CHAPTER XIX

FOOTING THE BILL

The lieutenant at the station, by his orders to us and the soldiers, had given us the cue for our behavior. Obviously, we must try to impress the warder with our standing as “military prisoners,” in order to be as comfortable as circumstances permitted.

We proceeded to do this with great ingenuousness. Long arguments and counter-arguments secured us the use of an oil lamp until eight o’clock at night. We went in force to obtain a second blanket, the warder leading the procession.

Our cell was very small, and very dirty. What little space there ought to have been was taken up by stacks of old bicycle tires, which had been confiscated six months before by the Government to relieve the rubber famine in the army.

During the three days we spent in Haltern prison we had no exercise at all. When the weather changed on the second day, and became mild again, just about the time when we should have been close to the frontier if everything had gone well, we sulked with fate more than ever.

The reported arrival of our escort on the evening of the third day excited the warder to such an extent that he wanted us to get up at half-past five the next morning in order to catch a train about eight o’clock. We demurred, of course, and got our way, as usual. Ever since our arrest we had devoted a good deal of time to weighing the probability of being sent to a certain penal prison in Berlin.

“Where are you going to take us?” Wallace and I blurted out simultaneously at two shadowy soldiers in the dark passage of the prison the following morning.

“To where you came from, the Stadtvogtei in Berlin,” one of them replied. To say we felt relieved is putting it mildly.

“We’d better not take it for granted that we are going to stay there, though!” I said, as we tramped through the melting slush to the station.

Several hours later, after a change of trains, Wallace and I had been put temporarily into a compartment with other travelers, until it could be cleared for the exclusive use of ourselves and escort. Slipping into the only two empty seats, we found the burning interest of our fellow-travelers centered upon a man in the naval uniform of the Zeppelin service, who was holding forth about his adventures over England. With extraordinary frankness he was recounting the names of a number of air-ship stations, and the number of Zeppelins usually detailed from each for attacks on Great Britain, and predicting another raid seven days later.

“You give them h---- every time you fly across, don’t you?” asked a civilian, leaning far forward in his seat.

“Can’t say that there is much to boast about of late,” was the unexpected reply. “They’ve plenty of guns, and can shoot quite as well as we. There won’t be many more raids after the one coming off next week.”

As we saw in the German newspapers eight days later the raid took place as predicted, and it was the last air-ship raid for a very long time.

* * * * *

To be in the company of a friend, and to have some money in my pocket, made all the difference between this and my first return from the neighborhood of the Dutch frontier eight months before. We did ourselves quite well on the journey, trying to discount in this way the punishment awaiting us.

At ten o’clock that evening we were welcomed to the Stadtvogtei by several of our old N. C. O.’s with roars of laughter, and conducted to two adjoining criminal cells in “Block 14,” a long way from our friends.

Before my eyes had become quite accustomed to the darkness, my cell door opened again, and our sergeant-major beckoned me to follow him.

“Take your things with you!” he said, and led the way to another cell, farther along the corridor, to separate me from Wallace.

“Come out here! I want to talk to you!” he ordered, when I had dumped down my luggage. “Who had the key?” he shot at me when I stood opposite him in the corridor.

We had expected this, and before our escape had rehearsed our answers to such questions in case one or more of us should be caught.

“Key? What key?” I asked.

“The key to the front door, of course!”

“I don’t know anything about a key.”

“How did you get out, then? How did you open the door?”

“We didn’t open the door. We found it open. It seemed too good an opportunity, so we slipped out as we were. We weren’t prepared at all! But you ought to know all this as well as I do. Haven’t you got your report from Haltern yet?”

His manner changed. He became quite paternal. He wasn’t a bad chap. Anyway, he knew he couldn’t screw anything out of us by turning rough. “Now, come! Don’t try to hoodwink me. We know well enough it was S. who had the key.”

“Well, if you know, why do you ask me?”

“Come on, tell me. It won’t be to your disadvantage! quite the reverse. Just say it was S.”

But of course I did nothing of the sort, and he gave it up.

“We’ll give you a hard time of it, this journey,” he threatened, rather mournfully. “Nothing but the prison food for you, no light of an evening.

