CHAPTER XXV

THE LAST LAP

Half an hour later we were awake again, shivering and with chattering teeth. The wind was rising and rustling in the canopy of leaves over our heads. It was dark and bitterly cold.

“I’m going to do something,” I announced. “We may have rain. I’ll build a shelter.”

The oak saplings offered an ideal material for an arbor, although the clasp-knife did not bite readily through their tough fibers. Jointly we interlaced the crowns of six or seven stout saplings, growing in a circle, and twisted long branches in and out of the stems. We made a small but dense roof. The floor we covered with small twigs and leaves to the depth of two or three inches.

The exertion made the blood course through our veins again. Before we had finished, it was day.

The wind had increased to a gale, which shrieked and roared and rustled among the foliage, sending occasional eddies even into our hiding-place. It kept the rain off, which threatened now and again during the forenoon. There were no mosquitoes. I do not think there ever are any among oaks.

Several excursions to the river bank, in couples or singly, one of us always remaining in the arbor, warmed us a little when we had got chilled to the bone. The river path, and the belt of scattered bushes, remained deserted all day. But we observed a considerable amount of river traffic. Long strings of barges, mostly empty, were being towed upstream by powerful tugs.

Tynsdale scouted toward the west, away from the river, and reported a farm some distance from our hiding-place in that direction, and the existence of a pond and a belt of marsh-land behind the thicket.

We slept in snatches of minutes, until the cold awoke us again, and again sent us dancing or scouting about. It was the most miserable camp we had yet experienced, but the safest, and the one where we were the least thirsty. There was more water about us than was altogether desirable, we thought at the time. Twenty-four hours later, looking back, we altered our opinion.

The distance from this camp to the Dutch frontier was five miles to the west-northwest, as the crow flies. Opposite to us the border traversed an extensive swamp, the Bourtange Moor, twenty-five miles in length, and between five and seven miles in width.

According to our map, neither road nor path led over it, which was one of the reasons why we had selected it as the point to strike at. “Information received” had encouraged our belief that the swamps which extend along nearly the whole of the northern frontier between Holland and Germany can be traversed in summer and autumn during normal years. Other information tended to show that comparatively they were negligently guarded. I had never forgotten a newspaper article which I had read in Ruhleben in the winter of 1915-1916. A territorial had described his duties as a frontier guard. There was one passage: “When on duty I shared a small hut with another man.… We had to walk two hours to the nearest post.” Two men to guard a two-hours’ stretch! Ridiculous! Camouflage! but still--

Our route would be across the northern half of the moor. I had talked it over with my companions many a time.

“There is this large forest at the north end of the swamp. If the recent rains have made the swamp impassable, we’ll have to make for it and try to cross the frontier where it runs through the wood. I should hate to have to do that. A hundred to one, sentries there will be as thick as flies in summer. But we may have no alternative. For that eventuality, we will take the most favorable course across the swamp, walking west by north. Since we must continually go round bad places, we will make all corrections northerly, and thus edge off toward the wood, and lessen the distance in that way.

“These two roads, parallel to the river, which we shall have to cross before getting on to the swamp proper, will be dangerous. I shouldn’t wonder if sentries and patrols were to be found on them. But I cannot imagine how they can easily relieve a man on a trackless morass; can you?”

At 5:30 we ate our last meal. A very slender one it was. We reserved only some chocolate and the tin of Horlick’s malted milk tablets, which we always had looked upon as our emergency ration. These we divided into equal shares.

At 5:45 I advised the cutting of long, stout staves. They would be useful, I thought, for the work ahead of us. I had no idea that they would make all the difference between failure and success.

At 6 o’clock we could not stick it any longer inside the thicket. We made our way out, and walked up and down behind the bushes, waiting for darkness.

Of course we were on edge. I do not think we had had in all eighteen hours’ sleep since Saturday. It was now Friday. And we were merely waiting, waiting for the time when we could act, when the game was to be decided. We were not very nervous, but we were subdued. I think we all believed we should succeed, although I tried to look on the black side of things. It seemed so impossible that three years--three years!--of captivity should come to an end. Did we look far ahead? I remember that my mind went no farther than to visualize a river, a mile or so across the border, which was to tell us that we were free!

The sun had disappeared, the wind lulled into silence. The sky, brushed free of clouds, spanned pale blue from sky-line to sky-line. A crescent moon had peeped her last over the western rim of the world, and followed the sun. The shadows were growing dense underneath bush and canopied foliage.

