CHAPTER VIII

A NEW HOPE

I awoke, much refreshed, just before the clock from the church steeple chimed six. For some time I lay quiet, groping my way back into reality. When the recollection of my last-night’s disaster drifted back into my brain, I felt almost physically sick with disappointment and rage, until awakening determination came to my help. “No use repining. Is there no way to repair the damage? Hullo! it’s Sunday to-day. Sunday! A village jail can’t be so awfully strong! I’ll be moved to-day, though. Will they take me away in a car? Those gendarmes aren’t easily fooled! But, after all, it’s Sunday. Perhaps that’s a reason why they won’t move me!” The idea took such a hold on me that I was up in a jiffy.

The cell, as I could see now, was square and very small, four paces across. The only article of furniture was the bed, which took up about one third of the floor space. There was nothing else in the room. The window was in the wall opposite the bed, the door on the right. The former was strongly barred, as I knew already. Moreover, several ladders hung in front of it along the outside of the wall. The door seemed fairly strong and was made of rough boards. So was the ceiling. A beam extended from above the window to the opposite wall. The ceiling boards at right angles did not run through from wall to wall but terminated on top of the beam, as could be seen from their different widths on each side of it. Standing on the bed, I could place my hands flat against them without stretching my arms to the full. In one place above it, and near the left wall looking toward the window, a splinter had come away from the edge of a board. Although the wood at that point showed signs of dry-rot, I did not investigate it thoroughly just then.

It was a great find, I thought at the time, when I discovered under the bed a big piece of timber, the sawn-off end of a beam, about three feet long. To pounce upon it and hide it under the paillasse was the work of seconds. It would furnish an excellent battering-ram.

Up to now I had depended upon my ears to warn me of anybody’s coming. After the discovery of the battering-ram, I made sure, by trying to get a glimpse of the next room through cracks in the door, that nobody was watching me. A part of the fire-engine could be seen, and on it a clean cup and saucer. “Somebody must have been in that room to-day! Nobody would have placed it there last night. Besides, I didn’t see anybody carrying anything. Couldn’t have been done while I was awake. Better go slow!”

Outside the window was a kitchen-garden with some fruit-trees. To the right, the corner of a house and a pigsty with a solitary undersized occupant terminated the view. My horizon was bounded by the roofs of a few houses which stood behind trees.

It was past seven o’clock when I heard the key turn in the outer door. Soon the door of my cell flew open, and in marched the short, sharp-featured man of the night before, with a pot of coffee, a cup and saucer, and something done up in paper, which turned out to be excellent bread and butter. Butter, mind you! With him entered a very young soldier, who nonchalantly sat down on my bed to survey me gravely. Around the opening of the door clustered the elder boys of the village, pushing and straining. Behind them were the girls, giggling and whispering nervously. All devoured me with their eyes. In the rear were the small fry. They overflowed into the street, where the urchins, feeling perfectly safe from the bad man inside, indulged in catcalls and disparaging shouts at my expense, while I had breakfast. I chatted the while with the man whom I shall call the warder, although he probably had many functions in the village. My efforts to obtain information from him as to whether or not I was likely to be taken away that day proved unsuccessful.

When my visitors had left me, I remembered that, experienced jailbird as I had become since the beginning of the war, I had a duty to perform--a scrutiny of the walls of the cell for any records former occupants might have left there. This leaving of inscriptions seems to be “the correct thing” among German prisoners--criminals, I mean. They are not always nice but invariably interesting, particularly under the circumstances in which they are read. The walls of my abode had been recently whitewashed, and there was only one inscription: “André--[I forget the surname] evadé Avril 2me 1916, repris Avril 3me 1916.” Thus a fellow-fugitive had been here only the previous day.

I very badly wanted my morning smoke, and unexpectedly I had found two cigarettes in my pockets, but there were no matches; and I had been warned that smoking was not permitted. A woman was walking about in the garden at this time. I took her to belong to the house whose corner I could see; she was probably the wife of the owner. I intended to appeal to her compassionate spirit. After a time she was joined by an elderly woman, perhaps her mother. Although they did not show obvious interest in me, yet they kept passing in front of my window. At last I addressed them, whereupon they stopped with alacrity. The elder woman was certainly talkative. She pitched into me at once, going over the whole register of my sins as an Englishman as conceived by the German mind, and telling me what a disgusting lot of robbers, thieves, and murderers we were. As soon as she had got it off her chest, she became rather friendly. “You’d be in Holland now, if you hadn’t been taken last night.”

