THE FRONTIER
When we got to Crefeld I saw that the station was on the east side of
the town, but after my experience at Duesseldorf I thought it would be
much safer to walk boldly right through the middle of the town than to
skirt round the edges. My brother was at this time interned at Crefeld,
and I thought how amusing it would be if I were to meet him in the town
and wondered if he would keep a straight face when I winked at him. The
walk through the town was without incident. One fellow, in Landsturm
uniform, a prison guard I should think, turned round and looked at me in
a nasty way, perhaps recognizing my likeness to my brother, but I walked
quickly on and nothing came of it. It must have been just after 2 p.m.
when I got through into the open country on the southwest side of
Crefeld, and a more horrible country I have never seen; it was
absolutely flat, no trees and no signs of cover of any sort. There were
one or two disused factories, which I inspected, but did not like the
look of them as hiding-places. I passed several parties of French
soldiers working in the fields, but did not dare to speak to them. The
day was very hot and my bag was very heavy, and I could not help feeling
I was rather a suspicious figure wandering about through the fields
with a heavy traveling-bag within 20 miles of the frontier. It was a
most unpleasant walk, and at times I thought of just throwing myself
down in the middle of a field of roots, but the country was so flat that
I could never be quite sure that someone would not see me crawling into
them. It was not till 3.30 that I found a small alder copse with thick
undergrowth, which I thought would do. There were a number of people
working in the fields quite close to it, but I walked by them and round
the copse, and putting the copse between them and me I doubled back into
it. It was quite a small copse, about 50 by 20 yards, with thick rank
grass in between the clumps. The people outside were only about 50 yards
from me, and I could hear them talking and laughing. Still I was very
comfortable and there were no tracks, and when I had made up some yarn
to tell them if I was discovered, I went to sleep. Later on I opened a
tin of Oxford sausages and had a good meal. Once a dog came through
hunting rabbits, and once a man and a girl came quite close, but neither
disturbed me. I began to find things very tedious and looked forward to
the night's walk. Soon after 10 p.m. I started out from my hiding-place
and walked hard with very few rests till 5.30 next morning, when I found
a good place to lie up in. Considering the amount of energy expended, I
made very little progress. Many detours were necessary to avoid the
villages and houses, and for the most part I walked across country by
small paths which were very clearly shown on my excellent map. However,
my bag and the going were both heavy, and three-quarters of an hour's
halt between 1 and 2 a.m. and some hot cocoa were most refreshing. At
one place where there was a level crossing a man came to open the
barrier, so I took the initiative and said, "Nach Anrath gerade aus?"
(Straight on to Anrath?) He said, "Ja wohl," and opened the gate. (After
that I always kept the name of the next village of which I was sure of
the pronunciation in my head, so as to be able to ask my way there.)
At about 5 o'clock I was pretty tired and found myself with the large
village of Suechteln in front of me, through which I had to pass, as it
is on a river. I funked it, as the bridge over the river was such an
obvious place to have a sentry. After thinking it out, I decided it
would be less suspicious to go through just after daylight when there
were a few people about, so I lay up and went to sleep in a bush in the
middle of a water meadow. When I woke up, shivering with the cold, it
was about 5.30 and still dark, so I crossed the road and found a
splendid warm spot in the middle of a haycock, which completely covered
me up. Still, I thought, they might cart the hay that day; so at 6.15
a.m., when it was just getting light, I walked boldly through the
village. There were one or two people about, but they took no interest
in me. At 6.30 I had found an excellent hiding-place on the far side of
the town. It was rather hot all day, and I had no water-bottle and
suffered from thirst a good deal, but otherwise it was very pleasant,
being up in the thick bushes on the top of an old gravel pit. The time
seemed very long, and in the afternoon I very foolishly wandered about a
bit in the woods. I was seen by one man, but I don't think he was
suspicious, and so making a short detour I got back to my hiding-place.
That is the worst of being alone; it is almost impossible not to do
foolish things.
