CHAPTER XVI

FROM BERLIN TO HALTERN

The night was bitterly cold. The extraordinarily mild weather of the last weeks had changed at the most inopportune moment. A few hard flakes of snow were now and again driven into our faces by a searching wind. We were without shelter, without food for the walking part of our enterprise, without adequate clothes. In Wallace’s case a year and a half, in mine seven months, of prison life had not improved the condition of our health. We were decidedly too soft to stand a number of days of cold weather without at least some fatty nourishment.

I pictured us sleeping in ordinary townish winter clothes on a freezing day, perhaps with snow on the ground, in thin sleeping-bags consisting of an outer cover of canvas and a light lining of shoddy. We should be wet through in half an hour. The moisture would freeze on our garments as the generation of body heat, already at a low ebb for want of food, decreased. Then, we would go to sleep.

I imagined us trying to slip through between two sentries, five hundred yards apart, with patrols in between, and over bare fields, while the snow-light gave tolerable vision up to a mile.

I was so disheartened that I proposed that we should walk to the prison and give ourselves up. We could plead that we had gone away for a lark. Our punishment would almost certainly be light. There had been precedents which warranted this view. It was not impossible that the German authorities might come to the conclusion that one escape apiece had been enough for us. In this way we might get another chance under more favorable circumstances. If we persisted now, we had not one in ten thousand, and we firmly believed that after capture we should be sent to a penitentiary prison and guarded beyond hope of another attempt.

With splendid pluck and determination Wallace talked me round. No, he was not going to do anything of the sort. Let them catch him, if they could, but no voluntary surrender for him. I could do as I liked, but we might find it easier than we thought.

“All right! Let’s go to a hotel!”

“That isn’t safe. We must try to get somewhere else.”

I intended to have my way now. “No fear! From what S. told us, it is safe enough. We both speak German pretty well. If we leave the place before eight o’clock we’ll be all right. Look at C. and G.! They never had to show their passports at the hotels. This way to the station for our luggage! Say, do you know a small hotel hereabouts?”

“Yes, there is the ----. I stopped there once. But it is a good long way from here.”

“Let’s try it, anyway.”

I had pocketed the luggage-ticket. At the station I could not find it. An agitated search through my pockets failed to reveal the square thin paper. We were standing in front of the cloak-room, and I was still hunting through my pockets when a man approached us.

I had caught sight of him out of the corner of my eye while he was still some yards away. If ever there was a detective in plain clothes, he was one. Deliberately I half turned my back toward him. He stepped up close to my shoulder and peered over it, listening to what we were saying. I dared not take any notice. Wallace’s eyes, boring for a moment into mine while he lolled against a counter, are still clear before me.

A few months earlier I had received an answer to one of our petitions, in a fine official envelop with a huge blue seal on the back. With an indefinite idea that the seal might be used as an effective camouflage, I had kept the envelop by me. I drew out my pocket-book, and while searching through it, held the back of the envelop conveniently exposed to the eyes of the detective.

“I must have left it at the hotel. Let’s go there and send for the luggage,” I said aloud in German. The detective turned away. So did we.

A single cab stood in front of the station. I turned toward the station police-office to get the brass disk, but was met half-way by the policeman, who had been watching us. He handed it to me without a word.

The hotel at which we wished to stay was full. After some palaver cabby took us to one near by, where we got a room. It was a very small place. The night-porter seemed to be the only servant on duty. He appeared somewhat suspicious, but said nothing about it.

The double-bedded room we were shown into looked very nice. We thought it ridiculously luxurious, but Wallace went to bed at once. It was about one o’clock. While undressing I found the luggage-ticket in an inner waistcoat pocket.

I had still about two hours’ work ahead of me, for I had to map out the route for the following day. I was quite convinced that Berlin was too hot for us. We had not yet discussed our further plans, but had bought a time-table at the station.

Finally, having considered a number of alternative routes, I selected a slow train, which was to leave the Zoölogical Garden Station, where our luggage was, at 10:24 A.M. for Hanover, and was due to arrive some time after 6 P.M. I went to sleep, dead tired, at about 2:45.

We got our knock and hot water at 6:30, as ordered. Having dressed, we went into the breakfast-room. A nice, comfortable-looking body presided there; I believe she was the proprietress. We had foreseen the formality of the visitors’ book, and had our names and addresses pat. The landlady peered at them, then at us. I had to negotiate with her for our breakfast, for we had no bread-cards and wanted something to eat.

“You are foreigners, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Good gracious, no! Why do you think so?”

“I thought so from your accent.”

“We’re not from this part of Germany, as you can see by the visitors’ book.” I was going to add that we had lived a long time abroad, etc., but, if I recollect rightly, I did not. I don’t believe it safe to volunteer information, unless one is telling the truth.

“That’s quite all right, then. We have to be so careful about strangers! Just sign these emergency slips for your bread-cards. Thank you, sir.”

During a very sketchy breakfast consisting of coffee, rolls, and butter, a young lieutenant passed down the room, and with a bright smile saluted us civilly. Wallace and I looked at each other, grinning covertly. What a lark! If he knew!

At a quarter to eight we left the hotel and slowly made our way toward the station. Having plenty of time, we entered a café to have a chat and another breakfast, even more sketchy than the first. We were the only guests in the place, and had to wait for the milk. Here I outlined my plans for the day. At last Wallace assented.

“Come along, then,” I said, rising. “Let’s see what we can buy in the way of food. Chocolate first.”

In a high-class confectioner’s we were told that chocolate was out of the question, but _chocolates_ we could have.

“What price?”

“Nine marks [$1.75] a pound!”

