Part 11

I heard the German say a few words to himself, but didn't understand them, of course, and then he made a sound as if to call a dog, and I realized that his theory of the noise he had heard was that a dog had made its way through the fence.

For perhaps five minutes I didn't stir, and then, figuring that the German had probably continued on his beat, I crept quietly under the wire again, this time being mighty careful to hug the ground so close that I wouldn't touch the wire, and made off in a different direction. Evidently the barbed-wire fence had been thrown around an ammunition-depot or something of the kind and it was not a field at all that I had tried to get into.

I figured that other sentries were probably in the neighborhood and I proceeded very gingerly.

After I had got about a mile away from this spot I came to a humble Belgian house, and I knocked at the door and applied for food in my usual way, pointing to my mouth to indicate I was hungry and to my ears and mouth to imply that I was deaf and dumb. The Belgian woman who lived in the house brought me a piece of bread and two cold potatoes, and as I sat there eating them she eyed me very keenly.

I haven't the slightest doubt that she realized I was a fugitive. She lived so near the border that it was more than likely that other fugitives had come to her before, and for that reason I appreciated more fully the extent of the risk she ran, for no doubt the Germans were constantly watching the conduct of these Belgians who lived near the line.

My theory that she realized that I was not a Belgian at all, but probably some English fugitive, was confirmed a moment later when, as I made ready to go, she touched me on the arm and indicated that I was to wait a moment. She went to a bureau and brought out two pieces of fancy Belgian lace, which she insisted upon my taking away, although at that particular moment I had as much use for Belgian lace as an elephant has for a safety-razor, but I was touched with her thoughtfulness and pressed her hand to show my gratitude. She would not accept the money I offered her.

I carried that lace through my subsequent experiences, feeling that it would be a fine souvenir for my mother, although, as a matter of fact, if she had known that it was going to delay my final escape for even a single moment, as it did, I am quite sure she would rather I had never seen it.

On one piece of lace was the Flemish word "_Charité_" and on the other the word "_Espérance_." At the time, I took these words to mean "Charity" and "Experience," and all I hoped was that I would get as much of the one as I was getting of the other before I finally got through. I learned subsequently that what the words really stood for was "Charity" and "Hope," and then I was sure that my kind Belgian friend had indeed realized my plight and that her thoughtful souvenir was intended to encourage me in the trials she must have known were before me.

I didn't let the old Belgian lady know, because I did not want to alarm her unnecessarily, but that night I slept in her backyard, leaving early in the morning before it became light.

Later in the day I applied at another house for food. It was occupied by a father and mother and ten children. I hesitated to ask them for food without offering to pay for it, as I realized what a task it must have been for them to support themselves without having to feed a hungry man. Accordingly, I gave the man a mark and then indicated that I wanted something to eat. They were just about to eat, themselves, apparently, and they let me partake of their meal, which consisted of a huge bowl of some kind of soup which I was unable to identify and which they served in ordinary wash-basins! I don't know that they ever used the basins to wash in as well, but whether they did or not did not worry me very much. The soup was good and I enjoyed it very much.

All the time I was there I could see the father and the eldest son, a boy about seventeen, were extremely nervous. I had indicated to them that I was deaf and dumb, but if they believed me it didn't seem to make them any more comfortable.

I lingered at the house for about an hour after the meal, and during that time a young man came to call on the eldest daughter, a young woman of perhaps eighteen. The caller eyed me very suspiciously, although I must have resembled anything but a British officer. They spoke in Flemish and I did not understand a word they said, but I think they were discussing my probable identity. During their conversation, I had a chance to look around the rooms. There were three altogether, two fairly large and one somewhat smaller, about fourteen feet long and six deep. In this smaller room there were two double-decked beds, which were apparently intended to house the whole family, although how the whole twelve of them could sleep in that one room will ever remain a mystery to me.

From the kitchen you could walk directly into the cow-barn, where two cows were kept, and this, as I have pointed out before, is the usual construction of the poorer Belgian houses.

I could not make out why the caller seemed to be so antagonistic to me, and yet I am sure he was arguing with the family against me. Perhaps the fact that I wasn't wearing wooden shoes--I doubt whether I could have obtained a pair big enough for me--had convinced him that I was not really a Belgian, because there was nothing about me otherwise which could have given him that idea.

At that time--and I suppose it is true to-day--about ninety per cent. of the people in Belgium were wearing wooden shoes. Among the peasants I don't believe I ever saw any other kind of footwear, and they are more common there than they are in Holland. The Dutch wear them more as a matter of custom. In Belgium they are a dire necessity because of the lack of leather. I was told that during the coming year practically all the peasants and poorer people in Germany, too, will adopt wooden shoes for farm-work, as that is one direction in which wood can be substituted for leather without much loss.

