_Free for Three Days_
At last one summer’s evening they gathered around the supper table and
Ben failed to appear. I would give worlds to have seen the expressions
on their faces then, and on the sentry’s later when he came and found
no _Engländer_ there to lock up. I had come to seem too permanent
there! I was as much an institution on the place as the dog, Telo, or
the broken pump.
While they were making these rude discoveries I lay crouched on a bed
of moss in a secluded dell in one of the grand duke’s forests smoking
my pipe and speculating as to whether another fortnight would find
me in Denmark or in a German jail. I had just finished a good supper
of bread, “bully,” condensed milk, and dates from my box of English
provisions and was resting a moment before going on.
My linen collar wilted with perspiration and I threw it away, having
plenty more in my bag to put on in the morning. I had spent most of the
afternoon in putting together my civilian attire, for I had to escape
from the village in my prisoner’s garb. I carried patches of black
cloth in my pockets, accurately cut out to fit the prisoner’s stripes
on my cap and trousers. These I sewed on in the midst of a rye field
immediately I got clear of the village. My coat, I had found, would
not admit of alteration, so I had contrived to get another. I walked
into the little room adjoining the barn, belonging to Warner, the old
care-taker, and selecting the best of the coats hanging there, a gay
cream-colored creation, I put it on under my black one. Then I put two
suits of my new English underwear in a parcel under his bed, for I
did not care to steal from Warner. He had seen me thrash a German boy
without reporting it and had befriended me on various occasions. On top
of the parcel I scribbled a note:
“DEAR WARNER:
“This underwear is in exchange for your coat which I must take with
me. _Danke schön. Auf Wiedersehen!_
BEN.”
I spent most of the time tramping, stopping when tired or when the
view pleased me, for a rest, and sleeping in the middle of the day.
I passed through numerous villages and towns whose names I usually
learned from the mile-posts along the road. These were about ten feet
high and at night I had to climb up them and hold my eyes close to the
board to read the inscription. It was the first time I had spent the
night outside of my cell for many months and I enjoyed the sight of the
moon and the stars again. The long North German twilight was glorious,
too, and I often lay on some hillside above the fields and meadows and
villages, and watched it while I rested.
I was seldom accosted. I nearly ran into an old gentleman in a forest
on one occasion, however. He was a thin, academic-looking old chap,
wearing glasses and a frock coat, and carrying a cane. What brought
him to the forest at that unseemly hour I have never been able to
imagine. It was just after midnight and the darkness was so dense that
we could neither of us see the other until we were within a few inches
proximity, and the mossy earth so effectually concealed the sound of
our footsteps that we narrowly averted a collision.
“_Donnerwetter!_”[9] he screamed in a squeaky voice, throwing up his
hands and dropping his cane.
I was startled too, but finding him quite harmless, I bade him: “_Guten
Abend!_”[10] and, laughing, walked on.
Everywhere through this farming country I saw prisoners of war at work,
often more numerous than the German laborers. Like faithful slaves in
the small farmyards or like gangs of convicts on the big estates, they
carried on constantly the work of the absent German men and tilled
Germany’s soil. With dull and hardened faces and uniforms stained and
patched until Cossack was scarcely distinguishable from _chasseur_,
they drudged wearily on.
I was arrested by an animated scene on the rye fields of a big estate.
About thirty English, French, and Russian prisoners with a sprinkling
of Polish girls were harvesting and threshing the rye. The sun was
scorching hot, and their faces were black with dust and perspiration
as they bent over the big, relentless machine. The sole German on the
scene, a fat sentry, was sitting on a bench in the shade of a tree,
sipping a glass of beer!
FOOTNOTES:
[9] Exclamation about equal to “Good Heavens!”
[10] Good evening.