HOW WE DID NOT ESCAPE
§ 1
As military regulations state that it is the duty of every prisoner of
war to make immediate and strenuous effort to escape, and as every man
is at heart an adventurer, it is not surprising that our languid
community was from time to time regaled by the rumours of impending
sorties.
No one has ever yet managed to escape from Mainz, and even if the war
had lasted for another twenty years, I believe it would have retained
its impregnability. For the citadel had been constructed so as to resist
the old-fashioned frontal assault, in which infantry without the aid of
a barrage endeavoured to demolish vertical walls. Round the buildings
ran stone battlements usually fifty feet high. At any point where it
would be possible to jump down was stationed a sentry, and between these
battlements and the buildings were two distinct chains of wire netting,
that were continually patrolled. At an early date I decided that, in my
personal case, the possible chances of escape in no way counteracted the
enormous inconvenience to which an attempt would inevitably put me. And
if I did get away, it would result in the probable loss of the greater
part of my library, and of all my MSS. All things considered, it hardly
seemed worth while.
But for other and more daring spirits personal inconvenience was a thing
of trifling importance. They would talk of their duty, of their hatred
of the Hun, of their desire to be in the thick of things again. But the
chief allurement was the love of _réclame_: every man is at heart a
novelist; and they would picture to themselves the days of “What did you
do in the great war, Daddy?” and the proud answer, “I escaped from
Mainz,” and there was also the glory of standing in the centre of the
stage. They liked to be talked about in undertones, to hear a whisper of
“Don’t tell any one, but that fellow’s going to try and beat it
to-morrow.” They hankered after excitement, and in consequence when
their schemes began to ripen to maturity, they enveloped their actions
in all the theatrical paraphernalia of Arsène Lupin. It was wonderful
what they made themselves believe. Spies were lurking everywhere, and in
consequence their every action had to be most carefully concealed. One
officer, who thought he was being hoodwinked, disguised himself by
shaving off his moustache, and wearing a cap all day to hide the
thinness of his hair. Of course to those who really took the business
seriously every credit is due. They spent hours preparing maps, and
ropes, and many marks in bribing sentries. But to the majority an escape
consisted chiefly in a bid not for liberty but for fame. For it was only
with the most deep and carefully laid plans that any one could have
hoped to get away.
It is unnecessary to say that in the machinery of these enthusiasms our
old friend Colonel Westcott played his heroic part. When he amalgamated
into his Pitt League such existing organisations as the Future Career
Society, he considered that he had taken under his wing all the imperial
activities of the camp; and so one branch, and a very select branch, of
his scheme included those desirous of freedom. It was quite a harmless
affair, this little society, and in no way jeopardised the chances of
escape. All that the Colonel wanted was to feel that he had a share in
every sphere of the life of which he was the central embodiment. He
liked to have these young fellows sitting round him discussing their
plans; he liked to be able to drop here and there the necessary words of
advice; it was an understood thing that no one was to attempt to escape
without first submitting his ideas to the Colonel; and within a brief
time this amiable gentleman had led himself to believe that he was the
fount from which all these alarums and excursions flowed.
The first attempt did not take place till we had been prisoners a little
over four months, but its preliminaries began a good deal earlier. One
of the accomplices was in the same room as myself, and for weeks he used
to carry about with him an air of mystery. In a far corner of the room
he would be observed tracing maps of the various roads to the frontier,
and from time to time he would take me quietly aside.
“Don’t tell any one,” he said, “but I’m going to clear soon, and I’m
getting the maps. I tell you, of course, because--oh, well, you’re in my
room, and all that. But keep it dark.”
He spoke like that to nearly all of his acquaintances. It is all very
well to talk of breaking laws just for the fun of the thing, but one
does want the rest of the world to know what a devil of a fellow one
is.
I remember one Sunday afternoon, at school, how I cut the cord of the
weight on the chapel organ, with the result that that evening the music
suddenly stopped and the choir wrecked. It was a noble piece of work,
which I surveyed with a justifiable pride. But I was not really
satisfied till I had told the whole house about it; naturally, of
course, swearing each individual to secrecy.
“Don’t tell a soul, of course, old man. I should get in a hell of a row
if it was found out.”
_Suave, mari magno_.... When one is perfectly safe, it is delightful to
imagine all the punishments that might have been visited on one, if the
Fates had been less kind; we always hunger for sensation; from the
security of a warm fire the imagination gloats over the ardours of
warfare and the splendours and agonies of adventure. We like to feel
that danger overhangs us; we shiver with apprehensive delight beneath
the sword of Damocles. We like to be told that there will be a social
upheaval within our lifetime. Perhaps it will come in five years’ time.
Perhaps to-morrow. At any rate, to-day we are secure. And it was in this
spirit that the glamorous web was woven round that first escape.
The efforts that were made to avoid suspicion were superb. The
conspirators felt that anything might give away their secret. Had not
Sergeant Cuff found at one end of a chain of evidence a murderer and at
the other a spot of ink on a green baize tablecloth? and so they left
nothing to chance. A loose board beneath the stove served as an
admirable hiding-place for maps and plans. And in consequence our room
was used as a sort of general dump.
