CROSSING THE FIRST TWO RIVERS
After walking steadily away from the camp in a westerly direction for
about a mile and a half, I found running water which was a God-send.
Here I filled my water bottle (an empty wine bottle bound round with
cloth and string) and had a good drink.
Pushing on to the south-west I continued along a rough track running
through marshy ground. By this time the dawn had spread its light
sufficiently to make objects clear a long way ahead. From the marshy
ground rose the cries of curlews and peewits,--the drumming of snipe
and the hoarse croakings of many frogs making an unearthly tout
ensemble. It was a strange feeling to be out and walking freely along
this quiet track, and the mist which hung about the ground on either
side of the road gave a weird shape to everything. For the first time
I was able to think of other things than the details of escape, and I
counted up my chances. At any rate I had got out, and if I were caught
I should at least have made a determined effort and would be able to
feel I had done my duty in attempting.
After an hour's walking I left the marshy country behind and struck
woods and clumps of young pine trees. At last at about 4.30 a.m. I
approached a metalled road which ran across my front. I advanced
cautiously to the edge of it and then heard German voices. Some boys
and women were milking and tending cattle not far away.
Thinking that to move forward at this hour, which is always one of the
most active in the day with the hard-working farmers of Germany, would
be to risk detection, I decided to rest where I was in hiding. I found
a thick clump of young firs within sixty yards of the road and
deposited my lumpy bag down in a place where the moss was thick and
soft. A drink of water followed by a few biscuits and a piece of
chocolate, sufficed for a meal, and then I lay down and tried to
sleep, which I found impossible to do, although I was tired enough.
It was bitterly cold lying still, and my clothes, wringing wet with
perspiration as they were, clung to me and took away all natural
warmth.
I suppose I got an hour's sleep before 11 o'clock, when it got so hot
that it became quite unpleasant in my hiding-place. These hours passed
very slowly and I felt the need of someone with whom to talk. At 3
o'clock I thought I would move forward and try to get up to the bank
of the river without being seen. After crossing the road I proceeded
for half a mile or so before leaving the thick cover which was
plentiful hereabouts and got into a grove of large trees at the side
of a field. Now I discovered that any further advance was out of the
question at that time, as all the fields in front of me were
hay-fields in the process of being cut, and I could see fourteen or
fifteen Germans working at the cutting. I stayed where I was until
about eight o'clock, when I saw that most of the workers had left the
fields and gone home. I pushed on a bit now, making a detour to the
north, and soon saw the main road bridge over the river.
By watching this I came to the conclusion that it had no guard posted
on it, at any rate by day, but many civilians were walking across, and
a hay cart passed every minute or so.
Pushing on again I crossed the main road and got into the thick cover
to the north of it and close to the river. As I was filthily dirty
from the dust storm I thought I would bathe at a safe spot well away
from the bridge, deciding to post myself in the bushes close up to it
as soon as it became dusk. The bathe passed off without incident, and
after all, as it struck me while I was swimming about, what better
disguise could I have than nakedness. If anyone came along I could act
the German very thoroughly, knowing enough of the language to answer
any question while swimming. The bathe was delightful and refreshed me
exceedingly. After dressing I found that it was practically dark, so
set off for my hiding-place close to the bridge. I got safely to it
and lay down in a ditch running through some bushes within ten yards
of the beginning of the wooden structure.
My plan was to cross as soon as it became quite dark.
I had been there scarcely ten minutes when I saw two German women come
out of the house at the other end of the bridge and cross over towards
me, followed at some thirty yards by a German soldier. He caught them
up just opposite me and all three, talking hard, went some forty yards
along the road, and then sat down in the bushes on my side of it.
Here they were soon joined by another soldier who came from the
direction of the camp, as I discovered on hearing his voice. I was now
so placed that I was actually between them and the bridge, but dared
not move, as I was certain to make the bushes surrounding my
hiding-place rustle and the dead sticks lying about crack. I waited in
hopes that they would go away, but it got quite dark and still the
giggles of the women and the low tones of the men continued.
