CLOSING INCIDENTS
Niemeyer had often, in more peaceful days, jocularly remarked that the
conduct of the British officers was making him an old man before his
time. Such of us as in these days were brought face to face with him
began to get a comfortable feeling that this indeed was the case. He was
reported to be 62; and by this time he was looking every day of it.
The actual _casus belli_ on which the senior British officer decided to
force the issue was the treatment, on the day after the escape, of an
R.F.C. officer called Phelan. This officer had on his way down to the
cells been brutally kicked by a sentry under the approving eye of a
particularly odious Feldwebel of the best Prussian pattern surnamed
Klausen, and known familiarly as “Dog Face.” The act had been witnessed
by at least six British officers and the evidence duly taken down. The
senior British officer therefore gave the Phelan incident pride of place
in a summary sent to Niemeyer of various individual and collective
injustices visited on the members of the camp since the discovery of the
tunnel, and added a curt ultimatum that unless these grievances were
promptly redressed he would be unable to be responsible for the further
conduct of the British officers.
This was an extreme step and had never, even in this turbulent camp,
been employed before. For the senior British officer to disclaim
authority over his own brother-officers implied, legally speaking, that
he regarded the conditions of imprisonment as too monstrous to be
covered by the accepted rules of the Hague Convention, and that in fact
he looked upon the Commandant not as his sentinel in an honourable
captivity under the rules of war, but as his gaoler in a common gaol,
where international conventions did not apply. Once this attitude was
taken up, the ordinary courtesies of military etiquette would have to be
abandoned, salutes not offered, passive resistance everywhere adopted.
Uniformity of conduct would be an absolute essential, and elaborate
precautions were taken to warn the camp by word of mouth—paper would
have been too dangerous—exactly what procedure was to be followed if the
order went forth that diplomatic relations had been broken off with the
Huns.
The Adjutant’s position in those stormy days was an onerous one. It was
the essence of the whole British policy that the senior officer’s orders
should be carried out to the letter. Due allowance had also to be made
for the incalculable perversity of the “half per cent” to whom reference
has already been made. Both of these duties fell to the Adjutant of the
camp working through the Adjutants of the houses. Written instructions
were impossible on account of the risk. It was necessary to warn
personally every one of the 500 odd officers in the camp and to explain
when, and if necessary why, action was to be taken in accordance with
“scheme of resistance A or B.”
No reply was received to the ultimatum, and it was decided therefore to
put into execution a general scheme of passive resistance. On the
morning after the expiry of the ultimatum the entire camp shuffled late
and listlessly on to 9 o’clock _appel_, wearing, for the most part,
cardigan jackets instead of tunics, and innocent of all headgear. When
the German officers appeared, no one saluted or paid the slightest
attention to them. Ulrich hesitated, grasped the situation, and went
straight back to the Kommandantur to report. He returned with a message
from the Commandant to the senior British officer that if he could
arrange for an orderly _appel_ in an hour’s time he (the Commandant)
would be glad to discuss matters and examine the list of grievances
submitted.
So far, so good. The word was circulated for a perfect _appel_ at 10
a.m. But at 10 o’clock, after the conclusion of an _appel_ which, for
correctness of dress and demeanour, would have satisfied the soul even
of the late lamented Lincke, Niemeyer strode on to the middle of the
parade ground and disillusioned us:
“Well, yentlemen,” he bawled out, “You have broken the camp regulations,
so you must be punished. There will be no sport for three days.”
The camp was too flabbergasted even to boo or groan. We had trusted him
and paid the obvious penalty. The whole incident was typically Prussian.
Colonel Stokes Roberts did the only possible thing under the
circumstances and countered with an order for another passive resistance
_appel_ at 5 o’clock. Once again tunics and caps were discarded and the
long rows of ragamuffins stood listlessly awaiting the pleasure of their
gaolers to come and count them. There was likely to be trouble this
time, for the authorities would be forewarned, and it was noticed that
the guard were standing paraded in front of the Kommandantur. It was
just a question of how far our friend would dare to go. The action of
the British was seen from the Kommandantur and the German officers did
not even come on _appel_. An interpreter was sent out to order all
officers to go back to their houses. As we trailed off the parade ground
Niemeyer appeared at the head of about a dozen sentries with bayonets
fixed and roared to us to get into our houses “right away.” As there was
only one door in each house this was an impossible feat, and the
disreputable crowd merely grinned at the sheepish sentries and the
Commandant fulminating from one barrack to another. The British acted
creditably up to their allotted part of brainless, dejected criminals,
and there was no demonstration or provocative action as we gradually
melted away into our respective barracks.