I started off again about 9.30 p.m., hoping to cross the frontier that
night. I was about 10 miles from the frontier, but reckoned that it
would be necessary to walk nearly 15 miles if I wanted to avoid all the
villages, as the country was very thickly populated. There is nothing
much to say about this night's walk--it was much like the other, though
I suffered rather more from thirst. At all the places where there was
water there were also houses, and I did not dare to stop. I managed to
quench my thirst to a certain extent by chewing roots from the fields.
Unfortunately, after crossing the canal, I took a wrong road and went
many miles southwest instead of west, and found myself in a long
straggling village. Fortunately for my nerves there were very few dogs
(very different, as I found afterwards, from Bavaria), and after walking
through about two miles of village I extricated myself and got into the
big wood on the frontier at about 4.30 a.m. It was a very wild spot, and
rather like some thickly wooded parts of Scotland. It was also very
hilly, with ridges of thick heather or long grass between almost
impenetrable fir woods. I had an extremely pleasant sleep in the
heather, and at 6.30 a.m. decided that I would move on cautiously. It
was an ideal place for stalking, and I thought I would try and locate
the frontier in the day time and if possible find out what obstacles I
had before me. From my map it appeared that I had about 3 kilometres of
forest between me and the frontier, but of course I did not know whether
the guards would be placed exactly on the frontier. It seemed to me at
the time absolutely essential, and even now I think I was quite right,
to try to find out by day exactly where the sentries' line was. For all
I knew there might be electrified wires, and on a dark night in the
forest one was more likely than not to walk straight into them without
ever seeing them at all. The rides would almost certainly be guarded,
and the woods were so thick that it was impossible to crawl through them
without making an awful noise. I know now that a forest is not only the
most obvious place to try and cross the frontier, and for that reason
the best guarded, but under any conditions, and for many reasons, the
open country is the best place to try. However, I felt pretty confident
that I should see the sentries before they saw me, so I went forward
cautiously, examining every ride before I went down it. I went slowly
through the woods for about three hours, in a west or northwest
direction, steering by compass, and then began to think I must be
getting pretty near the frontier. I was confirmed in this idea by
finding a well used path down one of the rides, so I crawled into the
wood at the side and lay down to think it out and have lunch. While I
was sitting there a soldier wheeling a bicycle came down the path. When
he had gone I crawled out to the edge of the ride and had a good look
around. Almost north of me I could make out the roof of a house through
the trees with a flagstaff and flag beside it. Like a fool, I never
grasped that that was the frontier blockhouse--and then I suddenly saw a
figure half a mile away, with something on his shoulder, cross the end
of the ride--a soldier with a rifle, I thought, but could not be sure.
After resting till about 10.30 I retraced my steps to look for a bit of
map which had fallen out of my pocket, but was unable to find it.
However, it did not matter, as the map was no longer of much use to me.
Once on the move I felt very restless and not a bit tired, and as the
cover was so good I determined to try and find out a bit more about the
frontier. I found a ride leading in the right direction and followed
that along very cautiously, mostly on my hands and knees, crawling
through thick heather. I crossed two more rises without seeing anyone,
and still crawled on. It was really madness to go any farther now, but
it all seemed so safe and the woods were so thick that the necessity
seemed to me greater than the danger. It only shows the great advantage
of having a friend with you when you escape--if Kicq had been there I am
sure we should both of us have got across; alone, it is almost
impossible to refrain from taking undue risks. It is partly
overconfidence and partly boredom with doing nothing, and partly a sort
of reckless and restless feeling which comes over every one, I think, at
times. Buckley and I, when we got away some six months later, nearly
always adopted the more cautious of two plans. The occasions on which
the more cautious advice was abandoned in favor of the more reckless,
though few, three times nearly led to disaster. On this first expedition
of mine I had no rules and regulations for escaping prisoners, such as
one learned at Fort 9, and no experience of escaping. I had to carry on
by the light of nature. However, instead of making further excuses for
what I did, I had better go on with the story.