“I thought you had shaved off your beard,” he remarked, before turning away. “I notified the police accordingly within the hour of your escape. We had all the stations watched. However did you slip out of Berlin?”

“Oh, rather casually,” I grinned. “Goodnight, Major!”

I felt by no means sprightly and unconcerned just then. I do not like solitary confinement. The stretch in front of me bade fair to exceed in discomfort the first one I had had. Still, we were lucky to be in the Stadtvogtei, near our friends, where, apparently, we were going to stay. With this consolatory reflection I rolled myself into my blankets without undressing. The next day we were going to be de-loused.

* * * * *

S. was arrested in Berlin on the morning following our arrival in prison, and lodged in a cell next to Wallace’s before we went into the yard for our exercise that afternoon. If I am not mistaken, a telephone conversation, during which he had made an appointment with a “friend,” had been listened to. Instead of a friend, a detective met S.

He got the same punishment as we did. At the time of his escape a criminal action had been pending against him. A month after our solitary confinement had come to an end, he was taken to the court one morning by a policeman. A few hours later the policeman turned up alone, considerably the worse for drink, and shedding bitter tears. His charge had decamped through the rear window of a café where he had been treating his escort. We never saw him again. He was still at liberty in June, 1917, and apparently in Holland.

G. was never captured. For several months rumors reached us that he had been seen here or there in Germany. I have not heard that he has arrived in England.

The German with the English name went to see his mother one day, two months after his disappearance from prison. The police were watching her flat in Berlin, hoping for just that event. Their prey got a term of solitary confinement in our prison, and was then drafted back into the army.

The sixth man, the German stockbroker, followed S. by a few days only. He was kept in prison for a week, and then definitely set at liberty.

On the evening of our second day in cells, we were warned not to go to bed, as our examination was to take place at nine o’clock. A quarter before the hour, S., Wallace, and I were taken down to the ground floor and thoughtfully locked into one cell, so that we were able to make the final arrangements for a consistent and uncontradictory account. This we did after a thorough inspection of the place which convinced us that no trap had been laid for us, and that we could talk freely until we should hear the key in the lock.

The following morning we were told of the comment of Herr Kriegsgerichtsrat Wolf of the Kommandantur, who conducted the examination, upon our respective stories: “Those Englishmen have told me a pack of lies!”

* * * * *

The threat of the sergeant-major had not been an empty one. We were forbidden to have any food apart from the prison rations. Every third day for four weeks these consisted only of bread and water, so far as we were concerned. The parcels arriving for us in the meantime--there were many of them, for Christmas was approaching--were handed to our friends for safekeeping. We were debarred from the use of artificial light in our cells. It being within a month from the shortest day in the year, this was rather “off.” The dawn did not peep through the small windows before nine o’clock, and when we returned from the yard in the afternoon, it was again too dark to read. I think it took the authorities ten days to relent on the question of light. We then got the use of an oil lamp up to eight o’clock every night.

I feel quite sure that we had to thank the lieutenant for the extra punishment of criminal cells, prison food, and no light. He must have been badly rattled about our escaping, and his superiors may have been ungentle with him when he reported it. Naturally, he took it out on us, though to our faces he was quite polite.

The question of food was solved to our complete satisfaction within three days. Our friends knew, of course, that we were going for our exercise every afternoon at three o’clock. From the very beginning they were able to pass us sandwiches and small cans of food.

Not without a little difficulty the N.C.O. in charge of our corridor had been persuaded that “they are allowed to have their newspapers, of course.” His referring the question to higher authority had been discouraged. Why bother busy men with trifles? The newspaper man was one of us. He brought the papers round every morning, when the cell doors were opened for cleaning purposes, and also every afternoon. Frequently he did not exchange a word with us but simply pushed the papers into the blankets of our beds. After he had gone, sandwiches and a beer bottle full of hot tea seemed to have been hatched miraculously among our bed-clothes.

The last and crowning achievement was the ventilator dodge. The ventilator was a square hole in the wall above the door, inclined toward the cell. Just after our dinner time, when the N.C.O. on duty was likely to be otherwise employed, stealthy footsteps might have been heard passing rapidly along the balcony. Very frequently they were inaudible even to our strained ears. The scraping of tin against stone was a signal for us to hurl ourselves toward the door, to catch the Lyle’s syrup can, filled with hot meat and vegetables, or soup, which was sliding through the ventilator.

