Thanks to A Celebration of Women Writers
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/
for providing the source text.
THREE TIMES AND OUT
TOLD BY
PRIVATE SIMMONS
WRITTEN BY
NELLIE L. MCCLUNG
Author of SOWING SEEDS IN DANNY, IN TIMES LIKE THESE,
and THE NEXT OF KIN
With Illustrations
TORONTO
THOMAS ALLEN
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
1918
To the companion who failed
through no fault of his and
no lack of courage
TOM BROMLEY
loyal friend and best of com-
rades, this book is dedicated.
PREFACE
When a young man whom I had not seen until that day came to see me
in Edmonton, and told me he had a story which he thought was worth
writing, and which he wanted me to write for him, I told him I could
not undertake to do it for I was writing a story of my own, but that
I could no doubt find some one who would do it for him.
Then he mentioned that he was a returned soldier, and had been for
sixteen months a prisoner in Germany, and had made his escape--
That changed everything!
I asked him to come right in and tell me all about it--for like every
one else I have friends in the prison-camps of Germany, boys whom I
remember as little chaps in knickers playing with my children, boys
I taught in country schools in Manitoba, boys whose parents are my
friends. There are many of these whom we know to be prisoners, and
there are some who have been listed as "missing," who we are still
hoping against long odds may be prisoners!
I asked him many questions. How were they treated? Did they get
enough to eat? Did they get their parcels? Were they very lonely?
Did he by any chance know a boy from Vancouver called Wallen Gordon,
who had been "Missing" since the 2d of June, 1916? Or Reg Black from
Manitou? or Garnet Stewart from Winnipeg?
Unfortunately, he did not.
Then he began his story. Before he had gone far, I had determined to
do all I could to get his story into print, for it seemed to me to be
a story that should be written. It gives at least a partial answer
to the anxious questionings that are in so many hearts. It tells us
something of the fate of the brave fellows who have, temporarily,
lost their freedom--to make our freedom secure!
Private Simmons is a close and accurate observer who sees clearly
and talks well. He tells a straightforward, unadorned tale, every
sentence of which is true, and convincing. I venture to hope that
the reader may have as much pleasure in the reading of it as I had
in the writing.
NELLIE L. McCLUNG
Edmonton, October 24, 1918
CONTENTS
I. HOW IT STARTED
II. THROUGH BELGIUM
III. INTO GERMANY
IV. THE LAZARET
V. THE PRISON-CAMP
VI. ROSSBACH
VII. THE ESCAPE
VIII. OFF FOR SWITZERLAND!
IX. CAUGHT!
X. THE CELLS!
XI. THE STRAFE-BARRACK
XII. BACK TO CAMP
XIII. CELLELAGER
XIV. OFF FOR HOLLAND!
XV. CAUGHT AGAIN
XVI. THE INVISIBLE BROTHERHOOD
XVII. THE CELLS AT OLDENBUBG
XVIII. PARNEWINKEL CAMP
XIX. THE BLACKEST CHAPTER OF ALL
XX. ONCE AGAIN!
XXI. TRAVELLERS OF THE NIGHT
XXII. THE LONG ROAD TO FREEDOM
XXIII. OUT
CONCLUSION
ILLUSTRATIONS
PRIVATE SIMMONS
From a photograph taken since his return to Canada
OFFICER'S QUARTERS IN A GERMAN MILITARY PRISON
GIESSEN PRISON-CAMP
TED BROMLEY, IN RED CROSS OVERCOAT WITH PRISON
NUMBER AND MARKED SLEEVE
GERMAN PRISON STAMP
These stamps are used to pay prisoners for their work and
to be exchanged for any money they may have when captured
TWO PAGES FROM PRIVATE SIMMONS'S DIARY
MAP MADE BY PRIVATE SIMMONS OF THE FIRST ATTEMPT
THE CHRISTMAS CARD WHICH THE GIESSEN PRISON AUTHORITIES
SUPPLIED TO THE PRISONERS
MAP MADE FROM PAPER WHICH CAME IN A PARCEL, WRAPPED AROUND
A FRUIT-CAKE
FRIEDRICHSFELD PRISON-CAMP IN WINTER
MAP WHICH PRIVATE SIMMONS GOT FROM THE CANADIAN ARTIST AT
GIESSEN, SHOWING ROUTES OF SECOND AND THIRD ATTEMPTS
FRIEDRICHSFELD PRISON-CAMP IN SUMMER
A PRISON POST-CARD FROM FRIEDRICHSFELD BEI WESEL, SHOWING
COSMOPOLITAN GROUP OF PRISONERS
POST-CARD SENT BY PRIVATE BROMLEY FROM THE PRISON-CAMP OF
SOLTAU, SHOWING GRAVES OF PRISONERS
THREE TIMES AND OUT
CHAPTER I
HOW IT STARTED
"England has declared war on Germany!"