The river murmured sleepily as we went to drink. Tynsdale crouched against the steep bank and handed up the full bottles, one by one. We took up our staves and very slowly walked down the river, before it was quite dark, looking for open country on the left.

The stars had come out, one after another. Quickly their numbers increased, until myriads of them twinkled and glittered. It was an absolutely ideal night for our purpose.

The oaks on our left came to an end. A shallow depression, with the glint of water here and there, intervened between us and the rising ground some distance away.

“Here we start,” said I, “on our last lap!”

* * * * *

“Eight-thirty,” said Kent.

“Come on!” I answered.

Descending from the river bank, we found the ground most difficult. Two or three wide drainage ditches were crossed with the help of their sluice-gates, smaller ones we jumped with our staves. Then came marshy meadows and open patches of water. For about an hour we were almost always in over our ankles, frequently much deeper, wandering through the shallowest places.

In a sort of dell, on rising ground now, with small copses to right, left, and in front, we halted, removed our boots and emptied them of water, and wrung out our socks and trousers. This was quite necessary. The squirting noise of our steps advertised our presence a long way in the still night.

Here, if I mistake not--it may have been a little later--we arranged the order of our march. I took the van. My task was to pick the way to keep the direction. Kent, next, was to pay particular attention to our nearer surroundings, try to spot danger--sentries and patrols, etc.--and keep count of the time. Every four or five hundred yards he was to signal “down,” when we were to “flop.” By this manœuver we would contract the horizon and, perhaps, spot sentries against the sky-line. Tynsdale, in the rear, was to check the direction, and speak, if he saw me apparently make a wrong move. All of us were to keep our eyes wide open and all senses on the alert.

When we topped the rise we sank down silently. There was the first road, across our course, hardly discernible on the black, flat expanse. Nothing moved; no sound, except that of our own breathing, disturbed the stillness. Obliquely across some fields we came to the second road.

Again we crouched. “All’s well. Go on.”

After that, a smooth, very springy surface made agreeable walking for a short time.

“Hou--” I started.

“Houses to left and right in front!” whispered Kent. Again we looked and listened.

They were two small single structures, standing perhaps three hundred yards apart, as if dropped from a giant child’s play-box. When I had led through the space between, a path was found to run past them.

Now began the swamp proper, as flat and as black, at first, as a congealed lake of asphalt, covered with the same exceedingly short growth we had already encountered, like very tiny heather plants, or their densely intertwined roots, and very springy with the concealed bog underneath.

With the greatest care I kept the north star just a little in front of my right shoulder. We were advancing rapidly. There seemed no possibility of sentries standing on a trackless waste.

I felt very sure of myself, very much exhilarated, very happy. We had time to notice our surroundings. They were eerie in the extreme. We were in the center of a perfect circle, black as pitch, except for some whitish patches ahead.

Those whitish patches came nearer. The first we approached I tested with my staff. Firm sand! They increased in number, flowed together here and there. Only narrow black strips now, connected with larger black areas beyond. Suddenly, one of the white spaces, not a whit different to look at from those we had already crossed, was water. Correction north. They were all water! We were being pushed to the north at a great rate. So I corrected southerly once or twice, at first, then alternately with a northerly deviation.

It was nerve-racking business to pick the way. Our deliberate halts and surveys had grown more infrequent as the involuntary ones increased in number. Occasionally we had seen and crossed a track.

I think Kent had just announced “Twelve o’clock,” when--

“Pfattt!” said a rifle, far to the north. We stared intently in the direction of the sound.

“Pfattt!” it repeated spitefully; “pfattt!”

We could not see the spit of flame. It must have been in the wood. Later, when we met the men whom the bullets had been meant for, this proved to be correct.

Without a word to the others I turned due west. The swamps are kindlier than German riflemen.

We left off making any remarks. We were too strung up for talk.

“This is a patch of a different kind,” I thought. Like dull silver it gleamed under the stars, not half as bright as the others. The ground was very unstable all about us. I could feel slow waves rolling sluggishly under my feet, caused by my own and my companions’ footsteps on the thin carpet of vegetable matter covering the morass. When I tested the patch I found it to be slime. Correction southerly, all southerly now, to edge away from the wood. The areas of slime increased in number, multiplied, flowed together. The third I came to seemed to offer some resistance to the probing staff at first, then the pole went in as into water. I lost my balance. My left foot swung forward, to find another hold. Instantly it was under the surface. Just as quick Kent’s arms were about me. Violently he jerked me back, I clinging to my staff.