After crossing a ride, I climbed a steep bank and came out on to a sort
of plateau, about 100 yards across. The undergrowth was thick but there
were only a few trees about, though there was a wood on the far side
again. I was crawling through this undergrowth when I suddenly stopped
short and held my breath. There, 15 yards from me, was a low wooden hut
and I caught sight of a German soldier through the open door. I stymied
myself from the hut by a bush and looked over my shoulder for the best
line of retreat. Just as I was about to crawl off, a German sentry
walked by me from the right, walking towards the hut. He was only about
10 yards off and was unarmed, and was buckling up his belt as he passed.
I was not very well under cover from that direction, as my legs were
sticking out of the bush, but I thought he would not see me if I lay
quite still. When he was 5 yards from me, he stopped to adjust his belt
and turned towards me, and as he looked up he saw my legs. He was a big
heavy built fellow, and as he walked quickly up to me he said, "Who are
you? What are you doing here?" I crawled out of the bush and stood up.
"I am a papermaker from Darmstadt out on a holiday," I said.
"Have you got any papers?"
"Yes," I lied.
"Well, you must come and show them."
I took no notice of this hint, but said, "Could you kindly tell me if
this is the Dutch frontier just here?"
"That has nothing to do with you," he answered; "you just come along
with me."
I took no notice, and repeated the question. "Mit mir kommen--so fort,"
he roared out, and gripped me by the shoulder. He took me across the
plateau and towards the wood on the opposite side, and as we were
stepping out of a sort of pit I suddenly bolted from him. I dashed into
the wood and he was after me yelling "Posten" at the top of his voice.
We were running steeply down hill through the woods, consequently it was
difficult for me to double back into the thick woods behind without
being cut off. I turned as much right handed as I could, but he was only
about 10 or 15 yards behind me, and I had not much time to think. About
50 yards ahead at the bottom of the slope there was a road which I could
not avoid crossing as I saw it curling around to my right. As I was
crashing through the last few yards of wood before the road, the fellow
behind still yelling "Halt!" like a madman, I suddenly saw a sentry on
the road who put up his rifle at 10 yards' range and called "Halt," and
I halted as abruptly as possible. The fellow behind came up cursing and
panting, and I was marched along the road to the left. On the road I saw
there was another sentry leading a dog about 100 yards north of us. As
we went along I saw the sentry who had held me up slip a clip of
cartridges into his magazine, so that I am not sure that his rifle had
been loaded after all. We passed another sentry (they seemed to be
stationed about every 150 yards or so), and then came to the wooden hut
which I had seen earlier in the day. There were about ten men in the hut
(it was the guardroom for the frontier posts on that sector), and they
treated me quite well. I asked for some tea and tobacco, and sat down in
a corner near the window to consider the position. Rather foolishly I
told them who I was. A "Flieger Hauptmann" was a bit of a capture, and
they were very pleased about it. They searched me very mildly, and took
away my map and compass but nothing else. From where I was sitting I
could see out of a window. There I was--20 yards from the Dutch border.
I had only to get across the road and I should be in thick undergrowth
on the far side. It seemed to me most unlikely that there were any
further obstacles than this one line of sentries. I believed at the time
that I was actually on the very border, but I am not quite so sure of
that now--anyhow, I am nearly sure I should have got clear away if I
could have got out of that hut with a few yards' start. I could see the
sentry outside the door, and he had his rifle slung over one shoulder by
the strap. As I was afraid that he would get rather too good a shot at
me if I ran straight, I determined that if I could get out of the hut I
would double round it and get back into the thick woods behind and get
across the following night. There seemed to be no obstacle of any sort
in the way of wire. While I was sitting there several girls came into
the hut who presented papers, which were checked by the N.C.O., and
laughed and joked with the soldiers in a lingo which I could not follow.
I found also that I could not understand the German soldiers when they
talked among themselves.