When the young man left I left shortly afterward, as I was not at all comfortable about what his intentions were regarding me. For all I knew, he might have gone to notify the German authorities that there was a strange man in the vicinity--more, perhaps, to protect his friends from suspicion of having aided me than to injure me.

At any rate, I was not going to take any chances and I got out of that neighborhood as rapidly as I could.

That night found me right on the frontier of Holland.

XVII

GETTING THROUGH THE LINES

Waiting until it was quite dark, I made my way carefully through a field and eventually came to the much-dreaded barrier.

It was all that I had heard about it. Every foot of the border-line between Belgium and Holland is protected in precisely the same manner. It is there to serve three purposes: first, to keep the Belgians from escaping into Holland; second, to keep enemies, like myself, from making their way to freedom; and, third, to prevent desertions on the part of Germans themselves. One look at it was enough to convince any one that it probably accomplished all three objects about as well as any contrivance could, and one look was all I got of it that night, for while I lay on my stomach gazing at the forbidding structure I heard the measured stride of a German sentry advancing toward me, and I crawled away as fast as I possibly could, determined to spend the night somewhere in the fields and make another and more careful survey the following night.

The view I had obtained, however, was sufficient to convince me that the pole-vault idea was out of the question even if I had a pole and were a proficient pole-vaulter. The three fences covered a span of at least twelve feet, and to clear the last barbed-wire fence it would be necessary to vault not only at least ten feet high, but at least fourteen feet wide, with certain knowledge that to touch the electrically charged fence meant instant death. There would be no second chance if you came a cropper the first time.

The stilt idea was also impracticable because of the lack of suitable timber and tools with which to construct the stilts.

It seemed to me that the best thing to do was to travel up and down the line a bit in the hope that some spot might be discovered where conditions were more favorable, although I don't know just what I expected along those lines.

It was mighty disheartening to realize that only a few feet away lay certain liberty and that the only thing that prevented me from reaching it were three confounded fences. I thought of my machine and wished that some kind fairy would set it in front of me for just one minute.

I spent the night in a clump of bushes and kept in hiding most of the next day, only going abroad for an hour or two in the middle of the day to intercept some Belgian peasant and beg for food. The Belgians in this section were naturally very much afraid of the Germans, and I fared badly. In nearly every house German soldiers were quartered, and it was out of the question for me to apply for food in that direction. The proximity of the border made every one eye one another with more or less suspicion, and I soon came to the conclusion that the safest thing I could do was to live on raw vegetables, which I could steal from the fields at night as I had previously done.

That night I made another survey of the barrier in that vicinity, but it looked just as hopeless as it had the night before, and I concluded that I only wasted time there.

I spent the night wandering west, guided by the North Star, which had served me so faithfully in all my traveling. Every mile or two I would make my way carefully to the barrier to see if conditions were any better, but it seemed to be the same all along. I felt like a wild animal in a cage, with about as much chance of getting out.

The section of the country in which I was now wandering was very heavily wooded and there was really no very great difficulty in keeping myself concealed, which I did all day long, striving all the time to think of some way in which I could circumvent that cursed barrier.

The idea of a huge step-ladder occurred to me, but I searched hour after hour in vain for lumber or fallen trees out of which I could construct one. If I could only obtain something which would enable me to reach a point about nine feet in the air, it would be a comparatively simple matter to jump from that point over the electric fence.

Then I thought that perhaps I could construct a simple ladder and lean it against one of the posts upon which the electric wires were strung, climb to the top and leap over, getting over the barbed-wire fences in the same way.

This seemed to be the most likely plan, and all night long I sat constructing a ladder for this purpose.

I was fortunate enough to find a number of fallen pine-trees from ten to twenty feet long. I selected two of them which seemed sufficiently strong and broke off all the branches, which I used as rungs, tying them to the poles with grass and strips from my handkerchief and shirt as best I could.

It was not a very workmanlike-looking ladder when I finally got through with it. I leaned it against a tree to test it and it wabbled considerably. It was more like a rope ladder than a wooden one, but I strengthened it here and there and decided that it would probably serve the purpose.

I kept the ladder in the woods all day and could hardly wait until dark to make the supreme test. If it proved successful, my troubles were over; within a few hours I would be in a neutral country out of all danger. If it failed--I dismissed the idea summarily. There was no use worrying about failure; the thing to do was to succeed.

