Chapter 17

THE THIRD ESCAPE

Saving Up for the Day--A Special Brand--Watchful Waiting--Off Again--Why the Man in the Moon Laughed--A German Idyll--The Narrow Escapes.

Simmons and I had been planning on another escape ever since our recapture. So we kept on our good behaviour, while we saved up food for _Der Tag_. We had hitherto refused to work, as had the remaining Britishers, but in order to keep ourselves fit; we finally volunteered to carry the noon ration of soup out to the Russians who worked on the moor. Our job consisted of carrying an immense can of soup, swung high on a pole from our shoulders, out to the workers, under guard of course. Starting at eleven each day and, by permission of the guard, occasionally resting, we were usually back by one o'clock. Each day we saved a portion of our food. We wanted twenty days' rations each, estimating that it would take us that long to walk to Holland. We specialised on concentrated foods from our parcels--biscuits, tinned meats, and so on. We had our cache in a hole, dug under cover of night, under the flooring of the hut. It was unsafe to keep food on our bodies or near our beds, as the guards were in the habit of calling the _Raus_ at all hours, and sometimes, several times during the night. It might be at twelve, two or four, although it was never alike on any two nights in succession, except that they always searched us. We could see no reason for this; other than to break our rest and perhaps our spirits, as at Giessen Camp. Certainly, no one would carry any forbidden thing on his person, under such surveillance, and they well knew we could hide anything we wished in other places; as we did.

Each Saturday morning, Simmons and I paraded for paint. We stood, while a big Russian, with a brush and bucket, painted large red and green circles on our breasts, backs and knees. Thin stripes were also painted down the seams of our trousers and sleeves and around the stiff crowns of our caps. This was to mark us as dangerous characters. As such we received more of the unwelcome _Raus_ attentions than the others and were the more wary in consequence.

We were busy opening our mail on one of those rare occasions, when Simmons gave a startled exclamation. I looked up and saw him gazing curiously at a small cheese which he turned slowly around in his hand. As I stepped to his side, a guard came in. He hastily shoved the cause of the strange behaviour into his pocket. When the guard had gone; he passed me a letter to read. It was from his brother in Canada. "I received your letter all right and am sending you a special brand of cheese," I read--and understood.

We waited on tiptoe until night, to open the cheese. It was one of the cream cheeses, so popular in Canada, no bigger than my closed hand. We gingerly unwrapped the tin foil and broke it open. To our great joy, in the hollow heart of it there was tucked away the tiny compass Simmons had written for from Vehnmoor just before our second escape. With it were four American quarters.

Not anticipating this good luck, we had exercised our ingenuity to construct a rude compass of our own out of a safety-razor blade and an eyelet from my boot. It was within fifteen to twenty degrees of the true north. In addition we had a safety lamp, which one of the guards had long been looking for under the impression that he had lost it.

We now had our twenty days' rations saved up and so took turns sitting up at night, awaiting our chance. We spent two months in this watchful waiting, watching the wire and the sentries. But no opportunity offered. We took turn about, one man on watch all night long, every night. He could not seem to watch but must lie in his place, observing all movement in the hut and listening carefully for any indicative noises outside. Occasionally, he might step outside and ostentatiously walk about as though sleepless, and, if spoken to, say that he was not well.

But always there were the shining eyes of the watching dogs, growling, if one came too near, and outside the stodgy sentries; and above all, much light.

So we determined to volunteer for work, figuring that they were so short of men that they would not lightly refuse us. It so happened that ten men were asked for that Saturday to hoe turnips on a near-by farm. The pay was thirty pfennigs--or six cents--a day. We volunteered and were accepted without cavil. They thought our spirit gone and that we had accepted the inevitable. We reasoned that if we worked hard while we studied the lie of the land we might be asked for again, could go prepared, and make a break for it.

