THE LAST OF FORT 9
One day at the beginning of May 1917 an incident occurred in the fort
which ultimately led to the removal of the English and Russian prisoners
to other camps and to our escape _en route_. I never saw or knew exactly
how it started, as I was playing tennis in the court below. But it
appears that some thirty or forty men of mixed nationalities were
walking on the pathway which ran round the rampart above us, and
everything seemed quite normal and peaceful, when a shot was heard from
outside the fort. This was not such an unusual occurrence as to cause us
to stop our tennis; but when a few seconds later we heard another shot,
and there seemed to be considerable excitement among the other prisoners
on the rampart, we left the tennis with one accord and ran up the steep
stairway on to the rampart. The first thing I saw was a group of excited
Frenchmen, some apparently furiously angry, but all laughing,
gesticulating, and cursing in French and German in the direction of the
outer courtyard of the fort, which was 30 or 40 feet below them and
perhaps 70 yards away. Just as we arrived on the scene, they ducked
behind the parapet and a bullet whistled over our heads. They jumped up
like Jack-in-the-boxes, and the cursing broke out anew. I had a
cautious look over the parapet, and saw the German guard with the
_Feldwebel_ drawn up in the outer court. There seemed to be a good deal
of excitement and shouting going on, but as they did not appear to be
going to shoot again, the Frenchmen and I and several others who had
crowded to the parapet, after shouting out to the Germans what we
thought of them, moved away. Just at that moment Dessaux, a French
artillery lieutenant, strolled up with his hands in his pockets and
walked towards the parapet. At the same moment I caught sight of the
sentry on the center "caponniere," who was less than 30 yards off and
standing on the mound above us, making preparations to shoot. He had his
hand on the bolt of his rifle, and glanced towards the courtyard below,
whence it seemed he was being urged to fire. Then he came forward a few
steps in a sort of crouching attitude and snapped a cartridge into his
rifle. I was about 5 yards from Dessaux at the moment, and yelled at him
to look out as the fellow ran forward. Dessaux looked up and, seeing the
sentry putting up his rifle, crouched behind a traverse of the parapet
as the fellow fired. The bullet crashed into a chimney-pot just behind.
Dessaux sat there laughing. The sentry reloaded his rifle and glanced
about him at a crowd of angry men, who were threatening and cursing him
in four languages from every side. For a moment it looked as though the
sentry would be rushed, when a German N.C.O. came running up the
stairway, amid a hail of curses, and stopped the man from firing again.
I remember one Russian pointing his finger and shrieking "Schwein!"
"Schwein!" at the N.C.O. as he went by. At that moment a Frenchman,
Commandant Collet, rushed up to me and said, "Did you see what
happened?" I gave a brief account of it. "Come to the bureau," he said,
"and we will tell them what we think of them;" and we ran down to the
bureau together. In the bureau there was already a small crowd of
excited Frenchmen in front of the barrier. The bureau was a small,
narrow room with a barrier like a shop counter about one-half of the way
down it. There was only one door to the room, and at the far end, on the
clerks' and office side of the barrier, was a huge, heavily barred
window, typical of all the windows in the fort. Collet pushed his way to
the barrier through the other Frenchmen, and addressed the
sergeant-clerk (a Saxon, and the only decent German in the place). At
that moment the _Feldwebel_ pushed his way in, white in the face and
fingering his revolver; it was no place for him outside, and he was met
by a storm of curses and threats. "If one of our officers is touched,"
said Collet, "if one is wounded, I swear to you that we will come
immediately and kill every man in this bureau." Both the sergeant-clerk
and the _Feldwebel_ understood him, and he repeated it several times to
make sure that they did. The sergeant-clerk tried to pacify him, but we
pushed our way out of the bureau.
One result of this row was that the bars were taken out of the big
window at the back of the bureau to provide a back means of escape for
the bureau staff. A second important result was that, when we came to
compare notes, we found we had a very good case against the _Feldwebel_,
the charge being, "Instigating his men to murder."
