AN ESCAPE WITH MEDLICOTT
For the next six weeks life was rather hard. It froze continuously, even
in the day time, in spite of the sun, which showed itself frequently,
and at night the thermometer registered as often as not more than 27 deg. of
frost. The Germans, who had made many efforts to keep the ice in the
moat broken by punting round in a steel boat kept for the purpose, now
abandoned the attempt, and in consequence of this and of our escape
across the ice we were denied the use of the inner courtyards. For the
next six weeks the only place in which we could take exercise was the
little outer court where _Appell_ was sometimes held. It was only about
50 yards by 25, and was really an inadequate exercise ground for 150
active men. Still we kept pretty fit. Every morning all the English had
an ice-cold shower-bath. Of the Frenchmen, Bellison, who lived in
Gaskell's room, and one other, I think, had been used to take a cold
bath every morning, but it was really astonishing what a number followed
our example at Fort 9. When it was so cold that the water in the tubs
above the shower-sprays was frozen solid, thirty or forty officers, by
pumping the water from the well, used to take a bath regularly every
morning. It was only when coal became so scarce that it was not
possible to keep a fire going all day in the living-rooms, and when, if
you took a bath cold you would never get warm again the whole day, that
attendance dropped to some half-dozen men who, having before them the
possibility of a ten days' march to the frontier in the dead of winter,
looked upon the bath in the morning more as a method of making
themselves hard and fit than as an act of cleanliness.
Every day a good many of us took exercise by running round and round the
small court, to the astonishment of the sentries. Mueller's exercises
were introduced, and Medlicott and Gaskell, Buckley and I, and many
other Englishmen and Frenchmen, did them regularly every day for the
rest of the time we were in Germany. As a result of this strenuous life,
though we were often very cold and very hungry, we were, with few
exceptions easily traceable to bad tinned food, never sick or sorry for
ourselves the whole time.
Unett, poor fellow, suffered severely from boils, and Buckley from the
same complaint during his two months' solitary confinement. From this
onwards, for all the winter months, the coal and light shortage became
very serious. We stole wood, coal, and oil freely from the Germans, and
before the end nearly all the woodwork in the fort had been torn down
and burnt, in spite of the strict orders to the sentries to shoot at
sight any one seen taking wood. So long as the Germans continued to use
oil lamps in the many dark passages of the fort, it was not very
difficult to keep a decent store of oil in hand, but after a month or
so the Germans realized they were being robbed, and substituted
acetylene for oil.
We all wrote home for packets of candles, and considering the amount of
oil we were officially allowed, the length of time we managed to keep
our lamps burning remained to the end a source of astonishment to the
Germans.
As it was Christmas time, and as Room 45 was well supplied with food, we
decided to give a dinner to the Allies on Christmas night. A rumor had
been passed round, with the intention, I have no doubt, that it should
come to the ears of the Germans, that a number of prisoners intended to
escape on Christmas night. The Germans were consequently in a state of
nervous tension, the guards were doubled, and N.C.O.'s made frequent
rounds. No one had any intention of escaping on that night as far as I
know.
A piano which had been hired by a Frenchman was kept in the music-room,
a bare underground cell of a place at the far end of the central
passage, and we applied to be allowed to bring this into our room. To
our huge indignation this was refused, on the grounds that we might use
it as a method of attracting the sentries' attention.
However, we were determined to have the piano and a dance on Christmas
night, so a party was organized to bring it from the music-room in spite
of the German orders. I don't know exactly how it was managed, but I
think a row of some sort was begun in the other wing of the fort and,
when the German N.C.O.'s had been attracted in that direction, the piano
was "rushed" along to the "ballroom." The dinner was an undoubted
success. Room 45, with Medlicott as chef, spent the whole day cooking,
and that evening about twenty of us sat down to dinner--the guests being
all of them Frenchmen or Russians. After dinner we all attended a
fancy-dress dance which some Frenchmen gave in the adjoining room. They
had knocked down a wooden partition between two rooms, and had a dance
in one and the piano and a drinking bar in the other. The French are a
most ingenious nation, and the costumes were simply amazing.
There were double sentries all round the fort that night, and some of
them stood outside the windows and enjoyed the dancing and singing. It
was an extremely cold night outside, and I am not surprised that some of
them felt rather bitter against us. I offered one a bit of cake, but he
merely had a jab at me through the bars with his bayonet.
About midnight we sang "God Save the King," the "Marseillaise," and "On
les aura," with several encores. This turned out the guard, and a dozen
of them with fixed bayonets, headed by the _Feldwebel_, crashed up the
passage and, after a most amusing scene in which both sides kept their
tempers, recaptured the piano.
A few days after this, Medlicott and I learnt that four Frenchmen were
cutting a bar in the latrine with the object of escaping across the
frozen moat. We offered them our assistance in exchange for the right of
following them at half an hour's interval if they got away without being
detected. They agreed to this, as they needed some extra help in
guarding the passage and giving warning of the approach of the sentry
whilst the bar was being cut. At the farthest end of his beat the sentry
was never more than 40 yards away from the window where the operation
was being carried out. Under these circumstances a very high degree of
skill was necessary for the successful cutting of an inch-thick bar.
