THE CROSSING OF THE RIVER
The river winds about considerably. It was into a canal that we
suddenly walked on turning a corner of a rough track. A bridge lay
right before us, with a sentry on it, who must have seen us at the
same moment as we saw him. Turning back we retraced our steps, but not
before we had seen two German patrols walking along the canal bank.
Leaving our track we got back to our previous hiding-place, intending
to wait until it was quite dark before attempting to cross the river
some distance to the north. Hardly had we got into our bush when a
cyclist soldier passed along the track along which we had been walking
a minute or two before. This alarmed us somewhat, but we deemed it
best to remain hidden till it should be darker.
While waiting we found and finished off our tin of milk, and discussed
plans in a whisper. We allowed half an hour or so to elapse and then
started off again; this time following a track running parallel to the
river, northwards. We had done a mile or so, when, just before
crossing another grass-road which led to the east, I saw the spiked
helmet and rifle of a German soldier silhouetted against the sky, and
moving rapidly from west to east. This turned us back, and we hoped
then to be able to get eastwards across country until we could make a
detour further northwards and regain the river bank.
Entering a field we got half-way across it when two horses, taking
fright at something, galloped away from the far corner straight
towards us. We now lay down and discussed matters. Germans were north
of us, east of us, and south of us, we knew, and the river to the
west of course would be guarded.
A quarter of an hour later, a weird cry, something like that of a
curlew or peewit, but not exactly either, came to our ears from the
north-west near the river. It was repeated from immediately north of
us, and then north-east. From there the cry seemed to come from the
east, moving southwards, until at a point south-east of us it was
repeated time after time for two or three minutes, until taken up
again further to the south, eventually ending again at the river, to
our south-west.
I had heard rumours and talk about a system the Germans are supposed
to have for guarding their frontiers from fugitives, while I was in
prison. This system had been called a "fan" or "cordon." It now
occurred to me that these bird-like cries had been all round us in a
ring. It did not take much thinking to connect the Germans we had
seen, the imitation cries, and our known presence in this district.
The more we thought the more certain we felt that these Germans we had
seen hurrying eastwards had been sent out expressly to form a fan-like
formation, in which they hoped to hold us against the river till
daylight should allow them to search the ground for us. The bird-like
calls would be just the thing to indicate to the commander of this
formation the exact whereabouts of his men and the continuity of the
cordon, without being a suspicious fact to any hapless wretch caught
inside, who did not happen to know the real notes of the birds
imitated.
What was to be done? Should we try and break through the cordon,
northwards or eastwards, by striking across country? This plan did not
commend itself to us, as we should have had to get through thick
hedges and wade through dykes innumerable without making any noise at
all, an impossibility on a still moon-lit night such as it was. We
decided to wait till 1.30 a.m., to give them time to get sleepy. An
hour's sleep in a ditch, and then do something, was our plan.
_Monday, 2nd July._ Moving westwards a little, we came to a farm close
by, and got the idea of hiding somewhere in a hay-loft and waiting
till the next night, when perhaps no cordon would be round us, before
attempting to cross the river. The farm was quite deserted, except for
the cattle and horses, etc., which we could hear in the buildings. We
tried now to open the doors of the barns and sheds, without avail.
They had no locks, but open them we could not. We tried everywhere for
a long time without the slightest success. At last our combined
efforts forced a door open, and we got a nasty fright. A great pig
galloped out past us and went off grunting into the darkness of the
field. The inside of this building was no good, as it was a piggery
and only held bare stalls, nearly all of which were already
populated.
A cart of the kind used to convey pigs to market next attracted Fox,
and he got into it to try it as a hiding place.
It was by no means a good place, as, although the cart was an ancient
one and the farm people would probably not require it, the possible
arrival of dogs with the men who would undoubtedly turn up in the
morning to see to the animals in the farm, would lead to a
nerve-racking experience, if not to actual capture.
While Fox reposed at the bottom of the cart I searched round for
water, so as to fill the bottles against our possible stay of eighteen
hours in the cart. There were two pumps in the yard, but both were
broken.
I could find no water anywhere. The whole farm was a mystery which we
never solved.
Returning to the pig-cart I was told by Fox that it would never do, as
he had already got cramp after only ten minutes in it. He got out and
we noticed then that it was threatening to become light.
Deciding to risk all we left the farm, making for the river in the
hopes of avoiding the Germans. Our marvellous luck again came to the
rescue. From the farm ran a narrow path which we had not noticed
before. This we took, and after going only a short distance along it
suddenly struck the bank of the river proper long before we expected
to do anything of the kind.
This path was so small and unimportant that it must have been
overlooked and considered too unimportant to require guarding, as we
saw no Germans thereabouts.
It did not take us long, now that we were on the bank of the river, to
get on to a point of land jutting out into it, and taking cover in the
long grass and bushes there.
The Ems flowed sluggishly at this point, and appeared to be about a
hundred yards across.
We had made up our minds to leave all the not absolutely essential
articles of clothing, etc., behind us here, and tie the things we must
take with us to the tops of our heads and then swim.
Knowing that anyone found moving about the frontier line is a
suspicious character to German frontier guards, and therefore asked to
show his papers, although he might be in civilian clothes, I left my
long coat of cotton stuff behind, preferring to rely on my old khaki
coat which I wore underneath to make me less visible.
Fox had made the suggestion of the tying our clothes to our heads
scheme, and I thought he knew all about it, so had not asked anything
more about it. Now, taking our boots and coats off, we tied them into
bundles, and Fox got his safely on to the top of his head and took to
the water at once.
He looked a weird sight, swimming slowly on his chest.
I tied my boots to my waist-belt and then tried to balance my coat on
to the top of my head. This would not work. Time after time it rolled
off on to the grass. I suppose the top of his head is flatter than
mine, but on mine the bundle would not stay. At last, desperate at
seeing him on the other side of the river trying to land, I tied my
coat on to my left shoulder with a large handkerchief to hold it
there, knotted round my neck. Then I also took to the water, swimming
on my right side, so as to keep my coat and its contents as dry as
possible.
I had noticed that Fox was still stuck at his point of striking the
other bank, and was evidently hung up by the dense bushes which hung
well over the river at that point. This made me strike a little
up-stream so as to make for a clearer place on the other bank.
This I reached and got ashore without difficulty.
Fox had found it extremely hard to get out of the river at all; in
fact he had got to the other side to find that he could not get his
feet on to solid ground, and had tried to pull himself ashore by
clutching at the over-hanging branches with his hands. It was now that
the bundle on the top of his head, well-behaved till that moment, came
adrift and fell into the water, and getting under a submerged branch,
while the big handkerchief which held it still remained round his
neck, practically pulled him under. In this predicament he could not
yell for me at the other side of the stream to come to his assistance
for fear of giving our position away to the German river patrols.
After a hard struggle he managed to pull himself into the bank and was
able to get ashore.
This episode cost him his boots, as they became unhitched in his
struggles with the bundle, and sank.
On his telling me this I was able to help him in his problem of
footwear. Although leaving all unnecessary kit behind, I had by error
put a spare pair of thick woollen socks into the pocket of my khaki
coat and was now able to produce them.
He put them on over his own and we proceeded on our way towards the
frontier, running and walking, both for the sake of warmth and also to
make the best use of the hour or so of half-light that remained to
us.
[Illustration: "THE GERMAN RELIEF PASSED WITHIN 200 YARDS OF MY
HIDING PLACE" (_page 215_).]