And so it fell out. We worked hard all that day, at the same time impressing the topography of the country upon our minds. At the close of the day we were taken to the farm for our supper of potatoes and buttermilk and then marched off to the laager, four miles distant. On the following Monday we were ordered to go out to the same place. Unfortunately we could not take our store of food as its bulk would have meant our detection. In addition to the equipment already mentioned I carried two packages of tobacco, a shaving brush and a box of matches. Simmons had a terrible razor which would not shave, four boxes of matches and a small piece of soap. These were all our worldly possessions. It will be seen that, true to our British tradition, the shaving outfit constituted the most formidable part of our impedimenta.

We worked all day. And so did the rain. We knocked off for supper at eight o'clock. The three guards escorted us to the farmhouse, but after locking the front door, went into an adjoining room with the farmer for their own meal. The back door was forgotten. We were famished, so fell to on the supper of buttermilk and potatoes. I finished first and strolled lazily over to the door. Besides Simmons, there were seven Frenchmen and an Englishman, all of whom were still at table and none of them aware of our plans. I carelessly opened the door and stood on the sill a moment. Still pouring. "Come here, Simmons, and see this. We're going to get wet before we get back." Simmons shoved his chair back and joined me. We both stepped outside and gently shut the door.

Once more we were on our way! We found ourselves at the edge of the village in which the farmers hereabouts had their homes. We worked our way carefully round the outskirts and made for a bit of a wood a mile and a half away. We were only half way to our objective when the village bells began to ring. Once more the hue and cry was on!

When the deep baying of the dogs joined in we said "Ataboy!" cast aside all concealment and began to run for it. We reached the wood safely enough, but it turned out to be only a thin fringe of trees, offering no concealment whatever. We dashed through them. On the other side a village opened up. Back to the wedge of wood we went. A good-sized ditch with a foot or so of water in it ran along the edge of the wood. Its sides were covered with heather, which drooped far down into the water. We flung ourselves into it, after first shoving the tin box containing our precious matches into the heather above. Pitch darkness would not come until ten o'clock. During the intervening two hours we lay on our backs in the water with only the smallest possible portion of our faces projecting. Once the guard jumped over the ditch less than four yards away. We suffered intensely, for, although it was late August, the water was very cold.

When things had become quiet and daylight had passed we withdrew ourselves from the muck, and after rubbing our numbed bodies to restore the circulation, struck out across the country, intent on shoving as much distance as possible between ourselves and the camp before another day rolled round. We knew that the alarm would be out and the whole country roused, with every man's hand against us. We were getting used to that. I, for one, had determined not to be taken alive this time. But I certainly did not want to be put to the test. So we plowed our way through oat and rye fields and over and through ditches--many of them. Once we stripped our soggy clothes off to swim a river that faced us. In no place did the water come above our knees; but what it lacked in depth, it made up for in coldness. We saw none of the humour in that, so we cursed it and stumbled on, two very tired men. We pulled handfuls of oats and chewed dryly on them as we plunged up to our waists through the crops. We reckoned that we had made thirty miles by morning and apparently had outdistanced our pursuers.

One night early in our pilgrimage, we espied some cows in a field. Simmons had been a farmer in Canada and so was our agricultural and stock authority here. He plunged through the hedge to see if he could not capture a hat full of milk whilst I stood guard outside. I stepped into the shadow of some trees, and occasionally I could hear a guarded "Soo--Cow!" footsteps--and then as like as not, a muffled curse. I smiled.

Two figures came hurriedly down the road. I pressed back against the hole of the tree, holding my breath. It was fairly light on the road and to my amazement I saw two men who wore French uniforms. Also they had heavy packs on their back. That last meant but one thing--food.

I rose to my feet: "Kamerad!"

One of them stopped short. The other pressed on. He muttered something under his breath and the other broke into a trot to catch up.

I edged along, trying desperately to be friendly. That made them the more timid. They would have none of me. No further word was exchanged just then except for a repetition of my "Kamerad."

I whistled softly to Simmons. That alarmed them the more. They lengthened their stride. So did I mine.

One said something I could not catch. They half halted and made a brave attempt to pose as Germans, to judge by their guttural talk and brassy front.

I could not explain, although I tried in the half light to show my friendliness, and Simmons, now a few rods away, did likewise. I endeavoured to address them in French--and could not. I tried German. That was worse and the final result--chaos.