There was a prisoner in the fort, an Alsatian, Stoll by name, who spoke
German perfectly, German being his native language, though I doubt if he
would allow that. At the time when the guard was being changed and the
row started, he was sitting in our reading-room, of which the window was
not more than 40 yards away from where the _Feldwebel_ was making a
speech to the guard. The Alsatian overheard and was able to take down
nearly every word of the speech, which was something as follows: "The
prisoners you have to guard are criminals--you are to lose no
opportunity of using your arms against them--be suspicious of everything
they do--everything is an attempt to escape; therefore you must shoot to
kill whenever possible."
At that moment the _Feldwebel_ caught sight of a group of Frenchmen
standing on the parapet above, who were laughing among themselves (they
swore afterwards that they were offering no provocation whatever). The
_Feldwebel_ thought they were mocking the guard, and gave orders to the
sentry in the courtyard to fire. The first shot the man fired over their
heads without taking careful aim. After that, when the Frenchmen bobbed
up again from behind the parapet, both sides cursed and shouted. Two
more well-aimed shots followed; then the _Feldwebel_, seeing, I think,
that there was small chance of hitting any one when there was a parapet
to duck behind, shouted repeatedly to the man on the center "caponniere"
to fire, with the result I have already described.
Fourteen of us made out accurate affidavits in German of what we had
seen, and sent them in to the general in charge of the camp, demanding
an inquiry, if there was such a thing as justice in Germany.
About a fortnight later, a rumor went round, which was confirmed after a
few days, that all the Russian and English prisoners were to be moved to
other camps. The news caused a great sensation, as most of us had
considered that we were fixtures in Fort 9 till the end of the war, or
till we could escape. Some of the Russians and all the English were most
suspicious characters, and we could scarcely expect to be insufficiently
guarded on our railway journey. Nevertheless, we all went into strict
training. Two days before we went, we were informed that we were being
sent to Zorndorf. Buckley had been a prisoner there before coming to
Fort 9, and said that it was a most intolerable place, and that the
change we were making was distinctly for the worse. Nothing would induce
him to go back there, he said, without making an effort, however
hopeless, to escape _en route_. He and I joined forces, having no very
definite plans. The train would take us directly away from the Swiss
frontier. It was to our advantage, then, to get off the train as soon as
possible; for, besides the extra distance every moment in the train put
between us and the frontier, we had no maps of the country north of
Ingolstadt. From Ingolstadt to the frontier was about 130 miles, or
rather more, and for all that part I not only had excellent maps which
had been sent out to me from home, but from other prisoners who had
attempted to escape in that direction we had accurate and detailed
knowledge of the whole route from Fort 9 to the frontier.
Buckley and I decided to get off the train at the first opportunity, and
then, if the distance were not too great, to walk. If it was too far to
walk, we should have to risk jumping or taking a train. All the details
we had to leave to circumstances. We had this in our favor, that we both
talked German fairly fluently and well enough, with luck, to pass for
Germans if only a few words were needed. Against us was the fact that,
as we were going officially by train, we had to be in almost full
uniform. By dint of continually wearing grey flannels, the English had
induced the Germans to believe that gray flannels was part of the
English uniform. I struck a bargain with a Frenchman for a Tyrolese hat,
and Buckley very ingeniously made himself a very German-looking hat out
of an old straw hat and some cloth. For food, we both stuffed the
pockets of our tunics full of chocolate and condensed foods. Besides
this I carried a home-made haversack full of biscuits and raw bacon, and
Buckley had a small dispatch-case in which he had mainly condensed
food--oxo cubes, Horlick's malted milk, meat lozenges, etc. Thus
equipped, and with Burberrys to cover our uniforms, we thought we should
pass as Germans in the dark. Our outfit was far from being all that
could be desired; but it is hard to see how we could have carried more
food, or more suitable clothes, even if we had possessed them, without
raising suspicion as we left the fort. We were not the only party which
was making preparations to escape. Medlicott and Wilkin certainly had
something on--I don't know what the scheme was, though I have a sort of
idea they intended to try and get off near an aerodrome in the
neighborhood of Berlin. Gaskell and May had some ideas of a bolt on the