One officer, however, who had on board rather more than was good for
him, did his best to promote bloodshed. He dropped a large faggot from
an upper window in B Kaserne which missed Niemeyer by inches. Beside
himself with rage, the Commandant ordered the nearest sentry to fire,
indicating the only officer then within sight, a lame flying officer, as
the target. The man, who was really not to be blamed, fired up the
staircase up which the officer was making all haste to retreat, missed
him by a few inches, and splintered a window. Then the doors were closed
and we breathed again.
The counter-charge of mutiny was brought by Niemeyer, when in company
with the Hanover staff captain he interviewed Colonel Stokes Roberts
that evening. The camp had publicly mutinied, and the mutiny would have
to be made the subject of a special report. The senior British officer
desired nothing better. A special report, he suggested, might eventually
result in bringing facts to light. He begged the Commandant’s permission
to forward two letters to the Dutch Legation at Berlin and to the
_Kriegsministerium_, which contained point-blank accusations of
misconduct against the Commandant. By German law Niemeyer was bound to
forward these letters, however much he disliked their matter. It did
not, however, at all follow that he would do so, and accordingly, to
prevent any possibility of miscarriage, duplicate letters were smuggled
out of the camp into the safe keeping of the love-sick typist with
injunctions to deliver the goods. The letter to the _Kriegsministerium_
asked urgently for an inspection of the camp by a responsible superior
officer.
So far the campaign had proceeded satisfactorily; the case sooner or
later would be put against Niemeyer without delicacy or reserve before
the supreme German military authority. Then the whole history of the
camp could be bluntly narrated, the damning Black Book hauled up from
its hiding-place in Room 24 of B house and presented for inspection and
comment. The cards were in our hands now, if we had the opportunity of
playing them. Only the tribunal must be reasonably impartial and
Niemeyer must not be suffered to interpret. Too many a good chance had
gone begging ere this in the camp’s history, simply because the
Commandant, in conducting an interview, had systematically interpreted
black as white and adroitly diverted the discussion from the subject of
himself. It had been an unfortunate coincidence that whenever a
representative from the _Kriegsministerium_ in Berlin had visited the
camp either he had been unable to speak English or the senior British
officer of the time had been unable to speak German. The Commandant,
with his fluent knowledge of English, had invariably provided the
convenient bridge and the interview had accordingly failed miserably in
its object.
Until the visit from the _Kriegsministerium_, conditions remained much
as before, except that we gave orderly _appels_. Our policy was to lie
low and await whatever Daniel the _Kriegsministerium_ should deign to
send us. Niemeyer seemed determined to make what hay he could while the
sun shone. His way of doing so took the form of gross personal
discourtesy to the senior British officer. On the day after the letters
to the Dutch Legation and German War Office had been handed in, he
stalked on to _appel_, went up to Colonel Stokes Roberts, and asked him
in a menacing tone if he took full responsibility for all that had been
written in them. On an answer being given in the affirmative, he became
violently abusive and ordered the Colonel to produce another speaker in
his stead, as he would have no more to do with him. He then proceeded
publicly to insult Colonel Stokes Roberts in a manner absolutely
unprecedented. Colonel Roberts, after the first salute, had been
standing, as was customary, at ease in the orthodox manner. Niemeyer
suddenly bellowed to him to stand at attention. “I guess you’ll speak to
me at attention. Put your heels closer—CLOSER.” It was the very last
straw and made cheeks flame and ears tingle in the agony of furious
humiliation.
Niemeyer persisted in his demand for another “speaker” to represent the
camp, only giving away his lamentable ignorance of our military customs
in even formulating the request. As a joke, the names of some of his
most avowed and outspoken enemies were submitted for his approval.
Prominent on this list was the name of Lieutenant Beyfus, a barrister of
repute, a prisoner of three years’ standing, and, on frequent occasions,
an able exponent to Niemeyer on the rights of the individual in
captivity. Niemeyer, whose sense of humour failed him in these days,
furiously repudiated such a preposterous nomination.
