Niemeyer had often, in more peaceful days, jocularly remarked that the conduct of the British officers was making him an old man before his time. Such of us as in these days were brought face to face with him began to get a comfortable feeling that this indeed was the case. He was reported to be 62; and by this time he was looking every day of it.

The actual casus belli on which the senior British officer decided to force the issue was the treatment, on the day after the escape, of an R.F.C. officer called Phelan. This officer had on his way down to the cells been brutally kicked by a sentry under the approving eye of a particularly odious Feldwebel of the best Prussian pattern surnamed Klausen, and known familiarly as “Dog Face.” The act had been witnessed by at least six British officers and the evidence duly taken down. The senior British officer therefore gave the Phelan incident pride of place in a summary sent to Niemeyer of various individual and collective injustices visited on the members of the camp since the discovery of the tunnel, and added a curt ultimatum that unless these grievances were promptly redressed he would be unable to be responsible for the further conduct of the British officers.

This was an extreme step and had never, even in this turbulent camp, been employed before. For the senior British officer to disclaim authority over his own brother-officers implied, legally speaking, that he regarded the conditions of imprisonment as too monstrous to be covered by the accepted rules of the Hague Convention, and that in fact he looked upon the Commandant not as his sentinel in an honourable captivity under the rules of war, but as his gaoler in a common gaol, where international conventions did not apply. Once this attitude was taken up, the ordinary courtesies of military etiquette would have to be abandoned, salutes not offered, passive resistance everywhere adopted. Uniformity of conduct would be an absolute essential, and elaborate precautions were taken to warn the camp by word of mouth—paper would have been too dangerous—exactly what procedure was to be followed if the order went forth that diplomatic relations had been broken off with the Huns.

The Adjutant’s position in those stormy days was an onerous one. It was the essence of the whole British policy that the senior officer’s orders should be carried out to the letter. Due allowance had also to be made for the incalculable perversity of the “half per cent” to whom reference has already been made. Both of these duties fell to the Adjutant of the camp working through the Adjutants of the houses. Written instructions were impossible on account of the risk. It was necessary to warn personally every one of the 500 odd officers in the camp and to explain when, and if necessary why, action was to be taken in accordance with “scheme of resistance A or B.”

No reply was received to the ultimatum, and it was decided therefore to put into execution a general scheme of passive resistance. On the morning after the expiry of the ultimatum the entire camp shuffled late and listlessly on to 9 o’clock appel, wearing, for the most part, cardigan jackets instead of tunics, and innocent of all headgear. When the German officers appeared, no one saluted or paid the slightest attention to them. Ulrich hesitated, grasped the situation, and went straight back to the Kommandantur to report. He returned with a message from the Commandant to the senior British officer that if he could arrange for an orderly appel in an hour’s time he (the Commandant) would be glad to discuss matters and examine the list of grievances submitted.

So far, so good. The word was circulated for a perfect appel at 10 a.m. But at 10 o’clock, after the conclusion of an appel which, for correctness of dress and demeanour, would have satisfied the soul even of the late lamented Lincke, Niemeyer strode on to the middle of the parade ground and disillusioned us:

“Well, yentlemen,” he bawled out, “You have broken the camp regulations, so you must be punished. There will be no sport for three days.”

The camp was too flabbergasted even to boo or groan. We had trusted him and paid the obvious penalty. The whole incident was typically Prussian.

Colonel Stokes Roberts did the only possible thing under the circumstances and countered with an order for another passive resistance appel at 5 o’clock. Once again tunics and caps were discarded and the long rows of ragamuffins stood listlessly awaiting the pleasure of their gaolers to come and count them. There was likely to be trouble this time, for the authorities would be forewarned, and it was noticed that the guard were standing paraded in front of the Kommandantur. It was just a question of how far our friend would dare to go. The action of the British was seen from the Kommandantur and the German officers did not even come on appel. An interpreter was sent out to order all officers to go back to their houses. As we trailed off the parade ground Niemeyer appeared at the head of about a dozen sentries with bayonets fixed and roared to us to get into our houses “right away.” As there was only one door in each house this was an impossible feat, and the disreputable crowd merely grinned at the sheepish sentries and the Commandant fulminating from one barrack to another. The British acted creditably up to their allotted part of brainless, dejected criminals, and there was no demonstration or provocative action as we gradually melted away into our respective barracks.

One officer, however, who had on board rather more than was good for him, did his best to promote bloodshed. He dropped a large faggot from an upper window in B Kaserne which missed Niemeyer by inches. Beside himself with rage, the Commandant ordered the nearest sentry to fire, indicating the only officer then within sight, a lame flying officer, as the target. The man, who was really not to be blamed, fired up the staircase up which the officer was making all haste to retreat, missed him by a few inches, and splintered a window. Then the doors were closed and we breathed again.