It was a great nuisance; they would do the mystery stunt so very
thoroughly; and it was such a noisy business. To open their underground
cupboard a few nails had to be abstracted, and a few wedges applied. The
resultant noise would have woken not the least suspicion in even the
most distrustful Teuton, and would have played a very insignificant
part amid all the accumulated turmoil of the day. But no risks must be
run. And so while the cupboard was being prized open, an operation that
would sometimes take over ten minutes, one of us had to be detailed to
go outside and break up wood so as to disguise the noise. It was a
deafening business, that occurred two or three times each week; and it
did not seem as if the contents of this cupboard demanded such strict
secrecy. I once asked what they kept there.
“Only a few papers,” was the answer, “a compass and provisions for the
journey.”
That a compass, being contraband, should be carefully concealed, I could
well understand. But the papers consisted of a field officer’s diary and
a few maps abstracted from the backs of a German Grammar; while the bag
of provisions contained only those delicacies that we received in
parcels, of which chocolate formed the greater part. And a more
unhealthy place to store it, it would be hard to find.
“Look here,” I said one day, “what’s the idea of keeping that chocolate
there?”
“To escape with, of course. Splendid stuff for giving staying power.”
“But why can’t the fellow keep it in his room?”
I was immediately fixed with that sort of look that seems to say, “Good
Lord, do such fools really exist!”
“My good man,” he said, “how could he keep it there? It would give the
whole show away at once. What would you think, if you were a German
officer, and found a big store of chocolate in one of the cupboards?
What would you think of it?”
There was only one answer to that.
“That the ass didn’t like it, I suppose.”
But my remonstrance was useless, and soon I began to regard these noises
and secrecies as part of the inevitable machinery of prison life.
§ 2
The first attempt savoured, it must be confessed, very strongly of the
ludicrous. The protagonists were three colonels who had managed to
provide themselves with German money and with suits of civilian clothes,
made, so it was reported, out of dishcloths. They chose as their
headquarters a room situated directly above the main gate. It was a drop
of some forty feet to the ground, and a sentry box was stationed
immediately underneath. The chances of getting away were in consequence
very small, but there was, at any rate, no need for preliminary
manœuvres among the meshes of wire netting. The gallant adventurers
relied solely on the somnolence of the sentry. It was a cold, rainy
night, and their experience of guards at depôts might well have led them
to expect a certain lack of enterprise and enthusiasm on the part of
their warder. Nor were they disappointed.
It began to rain heavily, and after a few deprecatory glances at the
heavens, the sentry sat down in his box, and within a few moments
appeared to be unconscious of the external world. From the window of
Block I a rope made out of a blanket was immediately lowered, and the
colonel began his precarious descent.
And then the rain stopped.
The sentry, roused apparently by the sudden cessation of sound, blinked,
rubbed his eyes, and cast them heavenwards, and saw midway between earth
and sky a figure swinging from a rope. Well, he must have been something
of a philosopher, that sentry: he was in no way perturbed by the
apparition. He rose languidly to his feet, blew his whistle to summon
the guard, and waited patiently at the foot of the rope.
It must have been a very amusing spectacle. Very slowly and very
gingerly, hand under hand the colonel descended, and when he was within
reaching distance the sentry helped him very gently to the ground and
escorted him to the guardroom. The other
[Illustration: A GALLANT ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE.
[_To face page 162._
]
conspirators, seeing the fate of their chief, hastened bedwards with all
possible speed, and when the orderly officer came round they imitated
with considerable ability the righteous indignation of a man who is
woken up after a three hours’ sleep.
This attempt was the signal for frequent and repeated excursions. The
lead once given, there were found many ready to follow it; and there was
considerable comfort in the assurance that the sentries had orders not
to fire unless they were charged. And so for the remainder of our
captivity the camp buzzed with rumours.
No one ever got away. Occasionally the first strand of netting was
penetrated, but nothing more; and it must have been a poor form of
amusement. For the desperadoes always chose a night of rain and wind in
the hope that the sentries might have sought consolation within their
huts, and it can have been no fun crawling on one’s stomach, over sodden
gravel, getting soaked and cold; and as the night of capture was always
spent in the guardroom, it was a sport that can have held out few
inducements.
For the cowardly, however, it did add a spice and flavour to existence.
On these nights of danger we used to lie awake patiently listening. The
hours would drift by. Twelve o’clock, one o’clock, it looked as if they
had got away after all; and then, sure enough, would come the alarm, two
whistles would shriek loud above the drip of the rain, there would be a
scurry of feet; and then a few minutes later we would see the
unfortunate beings escorted to the cells.... We would do all we could
for them; we would clamber on to the window sill and would shout our
condolences; and these friendly wishes would on the next day as likely
as not serve as an excuse for the General to place upon us some further
restriction, as punishment for what he considered an unmannerly
exhibition of independence.