None of the N.C.O.’s knew about this. They marveled at our physical endurance, which permitted us to retain a flourishing appearance in the face of starvation. Sagely they counseled the taking of medicine, or soap for instance, to make us look weak and pale just before our “solitary” was to terminate. “It’ll never do to be seen with bulging cheeks and bursting seams by anybody in command.”

* * * * *

The chance of seeing old friends, if only for a few seconds every day, the knowledge that I should have their companionship again as soon as our punishment was over, and the fact that I was in familiar surroundings, lessened the depressing effect of my solitary confinement this second time. Wallace, too, kept in fairly good spirits. Nevertheless, I came to the conclusion that the game was not worth the candle. I told Wallace of my decision as soon as I could. When we were again in front of the gate I qualified it: “Never again, Wace, never again--except during the mild seasons, and when the chances are as good as I can make ’em.”

On Christmas Eve, the thirty-fourth day of our punishment, we were liberated, but we had to sleep in the criminal cells for some time afterward.

In time, however, Wallace got the single cell he coveted, and I, after three weeks, again joined my old friends in the big cell. For a fortnight dear old K. was the fourth man. Then he was sent to Ruhleben. Wallace was the fifth member of the mess, a sort of day-boarder.

A week after K. had left us, most of the Englishmen got into trouble. As a punitive measure we were ejected from the large common cells, and C., L., Wallace, and I were lodged as far apart as possible. C. and I were warned to be ready to go to a penitentiary. W. received “solitary” for an indefinite time. Another fortnight, and all our intimate friends were sent back to Ruhleben. Only those members of the English colony who preferred prison to the camp, and four escapers, who had made two attempts, remained in the Stadtvogtei--ten in all. But for Dr. Béland and one other prisoner, Wallace and I were almost confined to each other’s society.

* * * * *

We had a fairly miserable time of it. The loss of most of our companions had unsettled us. To crown our misery, we were officially informed that we could not hope ever to be returned to camp, or even a camp, as we were considered dangerous to the German Empire.

The announcement ought to have made us feel rather proud. As we knew it to be only one of their specious arguments, it did nothing of the sort. Very soon I left it entirely out of my calculations. Wallace did not, however, but continued to attach importance to it. I must say this, in order to explain my later attitude toward another attempt to escape from prison. In the course of months I grew more and more convinced that we should go back to camp one day. Then would come our chance! I cannot explain my conviction. It was a “hunch.”

* * * * *

Our belief, however, that we should have to wait did not serve as an excuse for inaction. Wallace and I pushed our preparations for the next escape as fast as possible, which was incredibly slow.

Our mainstay was an N.C.O. employed in the office. He was a queer individual, one of the plausible sort. His favorite saying characterized him sufficiently: “_Eine Hand waescht die andere_ [one hand must wash the other].” His saving grace was the entirely frank attitude as to his outlook upon life and its obligations--lack of obligations, in his case. Through him we were able to take one great step forward--to procure maps. In the first part of this volume I have mentioned that the sale of maps to persons without a permit from the General Staff was forbidden in Prussia. According to the statement of our friend he got us the maps we wanted from a “relative” of his, who happened to be a bookseller. “He had these maps in stock and had forgotten to register them.” One or two of them were indeed slightly shop-soiled. They were good maps, covering a part of Germany from Berlin, and including it to the Dutch frontier. Their price--well, it made my eyes water. They were worth it, though. For a prisoner of war the collection must have been unique. We each had a compass.

Chiefly on my advocacy we postponed the start again and again. The chances of getting away from prison were, to my mind, infinitesimally small. One attempt by another party early in May was cleverly nipped in the bud. Our last attempt had not encouraged me to trust to luck, but I clung to my belief in a return to Ruhleben, which appeared as unlikely as ever, on the face of things. Once, however, we were ready to go, but almost at the last minute the help we had reckoned upon was not forthcoming.