[Illustration: "AT LAST THE TWO WOMEN GOT UP" (_page 113_).]
At last, at about 11 o'clock, the two women got up, and after standing
talking for a few minutes I heard one of them say to the men, "You
must now remain quite quiet! Nicht?" And they answered yes, and I
heard them all say good-night and the women walked back along the road
across the bridge and went into their own house, leaving the two men
still in the bushes. I waited for them to go also, but they did not
budge. A silence as of the dead came over everything, and I knew then
that they were an ambush, and a very cunningly placed one too.
Naturally, anyone looking to see if a bridge was guarded or not would
expect to find the sentries on the middle or at either end of the
bridge itself and could then clear away from the place if it proved to
be unhealthy. However, this ambush was placed so as to catch any
wretch moving cautiously along the side of the road, straining his
eyes eagerly forward to see if the near end of the bridge was or was
not guarded, little thinking as he did so of any cunning ambush fifty
to sixty yards away from the bridge itself.
_Thursday, 21st June._ I now set myself to tire the Germans out by
waiting, and hoped that in the early hours of the morning they would
be less alert than usual.
I lay there, bitten all over by mosquitos, and having a very
uncomfortable time of it. I heard one of them cough, and then, after
an hour or two of silence, another cough. Altogether I waited about
four hours, and it was not till roughly three o'clock that I thought I
could risk a move.
Very cautiously I now began to crawl on all-fours towards the road,
carefully feeling all the ground as I did so in order to be able to
remove the dead sticks lying across my track. By pushing through the
bushes very slowly I avoided making much of a noise and gained the
embankment along the top of which ran the road, without causing any
suspicion. Here I had a breather and then continued my crawl upwards.
I reached the top of the bank which was the edge of the road, and,
knowing that I was well against the sky-line to the eyes of watchers
below, did not waste much time before turning towards the bridge, and
keeping well down, crawled steadily onwards, reducing the space of
time in which I risked being seen very rapidly. Another fifty yards on
all fours and I ventured to get on to my feet and walk, in my
rubber-soled shoes. Fifty yards more and I was safely off the planking
of the bridge and on to the road proper with plenty of cover all round
me.
As my clothes were of a light coffee tint they assimilated very well
with the colours of the dusty road and the white painted woodwork of
the bridge.
I felt inclined to roar with laughter at the ambush after gaining the
far side of the river, and would dearly have loved to have shouted
insults and gibes back at them, instead of which I continued my walk
quietly along the road, keeping well to one side under the trees which
so often border country roads in Germany. I soon came to a village,
and feeling that this one was too close to the bridge, which had been
guarded, to require anything for itself in this line, walked through
it without even causing a dog to bark. I continued for an hour before
anything else happened, and then I very nearly made a bad error. I
was sleepy I suppose and was not so sharp on the look-out as I ought
to have been, and I suddenly got an awful shock on distinctly seeing
in front of me in the first light of the dawn two men in dark clothes
approaching. I immediately turned about and walked away from them as
hard as I could go. Gaining on them rapidly I continued till they were
too far behind to be seen and then jumped into the corn on the right
of the road, and after running fifty yards into it, lay still. Sure
enough these two men had slowly continued their walk and now passed
me, carrying on for a hundred yards before they also stopped. Thinking
that it was time to be off, especially as it was getting lighter every
moment, I took a detour through the corn-fields and striking the road
about half a mile further on crossed it and took a turn in the corn on
the other side. Then after about a mile of making winding tracks
through their precious wheat, rye and barley crops, I again struck the
road and hurried along it to make up for lost time.
This wandering about I considered necessary in order to delay and
perhaps bamboozle any police dog put on my track. I had no doubt that
these two men were policemen and that they had only just caught a
glimpse of me which had made them curious. I am certain I again had to
thank my whitish suit for my immunity from determined pursuit.
After this little excitement I had to move very rapidly as it was
already nearly daylight, and I wished to get to the banks of the next
river before hiding.