The few hours that were to pass before night came on seemed endless, but I utilized them to reinforce my ladder, tying the rungs more securely with long grass which I plucked in the woods.

At last night came, and with my ladder in hand I made for the barrier. In front of it there was a cleared space of about one hundred yards, which had been prepared to make the work of the guards easier in watching it.

I waited in the neighborhood until I heard the sentry pass the spot where I was in hiding, and then I hurried across the clearing, shoved my ladder under the barbed wire, and endeavored to follow it. My clothing caught in the wire, but I wrenched myself clear and crawled to the electric barrier.

My plan was to place the ladder against one of the posts, climb up to the top, and then jump. There would be a fall of nine or ten feet, and I might possibly sprain my ankle or break my leg, but if that was all that stood between me and freedom I wasn't going to stop to consider it.

I put my ear to the ground to listen for the coming of the sentry. There was not a sound. Eagerly but carefully I placed the ladder against the post and started up. Only a few feet separated me from liberty, and my heart beat fast.

I had climbed perhaps three rungs of my ladder when I became aware of an unlooked-for difficulty.

The ladder was slipping!

Just as I took the next rung the ladder slipped, came in contact with the live wire, and the current passed through the wet sticks and into my body. There was a blue flash, my hold on the ladder relaxed, and I fell heavily to the ground unconscious!

Of course, I had not received the full force of the current or I would not now be here. I must have remained unconscious for a few moments, but I came to just in time to hear the German guard coming, and the thought came to me that if I didn't get that ladder concealed at once, he would see it even though, fortunately for me, it was an unusually dark night.

I pulled the ladder out of his path and lay down flat on the ground, not seven feet away from his beat. He passed so close that I could have pushed the ladder out and tripped him up.

It occurred to me that I could have climbed back under the barbed-wire fence and waited for the sentry to return and then felled him with a blow on the head, as he had no idea, of course, that there was any one in the vicinity. I wouldn't have hesitated to take life, because my only thought now was to get into Holland, but I thought that as long as he didn't bother me perhaps the safest thing to do was not to bother him, but to continue my efforts during his periodic absences.

His beat at this point was apparently fairly long and allowed me more time to work than I had hoped for.

My mishap with the ladder had convinced me that escape in that way was not feasible. The shock that I had received had unnerved me and I was afraid to risk it again, particularly as I realized that I had fared more fortunately than I could hope to again if I met with a similar mishap. There was no way of making that ladder hold, and I gave up the idea of using it.

I was now right in front of this electric barrier, and as I studied it I saw another way of getting by. If I couldn't get over it, what was the matter with getting under it?

The bottom wire was only two inches from the ground, and, of course, I couldn't touch it, but my plan was to dig underneath it and then crawl through the hole in the ground.

I had only my hands to dig with, but I went at it with a will, and fortunately the ground was not very hard.

When I had dug about six inches, making a distance in all of eight inches from the lowest electric wire, I came to an underground wire. I knew enough about electricity to realize that this wire could not be charged, as it was in contact with the ground, but still there was not room between the live wire and this underground wire for me to crawl through, and I either had to go on digging deep enough under this wire to crawl under it or else pull it up.

This underground wire was about as big around as a lead-pencil and there was no chance of breaking it. The jack-knife I had had at the start of my travels I had long since lost, and even if I had had something to hammer with, the noise would have made that method impracticable.

I went on digging. When the total distance between the live wire and the bottom of the hole I had dug was thirty inches I took hold of the ground wire and pulled on it with all my strength.

It wouldn't budge. It was stretched taut across the narrow ditch I had dug--about fourteen inches wide--and all my tugging didn't serve to loosen it.

I was just about to give it up in despair when a staple gave way in the nearest post. This enabled me to pull the wire through the ground a little, and I renewed my efforts. After a moment or two of pulling as I had never pulled in my life before a staple on the next post gave way, and my work became easier. I had more leeway now and pulled and pulled again until in all eight staples had given way.

Every time a staple gave way it sounded in my ears like the report of a gun, although I suppose it didn't really make very much noise. Nevertheless, each time I would put my ear to the ground to listen for the guard, and, not hearing him, went on with my work.

By pulling on the wire I was now able to drag it through the ground enough to place it back from the fence and go on digging.

The deeper I went the harder became the work, because by this time my finger-nails were broken and I was nervous--afraid every moment that I would touch the charged wire.

I kept at it, however, with my mind constantly on the hole I was digging and the liberty which was almost within my reach.

Finally I figured that I had enough space to crawl through and still leave a couple of inches between my back and the live wire.