Among the men who had tried their luck in May, 1917, were two who, very pluckily, had started to walk the whole distance between Ruhleben and the Dutch border. Unsuitable maps, in the first place, had been their undoing. They both spoke German--one like a native, the other not so well. They do not wish to be known, so, for the purpose of this narrative I will call them Kent and Tynsdale.

Tynsdale is a friend of mine. His pal Kent and he are good men. Do your best for them.--X.

This, penciled on a slip of paper and addressed to Wallace and me, was given to us by Tynsdale soon after his arrival. The brief phrase did not overstate their merits.

Tynsdale was small, wiry, and, at times, very reticent; Kent, tall, bulky, and--not reticent. In due course we came to live in a large cell together. They were as eager as were Wallace and I for a new venture, but they were quite determined not to break prison. The information they gave us about Ruhleben from the escaper’s point of view strengthened my prejudices against this course.

“Let’s wait a little longer. The weather will be favorable until October. If our hopes should prove vain, we can always make a desperate sortie. Before it comes to that, something may happen.” This was the final conclusion we arrived at.

Something did happen--several things, in fact.

The first was an unexpected visit from a representative of the Dutch Legation in Berlin. It found us well prepared with an impressive protest against being kept in prison any longer. The same evening I confirmed the interview in two identical and rather lengthy letters, to which almost all of us, including the five men then in “solitary,” subscribed their signatures.

One of these letters was delivered to the Dutch Minister by hand twenty-four hours after it had left the Stadtvogtei in the pocket of a person entirely unconnected with the postal service, military or otherwise. Consequently the German censor had no chance of perusing it. The other passed through the ordinary channels until it was, presumably, decently buried in the censor’s waste-basket.

A little later, German newspapers mentioned the fact that negotiations about the treatment of prisoners of war had taken place at The Hague, and that an agreement had been come to which was now awaiting ratification by the governments of Great Britain and Germany.

It so happened that at this time we had unusual facilities for the secret purchase of English newspapers. In a copy of the “Daily Telegraph” we read that the agreement had been ratified. Another week passed and a copy of the same paper contained paragraphs concerning civilian prisoners of war. The report of a speech in the House of Lords by Lord Newton, I believe, either in the same paper or in some other bought at the same time, helped us to interpret these paragraphs so far as they seemed to refer to cases like ours. At any rate, it gave us a talking-point in favor of an interpretation as we should have liked it, and announced further that the agreement had become operative in England on August 1, 1917, already a few days past.

A memorial in the shape of two letters addressed to the Dutch Minister in Berlin was the immediate result of reading these articles. The letters went the same way as the former ones, and drew a good deal of good-natured chaff upon my head about “writing-sickness,” “Secretary for Foreign Affairs,” and charges to be made for every signature I came to collect in future.

Tynsdale and Kent had not been away from camp more than three months. They knew all the ins and outs of it, including a good deal of information not usually shouted from the house-tops. Wallace and I, after an absence of thirty and seventeen months respectively, were comparative strangers to Ruhleben.

“Will you two come with Wallace and me?” I asked our new friends one day. “I should like to have your help in getting out of camp,” I explained. “Later on I can probably be as useful to you.” And I referred to my record as an escaper, to my equipment, and to my _maps_. They assented. They knew from previous discussions that I was not entirely in sympathy with their proposed route; or, rather, I had explained to them what I thought to be the advantages of a route I had in mind, which were confirmed by their own information.

As it appeared desirable that each member of the proposed expedition should be fully equipped as far as essentials were concerned, we set to work feverishly making tracings of parts of our maps. We had to finish this work while still in prison, because it would not be possible to secure sufficient privacy in Ruhleben for this kind of thing. Fortunately I had anticipated something like this months before, and possessed some colored inks and drawing-pens. Tracing-paper I manufactured from thin, strong white paper, which I treated with olive-oil and benzene. We finished three copies before we left prison, the original making the fourth.

On the 23rd of August, 1917, a strong guard of policemen escorted a highly elated batch of British civilian prisoners through a part of Berlin, then by rail to Spandau, and again, _per pedes apostolorum_, to Ruhleben camp. We were nineteen in all.

Four Britishers stayed behind voluntarily; five more were in “solitary,” having recently tried to escape and failed. Among the latter was our old friend L.