All I could think of was "Kamerad." I kept on like a parrot, foolishly repeating it.

All this took but a moment and then they were gone and we after them.

So there were they, walking hurriedly, fearful of us for Germans no doubt and casting uneasy glances back. I followed slowly, at a loss to know what to do, my eyes glued on the inviting squareness of their heavy packs. Simmons jogged behind, endeavouring to catch up. The moon laughed at all four of us.

"Come on," I said. "They're Frenchmen. We'll follow them. They have two packs on their backs! Grub! And maybe we can bum them for a bit."

Simmons needed no second invitation but set out as eagerly as I in cautious pursuit; so fearful were we of alarming our quarry. Our eyes were glued on their packs.

Just then the road opened up into a broad expanse of heather. And there we lost them. We beat about in the heather for a long time, and called loudly, but without avail. They were no doubt lying down, hiding.

We found some potatoes in a field that night, dug them up with our bare hands and ate them raw. We were very sad when we thought of those packs.

It was, I remember, on the day following that we saw some of the lighter side of German life. The woods thereabouts were cut up into big blocks, as city streets are. We were laying to in one of them, thankful for the thickness of our shelter when we heard laughing voices and then a gust of laughter as a flying group of girls and boys romped past. They played about for half an hour, causing us great alarm by their youthful fondness for sudden excursions into unlikely spots, after nothing in particular. The oldest of the group, a sizable boy of seventeen or thereabouts and a pretty girl of near that age, hung back long after the younger children had passed on. We had little to fear from them. They were quite evidently engrossed in one another. He argued earnestly, while she listened with a half-smile. Once, he made as if to take her hand but she drew back and stiffened. He ignored the rebuff. A moment afterward he said something that pleased her so well that the last we saw of them his arm was about her waist as they went down the path together.

Parniewinkel lay forty to fifty miles northeast of Bremen, which in turn was one hundred and fifty miles from the Holland border. We reckoned on having to walk double that in covering the stretch, and figured on twenty-one days for the trip.

My diary for that day, August 22, 1916, reads: "Still raining. Soaked and cold. Breakfast, dinner and supper: turnips and oats." The night was a repetition of the preceding one, and made worse by the number of small swamps we had to struggle through. The next day's diary reads: "Rain stopped and not so cold. Fair cover; still soaked but confident."

We had our first narrow escape that day. We were lying in the corner of a hedge. It was so misty as to give almost the effect of night, but so long past day as to make travelling unduly dangerous. When the mist lifted we found ourselves within fifty yards of a thickly populated village with just a narrow strip of field between. We could hear all the early morning bustle of any village, the world over. This was about three o'clock. An old man followed by a dog made straight for us. I had just come off the watch, which we took turn about. Simmons whistled cautiously to me, the very sound a warning to be quiet.

I looked up. The old man wandered along the hedge and stood over him for several minutes.

It was very trying but he lay motionless, for fear of the dog. A blow would have sufficed for the old man. The latter remained so for a couple of minutes, standing over him, busy.

The meals for that day were peas and oats. It was a slow way of making a meal. We liked the oats the best and pulled some whenever we came to them, if our pockets were not already full, so that they should always be so. We ate them as we went, from the cupped hand, spilling some and spitting out the husks of the others which sometimes stuck in our throats, making them very raw.

For August twenty-fourth the diary reads: "Very hard night. Crossed about five kilometres of swamps and numerous canals. Bad accident. Clothes went to the bottom, but recovered. We are soaked, as usual, and only made about eleven kilometres. Are outside town of Bremen. Cover very poor. Meals for the day: Nix. Still confident." The cover ranked before the food as an item of interest to us. Knowing the general direction of Bremen from the camp, and that it was much the largest town in the vicinity, we experienced no difficulty in locating it by the reflection of its lights against the sky.

"August twenty-fifth: More rain and cold. Hiding on the bank of the Weser. Better going last night. Going to look for boat to-night. River two hundred yards broad. Socks played out. Made pair out of a shirt. Met a cow. Meals for day: turnips, carrots and milk."

