AWAY AGAIN
Why the Prisoners Walked--Cold Feet Again--The Man Who Turned and
Fled--Brumley's Precious Legs--The Wait in the Wood--The Cunning
of the Hunted--Bad Days in the Swamps--Within Four Miles of
Freedom--The Kaiser's Birthday--Another Trip to Holland.
Simmons and Brumley, together with my companion of the first escape,
had determined to make a break for it with me. And although we were
not quite ready at this time the addition to the guards forced our
decision. We had a scanty supply of biscuits saved up and I had
wheedled a file from a friendly Russian; Simmons got a bit of a map
from a Frenchman; and we secured a watch from a Belgian. With this
international outfit we were ready, except that we lacked a sufficient
store of food. However, there was no help for that.
The laager was a twelve-foot-high barbed wire enclosure, eighty feet
wide by three hundred long, with the hut occupying the greater part of
the central space. There was sufficient room below the bottom wire to
permit the trained camp dogs to get in and out at us.
They patrolled the four-foot lane that enclosed the laager and
wandered up and down it, their tongues out, always on the alert. They
were as well confined as we were, since the outer wall of wire was
built down close to the ground. They were very savage and seemed
instinctively to regard us as enemies; as all good German dogs should.
The sworn evidence of prisoners exchanged since my escape mentions
that in one case an imbecile Belgian was daily led out to the fields,
wrapped up in several layers of clothes and then set upon by the dogs
under the guidance of their guards; this was for the better
instruction of the dogs.
At each corner of the laager there hung an arc light. The sphere of
light from those at the end did not quite meet and so left a small
shadow in the center of the end fence.
As soon as night came we arranged that six other men should walk to
and fro from the end of the hut to the shadow at the wire, as though
for exercise. Others, ourselves included, clustered round the end of
the hut. I watched my chance, and when the moment seemed favorable,
fell into step beside the promenaders.
We swung boldly out, intent apparently, on nothing. Our arrival at the
inner wire synchronized with that of one of the guards beyond the
outer wire. We turned about without appearing to have seen him. Still
walking briskly, we reached the hut and turned again. The guard's back
was now turned; he was walking away. At his present rate of travel he
should be twenty yards off when we next reached the wire. We dared not
chance suspicion by slackening our gait. My heart stopped.
As we reached the shadow I fell prone and lay motionless. No dogs were
in sight. Niagara pounded in at my ears but no hostile sound indicated
that I had been observed. I dragged myself carefully through and under
the clearance left for the dogs, until my cap brushed the lower wires
of the main and outer fence. My feet still projected beyond the inner
wire into the main enclosure so that on their next trip one of my
comrades inadvertently touched my foot, startling me.
[Illustration: RECORD OF SECOND ESCAPE AND RECAPTURE.]
I held the strand in my left hand and fell to filing with my right so
that at the snap there should be no noisy rebound of the spring-like
wire. A post was at my right, and, the wire having been nailed to it,
I was safe from this danger on that side.
The sound of the tramp of those faithful feet receded but the sound of
them came strongly back to me like a message of hope.
By the time they were back once more I had cut through three strands
and was crawling cautiously toward my objective, a pile of peat two
hundred yards distant, which seemed to offer cover as a breathing spot
and starting point. On the signal from the promenaders that I was
through the wire, Simmons followed, and after him, Brumley. The other
man lived up to the example he had previously set himself. He drew
back in alarm and refused to make the attempt.
With twenty-five guards all about and some only thirty feet away, the
very impudence of the plan offered our only hope of success. I still
lacked fifty yards of the peat heap when I heard three shots, next
the dogs, and then the general outcry which followed the detection of
Brumley.
I rose to my feet and ran. We had already mapped out our course in
advance by daylight, for just such a contingency; so I struck boldly
out. I was still in the swamp to my knees, and under those conditions
even the short start we had might prove sufficient, since our pursuers
would also bog down. The swamp was intersected by a series of small
ditches and scattered bushes, which added to the difficulty of the
passage. I heard Brumley floundering and swearing behind and went back
to pull him out of a bottomless ditch. Simmons joined us while I was
still struggling with him. In another hour Brumley's legs played out.
We could still make out the lights of the laager. It was vitally
necessary to push on; so we encouraged him as best we could and
managed, somehow, to reach the edge of the swamp by daylight. We put
ourselves on the meagre rations our store allowed, one biscuit for
breakfast and another for supper, with a bit of chocolate on the side.
We had apparently outdistanced the pursuit. We prayed that our friends
might not be too severely punished for their part in our escape.
We lay in the heather all day, soaked to the skin with the brackish
water of the swamp, the odor of which still hung to our clothes. It
was January and very cold and sleep was impossible under such
conditions. We nibbled our tiny rations and struck out as soon as
darkness came. Our plan was to go straight across country, but Brumley
could not navigate the rough going of the fields; although on the
level roads he made out fairly well. So we chanced it on the latter.
Brumley was struggling along manfully but his legs caused him great
suffering. At about two o'clock in the morning we lay to in the shadow
of a clump of trees at the roadside, thinking to ease him a bit. He
flung himself down. Simmons massaged Brumley's legs whilst I watched.