“Surely not,” with a puzzled frown. “I thought I’d have another two-days’ walk from here.”

“Oh, no. It’s only a four-hours’ walk by the road into Holland from here.”

“In this direction?” I pointed east, into Germany.

“No, over there. You go through ---- and ----, then take the ---- road on the right. It’s not more than four hours, is it?” turning to her daughter, who nodded.

“What’s the use of your telling me now when I am behind the bars again?” I groaned. Ingratiatingly: “Could you oblige me with a match? I am dying for a smoke.”

“You aren’t allowed to smoke!” severely. Then they left me.

For a time small boys kept looking in at the window. Their advent was always heralded by the sound of a scramble, from which I gathered that there must be a fence or a gate between the building I was in and the house on my right. Sometimes they were chased away incontinently by somebody I could not see. That any attempt at breaking out would have to lead through the garden was a foregone conclusion. The other side of the building was on the public street.

At about ten o’clock the warder appeared, and I managed to be let out, mainly to have a look around. When we returned, the Amtmann was waiting for me. The first thing he did was to search me for the two cigarettes. The women had split on me! Then I tried to find out whether I was to be moved that day, but could not get a satisfactory answer. This made me rather hopeful that the cell would have to harbor me for another night. Of course, I professed myself most anxious to be sent off, which was natural. The sooner the military authorities should take me in charge, the sooner I should know my punishment and get it over. I was careful to explain all this. Finally, the Amtmann asked me whether or not I wanted any of the food he had taken from me. The answer was in the affirmative. But although he repeated this question later in the day, and promised to send me the sausage, I never got it. My request for something to read he granted by sending me some German weeklies called _Die Woche_ (“The Week”).

Then he left me, only to reappear at 11:30. This time he was very solemn, and asked me to give him my word of honor that I was not an English officer. Obviously one was at large in Germany; I could not suppose that it was a shot at random. With feeling I assured him that I was not an officer and never had been one. My questions regarding this interesting subject fell on deaf ears.

The Amtmann’s parting words excited me greatly. He regretted that I should have to spend another night in his village, because they could not arrange for an escort on Sunday. It was difficult to hide my exultation over this bit of news, but I believe I managed to look dejected and resigned.

Soon after the Amtmann had gone, the warder brought me my dinner in a dinner-pail. He left it with me and disappeared. The food was certainly the best I had ever received from German authorities at any time. The pot was full of excellent potatoes in brown, greasy onion gravy. A decent-sized piece of hot, home-made sausage lay on top. I was very hungry, but so excited that I was half-way through the mess before I realized that I was merely swallowing it down without tasting a bit of it. That was sheer ingratitude, and thereafter I went ahead slowly, thoroughly enjoying it. The pot was empty far too soon; a second edition would have been very acceptable. I complimented the warder on the excellent fare in his prison.

“I told my wife about you,” he acknowledged, “and she said we ought to give you a decent dinner anyway.”

When I had finished I thought the time favorable to begin operations. After a substantial Sunday dinner--there was evidently no shortage of food in that part of Germany as yet--the village was bound to be more or less somnolent. Indeed, no sound was to be heard from the street.

The first thing was to make a thorough inspection of the ceiling. If one could get into the loft the roof would offer little resistance, it being, as I had seen, tiled in the ordinary way.

Where the splinter had broken off, two boards appeared affected by dry-rot, a narrow one and a wider one next to it. Tentatively I pushed against the narrow one near the end which was nailed to the beam. There was some spring there, not the firm resistance of a sound board well nailed home. Under the slowly increased pressure it suddenly gave with a creak, and a shower of splinters and dust came down upon me and the bed. I could now look into the loft and see the under side of the tiles. Directly in line with my eyes was a hole where a tile had lost its upper half. This would be the place to attack, once through the ceiling.

In the meantime the sun shone through another hole which I could not see, and, through the crack upon my bed. To pull the board back into its original position had no effect. Where there had been a narrow crack in the morning another splinter had become detached, and there was the scintillating beam of light cleaving a path through the dust motes, a traitorous tell-tale. After a moment’s thought, I rolled my oilsilks into a long sausage and shoved it past the raised board into the loft in such a fashion that it would roll over the crack when the board was lowered. It worked, and after a critical inspection I decided that none but an exceptionally observant individual would ever notice that the ceiling had been tampered with.