“No, no,” he fumed; “I will not have ze Beyfus; get me another.”
We were paying for the tunnel; but every day that passed now without
someone being brought back increased our hopes that it had not been dug
in vain. Colonel Rathborne was by now certainly over. “Munshi” Gray,
Bousfield, three others of the working-party, and four not of the
working-party were still abroad; and it was a fortnight since the night
of the escape. Further, the opening of the big allied offensive on
August 8th put new heart into us. The first day’s advance showed a great
slice on our well-conned maps that looked indeed like the moving warfare
for which we had, in our own far-off day, so often made preparation in
vain. Also we heard on reliable authority that a Bavarian regiment
moving from the Bulgarian to the Western Front had mutinied at some
place quite near; and such of the more Left of the German papers as we
were permitted to read were full of their proposed campaign for the
autumn session of the Reichstag. It was a more healthy atmosphere
altogether than in the terrible days of March only four and a half
months ago.
Any suspected officers in either Kaserne received short shrift in these
days, and were bundled unceremoniously from their rooms into safer
quarters on the ground floor of A Kaserne, where the lower windows were
never open and the flies and staleness of the atmosphere were
correspondingly oppressive. Billets in this way were found for any
officers who had been known to have escaped before and who were referred
to feelingly by Niemeyer as “the yentlemen.” These particular rooms used
to be visited two or three times in a night by a Feldwebel with an
electric torch, which he used to flash on the occupant of each bed in
turn, thereby effectually waking everybody up. Here lay the
afore-mentioned and eloquent Beyfus, whose recent arrival had prevented
his obtaining a place in the tunnel scheme, but whose record made him a
marked man with the authorities. Here I myself lay, after yet another
enforced migration from the attic floor in A house, and in accordance—so
lied the official intimation—with orders from Hanover. And here also lay
Leefe Robinson, V.C., whose gallant spirit Niemeyer, with subtle
cruelty, had endeavoured for months past to break. That Robinson’s
untimely death on his return from captivity was assisted indirectly by
the treatment which he received at the hands of Niemeyer no one will
deny who was in a position to witness that treatment.
The handling to which Leefe Robinson was subjected was so outrageous
that it was communicated to the home authorities in a concealed report
(in the hollow of a tennis racket handle) _viâ_ an exchange party.
Robinson had come from Freiburg in Baden, where he had made an attempt
with several others to escape. “The English Richthofen”—as Niemeyer,
with coarse urbanity, called him to his face—was at once singled out as
the victim of a malevolent scheme of repression. He was placed in the
most uncomfortable room in the camp, whereas his rank entitled him to
the privileges of a small room; he was caused to answer to a special
_appel_ two or three times in a day; and he was forbidden under any
pretext to enter Kaserne B. On the occasion of a visit from some
Inspecting General, and on the pretext of all the rooms having to be
cleaned up and ready for inspection by 9 o’clock _appel_, Robinson’s
room was entered by a Feldwebel and sentries at 7.45 a.m., and Robinson
himself was forcibly pulled out of bed and the table next to the bed
upset on the floor. Two hours later Niemeyer was introducing “the
English Richthofen” to the august visitor with a profusion of oleaginous
compliments, and four hours later Robinson was in the cells for having
disobeyed camp orders. Truly most damnable and cowardly persecution.
Notwithstanding all this, the Chamber of Horrors (as the room devoted to
the criminals used popularly to be known) was the scene of many a
humorous incident. Restricted space caused the bed of the eloquent
Beyfus to be very near the door. On the flooring just inside the door
lay the mat upon which Beyfus used to stand to undress. Whenever the
Germans came into the room Beyfus always contrived that the door should
impinge upon some part of his person and seized the occasion to call
every German within hail—the Commandant, of course, for choice—to
witness the unprovoked attack upon his blushing modesty. Great effect
was added when the harangue was delivered in the passage and only in
shirt and slippers.