We were working on a pumphouse, on the Columbia River, at Trail,
British Columbia, when these words were shouted at us from the door
by the boss carpenter, who had come down from the smelter to tell us
that the news had just come over the wire.
Every one stopped work, and for a full minute not a word was spoken.
Then Hill, a British reservist who was my work-mate, laid down his
hammer and put on his coat. There was neither haste nor excitement in
his movements, but a settled conviction that gave me a queer feeling.
I began to argue just where we had left off, for the prospect of war
had been threshed out for the last two days with great thoroughness.
"It will be settled," I said. "Nations cannot go to war now. It would
be suicide, with all the modern methods of destruction. It will be
settled by a war council--and all forgotten in a month."
Hill, who had argued so well a few minutes ago and told us all the
reasons he had for expecting war with Germany, would not waste a word
on me now. England was at war--and he was part of England's war
machine.
"I am quitting, George," he said to the boss carpenter, as he pulled
his cap down on his head and started up the bank.
That night he began to drill us in the skating-rink.
I worked on for about a week, but from the first I determined to go
if any one went from Canada. I don't suppose it was all patriotism.
Part of it was the love of adventure, and a desire to see the world;
for though I was a steady-going carpenter chap, I had many dreams as
I worked with hammer and saw, and one of them was that I would travel
far and see how people lived in other countries. The thought of war
had always been repellent to me, and many an argument I had had
with the German baker in whose house I roomed, on the subject of
compulsory military training for boys. He often pointed out a
stoop-shouldered, hollow-chested boy who lived on the same street,
and told me that if this boy had lived in Germany he would have
walked straighter and developed a chest, instead of slouching through
life the way he was doing. He and his wife and the grown-up daughter
were devoted to their country, and often told us of how well the
working-people were housed in Germany and the affairs of the country
conducted.
But I think the war was as great a surprise to them as to us, and
although the two women told us we were foolish to go to fight--it was
no business of ours if England wanted to get into a row--it made no
difference in our friendly relations, and the day we left Clara came
to the station with a box of candy. I suppose if we had known as much
then as we do now about German diplomacy, we shouldn't have eaten it,
but we only knew then that Clara's candy was the best going, and so
we ate it, and often wished for more.
I have since heard, however, of other Germans in Canada who knew more
of their country's plans, and openly spoke of them. One of these,
employed by the Government, told the people in the office where he
worked that when Germany got hold of Canada, she would straighten out
the crooked streets in our towns and not allow shacks to be built on
the good streets, and would see to it that houses were not crowded
together; and the strangest part of it is that the people to whom he
spoke attached no importance whatever to his words until the war came
and the German mysteriously disappeared.
* * *
I never really enlisted, for we had no recruiting meetings in Trail
before I left. We went to the skating-rink the first night, about
fifteen of us, and began to drill. Mr. Schofield, Member of the
Provincial Parliament, and Hill were in charge, and tested our
marksmanship as well. They graded us according to physical tests,
marksmanship, and ability to pick up the drill, and I was quite
pleased to find I was Number "One" on the list.
There was a young Italian boy named Adolph Milachi, whom we called
"Joe," who came to drill the first night, and although he could not
speak much English, he was determined to be a soldier. I do not know
what grudge little Joe had against the Germans, whether it was just
the love of adventure which urged him on, but he overruled all
objections to his going and left with the others of us, on the last
day of August.