I must have sat there for an hour or more--pretending to doze most of
the time, but keeping a pretty sharp lookout for a chance of getting
out of the door. Several people had come in, and I noticed exactly how
the latch worked. There was an oldish fellow who annoyed me a good deal
by standing with his back to the door the whole time. I thought it was
accident at first, but I soon saw that he had his suspicions of me and
would not be enticed from the door for anything. The only thing to be
done was to pretend to fall fast asleep. This had the desired effect,
and when half an hour later he left the door to glance at a paper which
a soldier had brought in, I made a dash for it. There was a fellow
sitting by the side of the door who must have seen me turn and, so to
speak, gather myself together to make the dash; for, as I went out, he
made a desperate grab at me and by ill-fortune caught the belt at the
back of my coat. It tore in his hand as I struggled, but it stopped me
just long enough to give the sentry outside the time to fall on my neck,
and then they all fell on me and every one tried to hit me at once. For
some minutes there was a horrid scene. Ten furious men hit, kicked,
punched, and cursed me all at once. I did my best to ward off the blows
with my hands, and luckily there were so many of them that they all got
in each other's way and I was scarcely hurt at all till one of them cut
my head open with a bayonet. After a bit they calmed down and I was led
back into the hut, with much kicking and cursing. For a long time they
continued to curse me, and I think I must have gone temporarily mad, for
I started to argue with them and made matters worse. About an hour
later, preparations were made to remove me to Brueggen. They undid my
braces--they undid all the buttons of my trousers, which I had to hold
up with one hand whilst I carried all my belongings in the other. The
walking was very rough, mostly through thick heather, and I was escorted
by five men and an N.C.O. The five men carried their rifles in a most
explosive state of readiness and the N.C.O. kept a revolver handy. Once,
when I fell, I was very near being shot on the spot. Of course there
were thick woods on either hand most of the way, and once in them they
would never have caught me again. However, they never gave me a chance.
I was feeling extremely fit and well, and managed the hot walk over
heavy ground much more easily than most of my guards, who were fat old
chaps.
Although I was bitterly disappointed, I did not feel it so much at the
time as afterwards, and really enjoyed the whole experience more than
now seems to me possible. I was an object of curiosity in the village of
Brueggen, and was eventually brought into an office, on the second story
of a house, where several soldier clerks were working and given a chair
in a corner, where I went to sleep. I was awakened by the entrance of a
fat, unhealthy looking German lieutenant, to whom I took the most
intense dislike at sight. He brought me into the next room, placed a
loaded revolver on the table beside him, and ordered me to strip nude. I
suppose I must have laughed at him, as he got very angry and told me it
was no laughing matter. After my clothes had been searched he allowed me
to dress, and then with intense deliberation began to write an account
of me. I told him my camp, name, rank, etc., but when one of the guards
(the brute who had first caught me) said that I had hit about me with
my fists, I protested and said that, on the contrary, I had been
brutally man-handled and my head had been cut open. My coat collar and
head were all covered with blood, but the cut, though deep, was clean
and gave little pain. He called a medical orderly, who dressed my head
quite efficiently.
After waiting for an hour or two more in the clerks' office, I was
solemnly warned by a nasty little N.C.O. that I would be shot
immediately if I made a further attempt to escape, and was marched off
with a couple of guards. One happened to be the fellow who had
originally caught me and the other was the old fellow who had made such
a point of guarding the door in the hut. They were both, rather
naturally, very suspicious of me and never gave me half a chance. After
a march of three miles or so, we came to a big factory which was used as
barracks, and I was put into the guardroom. When feeding time came
round, I was given a very good plate of excellent vegetable soup, of
which they gave me a second helping when I asked for it, and as much hot
water, colored to look like coffee, as I could drink. On the whole,
considering they were a rough lot of soldiers, I was treated very
decently indeed. One young fellow, in fact, went out of his way to be
nice to me and to make me comfortable. He passed me a packet of tobacco
when no one was looking, and later in the evening there was quite an
amusing discussion on the war, aeroplanes, etc. I think it rather
astonished them that an English officer, a "Hauptmann," was prepared to
talk and be more or less friendly with them. I think they also rather
appreciated the fact that I seemed to bear no grudge against them for
hitting me over the head with a bayonet; one of them in fact almost
apologized for it by saying that they had been so enraged because they
would have been heavily punished if I had escaped. They gave me some
blankets, and I had an excellent night on a bench. One or two of them
were thoughtful enough to warn me not to attempt to escape the next
morning. Precautions had been taken, they said, and I would not have a
chance.