The Spanish “flu,” which descended in those days in an all embracing
form on the camp, brought some compensating humour. In the first place,
Niemeyer got it at once and was reported, quite incorrectly, to be
dying. The wish, both amongst Germans and British, was doubtless father
to this rumour. Then all the orderlies got it at the same time and the
officers swept and garnished for themselves. And finally, when the
disease had filtered through from the orderlies and taken fair hold of
the officers, every room in both barracks was filled with the groans of
those who thought they were about to die. As a matter of fact not more
than a dozen were at all seriously ill, and these recovered quite
rapidly.
The long expected visit from the _Kriegsministerium_ representative
synchronised with the tail end of the outbreak and came at precisely the
wrong moment.
In the first place, I was sick. It should have been my business to warn
the senior British officer of the visit, and arrange for an English
officer to interpret his remarks at the interview. Unfortunately, and
through nobody’s fault, nothing of this sort was done. Colonel Stokes
Roberts was sent for at a moment’s notice and had his hand forced.
Niemeyer once again acted as interpreter, the blinkers were kept on
throughout, and the visitor went away satisfied that the complaints made
by the British had been grossly exaggerated, that Niemeyer, in spite of
his reputation, was, after all, a very pleasant fellow, and that there
was nothing to report on unfavourably in the conduct of the camp.
Thus the rebellion at Holzminden petered unsatisfactorily out; it had
been no one’s fault that the chance had come and gone untaken. But it
was evident that it would not come again, and that the last final effort
to remove Niemeyer had been as fruitless as the first. On the other
side, the charge of general mutiny was not pressed, and legal
proceedings were reserved only for those implicated in the tunnel.
Gradually the sombre camp resumed its normal working. A new Adjutant
succeeded to office, and I, together with other suspected criminals, was
transported to a camp of more fancied security. Under the new Adjutant
some form of co-operation in the general interests with the German
authorities became once more possible.
His predecessor, bundled out of the camp with two other officers at two
hours’ notice, had the pleasure, before leaving, of firing one Parthian
shot at the Commandant. The evening before, an unsigned postcard had
been received from the Hague. It ran simply—“Cheeroh old bean,” and was
addressed to Colonel Rathborne’s late mess-mate. We communicated the
substance of this postcard to Niemeyer, and it was some consolation,
before we shook the dust of Holzminden off our feet for ever, to see the
confession of defeat written plainly in his face. Once again—and for the
first time since the original discovery of the escape—speech fairly
failed him.
* * * * *
Events, however, were moving too rapidly now for it to be a matter of
great consequence to Niemeyer even that he should have let a full-blown
Lieutenant-Colonel slip through his fingers. His own hour was near to
striking. As the British advance in September continued without respite
and the inevitable end came ever nearer, so this disreputable old man
changed his tactics accordingly. He very rarely came within the
precincts of the camp; but he saw the Adjutant almost daily, and at
every interview some concession or other long striven for was now
readily given. He even began to prepare the ground for a _volte-face_ in
his Prussian creed and politics. The picture of the Kaiser vanished from
the wall of his sanctum. He became the strangest and most undignified
contrast to the swaggering bully who had ruled this roost so long. And
finally when, on the conclusion of hostilities, the _Arbeiter und
Soldaten Rat_ took over the military direction of affairs in the town,
he was suffered to disappear unmolested and cover his tracks as best he
might. It is not known what has happened to him; by some he is stated to
be in arrest at Hanover, by others to have removed himself and his
ill-gotten gains to a neutral country. It is quite probable that we
shall never hear of him again, for he had no murders to his charge and
may not be included by the Supreme Council in the punishable class[12].
But it is certain that he will never again walk up Bond Street or show
his face in Milwaukee. He must rest on his laurels and be content with
his European reputation.
[Footnote 12: Both the Niemeyers were on the Black List.]
* * * * *
To give some idea of the actual difficulties of the final exit and
escape, it may be well to include the following graphic account from the
first man through:
“The kits of the first (working) party were got down in the daytime. I
had been chosen to cut out, and as soon as the ten o’clock roll-call was
over in the rooms, L., C., and I (we were going to ‘travel’ together)
went off through the swing doors, the hole into the eaves, the
orderlies’ quarters, and so into the tunnel.