"August 26th: More rain. Found boat and crossed river. Hedges grown so close and so many of them, we have to go around them. Takes a lot of time. Otherwise going good. Meals for the day: turnip, peas and oats. Met another cow. Frisked her. Cover none too good. Trying to dry our clothes in sun. More confident." We always became more confident at the slightest semblance of warmth.

The socks we made out of a shirt which came from the clothes-line of some _haus-frau_. We made "dutch" socks in Western fashion by cutting out large diamond shaped pieces of the cloth, which when the foot was placed on it, folded up nicely into a sock of a kind.

The cow, or rather, her milk, was the greatest treat of all.

It required some searching before we found a boat. We finally discovered a boat house which we broke into and by great good luck found inside it a boat which answered our purpose. Our chief concern was lest the owners might raise a hue and cry against the theft. However, when we reached the further shore we gave the boat a good push out into the stream so that if they attempted to follow our trail they might find the boat a long ways down stream.

"August twenty-seventh: Rain left off. Trying to dry ourselves in sun. Had a hard night keeping clear of town. Good cover in a wood. Meals: turnips and another obliging cow. Feet pretty sore. No socks. Still in the best otherwise."

The town in question was the second one we passed after leaving Bremen. We saw the reflection of its lights in the sky and thought that we should easily miss it. But suddenly from some high ground we found ourselves working directly down on the streets so close below us that we could discern people going to and fro. We turned and fled.

Swinging well round to the south we thought at last to clear the town easily, instead of which we again came up against it, in the outskirts this time. And we repeated that disheartening performance a couple of times before we cleared the obstacle and once more swung on our way.

It was such occurrences as this that disheartened us more than anything else, even the great hardships. To labor and travail, to do the seemingly impossible, night after night and then in the snap of a finger to find all our pains, all our agony gone for nothing, reacted on us terribly at times.

On the following morning we met with our second narrow escape, under much the same circumstances as the first. We had crawled into a hedge toward the heel of the night, and rather earlier than usual on account of a thick mist which prevented us from holding to our course. When it lifted we made out the slope of a house roof shoving itself out of the grey fog directly in front of us. Our hedge divided two fields, in both of which labourers were already cutting the crops. In this hedge, on each side of us, were gateways so close together that when, as occasionally happened, people passed through one, we were forced to crawl up to the other to avoid detection. We had done so again when, without warning, a drover came plodding up behind his sheep. We had no time in which to go back up the hedge. The sheep crowded from the rear and overflowed at the narrow gateway into the hedge where we lay and so ran over our bodies. We remained quiet, thinking he would pass on; but what with the frightened actions of his sheep and the yelping of the dog his attention was inevitably attracted to the spot where we lay. He came over, looked down at us, but said nothing and stalked on. We were uncertain as to whether he had seen us or not. Numerous incidents of a similar nature had made us overconfident. We had previously escaped detection in some very tight corners by simply lying quiet. Casual travelers had all but walked on us upon several occasions, and at night we ourselves passed many people and thought nothing of it.

A moment later the shepherd walked off directly toward the labourers, glancing back over his shoulder at us as he did so. We struck out at once, before the crowd could gather. We had, at the beginning of this, our third escape, agreed not to be taken alive to go through a repetition of the torture of mind and body which we had already undergone, and, perhaps for this time, worse. And it was understood that if one played out the other should carry on. Each of us had a stout club and could have made a tidy fight.

Concealment was useless and, furthermore, impossible. We passed close by a group of the harvesters and headed for a wood that lay on the other side of them. They could not mistake either the vermilion circles on our khaki tunics, faded though they were, nor our wild and dilapidated appearance, which was not made more reassuring by the clubs we carried. Glancing back, we saw them gathering hurriedly in little knots.

We reached the wood, flung ourselves down and watched them until dark, during which time they made no attempt to follow us. Nor did we see any sign of other pursuers, though we kept on the _qui vive_ all night, as we trudged through the interminable fields, forcing our way through tight hedges and plunging waist deep into the water of small canals.