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Escaping Club

[127] <h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> <h3>AN ESCAPE WITH MEDLICOTT</h3> For the next six weeks life was rather hard. It froze continuously, even in the day time, in spite of the sun, which showed itself frequently, and at night the thermometer registered as often as not more than 27° of frost. The Germans, who had made many efforts to keep the ice in the moat broken by punting round in a steel boat kept for the purpose, now abandoned the attempt, and in consequence of this and of our escape across the ice we were denied the use of the inner courtyards. For the next six weeks the only place in which we could take exercise was the little outer court where Appell was sometimes held. It was only about 50 yards by 25, and was really an inadequate exercise ground for 150 active men. Still we kept pretty fit. Every morning all the English had an ice-cold shower-bath. Of the Frenchmen, Bellison, who lived in Gaskell's room, and one other, I think, had been used to take a cold bath every morning, but it was really astonishing what a number followed our example at Fort 9. When it was so cold that the water in the tubs above the shower-sprays was frozen solid, thirty or forty officers, by pumping the water from the well, used to take a bath regularly every morning. It was only when coal[128] became so scarce that it was not possible to keep a fire going all day in the living-rooms, and when, if you took a bath cold you would never get warm again the whole day, that attendance dropped to some half-dozen men who, having before them the possibility of a ten days' march to the frontier in the dead of winter, looked upon the bath in the morning more as a method of making themselves hard and fit than as an act of cleanliness. Every day a good many of us took exercise by running round and round the small court, to the astonishment of the sentries. Müller's exercises were introduced, and Medlicott and Gaskell, Buckley and I, and many other Englishmen and Frenchmen, did them regularly every day for the rest of the time we were in Germany. As a result of this strenuous life, though we were often very cold and very hungry, we were, with few exceptions easily traceable to bad tinned food, never sick or sorry for ourselves the whole time. Unett, poor fellow, suffered severely from boils, and Buckley from the same complaint during his two months' solitary confinement. From this onwards, for all the winter months, the coal and light shortage became very serious. We stole wood, coal, and oil freely from the Germans, and before the end nearly all the woodwork in the fort had been torn down and burnt, in spite of the strict orders to the sentries to shoot at sight any one seen taking wood. So long as the Germans continued to use oil lamps in the many dark passages of the fort, it was not very difficult to keep a decent store of oil in hand, but after a[129] month or so the Germans realized they were being robbed, and substituted acetylene for oil. We all wrote home for packets of candles, and considering the amount of oil we were officially allowed, the length of time we managed to keep our lamps burning remained to the end a source of astonishment to the Germans. As it was Christmas time, and as Room 45 was well supplied with food, we decided to give a dinner to the Allies on Christmas night. A rumor had been passed round, with the intention, I have no doubt, that it should come to the ears of the Germans, that a number of prisoners intended to escape on Christmas night. The Germans were consequently in a state of nervous tension, the guards were doubled, and N.C.O.'s made frequent rounds. No one had any intention of escaping on that night as far as I know. A piano which had been hired by a Frenchman was kept in the music-room, a bare underground cell of a place at the far end of the central passage, and we applied to be allowed to bring this into our room. To our huge indignation this was refused, on the grounds that we might use it as a method of attracting the sentries' attention. However, we were determined to have the piano and a dance on Christmas night, so a party was organized to bring it from the music-room in spite of the German orders. I don't know exactly how it was managed, but I think a row of some sort was begun in the other wing of the fort and, when the German N.C.O.'s had been attracted in that direction, the piano was "rushed" along to the[130] "ballroom." The dinner was an undoubted success. Room 45, with Medlicott as chef, spent the whole day cooking, and that evening about twenty of us sat down to dinner—the guests being all of them Frenchmen or Russians. After dinner we all attended a fancy-dress dance which some Frenchmen gave in the adjoining room. They had knocked down a wooden partition between two rooms, and had a dance in one and the piano and a drinking bar in the other. The French are a most ingenious nation, and the costumes were simply amazing. There were double sentries all round the fort that night, and some of them stood outside the windows and enjoyed the dancing and singing. It was an extremely cold night outside, and I am not surprised that some of them felt rather bitter against us. I offered one a bit of cake, but he merely had a jab at me through the bars with his bayonet. About midnight we sang "God Save the King," the "Marseillaise," and "On les aura," with several encores. This turned out the guard, and a dozen of them with fixed bayonets, headed by the Feldwebel, crashed up the passage and, after a most amusing scene in which both sides kept their tempers, recaptured the piano. A few days after this, Medlicott and I learnt that four Frenchmen were cutting a bar in the latrine with the object of escaping across the frozen moat. We offered them our assistance in exchange for the right of following them at half an hour's interval if they got away without being detected. They agreed to this, as they needed some extra help in guarding the passage and giving[131] warning of the approach of the sentry whilst the bar was being cut. At the farthest end of his beat the sentry was