The counter-charge of mutiny was brought by Niemeyer, when in company with the Hanover staff captain he interviewed Colonel Stokes Roberts that evening. The camp had publicly mutinied, and the mutiny would have to be made the subject of a special report. The senior British officer desired nothing better. A special report, he suggested, might eventually result in bringing facts to light. He begged the Commandant’s permission to forward two letters to the Dutch Legation at Berlin and to the Kriegsministerium, which contained point-blank accusations of misconduct against the Commandant. By German law Niemeyer was bound to forward these letters, however much he disliked their matter. It did not, however, at all follow that he would do so, and accordingly, to prevent any possibility of miscarriage, duplicate letters were smuggled out of the camp into the safe keeping of the love-sick typist with injunctions to deliver the goods. The letter to the Kriegsministerium asked urgently for an inspection of the camp by a responsible superior officer.

So far the campaign had proceeded satisfactorily; the case sooner or later would be put against Niemeyer without delicacy or reserve before the supreme German military authority. Then the whole history of the camp could be bluntly narrated, the damning Black Book hauled up from its hiding-place in Room 24 of B house and presented for inspection and comment. The cards were in our hands now, if we had the opportunity of playing them. Only the tribunal must be reasonably impartial and Niemeyer must not be suffered to interpret. Too many a good chance had gone begging ere this in the camp’s history, simply because the Commandant, in conducting an interview, had systematically interpreted black as white and adroitly diverted the discussion from the subject of himself. It had been an unfortunate coincidence that whenever a representative from the Kriegsministerium in Berlin had visited the camp either he had been unable to speak English or the senior British officer of the time had been unable to speak German. The Commandant, with his fluent knowledge of English, had invariably provided the convenient bridge and the interview had accordingly failed miserably in its object.

Until the visit from the Kriegsministerium, conditions remained much as before, except that we gave orderly appels. Our policy was to lie low and await whatever Daniel the Kriegsministerium should deign to send us. Niemeyer seemed determined to make what hay he could while the sun shone. His way of doing so took the form of gross personal discourtesy to the senior British officer. On the day after the letters to the Dutch Legation and German War Office had been handed in, he stalked on to appel, went up to Colonel Stokes Roberts, and asked him in a menacing tone if he took full responsibility for all that had been written in them. On an answer being given in the affirmative, he became violently abusive and ordered the Colonel to produce another speaker in his stead, as he would have no more to do with him. He then proceeded publicly to insult Colonel Stokes Roberts in a manner absolutely unprecedented. Colonel Roberts, after the first salute, had been standing, as was customary, at ease in the orthodox manner. Niemeyer suddenly bellowed to him to stand at attention. “I guess you’ll speak to me at attention. Put your heels closer—CLOSER.” It was the very last straw and made cheeks flame and ears tingle in the agony of furious humiliation.

Niemeyer persisted in his demand for another “speaker” to represent the camp, only giving away his lamentable ignorance of our military customs in even formulating the request. As a joke, the names of some of his most avowed and outspoken enemies were submitted for his approval. Prominent on this list was the name of Lieutenant Beyfus, a barrister of repute, a prisoner of three years’ standing, and, on frequent occasions, an able exponent to Niemeyer on the rights of the individual in captivity. Niemeyer, whose sense of humour failed him in these days, furiously repudiated such a preposterous nomination.

“No, no,” he fumed; “I will not have ze Beyfus; get me another.”

We were paying for the tunnel; but every day that passed now without someone being brought back increased our hopes that it had not been dug in vain. Colonel Rathborne was by now certainly over. “Munshi” Gray, Bousfield, three others of the working-party, and four not of the working-party were still abroad; and it was a fortnight since the night of the escape. Further, the opening of the big allied offensive on August 8th put new heart into us. The first day’s advance showed a great slice on our well-conned maps that looked indeed like the moving warfare for which we had, in our own far-off day, so often made preparation in vain. Also we heard on reliable authority that a Bavarian regiment moving from the Bulgarian to the Western Front had mutinied at some place quite near; and such of the more Left of the German papers as we were permitted to read were full of their proposed campaign for the autumn session of the Reichstag. It was a more healthy atmosphere altogether than in the terrible days of March only four and a half months ago.