I remember that trip through the mountains in that soft, hazy,
beautiful August weather; the mountain-tops, white with snow, were
wrapped about with purple mist which twisted and shifted as if never
satisfied with their draping. The sheer rocks in the mountain-sides,
washed by a recent rain, were streaked with dull reds and blues and
yellows, like the old-fashioned rag carpet. The rivers whose banks
we followed ran blue and green, and icy cold, darting sometimes so
sharply under the track that it jerked one's neck to follow them; and
then the stately evergreens marched always with us, like endless
companies of soldiers or pilgrims wending their way to a favorite
shrine.
When we awakened the second morning, and found ourselves on the wide
prairie of Alberta, with its many harvest scenes and herds of cattle,
and the gardens all in bloom, one of the boys said, waving his hand
at a particularly handsome house set in a field of ripe wheat, "No
wonder the Germans want it!"
* * *
My story really begins April 24, 1915. Up to that time it had been
the usual one--the training in England, with all the excitement of
week-end leave; the great kindness of English families whose friends
in Canada had written to them about us, and who had forthwith sent
us their invitations to visit them, which we did with the greatest
pleasure, enjoying every minute spent in their beautiful houses; and
then the greatest thrill of all--when we were ordered to France.
The 24th of April was a beautiful spring day of quivering sunshine,
which made the soggy ground in the part of Belgium where I was fairly
steam. The grass was green as plush, and along the front of the
trenches, where it had not been trodden down, there were yellow
buttercups and other little spring flowers whose names I did not
know.
We had dug the trenches the day before, and the ground was so marshy
and wet that water began to ooze in before we had dug more than three
feet. Then we had gone on the other side and thrown up more dirt,
to make a better parapet, and had carried sand-bags from an old
artillery dug-out. Four strands of barbed wire were also put up
in front of our trenches, as a sort of suggestion of barbed-wire
entanglements, but we knew we had very little protection.
Early in the morning of the 24th, a German aeroplane flew low over
our trench, so low that I could see the man quite plainly, and could
easily have shot him, but we had orders not to fire--the object of
these orders being that we must not give away our position.
The airman saw us, of course, for he looked right down at us, and
dropped down white pencils of smoke to show the gunners where we
were. That big gray beetle sailing serenely over us, boring us with
his sharp eyes, and spying out our pitiful attempts at protection, is
one of the most unpleasant feelings I have ever had. It gives me the
shivers yet! And to think we had orders not to fire!
Being a sniper, I had a rifle fixed up with a telescopic sight, which
gave me a fine view of what was going on, and in order not to lose
the benefit of it, I cleaned out a place in a hedge, which was just
in front of the part of the trench I was in, and in this way I could
see what was happening, at least in my immediate vicinity.
We knew that the Algerians who were holding a trench to our left had
given way and stampeded, as a result of a German gas attack on the
night of April 22d. Not only had the front line broken, but, the
panic spreading, all of them ran, in many cases leaving their rifles
behind them. Three companies of our battalion had been hastily sent
in to the gap caused by the flight of the Algerians. Afterwards I
heard that our artillery had been hurriedly withdrawn so that it
might not fall into the hands of the enemy; but we did not know that
at the time, though we wondered, as the day went on, why we got no
artillery support.
Before us, and about fifty yards away, were deserted farm buildings,
through whose windows I had instructions to send shots at intervals,
to discourage the enemy from putting in machine guns. To our right
there were other farm buildings where the Colonel and Adjutant were
stationed, and in the early morning I was sent there with a message
from Captain Scudamore, to see why our ammunition had not come up.
I found there Colonel Hart McHarg, Major Odlum (now Brigadier-General
Odlum), and the Adjutant in consultation, and thought they looked
worried and anxious. However, they gave me a cheerful message for
Captain Scudamore. It was very soon after that that Colonel Hart
McHarg was killed.
The bombardment began at about nine o'clock in the morning, almost
immediately after the airman's visit, and I could see the heavy
shells bursting in the village at the cross-roads behind us. They
were throwing the big shells there to prevent reinforcements from
coming up. They evidently did not know, any more than we did, that
there were none to come, the artillery having been withdrawn the
night before.