Here Moretti was in his element. No handle to the saw was used; he held
the saw in gloved hands to deaden the noise, and in four hours made two
cuts through the bar.
Repeated halts had to be made, as the sentry passed the window every
three or four minutes, and, as he was liable to examine the bars at any
time, they sealed up the crack between each spell of work with some
flour paste colored with ashes for the purpose. This made the cut on the
bars invisible. I examined the bars carefully myself after they had been
cut, and was quite unable to tell which one was only held in place by a
thread of metal at each end.
The removal of one bar would leave only a narrow exit through which a
man could squeeze and, thinking that this might delay them, the
Frenchmen, rather unwisely I consider, decided to cut a second bar.
Now whether they were really betrayed, as we believe, by one of the
French orderlies who for some time had been under suspicion as a spy, or
whether some one on the far bank of the canal had happened to see or
hear them, we never knew, but it is certain that the Germans learnt,
without getting exact details, that one of the bars in the latrines was
being cut. The "Blue Boy" visited the latrines four times in a couple of
hours and examined the bars with care, but without finding anything
wrong. At last the Commandant and the _Feldwebel_ walked up outside our
windows, and the latter taking each bar in turn shook it violently.
About the fourth one he shook came off in his hands and he fell down
flat on his back.
The Germans brought up barbed wire and wound it round and round the bars
and across the hole. Besides this, they put an extra sentry to watch the
place. It seemed at first hopeless to think of escaping that way. The
Frenchmen gave it up, but I kept an eye on it for a week or so, and as a
precaution obtained leave from the Frenchmen to use it if I saw an
opportunity.
One very cold night about a week later I was standing in the latrines
and watching the sentry stamping backwards and forwards on his 20-yard
beat, when it seemed to me just possible that the thing might be done. I
fetched Medlicott and Wilkin, who had some wire-cutters. Medlicott took
the cutters and, choosing a favorable moment, cut the tightest strand of
wire. It seemed to us to make a very loud "ping," but the sentry took no
notice, so Medlicott cut eight more strands rapidly.
Leaving Wilkin to guard the hole Medlicott and I rushed off to change in
the dark, because if we lighted a lamp any sentry passing our window
could see straight into the room. It was half an hour after midnight
when we started to change, but by 1.15 a.m. we were ready--our
ruecksacks, maps, compasses, and all were lying packed and hidden. Over
our warm clothes we wore white underclothes, as there were several
inches of snow on the ground outside; and over our boots we had socks,
as much to deaden the noise as to prevent our slipping as we crossed
the frozen moat.
Outside, the reflection from the snow made the night seem bright, but
there was a slight haze which prevented white objects such as ourselves
being seen at a greater distance than about 100 yards.
In the latrines it was as dark as pitch, so that, though we stood within
a few yards of the sentry, we could watch him in safety. It was only
safe to work when the sentry was at the far end of his beat; that is to
say, about 15 yards away. Medlicott cut the wire, whilst Wilkin and I
watched and gave him signs when the sentry was approaching. Owing to
repeated halts, it was a long job. The sentries glanced from time to
time at the wire, but all the cuts were on the inside of the bars and
invisible to them. Removing the bits of wire when they had all been cut
was like a complicated game of spillikins, and it was not till nearly
4.30 a.m. that Medlicott had finished. It was a long and rather
nerve-racking business waiting in the cold to make a dash across the
moat.
Medlicott and I tossed up as to who should go first, and he won. It was
not easy to choose the right moment, for almost our only hope of getting
across without a shot was when the two sentries were at their beats
farthest from us, and one of these sentries was invisible to us, though
we could hear him stamping to keep warm as he turned at the near end of
his beat.
At last a favorable moment came and Medlicott put his head and shoulders
through the hole, but stuck half-way. He had too many clothes on. We
were only just in time to pull him out of sight as the sentry turned.
He took off some clothes and put them in his sack and tried again,
though we had to wait some time for an opportunity. Again he found he
was too fat--and what was worse got hung up on a piece of barbed wire.
We made what seemed to us a fearful noise hauling him in and
disentangling him, but the sentry took no notice. Then Wilkin rushed off
and got a second sack, into which Medlicott packed several layers of
clothes. Another long wait for a suitable moment. We heard the sentry on
our left come to the end of the beat, then it sounded as if he had
turned and his steps died away. The man on our right was at the far end
of his beat. Now was the moment. With a push and a struggle Medlicott
was through the hole. I went after him instantly, but stuck. A kick from
Wilkin sent me sprawling on to the snow on the far side. In a few
seconds we were crossing the moat, I a couple of yards behind Medlicott,
as fast as our heavy kit and the snow would let us. We were almost
across when "Halt! Halt!! Halt!!" came from the sentry on our left. He
had never gone back after all, but had only stamped his feet and then
stood still. On the far side of the moat was a steepish bank lined with
small trees; we tore up this and hurled ourselves over the far bank just
as the first shot rang out. We were safe for the moment--no sentry could
see us, but shot after shot was fired. Each sentry in the neighborhood
safeguarded himself against punishment by letting off his rifle several
times. Milne, who knew we were escaping and was lying in bed listening,
told me afterwards that he had felt certain that one of us had been hit
and that they were finishing him off. For several hundred yards we went
northwards across the fields, only halting a moment to pull off the
socks from our boots. Then we turned left-handed, intending to make a
big circuit towards the south so as to avoid passing too close to the
battery which flanks the fort.