never more than 40 yards away from the window where the operation was being carried out. Under these circumstances a very high degree of skill was necessary for the successful cutting of an inch-thick bar. Here Moretti was in his element. No handle to the saw was used; he held the saw in gloved hands to deaden the noise, and in four hours made two cuts through the bar. Repeated halts had to be made, as the sentry passed the window every three or four minutes, and, as he was liable to examine the bars at any time, they sealed up the crack between each spell of work with some flour paste colored with ashes for the purpose. This made the cut on the bars invisible. I examined the bars carefully myself after they had been cut, and was quite unable to tell which one was only held in place by a thread of metal at each end. The removal of one bar would leave only a narrow exit through which a man could squeeze and, thinking that this might delay them, the Frenchmen, rather unwisely I consider, decided to cut a second bar. Now whether they were really betrayed, as we believe, by one of the French orderlies who for some time had been under suspicion as a spy, or whether some one on the far bank of the canal had happened to see or hear them, we never knew, but it is certain that the Germans learnt, without getting exact details, that one of the bars in the latrines was being cut. The "Blue Boy" visited the latrines four times in a couple of hours and examined[132] the bars with care, but without finding anything wrong. At last the Commandant and the Feldwebel walked up outside our windows, and the latter taking each bar in turn shook it violently. About the fourth one he shook came off in his hands and he fell down flat on his back. The Germans brought up barbed wire and wound it round and round the bars and across the hole. Besides this, they put an extra sentry to watch the place. It seemed at first hopeless to think of escaping that way. The Frenchmen gave it up, but I kept an eye on it for a week or so, and as a precaution obtained leave from the Frenchmen to use it if I saw an opportunity. One very cold night about a week later I was standing in the latrines and watching the sentry stamping backwards and forwards on his 20-yard beat, when it seemed to me just possible that the thing might be done. I fetched Medlicott and Wilkin, who had some wire-cutters. Medlicott took the cutters and, choosing a favorable moment, cut the tightest strand of wire. It seemed to us to make a very loud "ping," but the sentry took no notice, so Medlicott cut eight more strands rapidly. Leaving Wilkin to guard the hole Medlicott and I rushed off to change in the dark, because if we lighted a lamp any sentry passing our window could see straight into the room. It was half an hour after midnight when we started to change, but by 1.15 a.m. we were ready—our rücksacks, maps, compasses, and all were lying packed and hidden. Over our warm clothes we wore white underclothes, as there were several inches of snow on the ground outside; and over our boots we had socks, as much to deaden the[133] noise as to prevent our slipping as we crossed the frozen moat. Outside, the reflection from the snow made the night seem bright, but there was a slight haze which prevented white objects such as ourselves being seen at a greater distance than about 100 yards. In the latrines it was as dark as pitch, so that, though we stood within a few yards of the sentry, we could watch him in safety. It was only safe to work when the sentry was at the far end of his beat; that is to say, about 15 yards away. Medlicott cut the wire, whilst Wilkin and I watched and gave him signs when the sentry was approaching. Owing to repeated halts, it was a long job. The sentries glanced from time to time at the wire, but all the cuts were on the inside of the bars and invisible to them. Removing the bits of wire when they had all been cut was like a complicated game of spillikins, and it was not till nearly 4.30 a.m. that Medlicott had finished. It was a long and rather nerve-racking business waiting in the cold to make a dash across the moat. Medlicott and I tossed up as to who should go first, and he won. It was not easy to choose the right moment, for almost our only hope of getting across without a shot was when the two sentries were at their beats farthest from us, and one of these sentries was invisible to us, though we could hear him stamping to keep warm as he turned at the near end of his beat. At last a favorable moment came and Medlicott put his head and shoulders through the hole, but stuck half-way. He had too many clothes on. We were only just in[134] time to pull him out of sight as the sentry turned. He took off some clothes and put them in his sack and tried again, though we had to wait some time for an opportunity. Again he found he was too fat—and what was worse got hung up on a piece of barbed wire. We made what seemed to us a fearful noise hauling him in and disentangling him, but the sentry took no notice. Then Wilkin rushed off and got a second sack, into which Medlicott packed several layers of clothes. Another long wait for a suitable moment. We heard the sentry on our left come to the end of the beat, then it sounded as if he had turned and his steps died away. The man on our right was at the far end of his beat. Now was the moment. With a push and a struggle Medlicott was through the hole. I went after him instantly, but stuck. A kick from Wilkin sent me sprawling on to the snow on the far side. In a few seconds we were crossing the moat, I a couple of yards behind Medlicott, as fast as our heavy kit and the snow would let us. We were almost across when "Halt! Halt!! Halt!!" came from the sentry on our left. He had never gone back after all, but had only stamped his feet and then stood still. On the far side of the moat was a steepish bank lined with small trees; we tore up this and hurled ourselves over the far bank just as the first shot rang out. We were safe for the moment—no sentry could see us, but shot after shot was fired. Each sentry in the neighborhood safeguarded himself against punishment by letting off his rifle