“Thanks!”

The ground got worse and worse. Some of the slimy places which appeared firmer than the rest we crossed. Flat-footedly we slithered over them one after the other, our staves held horizontally.

Abruptly we were in the peat cuttings--great yawning holes and ditches, running mainly from north to south, black, with sometimes a star or two, mirrored in the foul water a foot or so below the edge. The passage had to be made across bridges of standing peat, hardly ever more than two feet wide, which swayed as we shuffled over them. I held grimly to the western course, as well as I could. Going south seemed easier, but that direction meant no progress toward the frontier, rather the reverse. And north? No, thank you! Not after those shots.

I was standing precariously balanced on a peat bridge, the pole thrown far forward as a third leg--oh, those precious poles!--when a splash sounded behind, and a gurgling noise. Kent had gone in.

“What’s happened? Can’t you help him? I can’t!” I called to Tynsdale.

We were under far too great a stress to feel any particular emotion. At any rate, I was. And as to helping, I couldn’t even turn my head without losing my balance.

Before Tynsdale could reply, I heard a slight scramble, the swishing of water, and then Kent’s subdued voice expressing his entirely unsubdued opinion about peat cuttings. Part of his particular bridge had crumbled under his foot. He had fallen into a hole. The stout oak sapling, carried firmly in both hands, one end of it rammed into the ground for a hold, had fallen across the opening, its other end descending on firm ground. It had kept Kent suspended. Only his legs had gone into the water.

The incident decided me. “South,” I called over my shoulder.

A short time later, the peat holes grew scarcer.

“West!”

There were the slimy patches again! We went around a few. Most of them we crossed in a bee-line. They seemed firmer here. A few much smaller sheets of water! Then again a flat, unbroken, springy surface.

We were all going strong, out to make westing as fast as we could put our feet to the ground; no thought, now, of crouching.

* * * * *

A barbed wire, behind it a deep, wide ditch, beyond that a plowed field, were in front of us.

The human mind is a queer contrivance. We had just negotiated some rather ugly ground. We had not bothered about, hardly become aware of, the risks we had taken. Now we were hesitating for a few moments in front of a ditch with firm sides which, at the worst, we could easily have waded. At last we jumped, landing in the water half-way up to our knees. I lost my precious aluminium water-bottle there. Then across the field, across another ditch, and so four times.

On the way I asked Tynsdale: “Nothing to remark about our course?”

“I thought you altered it, and swung due west at one point.”

“Yes, after the shots.”

“Intentional?”

“Sure!”

“Thought so.”

A canal, seemingly in course of construction, was crossed on a large tree-trunk, which bridged it. Kent and I did it astride. Tynsdale walked. Two hundred yards farther we stood on the banks of another full-grown canal.

“We must be in Holland,” I remarked.

“I wouldn’t like to say so,” replied Kent. “You know there’s a canal parallel and close to the frontier on the German side, forty or fifty miles farther south.”

“Yes, and it’s marked on our map, and this isn’t.”

“A river, not a canal, was to show us we were in Holland!”

“True, but they may have turned the river into a canal. Man, the frontier runs across the swamp. We’re off the swamp. We’re in Holland, I bet you what you like.”

“I don’t think you ought to be so cock-sure.”

“But I am. Here, do you want to swim across?”

“No.”

“All right! We’ll turn south along its banks!”

Soon we came abreast of a house which lay a hundred yards or so to the east, toward Germany.

“Let’s go have a look,” I suggested. We did so.

The whole character of the cottage, for such it was, struck me as un-German. I pulled out my torch: “This isn’t German. Look at that front door. Decorated with painted flowers!”

Kent arrived breathlessly from somewhere: “This can’t be Germany! There is a big dish, full of potatoes, on the table in the front room!”

“Let’s knock!”

We knocked. We had no time to ask questions, for, before the last rap had sounded, “Holland! Holland!” called a male voice from within.

Holland! We stood and looked at one another silently, then retreated a few steps.

“Cheers, boys,” I said. “Hip, hip, hip--”

Three feeble cheers seemed to be immediately swallowed up in the darkness. How thin, weak, and far away our voices sounded!

Then we turned, to make our way to the nearest village.