We could not afford more than two pounds, because the things we had bought the night before had made a big hole in our joint capital of $125.00--in German money, of course. Next we obtained two small tins of sardines at $1.10 each. Our efforts to buy something in the way of meat or fat were not crowned with success.

At the station, however, things went well, in spite of my extreme agitation when buying the tickets.

Within the first half-hour we passed Ruhleben camp, and had a glimpse of the grand stands, the barracks, and the enclosure, which we knew so intimately from the inside.

At about 12:30 the train stopped for over an hour at Stendal. The station restaurant supplied us with a fairly ample fish meal, beer, and coffee. Another long stop occurred later on.

During the journey we passed a considerable number of prisoners’ camps. They seemed as a rule to be situated close to a railway line, within easy distance from a small station. The aspect of the huddled hutments, the wire fences around them with watch-towers at the corners, and the sentries on guard, was indescribably forlorn. At one station at which we stopped a transport of Russian prisoners entrained under a guard of ancient territorials.

Wallace was in high spirits all the time. I was, on the contrary, moody, irritable, and worried. My feelings were in complete accord with the weather.

A lowering gray wrack of clouds was being torn and driven by a whistling wind above the naked fields and copses. Occasionally showers of hard snowflakes could be heard rattling on the glass of the carriage windows. Our compartment was over-heated, as trains always are in Germany. Yet, I shivered occasionally, as I looked out of the window, while trying to construct a small optimistic raft to cling to in a sea of despondency. I made a bad companion that journey.

Hanover was reached on time, and the luggage temporarily disposed of in the cloak-room. The town greeted us with a brief but thick blizzard--about the worst thing that could happen to us short of arrest. Confronted with it, my spirits improved.

“Snow, or no snow, we’ll make the best attempt we can at the frontier,” I whispered.

“Just what I think,” Wallace agreed heartily.

His boots did not fit him well, and I urged him to buy bigger ones. A suitable pair, shown to us in a shop, cost $15.00, too much for our declining purse. When Wallace looked up at me from his chair, mutely shaking his head, I could not insist on the expenditure.

After that we walked about the streets, looking for a likely hotel. We decided on a dirty fifth-rate one, to which we resolved to return later, and then wandered back to the brighter, fashionable part of the town. We had dinner in a big restaurant. The warmth, the lights, the show of gaiety around us, and an ample but meatless meal accompanied by a glass or two of decent lager, made me feel subduedly optimistic. Wallace was nearly jumping out of his skin with _joie de vivre_.

At ten o’clock we went to our hotel. It was unnecessarily low-class. We did not seem to fit into the scheme of things there, and consequently were regarded with half-concealed suspicion. Nevertheless, no questions were asked. Our room was cheerless and cold. We waited until our luggage was brought; then Wallace crept into bed, while I sat in my overcoat near the guttering candle, looking up trains.

I intended to get to Haltern the following evening. The main railway lines lay across our route, and several changes were necessary, there being no direct trains over the branch lines we had to use. My task proved a difficult one. Few trains were running in Germany at that time. The fast corridor expresses, which we could have taken over comparatively small stretches, had to be carefully avoided, for we knew now of the existence of passport controls on them. The slow trains did not usually connect. After much comparing, testing, and retesting, I was fairly satisfied at last.

I had resolved not to leave Hanover from the main station. Detectives might be watching for us there. By using electric trams we could get to Hainholz, a village near Hanover, and there pick up our train. At about 12:30 we should be at Minden. A two-hours’ wait there, and a journey of about one and a half hours would take us to Osnabruck by about 5 P.M. Forty minutes later a non-corridor express would carry us to Haltern, where we should arrive at 7:30.

I was nearly beat when I tumbled into bed at two o’clock, envying Wallace, whose regular breathing had filled the room for hours past.

Bang, bang, bang! bang, bang, bang!

“All ri--” I began.

“_Danke schön, danke!_ [Thank you],” shrieked Wallace, to drown my voice.

I opened my eyes foolishly, to a dark room. A match spluttered, the wick caught, and Wallace’s eyes glittered reproachfully into mine from behind his glasses. “I say, do you know what you said?” This in German.

“Well, I--”

“Shshsh, you chump, _Deutsch!_”

* * * * *

“We’d like breakfast, please!” This to a youth in the bar-room.

“Have you got your bread-cards?”

“No. We’re travelers; we’ll sign travelers’ slips.”

“Nothing doing. You can have a cup of coffee.”

“Look here, we got bread at a restaurant last night without them. Why can’t you give us some?”

At this suggestion the uncivil youth lost his temper completely, and we were fain to content ourselves with a cup of German coffee-substitute.

Before eight o’clock we were out of the place. Our luggage was again in the cloak-room of the main station. A long walk got rid of most of the time before us. At ten we tried to buy some nuts. The oil they contained would supply our bodies with fuel; but none were to be had.

Having got our luggage, we took a tram to Hainholz, where we arrived far too early. The cloak-room and ticket-office of the small station were closed. Some minutes after eleven the train left. It was a pleasant change to get into the hot carriage after the cold station.

At 12:30 we arrived at Minden. The huge dark waiting-room seemed full of intangible menaces. We spent an exceedingly uncomfortable time there, but were recompensed by an excellent meal. A considerable piece of veal, with plenty of vegetables, blunted our fears and appeased our ravenous hunger.

At the station where next we had to change we found our train waiting on a siding, and at 7:30 P.M. we arrived in Haltern.

The weather had been much the same as on the preceding day, a little colder, a little more snow. With the prospect of getting within walking-distance of Holland, my spirits were not so depressed. It is such a bonny feeling to get on “your own feet,” instead of having to wait in a railway carriage or station, expecting to feel a hand on your shoulder, and hear a voice asking you for your papers!