Of these bold bids for freedom none stood any very real chance of
success, and towards the end they became somewhat discredited, as they
involved certain inconveniences on those who had resigned themselves to
their fate. There would be additional roll-calls, and precautions. Whole
rooms were searched and ransacked, a most disagreeable proceeding. And
on one occasion the attempt was made from the theatre, which led to the
closing of that hall of pleasure during an entire morning while the
complete staging apparatus was overhauled, and examined. This caused
genuine annoyance, especially as the ravages of the soldiery delayed for
three days a performance that had been the centre of much curiosity and
conjecture. And this annoyance became almost indignation, when it
transpired that this herald of defiance had provisioned himself for his
long journey with nothing more substantial than a tin of skipper
sardines, two oxo cubes, and a tin of mustard. The general opinion was
that if a man was “such a damned fool as to carry that sort of stuff
about with him, he had no right to try to escape, upsetting arrangements
and all.”
And on this type of sally the theatre incident rang down the curtain.
But under this category it is impossible to number the attempts of
Colonel Wright. His methods were very different; they were not showy; he
did not talk about what he was going to do. And as a result he very
nearly succeeded.
The chief ingenuity of the Scarlet Pimpernel lay, as far as I can
remember, in his grasp of the fact that it is the obvious that evades
suspicion. Sentries are on the lookout for an escape by night, but by
day they are off their guard. And working on this plan, both Colonel
Wright’s attempts were made by daylight. Indeed they were both so simple
that in cold blood they looked quite ridiculous. The first attempt
failed completely, and but for his later achievement, one might have
been tempted to wonder how the gallant colonel could have expected any
different result.
Alone of the Pitt Escape League he literally did not progress a yard;
not one foot did he advance. In broad daylight he was arrested where he
stood, or rather, where he sat, for it was in that position that he was
discovered.
The plan was not elaborate. Once a week a cart from the laundry came to
collect dirty linen from the camp and take it away to be cleaned. And to
keep a check on the returns, a British orderly always went with it.
Colonel Wright’s scheme was to impersonate the orderly, to get himself
conducted safely outside the gates, and once there to rely on his own
speed and ingenuity to effect an escape. It might have come off; there
was an outside chance, remote certainly, but still a chance; however, he
was given no opportunity of gauging his share of the two requisite
abilities. It is true he got into the cart and sat quietly in a far
corner; but before even the harness had begun to jingle, he had been
recognised and arrested. A grey business, but he was in no wise daunted.
And within a few weeks he had his hand to the wheel again.
His second scheme was considerably more elaborate, but was none the
less sufficiently obvious. Zero hour was fixed for half-past five, and
at five o’clock in a far corner of the square preparations were begun
for a boxing match. Towels and chairs were set out, sponges and bowls of
water appeared, and two brawny Scotsmen shivered in greatcoats. There
had been no previous notice of this engagement, but interest was
speedily kindled, and within a quarter of an hour quite a large crowd
had assembled. The close of the opening round was the signal for a
marked display of enthusiasm. And it was in the middle of the second
round that Colonel Wright made his dash. No one noticed him. The
sentries were absorbed in the boxing, and those whose attentions showed
signs of wandering were engaged in conversation by two field officers
who could speak German. And Colonel Wright, clad in a suit of civilian
clothes, cut through the wire netting of the first entanglement, and
dashed across the open. In a few seconds he had swarmed over the second
series and was out of sight. It was a most daring and brilliant piece
of work. All that remained for him now was to lie till nightfall in the
shadow of the wall. Then when it was dark he could choose an auspicious
moment and lower himself to the ground.
It was a plan that certainly deserved success, and as the hours passed
we began to hope that some one had at last got clean away. There was
some anxiety lest his absence should be spotted at roll-call, but when
nine o’clock came and went, we felt that all was well. And then just
before ten o’clock the two whistle blasts rang out. Colonel Wright had
been retaken.
And if the story that we heard afterwards is true, chance was
outrageously unkind. He had waited till it was quite dark, and had
carefully watched for the moment when the beat of the outside sentry
carried his warders out of earshot. He had then lowered himself from the
wall; and it was here that his luck deserted him. For a couple of lovers
had selected that particular part of the battlements as a shelter for
their amorous dalliance. And the point at which Colonel Wright would
have landed was removed from them by scarcely a dozen yards. He was
instantly detected. Yet, with a very little luck, things might still
have turned out favourably; for the man, who seemed sufficiently
intrigued with his partner, gave him only a cursory glance and returned
to the matter in hand; but the woman, with an eye to advertisement,
characteristic of her sex, gave expression to her feelings in a series
of piercing shrieks. Colonel Wright was instantly arrested.
The sentries found on him a hundred marks of German money, and a railway
ticket to Frankfurt. And if he could only have got clear of the camp, I
believe he would have had little difficulty in getting to the frontier.
For he spoke German excellently and had friends in that part of the
country. He had also the nerve and ingenuity which alone could have
rendered such a feat possible. This the authorities must have realised;
for a few days later he was moved to another camp. What he did there, we
do not know. But rumour has it that on the journey he made three more
attempts to break away. And doubtless in a camp with fewer natural
defences he would sooner or later have succeeded in outwitting his
captors.
But as regards Mainz the gloomy record of its impregnability still
stands. At one time or another it has been the temporary home of
Russians, French and English; all three have in their turn tried to
escape, and all have failed. After four years of warfare Mainz is still
the inviolable citadel.