We had just said: "Come on," and they were rising to their feet, when
another figure stepped off the road and in amongst our trees. It was
so dark where we stood that he probably would not have seen us had not
Brumley at that very moment been rising to his feet. He appeared as
much surprised as we were and started back as though in amazement. And
then without more ado, he turned and fled the way we had come whilst
we made what haste we could in the opposite direction, all equally
alarmed.
Who he was or what he wanted, we could only surmise. If he was not
also an escaped prisoner then he must have been badly wanted by the
authorities to have been travelling in such a fashion at such an hour;
and above all, to have been so alarmed by this chance meeting with
fugitives. In any event we wished him luck and promptly forgot all
about him.
Later on in the night our road led us directly into a village. We
hesitated as to what we should do. Brumley was for pushing through.
The alternative was to go round and through the fields, lose valuable
time and play out Brumley's precious legs. It was past midnight, so we
decided on the village route, and started on.
We passed through without being molested, but just as we were leaving
the other side some civilians saw us and shouted "Halt!" and other
words meaning "to shoot." We paid no attention. Espying a wood in the
distance, we struck out for it. Brumley was in misery and threw up the
sponge. We stopped to argue with him, at the same time dragging him
along, and while doing so saw two more civilians rushing up and
shouting as they came. Lights began to spring up all over the village.
Brumley stopped dead and refused to go farther. We had previously
agreed that if anything should happen to any one of us the others were
to push on, every man for himself. No good could be gained by fighting
when we were so hopelessly outnumbered, so Simmons and I rushed into
the wood, swung around and out again and lay down on the edge of it,
in time to see them take Brumley and come sweeping by us in hot
pursuit. The main body stopped only a moment to inspect their capture,
gathering around poor Brumley so that we could not at first see what
had happened to him. Then several of them started back toward the
village, with him limping along at their side. Ten yards away a knot
of them gathered and assisted another up into a tree to watch for us.
One handed him a rifle and the pursuit went on into the wood.
Occasionally we heard the sentinel stirring.
We scarcely breathed. It seemed impossible that he could not hear the
pounding of our hearts. We grew quite stiff in our cramped positions,
but feared to shift a limb and waited for three-quarters of an hour
before we dared to worm our way cautiously in the other direction. The
snap of a twig was like that of a rifle on the stillness of the night.
Once we stopped, thinking that certainly he had heard us. It was only
the beat of a night bird's wings. We dared take only an inch at a
time, sliding forward on our bellies and then--waiting.
We met another sentry farther up, but worked around him in safety and
with more of ease, as we were by this time on our feet.
Arriving at the end of the small wood, we walked boldly across the
intervening fields to another one, large enough to afford cover for an
army corps, and there felt comparatively safe.
We were, however, very wet and cold and altogether miserable, buoyed
up only by the liberty ahead. As it was only two o'clock, we pushed on
for several hours before stopping to lie by for the day.
For days we carried on thus without discovery. Each night was a
repetition of the preceding one, an interminable fighting of our way
through dark forests, into and out of sloppy ditches, over fields and
through thorny hedges, dodging the lights of villages.
We went solely by the stars, which Simmons understood after a fashion,
and, aided by our map, we held fairly well to our general direction.
We had no other sources of information than our own good sense. We
watched the sky ahead at night for the glow which might indicate to us
the size of the community ahead; and aided by a close observation of
railroads, telegraph wires and the quality of the wagon roads and the
quantity of travel on them, were able to form fairly accurate
estimates of where we were and which places to avoid. Except on
unfrequented byways we travelled by the fields, hugging the road from
a distance. This made travel arduous but safer.
At that, we were sometimes spoken to in neighborly greeting. We
grunted indifferently in reply, as an unsociable man might. When, as
sometimes happened, people rose up in front of us from gateways or
hidden roads, it was very disconcerting. On such occasions only the
darkness saved us, for we took no chances, wherever there were lights.
It was really harder in the day time; when, try as we might, we could
not count on avoiding for our hiding place the scene of some
labourer's toil or perhaps the covert of some child's play. We slept
by turns with one always on guard. It was difficult indeed for the
guard not to neglect his duty, so utterly weary were we. The lying
position we needs must retain all day long aided that tendency, and
yet we were always so wet and cold that real sleep was difficult to
secure.
In this district the swamps were numerous and difficult to cross. The
small ditches and canals that drained them or the almost equally
swampy fields added to our grief. The feet slipped back at each muddy
step: We fell into ditches: Dogs barked: And we almost wept.
Once a dog helped us by his barking. It was night and we were crossing
a very bad swamp, an old peat bog which was full of the ditches and
holes that the peat had been taken from. These were full of black
water which merged so naturally into the prevailing darkness that we
repeatedly fell into them. We floundered out of one only to fall into
another, uncertain where we were going and lost to all sense of
direction. There was no vestige of track or road. It was then that
the dog barked. We stopped to listen, conversing in low tones.
Certainly, we thought, the dog must be near a house and that meant dry
land and a footing. So we advanced in the direction of the sound,
stopping to listen to each fresh outburst so as to make certain that
we should not approach too closely. Apparently he had smelt us on the
wind.