“I left my room at about 10.15 p.m., and in ten minutes I was worming my
way along the hole for the last time, noting all the old familiar ups
and downs and bends, bumping my head against the same old stones, and
feeling the weight of responsibility rather much. I am not ashamed to
say that I did a bit of praying on the way along. When I got to the end,
into the small pit which we had dug to drop the earth of the roof into,
I put my kit on one side and got to work with a large bread knife. It
was of course pitch dark. I was kneeling in the pit, digging vertically
up. The earth fell into my hair, eyes, and ears, and down my neck. I
didn’t notice it much then, but found afterwards that my shirt and vest
were completely brown. By about 11 p.m. I had a hole through to the air
about 6 inches in diameter. It was raining, but the arc lamps made it
look very light outside. I found, to my delight, that we had estimated
right and that I had come up just beyond a row of beans which would thus
hide my exit, with any luck, from the sentry. By 11.40 the way was open,
and I pushed my kit through and crawled out. The sentry nearest us had a
cough, which enabled me to locate him, but as he was in the shadow of
the wall and not in the light of the electric lamps I could not see him.
This made it a bit more uncomfortable, as I didn’t know but that he was
staring straight at me. I crawled to the edge of the rye-field and
looked at my watch. It was 11.45 p.m. Just at that moment the rain
stopped, a bright full moon shone out and an absolute stillness reigned.
The rye was very ripe and crackled badly, and so, after a whispered
consultation with L., I decided to crawl in a southerly direction down
the edge of the rye-field, keeping under cover of the gardens.
“If there had only been the three of us to escape we could have barged
straight through the rye, but we had to think of the hordes behind us,
and could not afford to take risks.
“We reached the end of the cover afforded by the gardens and were
debating what to do, when luckily the rain started again, and we crawled
through the rye, the noise of the rain pattering on the rye being
sufficient to drown that made by our progress.
“When through the rye, we stopped to put on our rücksacks, and then made
for the river Weser which we had to cross. Close to the river bank we
found four or five large hurdles. Piling these one on top of the other,
we made a raft, on which we ferried across first our kits and then our
clothes. The water was warm, but the wind cold. We dressed and started
again. It was by this time about 2 a.m. C. thought he heard a shot, and
we were afraid that the Boche had spotted someone getting out.
“As we rounded the spur of a hill, and the lights of the _Lager_, which
looked so pretty from outside, were shut from our view, we said good-bye
to Holzminden _Kriegsgefangenenlager_—a good-bye which unhappily turned
out for us three to be only ‘au revoir.’”
* * * * *
In all ten escaped. Rathborne, as stated, was over in three days, and
was able to report in person on the state of affairs in one camp in the
Xth Army Corps in which he had held a responsible position. Gray, Bain,
Kennard, Bennett, and Bousfield among the working-party, Purves, Tullis,
Campbell Martin, and Leggatt amongst the others, followed in the course
of a fortnight. Most of them had had some near shaves and were “all in”
on arrival. Bousfield—an old Cambridge 3-miler—had on one occasion to
out-distance his pursuers by running for it.
Those who had been recaptured were kept in cells until early in
September without trial, although repeated protests were made to the
Commandant and higher authority. They were then released to await
court-martial. The accused being many and rolling-stock being valuable,
the Court came to Holzminden to judge them. On the morning of the trial
a lawyer came to represent the prisoners, and a representative of the
Netherlands minister at Berlin also came to act in their interests. All
the prisoners were tried together and were sentenced to six months’
imprisonment on a combined charge of mutiny and damage to property, the
punishment to be carried out in a fortress. As it happened, and although
the trial took place so early as 27th September, this sentence was never
carried out. Whether this was due to the military situation or to some
other cause is not known. The signing of the Armistice removed finally
all possibility of the imprisonment ever being carried into effect.
[Illustration:
Group of recaptured officers in a room at Holzminden.
]
It was unfortunate that while the Holzminden tunnel was under
construction another tunnel was in progress at Clausthal, where the twin
brother Niemeyer was Commandant. It is now known that the tunnel there
would have been completed in about a week from the date on which the
Holzminden escape took place. The “Poldhu” had been busy between the
camps, but, no exact synchronisation being possible, it remained simply
to go full steam ahead in each camp and trust to luck. As was
anticipated, the Holzminden escape led to a very serious search at
Clausthal, and the tunnel was discovered just as it was approaching
completion. The tunnel of Holzminden was, however, so much the bigger
affair that there was a rough justice in this award of Fortune.
------------------------------------------------------------------------