Some of the big shells threw the dirt as high as the highest trees.
When the shells began to fall in our part of the trench, I crouched
as low as I could in the soggy earth, to escape the shrapnel bullets.
Soon I got to know the sound of the battery that was dropping the
shells on us, and so knew when to take cover. One of our boys to my
left was hit by a pebble on the cheek, and, thinking he was wounded,
he fell on the ground and called for a stretcher-bearer. When the
stretcher-bearer came, he could find nothing but a scratch on his
cheek, and all of us who were not too scared had a laugh, including
the boy himself.
I think it was about one o'clock in the afternoon that the Germans
broke through the trench on our right, where Major Bing-Hall was in
command; and some of the survivors from that trench came over to
ours. One of them ran right to where I was, and pushed through the
hole I had made in the hedge, to get a shot at the enemy. I called
to him to be careful, but some sniper evidently saw him, for in less
than half a minute he was shot dead, and fell at my side.
An order to "retreat if necessary" had been received before this, but
for some reason, which I have never been able to understand, was not
put into effect until quite a while after being received. When the
order came, we began to move down the trench as fast as we could, but
as the trench was narrow and there were wounded and dead men in it,
our progress was slow.
Soon I saw Robinson, Smith, and Ward climbing out of the trench and
cutting across the field. This was, of course, dangerous, for we were
in full view of the enemy, but it was becoming more and more evident
that we were in a tight corner. So I climbed out, too, and ran across
the open as fast as I could go with my equipment. I got just past the
hedge when I was hit through the pocket of my coat. I thought I was
wounded, for the blow was severe, but found out afterwards the bullet
had just passed through my coat pocket.
I kept on going, but in a few seconds I got a bullet right through
my shoulder. It entered below my arm at the back, and came out just
below the shoulder-bone, making a clean hole right through.
I fell into a shallow shell-hole, which was just the size to take me
in, and as I lay there, the possibility of capture first came to me.
Up to that time I had never thought of it as a possible contingency;
but now, as I lay wounded, the grave likelihood came home to me.
I scrambled to my feet, resolved to take any chances rather than be
captured. I have an indistinct recollection of what happened for the
next few minutes. I know I ran from shell-hole to shell-hole,
obsessed with the one great fear--of being captured--and at last
reached the reserve trench, in front. I fell over the parapet, among
and indeed right on top of the men who were there, for the trench was
packed full of soldiers, and then quickly gathered myself together
and climbed out of the trench and crawled along on my stomach to the
left, following the trench to avoid the bullets, which I knew were
flying over me.
Soon I saw, looking down into the trench, some of the boys I knew,
and I dropped in beside them. Then everything went from me. A great
darkness arose up from somewhere and swallowed me! Then I had a
delightful sensation of peace and warmth and general comfort.
Darkness, the blackest, inkiest darkness, rolled over me in waves
and hid me so well no Jack Johnson or Big Bertha could ever find me.
I hadn't a care or a thought in the world. I was light as a feather,
and these great strong waves of darkness carried me farther and
farther away.
But they didn't carry me quite far enough, for a cry shot through me
like a knife, and I was wide awake, looking up from the bottom of a
muddy trench. And the cry that wakened me was sounding up and down
the trench, "The Germans are coming!"
Sergeant Reid, who did not seem to realize how desperate the
situation was, was asking Major Bing-Hall what he was going to do.
But before any more could be said, the Germans were swarming over the
trench. The officer in charge of them gave us a chance to surrender,
which we did, and then it seemed like a hundred voices--harsh,
horrible voices--called to us to come out of the trench. "Raus" is
the word they use, pronounced "rouse."
This was the first German word I had heard, and I hated it. It is the
word they use to a dog when they want him to go out, or to cattle
they are chasing out of a field. It is used to mean either "Come
out!"--or "Get out!" I hated it that day, and I hated it still more
afterward.
There were about twenty of us altogether, and we climbed out of the
trench without speaking. There was nothing to be said. It was all up
with us.