was
about a mile up from the station, and we were let through a barbed wire
fence and into a wooden barrack. For the next eight days we remained
shut up in this place, and it was only with difficulty that we were
allowed to have the windows open. There were three of these wooden
barracks and a hotel or Kurhaus inside the barbed wire. This was the
best German camp for food that I was in, and I think it would be
possible to live on the food the Germans gave us. After eight days'
quarantine we were let out into the camp. Long and I, and a captain in
the R.F.C. who had been lately captured, called Nichol, had a little
room together in the wooden barrack. On the whole, life was pleasant at
Clausthal. The Germans were very polite, and the sentries were generally
friendly.
We passed the time at Clausthal in much the same way as we had done at
Guetersloh. If anything, it was more peaceful and pleasant, and the
country surrounding the camp, where we sometimes went for walks, was
beautiful. The Harz Mountains are a well-known German health resort, so
that by the middle of September I was feeling so remarkably fit, and was
getting such an overpowering aversion to being ordered about by the
Germans, that, encouraged by a young Belgian called Kicq, I began to
think very seriously of escaping. When I had been about six weeks at
Clausthal I was given details by one of the conspirators of a scheme for
escaping from the camp by a tunnel. Apparently two of the party had
struck work, and owing to this I was offered a place. I was not
surprised that some one had downed tools, when I saw the unpleasant and
water-logged hole which was to be our path of freedom. The idea was
rather a good one, but it was too widely known in the camp for the
scheme to have any chance of success, and after working it for three
weeks we abandoned it. In the first place because the tunnel became
half full of water, and secondly, because we had reason to believe the
Germans had learnt of its existence and were waiting to catch us
red-handed--a suspicion which was afterwards confirmed. I was very glad,
for there were never less than two inches of water when I worked there,
and it was a horrible job, as all tunneling is.
About this time Kicq suggested that we should escape by train, which he
felt sure was possible if we were suitably dressed. I was of the opinion
that there were too many difficulties in the way to make it worth while
trying, but he eventually talked me over and told me that long train
journeys had already been done by Frenchmen. We then decided that we
would go for Switzerland, the general opinion being that it was
impossible to cross the Dutch border, as it was guarded by electric
wire, dogs, and several lines of sentries. It was absolutely necessary
to our plans to have a clear start of seven or eight hours without an
alarm, and when our tunnel had to be abandoned I despaired of getting
out without being seen or heard. Kicq, as always, was ready to try
anything, and produced scheme after scheme, to all of which I objected.
The real difficulty was the dogs round the camp, and though there were
numerous ways of getting out of the camp, in all his schemes it was
heavy odds on our being seen and the alarm being given. We both thought
it was too late in the year to walk (nonsense, of course, but I did not
know that then); and where should we walk to, since the Dutch frontier
was impossible? As an English major said to me, "The frontier is guarded
against spies who have friends on both sides and know every inch of the
ground; how can you, tired prisoners of war, with no maps worth
having--no knowledge and no friends--hope to cross?" I was further
discouraged by a rumor that there were new railway regulations about
showing passes which would make it quite impossible for us to travel by
train. About that time I got into conversation with one of the German
sentries, and bribed him with half a pat of butter to allow me to speak
to a prisoner who was supposed to be in solitary confinement. At the end
of a week the sentry had agreed to help me to escape, as long as the
plan did not in any way implicate him. He told me that, speaking German
as well as I did, I should have no difficulty in going by train, and
that there were no passes to be shown or anything of that sort. I agreed
to send 500 marks to his wife if I got away by his help. A day or two
later I suddenly saw the way to get out. I was walking round with one of
the tunnel conspirators at the time, and pointed it out to him. Then I
found Kicq and told him we would depart on Monday. He, of course, was
delighted, and ready to fall in with anything I might suggest. For some
time our plans and preparations had been completed as far as possible;
money had been no obstacle, as there were many men in the camp who had
20 or 30 marks, German money, and I managed to collect 80 and Kicq 120
marks. He had already got a civil outfit, and I had got a cap from an
orderly. We decided not to take ruecksacks but a traveling-bag, and I
bought just the thing in the canteen. I was going to take an empty
ruecksack in the bag so that we could divide the weight afterwards, as we
intended to walk the last 40 kilometres. We knew we could catch a 2.13
a.m. train at Goslar (a small town about 15 kilometres due north of
Clausthal), and after that we had to trust to luck to find trains to
take us _via_ Cassel to Rotweil, a village near the Swiss frontier. The
one difficulty remaining was a suit of civilian clothes for me. There
was an English flying officer in the camp whose uniform had been badly
spoilt when he had been brought down. In consequence, he had been
allowed to buy a suit of civilian clothes in Cambrai. He was still
wearing these; in fact, he had nothing else to wear. The Germans had
been most unwilling to let him continue in possession of these clothes,
and always had their eye on them and of course intended to confiscate
them as soon as his uniform turned up from England. This fellow agreed
to allow me to steal his clothes. It was a most courageous thing to do,
as he would certainly have got fourteen days' imprisonment for it, in
spite of the evidence which would be produced to prove that the clothes
were stolen quite unknown to him. As it happened, this theft was not
necessary, as I was able to buy a new suit in the camp for 20 marks. It
was green, and of the cheapest possible material; the jacket was of the
Norfolk type with a belt, and buttoned up high in front at the neck. A
black naval mackintosh, some German boots, a pair of spectacles, and a
cloth cap completed my equipment. The suit had been bought over a year
before from a German tailor who had been allowed to come into the camp
to do ordinary repairs. This fellow had brought with him a number of
civilian suits, which had been bought up in a very short time. A few
days afterwards the Germans got to hear of this, and gave orders that
all civilian suits in the camp were to be confiscated and the money
would be returned. Needless to say, no one owned to having a suit, and a
mild search failed to unearth any of them.
We intended to escape on Monday, because Tuesday morning roll-call was
at 11.30 a.m. instead of 9.30 a.m., and if we could get out unseen it
would give us two hours more time before we were missed. On Friday I
found out that two good fellows, Ding and Nichol, also intended to
escape by the same method. We decided that all four of us would try.
Naturally it was necessary to go on the same night, and Monday was
selected. We tossed up who was to cut the wire and go first, and fortune
decided for Ding and Nichol.
[Illustration: CLAUSTHAL.]