All this had not taken very long. Absolute silence brooded over the place. Fearing that the narrow board might be insufficient to let me into the loft, I tried to get the wider one next to it loose. When it resisted the pressure of my hands, the battering-ram was brought into play, with the overcoat wrapped round the end of it to deaden the noise. Using it with discretion, I could make no impression. So I left it at that.

Having removed all traces of my work from the bed and the floor, I stood near the door and kicked my heels against it. This I did to have some explanation, should anybody have heard the battering-ram at work. Then I quieted down, resolving not to do any more until soon after the next visit.

I was now quite convinced that I should get out of the prison during the night. My one anxiety was for the weather to keep fine. I had a fair idea of how to proceed as long as I could keep my direction. Without a compass I was dependent upon the stars. There was no sign of a change in the sky; nevertheless, I kept an unceasing and apprehensive watch upon what I could see of it.

At three o’clock the Amtmann came back: “The people next door complain that you disturbed them in the night. There were thumping and bumping noises coming from this cell.” I had slept almost like a log through the night. The involuntary expression of astonishment on my face at this complaint was a more convincing answer than I could have made verbally to the Amtmann, who was watching me narrowly all the time. I protested, of course, and then volunteered the information that I had been kicking my heels against the door a short time ago, apologizing with a contrite mien.

“Oh, these people always seem to imagine things!” was his reply, wherewith he left me. I thought I had got well out of it. Obviously there was a misunderstanding, and the noise which had attracted the attention of “the people next door” was that of my efforts an hour or so ago.

At four o’clock the warder brought me coffee and bread and butter. He had a small retinue with him. When I had finished, I asked him to fill the coffee-pot with water and leave it with me. Not only was I very thirsty; I wanted to absorb as much moisture as I could while I had the chance.

As soon as he had gone I got on the bed again. The sun had now traveled far enough to the west to make the roll of oilsilks superfluous.

If, as I believed, the cell wall was an outer one, the board could now be fast only at the end above it. Applying my strength at the other end near the beam ought to give me a tremendous leverage, which should force it loose with little effort. It resisted, however, until I fancied I could hear my joints crack with the exertion. The strain lasted a few seconds; then the board came away above the wall with a rending crash. Simultaneously something heavy fell to the ground on the other side. The sound of it striking the floor, and the slant of the board, revealed the existence of a third room in the building, across which it had extended to the real outer wall of the prison, and at the same time explained its strong resistance to my efforts.

With thumping heart and bated breath I listened for any suspicious sounds from beyond the wall or from the street, but nothing happened. Still the board, which now ought to have moved easily, resisted. Getting my head into the loft, I found it littered with heavy lumps of metal and plenty of broken glass, the remnants of old street-lamp standards. Some of the metal things projected over the opening; as soon as I had pushed them away the board moved up and down freely.

This was all I dared do at the moment in preparation for the escape. The rest could easily be accomplished by the sense of touch in the night. For the present, the board had to be fitted back into place. I accomplished that, or nearly so, and trusted to the blindness of the average mortal for my safety.

When I had removed the dust and splinters from my bed, and everything looked in order, I saw the woman from next door walking in the garden. I was quite taken aback, and watched her for some time, but she seemed unconcerned enough. She could hardly have seen me except by putting her face close to the window, for the eaves projected a considerable distance beyond the walls, and were not more than eight feet from the ground. Consequently it was never light in the cell, and less so now when the sun was nearing the sky-line.

About half an hour afterward she came to my window, bringing two girls with her, who obviously had come on purpose to see the wild Englishman. The taller was a strapping, Junoesque maiden with apple-red cheeks and considerable assurance. Her friend, a foil to her, was more of a Cinderella, gray, middle-sized, reticent, but pleasant to look upon, and with intelligent eyes and a humorous mouth. She said never a word during her friend’s lively chat with me, only gurgling her amusement now and then.

When they had gone I continued my intermittent watch of “the little patch of blue that prisoners call the sky.” Gradually it changed to a rosy hue, then the color faded, and a few stars began to twinkle feebly.

With the approach of evening the temperature had gone down, and the overcoat had become a comfort. To my surprise, an inner pocket, crackling ever so little, gave up a piece of map not larger than my hand. It was from the more useless map I had bought, but the most important part of it, the only piece I had kept when setting out from Haltern. Being printed on thin, unbacked paper, it had escaped the attention of my captors the more easily as they had found the other complete map in my coat pocket. It did not tell me much more than I knew already, but, kept before me until darkness fell, it undoubtedly helped me visualize the country I was walking through later on.