When we had gone about 400 yards we saw behind us lights from several
moving lanterns and realized that some one was following on our tracks.
It was very necessary to throw off our pursuers as soon as possible,
because there was little more than a couple of hours before the
daylight, so we changed our plan and made towards a large wood which we
knew was about a mile and a half northwest of the fort.
Just before entering the wood we saw that the lights behind us were
still about 300 yards away, but now there seemed to be ten or a dozen
lights as well, in a large semicircle to the south of us.
The wood proved useless for our purpose. There was scarcely any
undergrowth, and it was just as easy to follow our tracks there as in
the open field. There was only one thing to be done. We must double back
through the lights and gain a village to the south of us. Once on the
hard road we might throw them off. Choosing the largest gap in the
encircling band of lanterns we walked through crouching low, and unseen
owing to our white clothes. Once in the village we felt more hopeful. At
any rate they could no longer trace our footsteps, and we believed that
all our pursuers were behind us. Choosing at random one of three or four
roads which led out of the village in a more or less southerly
direction, we marched on at top speed. After walking for a quarter of an
hour, we were about to pass a house and a clump of trees at the side of
the road when we heard a noise from that direction, and suspecting an
ambush we instantly struck off across the fields, putting the house
between ourselves and the possible enemy. Then we heard footsteps
running in the snow, and then a cry of "Halt! Halt!" from about 15 yards
behind us. The position was hopeless; there was no cover, and our
pursuer could certainly run as fast as we could in our heavy clothes.
"It's no good," said Medlicott; "call out to him."
I quite agreed and shouted.
"Come here, then," the man answered.
"All right, we are coming, so don't shoot."
When we got close we saw it was the little N.C.O. who looked after the
canteen. His relations with the prisoners had always been comparatively
friendly. He was quite a decent fellow, and I think we owe our lives to
the fact that it was this man who caught us.
He only had a small automatic pistol, and, as we came back on to the
road, he said, "Mind now, no nonsense! I am only a moderate shot with
this, so I shall have to shoot quick." I said we had surrendered and
would do nothing silly. He walked behind us back to the village, on the
outskirts of which we met the pursuing party, consisting of the "Blue
Boy" with a rifle and a sentry with a lantern.
The lantern was held up to our faces. "Ha ha," said the "Blue Boy,"
"Herr Medlicott and Hauptmann Evans, noch mal." Then we walked back to
the fort under escort, about a 4 mile march. As we entered the outer
door of the fort the sentry at the entrance cursed us and threatened me
violently with a bayonet, but our N.C.O. stopped him just in time.
In the main building just outside the bureau we had a very hostile
reception from a mob of angry sentries through whom we had to pass. For
a few moments things looked very ugly. I was all for conciliation and a
whole skin if possible, but it was all I could do to calm Medlicott, who
under circumstances of this sort only became more pugnacious and glared
round him like a savage animal. Then the _Feldwebel_ appeared and
addressed the soldiers, cursing them roundly for bringing us in alive
instead of dead. I have treasured up that speech in my memory, and, if
ever I meet _Feldwebel_ Buehl again, I shall remind him of it. He is the
only German against whom, from personal experience, I have feelings
which can be called really bitter. The _Feldwebel_ wished to search us,
but we refused to be searched unless an officer was present; so we
waited in the bureau for an hour and a half till the Commandant arrived.
This time they took my flying-coat away and refused to give it back.
They also found on me the same tin of solidified alcohol which had been
taken off me before and restolen by the Frenchmen. They recognized it,
but of course could not prove it was the same. "I know how you stole
this back," said the senior clerk as he searched me. "You shall not have
it again." He was a Saxon, and the only German with a sense of humor in
the fort. We both laughed over the incident. I laughed last, however,
as I got the tin back in about a week's time, as I will tell later.
The search being over, we were allowed to go back into our rooms, and
had breakfast in bed.
Perhaps it may seem rather extraordinary that we were not punished
severely for these attempts to escape, but the explanation lies not in
the leniency of the German but in the fact that there were no convenient
cells in which to punish us. The cells at Fort 9 were all of them always
full, and there was a very long waiting list besides. They might have
court-martialled us and sent us to a fortress, but our crime, a "simple
escape," was a small one. They might have sent us to another camp; but
the Germans knew that we would ask nothing better, as no officers' camp
was likely to be more uncomfortable or more difficult to escape from.
Any way, it would be a change. Sometimes, when there was a vacancy, they
sent us to the town jail, but, as had been demonstrated more than once,
it was easier to escape from there than from Fort 9. The Germans' main
object being to keep us safe, they just put us back into the fort and
awarded us a few days' _Bestrafung_, which we did in a few months' time
when there was a cell vacant.