Pushing along the road I struck a small town, and crossed the end of
it, taking a level crossing on the way. Seeing nobody at the station
near-by I gained more confidence again, and was not so upset as I
might have been when I found that I had to walk for a mile or more
along a road flanked on both sides with houses.
At last and by no means too soon I got to the river bank, had a drink,
refilled my water-bottle and set about looking for a hiding-place in
which to sleep during the day. This river, the Leine, is about seventy
yards broad and is deep and fairly sluggish. There was a bridge
crossing it about a mile downstream from the place at which I drank.
I found a hiding-place not far from the river, but after a short while
I began to think that it was a bad one, as although in this district
most of the hay had been cut, one field quite near had still to be
done. So off I went to look for a better place. I found a thick hedge
which looked likely, and then suddenly saw a girl bathing eighty yards
away. However, I quickly decided that she could never have seen me,
and began to pull aside some brambles with a view to getting in.
Suddenly without any warning I heard just behind me "Guten Morgen." I
turned in a second and found myself face to face with a flapper
dressed all in white, on her way to bathe.
I growled back "Good Morning" and she passed on. I expect she also got
a shock, for I must have been a wild-looking object. I decided now
that this was no place for me and began to make tracks as soon as she
had moved away. I hadn't gone a hundred yards when I heard a man's
voice and the yapping of a dog come from where I had spoken to the
flapper. He was speaking to the girls, so fearing that my girl might
have mentioned seeing an extraordinary apparition on her way, and so
arouse suspicions in the mind of the man, I cleared out and went
through the woods, which were fairly thick here for about a mile.
I was lucky now to find a deserted factory quite close to the bridge
which I had seen previously. By this factory was a thick patch of
small fir trees, into which I forced my way and found excellent cover
among the dense undergrowth and lower branches of the trees. I tried
to sleep, but had little success, and was again worried by flies and
heat at about midday. My watch had stopped, so I arranged some sticks
so that when their shadow pointed north by my compass I should know it
was roughly noon, and be able to set my watch.
I was keeping a collection of hieroglyphics which I cannot honour with
the title of "Diary." I purposely made it unreadable, and abbreviated
all the words so that it would convey nothing to the Boche if they
caught me.
Unless one keeps some sort of record it is very easy to forget the day
of the week, etc., and that is necessary knowledge, as Sunday is a
special day in Germany and must be treated differently by an escapee.
It had become very uncomfortable in my hiding-place and sleep was out
of the question for some reason, so I thought that as I had lost time
already by being delayed both nights, I must try to make up for the
delay, and what would help to do so more than anything else would be
the crossing of the Leine by daylight. The more I thought of it the
more I wished to get that river behind me as soon as possible. I
decided that at any rate I would scout the bridge and then make up my
mind.
This proved easier than I had hoped, because I found that the bridge
had no cover anywhere near it, so that I was able to see without any
trouble from quite a distance away that there was no sentry on the
bridge or in the neighbourhood. There being no cover, ambushes were
out of the question. I thought then that I might easily cross at once,
as at night there was always the possibility of finding that a sentry
had been posted simply for the hours of darkness, those being the
hours during which prisoners generally move, a fact that the Germans
know well.
Accordingly I got on to the road and walked boldly along it, reading a
German newspaper which I had found and kept the day before.
Just before reaching the bridge I met a very nice-looking German girl
carrying two pails of milk. She deigned to honour me, tramp though I
looked, with a sweet smile and a most encouraging "good-day." I
suppose the shortage of young men in the Fatherland was accountable
for this; it would hardly have been due to my personal beauty.
However, she didn't meet with much response beyond a surly "good-day"
from behind my newspaper. On the bridge itself I met an older woman
who just looked at me and didn't answer my good-day. That made me
hurry on somewhat. I got across without any trouble and didn't see a
sign of a sentry, and I was not surprised at that, seeing how near the
Aller and Leine are to each other.
It would mean many more men called away from farm work to arrange for
the guarding of the crossings of the Leine as well; a fact which
hardly recommends itself to the Boche authorities just at present.