Before I went under that wire I noticed that the lace which the Belgian woman had given me as a souvenir made my pocket bulge, and lest it might be the innocent means of electrocuting me by touching the live wire, I took it out, rolled it up, and threw it over the barrier.

Then I lay down on my stomach and crawled or rather writhed under the wire like a snake, with my feet first, and there wasn't any question of my hugging Mother Earth as closely as possible, because I realized that even to touch the wire above me with my back meant instant death.

Anxious as I was to get on the other side, I didn't hurry this operation. I feared that there might be some little detail that I had overlooked, and I exercised the greatest possible care in going under, taking nothing for granted.

When I finally got through and straightened up there were still several feet of Belgium between me and liberty, represented by the six feet which separated the electric barrier from the last barbed-wire fence, but before I went another step I went down on my knees and thanked God for my long series of escapes and especially for this last achievement, which seemed to me to be about all that was necessary to bring me freedom.

Then I crawled under the barbed-wire fence and breathed the free air of Holland! I had no clear idea just where I was, and I didn't much care. I was out of the power of the Germans, and that was enough. I had walked perhaps a hundred yards when I remembered the lace I had thrown over the barrier, and, dangerous as I realized the undertaking to be, I determined to walk back and get it. This necessitated my going back on to Belgian soil again, but it seemed a shame to leave the lace there, and by exercising a little care I figured I could get it easily enough.

When I came to the spot at which I had made my way under the barbed wire I put my ear to the ground and listened for the sentry. I heard him coming and lay prone on the ground till he had passed. The fact that he might observe the hole in the ground or the ladder occurred to me as I lay there, and it seemed like an age before he finally marched out of earshot. Then I went under the barbed wire again, retrieved the lace, and once again made my way to Dutch territory.

It does not take long to describe the events just referred to, but the incidents themselves consumed several hours in all. To dig the hole must have taken me more than two hours, and I had to stop frequently to hide while the sentry passed. Many times, indeed, I thought I heard him coming and stopped my work, and then discovered that it was only my imagination. I certainly suffered enough that night to last me a lifetime. With a German guard on one side, death from electrocution on the other, and starvation staring me in the face, my plight was anything but a comfortable one.

It was the 19th of November, 1917, when I got through the wires. I had made my leap from the train on September 9th. Altogether, therefore, just seventy-two days had elapsed since I escaped from the Huns. If I live to be as old as Methuselah, I never expect to live through another seventy-two days so crammed full of incident and hazard and lucky escapes.

XVIII

EXPERIENCES IN HOLLAND

But I was not yet quite out of the woods.

I now knew that I was in Holland, but just where I had no idea. I walked for about thirty minutes and came to a path leading to the right, and I had proceeded along it but a few hundred yards when I saw in front of me a fence exactly like the one I had crossed.

"This is funny," I said to myself. "I didn't know the Dutch had a fence, too." I advanced to the fence and examined it closely, and judge of my astonishment when I saw beyond it a nine-foot fence apparently holding live wires exactly like the one which had nearly been the death of me!

I had very little time to conjecture what it all meant, for just then I heard a guard coming. He was walking so fast that I was sure it was a Dutch sentry, as the Huns walk much more slowly.

I was so bewildered, however, that I decided to take no chances, and as the road was fairly good I wandered down it and away from that mysterious fence. About half a mile down I could see the light of a sentry station, and I thought I would go there and tell my story to the sentries, realizing that as I was unarmed it was perfectly safe for me to announce myself to the Dutch authorities. I could be interned only if I entered Holland under arms.

As I approached the sentry box I noticed three men in gray uniforms, the regulation Dutch color. I was on the verge of shouting to them when the thought struck me that there was just a chance I might be mistaken, as the German uniforms were the same color, and I had suffered too many privations and too many narrow escapes to lose all at this time.

I had just turned off the road to go back into some bushes when out of the darkness I heard that dread German command:

"Halt! Halt!"

He didn't need to holler twice. I heard and heeded the first time. Then I heard another man come running up, and there was considerable talking, but whether they were Germans or Hollanders I was still uncertain. Evidently, however, he thought the noise must be a dog or the wind.

Finally I heard one of them laugh and heard him walk back to the sentry station where the guard was billeted, and I crawled a little nearer to try to make out just what it all meant. I had begun to think it was all a nightmare.

Between myself and the light in the sentry station I then noticed the stooping figure of a man bending over as if to conceal himself, and on his head was the spiked helmet of a German soldier!

I knew then what another narrow escape I had had, for I am quite sure he would have shot me without ceremony if I had foolishly made myself known. I would have been buried at once and no one would have been any the wiser, even though, technically speaking, I was on neutral territory and immune from capture or attack.