Before we reached the dog we felt the solid ground under foot and were
off once more at a tangent from the sound of his barking.
The swamps were a great trouble to us, as were also some of the
fields, so cut up by ditches and hedges were they, and yet, in order
to avoid the roads and the wires, we frequently had to lay a
circuitous route to avoid these obstacles or else chance the road,
which we would not do. Often, when we could see our course lying
straight ahead on the road, we put about and tacked off and away from
it because a parallel course was impossible on account of the swampy
nature of the ground. With these bad places passed we could perhaps
pull back to our true course again, but only after double the travel
that should have been necessary.
However, we did not mind that so much. Nor did we greatly mind the
short rations we were on. The other privations were too severe for us
to notice these minor ones.
The worst was the continual state of wetness and the resultant
coldness of our bodies. It was not so bad at night when we were
walking and so kept our blood circulating, but by day it was very bad.
We used to pray for night and the end of our enforced rest. We were
never dry or warm but were always very cold and miserable. The sun, on
those rare occasions when it came forth, did not appear until ten or
eleven in the morning. By mid-afternoon it was again a thing of the
past. At best it was very weak and we had to hide in the bushes where
it could not reach us. All we could do was to take off one garment at
a time and thrust it cautiously out near the edge of our hiding-place
to some spot on which the sun shone. Under these conditions we grew
steadily weaker on our allowance of two biscuits a day; for the time
of year precluded the possibility of there being any crops for us to
fall back upon for food, and it was too risky a proceeding to attempt
to steal from the householders.
[Illustration: GERMAN PRISONERS MARCHING THROUGH GOOD NATURED
ENGLISH CROWDS AT SOUTHAMPTON.]
[Illustration: HIGH EXPLOSIVES BURSTING OVER GERMAN TRENCHES.
BRITISH DEAD IN FOREGROUND.]
On the eighth day we reached the River Ems. We had no difficulty in
recognising it, as it was the only large one on our map that lay on
the route we had chosen, and we had passed nothing even faintly
resembling it, with the exception of some large canals, which were
easily recognizable as such and which we had swum. We made out trees
which appeared to be on the other shore.
We regretfully decided that it was too late to attempt the crossing
that night. The daylight proved the line of trees to be merely the
tops of a flooded woodland. The shore was a good quarter of a mile
away. It was January; the water was cold and full of floating ice, and
very swift. Fording was out of the question. For two days and nights
we wandered up and down the bank, vainly seeking a boat or raft with
which to make the crossing. We finally discovered a large bridge,
which was submerged except for its flood-time arches. There was no
sign of life and it looked safe, so we proceeded to cross. We
discovered, however, that we had not reached the bridge proper, but
were merely on the approach to it. We dropped off onto the main steel
portion. The wind beat the cold rain against us so that we could
neither see nor hear. However, we went on and were nearly across when
suddenly a light flashed on us and we heard a startled "Halt!"
We could barely make out the mass of buildings that indicated the line
of the shore. It seemed too bad to throw up the sponge so easily.
I said under my breath to Simmons: "We'll push right on," and loudly:
"Hollander!" thinking we might perhaps get far enough away to make a
run for it. But there was no show: It was too far to the shore.
There was a shouted command and the clatter of rifle-bolts striking
home. It was no use. We stopped and shouted that we would not run, and
then waited while they advanced toward us.
The elderly Landsturmers guarding the bridge gathered us in and took
us over to their guardroom at the hotel. We judged the incident to be
an epoch in the monotony of their soldierly duties. They were very
good to us. Two of them moved away from the fire to make room for our
wet misery and they gave us a pot of boiling water, two bivouac cocoa
tablets and a loaf of black bread. The news spread, and civilians
dropped in to stare at and question us. In the morning the entire
population came to see the _Englaender_ prisoners. We learned that we
were only four miles from Holland, and cursed aloud. The town was
Lathen and when, the next morning, we discovered that it was gayly
bedecked with flags and bunting we decided that we were indeed
personages of note if we could cause such a celebration. However, it
was only the Kaiser's birthday.
In the afternoon they took us by rail to Meppen and shoved us in the
civilian jail, where we were allowed a daily ration of two ounces of
black bread, one pint of gruel and three-quarters of a pint of coffee
for two days, until, on January thirtieth, an escort came from
Vehnmoor. They roped us together with a clothes-line, arm to arm, and
marched us through the principal streets by a roundabout route to the
station so that all might see.
We were unwashed, unshaven and so altogether disreputable as to
satisfy the most violent hatred--such for instance as we found here.
It did not require our pride to keep our hearts up or to keep us from
feeling the humiliation of so cruel an ordeal. We simply did not
experience the painful sensations that such a proceeding would
ordinarily arouse in the breast of any man; just as after heavy
shell-fire no man feels either fear or courage; he is too dazed and
stupid for either. Many spat at us and good old _Englaender Schwein_
came to us from every side. It seemed like meeting an old friend,
after our few days away from it. The faces of these people were
different from those we had left at camp but their hearts were the
same. They lined the streets and jeered at us. But we were too tired
and hungry to care.
And that ended that trip to Holland.