several times. Milne, who knew we were escaping and was lying in bed listening, told me afterwards that he had felt certain that one of us had been hit[135] and that they were finishing him off. For several hundred yards we went northwards across the fields, only halting a moment to pull off the socks from our boots. Then we turned left-handed, intending to make a big circuit towards the south so as to avoid passing too close to the battery which flanks the fort. When we had gone about 400 yards we saw behind us lights from several moving lanterns and realized that some one was following on our tracks. It was very necessary to throw off our pursuers as soon as possible, because there was little more than a couple of hours before the daylight, so we changed our plan and made towards a large wood which we knew was about a mile and a half northwest of the fort. Just before entering the wood we saw that the lights behind us were still about 300 yards away, but now there seemed to be ten or a dozen lights as well, in a large semicircle to the south of us. The wood proved useless for our purpose. There was scarcely any undergrowth, and it was just as easy to follow our tracks there as in the open field. There was only one thing to be done. We must double back through the lights and gain a village to the south of us. Once on the hard road we might throw them off. Choosing the largest gap in the encircling band of lanterns we walked through crouching low, and unseen owing to our white clothes. Once in the village we felt more hopeful. At any rate they could no longer trace our footsteps, and we believed that all our pursuers were behind us. Choosing at random one of three or four roads which led out of the village in[136] a more or less southerly direction, we marched on at top speed. After walking for a quarter of an hour, we were about to pass a house and a clump of trees at the side of the road when we heard a noise from that direction, and suspecting an ambush we instantly struck off across the fields, putting the house between ourselves and the possible enemy. Then we heard footsteps running in the snow, and then a cry of "Halt! Halt!" from about 15 yards behind us. The position was hopeless; there was no cover, and our pursuer could certainly run as fast as we could in our heavy clothes. "It's no good," said Medlicott; "call out to him." I quite agreed and shouted. "Come here, then," the man answered. "All right, we are coming, so don't shoot." When we got close we saw it was the little N.C.O. who looked after the canteen. His relations with the prisoners had always been comparatively friendly. He was quite a decent fellow, and I think we owe our lives to the fact that it was this man who caught us. He only had a small automatic pistol, and, as we came back on to the road, he said, "Mind now, no nonsense! I am only a moderate shot with this, so I shall have to shoot quick." I said we had surrendered and would do nothing silly. He walked behind us back to the village, on the outskirts of which we met the pursuing party, consisting of the "Blue Boy" with a rifle and a sentry with a lantern. The lantern was held up to our faces. "Ha ha," said the "Blue Boy," "Herr Medlicott and Hauptmann Evans,[137] noch mal." Then we walked back to the fort under escort, about a 4 mile march. As we entered the outer door of the fort the sentry at the entrance cursed us and threatened me violently with a bayonet, but our N.C.O. stopped him just in time. In the main building just outside the bureau we had a very hostile reception from a mob of angry sentries through whom we had to pass. For a few moments things looked very ugly. I was all for conciliation and a whole skin if possible, but it was all I could do to calm Medlicott, who under circumstances of this sort only became more pugnacious and glared round him like a savage animal. Then the Feldwebel appeared and addressed the soldiers, cursing them roundly for bringing us in alive instead of dead. I have treasured up that speech in my memory, and, if ever I meet Feldwebel Bühl again, I shall remind him of it. He is the only German against whom, from personal experience, I have feelings which can be called really bitter. The Feldwebel wished to search us, but we refused to be searched unless an officer was present; so we waited in the bureau for an hour and a half till the Commandant arrived. This time they took my flying-coat away and refused to give it back. They also found on me the same tin of solidified alcohol which had been taken off me before and restolen by the Frenchmen. They recognized it, but of course could not prove it was the same. "I know how you stole this back," said the senior clerk as he searched me. "You shall not have it again." He was a Saxon, and the only German with a sense of humor in the fort. We both laughed over the incident. I laughed last, how[138]ever, as I got the tin back in about a week's time, as I will tell later. The search being over, we were allowed to go back into our rooms, and had breakfast in bed. Perhaps it may seem rather extraordinary that we were not punished severely for these attempts to escape, but the explanation lies not in the leniency of the German but in the fact that there were no convenient cells in which to punish us. The cells at Fort 9 were all of them always full, and there was a very long waiting list besides. They might have court-martialled us and sent us to a fortress, but our crime, a "simple escape," was a small one. They might have sent us to another camp; but the Germans knew that we would ask nothing better, as no officers' camp was likely to be more uncomfortable or more difficult to escape from. Any way, it would be a change. Sometimes, when there was a vacancy, they sent us to the town jail, but, as had been demonstrated more than once, it was easier to escape from there than from Fort 9. The Germans' main object being to keep us safe, they just put us back into the fort and awarded us a few days' Bestrafung, which we did in a few months' time when there was a cell vacant. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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