way up from the station at the other end. Buckley and I also intended to
bolt there, if we could not get off before. Then there were the
Russians. There were several parties among them, good fellows too and
reliable, but perfectly certain to make a mess of any scheme they went
for. It was most important to see that they did not spoil any good
chance that might come along by prematurely doing something absolutely
mad. As a general rule, however, they placed great reliance on our
superior judgment, and we thought we could keep them in hand. The
general opinion was that we should never have the ghost of an
opportunity, and when we saw our guard on the morning of May 22nd we
almost gave up hope. Our heavy luggage had been sent on early. Wilkin,
by the way, had an enormous wooden box with secret hiding-places all
over it which were stuffed full of maps and tools for cutting iron bars,
etc., all of which latter he had made and tempered himself. He was also
an expert locksmith and had a large assortment of skeleton keys. As our
names were called, we passed through the iron gate over the moat and
stood in the outer courtyard, surrounded by a guard of fifteen
efficient-looking Huns who were to escort us. There were only thirty of
us going, so we considered fifteen guards and an officer rather
excessive. One amusing incident happened before we marched off. One of
the Frenchmen took a Russian's place, dressed in Russian uniform, and
came out when the Russian's name was called. He was recognized, however,
by the sergeant, who was no fool, and pushed back into the fort amid
shouts of laughter. After some delay the Russian was found and brought
out.
We had a 7-mile walk to the station and, as always in Germany, a two
hours' wait there. We spent those two hours infuriating the officer in
charge of us by taking as little notice as possible of any orders that
he gave us, and by talking or shouting to all the French, Russian, or
English Tommies who passed us in working parties from the large soldier
prisoner-of-war camp at Ingolstadt. At last we were rather tightly
packed into quite decent second-class carriages. Six of the English got
together in one carriage, and a sentry was put in with us. We edged up
and gave him the corner seat next the corridor, and another sentry
marched up and down the corridor outside. At the first review the
situation seemed rather hopeless. The only chance was a large
plate-glass window of the normal type, which we were compelled to keep
closed. There was not much chance of our fellow going to sleep, with the
sentry in the corridor continually looking in. German sentries always
work in pairs like that, and usually one would report the other without
hesitation. There was no door in the side of the carriage opposite to
the corridor. Just before we started, the officer came in; he had been
fussing round a great deal, and was obviously very anxious and nervous.
Prisoners from Fort 9 had a bad reputation. He asked if we were
comfortable. I answered yes for the party, and told him that we strongly
objected to being shouted at, as he had shouted at us in the station. He
apologized. It was only his way he said. We had disobeyed orders and he
had got angry and then he always shouted. He hoped that now we would
have a comfortable quiet journey and no more trouble. I said he would
not help matters anyhow by shouting--as it only made us laugh. He took
this rebuke quite well and went off. I am afraid he had a good deal of
trouble ahead of him, and I have no doubt he shouted at frequent
intervals most of that journey.
As we got into Nueremberg, the first large town, about 70 miles north of
Ingolstadt, it was beginning to get dark. There we waited for two hours
or more.
Up to that time no incident of any interest had occurred, and the chance
of escape had been very small. It was hardly worth it in the daylight,
and we were now a devilish long way from the frontier. However, Buckley
and I decided that if we got an opportunity any time during the night we
would take it. After leaving Nueremberg we went slowly through a fairly
dark night. It was not too dark to see that we were traveling through a
well-wooded and rather hilly country, and our hopes began to rise. On
leaving Nueremberg, Buckley and I took the two corner seats near the
window. It had been decided in the carriage that as Buckley and I were
best prepared, both in the matter of food and by the fact that we alone
talked German, the others should give every assistance in their power to
get us away. They were a good lot of fellows in that carriage, and the
spirit of self-sacrifice which existed in Fort 9, where three
nationalities were crowded together, was beyond anything which one could
possibly have anticipated. Escaping came before everything, and was an
excuse for any discomforts which one or two members might bring on the
rest of the community. If you wished for help, almost any man in the
fort would have helped you blindly, regardless of consequences.