Any suspected officers in either Kaserne received short shrift in these days, and were bundled unceremoniously from their rooms into safer quarters on the ground floor of A Kaserne, where the lower windows were never open and the flies and staleness of the atmosphere were correspondingly oppressive. Billets in this way were found for any officers who had been known to have escaped before and who were referred to feelingly by Niemeyer as “the yentlemen.” These particular rooms used to be visited two or three times in a night by a Feldwebel with an electric torch, which he used to flash on the occupant of each bed in turn, thereby effectually waking everybody up. Here lay the afore-mentioned and eloquent Beyfus, whose recent arrival had prevented his obtaining a place in the tunnel scheme, but whose record made him a marked man with the authorities. Here I myself lay, after yet another enforced migration from the attic floor in A house, and in accordance—so lied the official intimation—with orders from Hanover. And here also lay Leefe Robinson, V.C., whose gallant spirit Niemeyer, with subtle cruelty, had endeavoured for months past to break. That Robinson’s untimely death on his return from captivity was assisted indirectly by the treatment which he received at the hands of Niemeyer no one will deny who was in a position to witness that treatment.

The handling to which Leefe Robinson was subjected was so outrageous that it was communicated to the home authorities in a concealed report (in the hollow of a tennis racket handle) vi an exchange party. Robinson had come from Freiburg in Baden, where he had made an attempt with several others to escape. “The English Richthofen”—as Niemeyer, with coarse urbanity, called him to his face—was at once singled out as the victim of a malevolent scheme of repression. He was placed in the most uncomfortable room in the camp, whereas his rank entitled him to the privileges of a small room; he was caused to answer to a special appel two or three times in a day; and he was forbidden under any pretext to enter Kaserne B. On the occasion of a visit from some Inspecting General, and on the pretext of all the rooms having to be cleaned up and ready for inspection by 9 o’clock appel, Robinson’s room was entered by a Feldwebel and sentries at 7.45 a.m., and Robinson himself was forcibly pulled out of bed and the table next to the bed upset on the floor. Two hours later Niemeyer was introducing “the English Richthofen” to the august visitor with a profusion of oleaginous compliments, and four hours later Robinson was in the cells for having disobeyed camp orders. Truly most damnable and cowardly persecution.

Notwithstanding all this, the Chamber of Horrors (as the room devoted to the criminals used popularly to be known) was the scene of many a humorous incident. Restricted space caused the bed of the eloquent Beyfus to be very near the door. On the flooring just inside the door lay the mat upon which Beyfus used to stand to undress. Whenever the Germans came into the room Beyfus always contrived that the door should impinge upon some part of his person and seized the occasion to call every German within hail—the Commandant, of course, for choice—to witness the unprovoked attack upon his blushing modesty. Great effect was added when the harangue was delivered in the passage and only in shirt and slippers.

The Spanish “flu,” which descended in those days in an all embracing form on the camp, brought some compensating humour. In the first place, Niemeyer got it at once and was reported, quite incorrectly, to be dying. The wish, both amongst Germans and British, was doubtless father to this rumour. Then all the orderlies got it at the same time and the officers swept and garnished for themselves. And finally, when the disease had filtered through from the orderlies and taken fair hold of the officers, every room in both barracks was filled with the groans of those who thought they were about to die. As a matter of fact not more than a dozen were at all seriously ill, and these recovered quite rapidly.

The long expected visit from the Kriegsministerium representative synchronised with the tail end of the outbreak and came at precisely the wrong moment.

In the first place, I was sick. It should have been my business to warn the senior British officer of the visit, and arrange for an English officer to interpret his remarks at the interview. Unfortunately, and through nobody’s fault, nothing of this sort was done. Colonel Stokes Roberts was sent for at a moment’s notice and had his hand forced. Niemeyer once again acted as interpreter, the blinkers were kept on throughout, and the visitor went away satisfied that the complaints made by the British had been grossly exaggerated, that Niemeyer, in spite of his reputation, was, after all, a very pleasant fellow, and that there was nothing to report on unfavourably in the conduct of the camp.

Thus the rebellion at Holzminden petered unsatisfactorily out; it had been no one’s fault that the chance had come and gone untaken. But it was evident that it would not come again, and that the last final effort to remove Niemeyer had been as fruitless as the first. On the other side, the charge of general mutiny was not pressed, and legal proceedings were reserved only for those implicated in the tunnel. Gradually the sombre camp resumed its normal working. A new Adjutant succeeded to office, and I, together with other suspected criminals, was transported to a camp of more fancied security. Under the new Adjutant some form of co-operation in the general interests with the German authorities became once more possible.

His predecessor, bundled out of the camp with two other officers at two hours’ notice, had the pleasure, before leaving, of firing one Parthian shot at the Commandant. The evening before, an unsigned postcard had been received from the Hague. It ran simply—“Cheeroh old bean,” and was addressed to Colonel Rathborne’s late mess-mate. We communicated the substance of this postcard to Niemeyer, and it was some consolation, before we shook the dust of Holzminden off our feet for ever, to see the confession of defeat written plainly in his face. Once again—and for the first time since the original discovery of the escape—speech fairly failed him.

Events, however, were moving too rapidly now for it to be a matter of great consequence to Niemeyer even that he should have let a full-blown Lieutenant-Colonel slip through his fingers. His own hour was near to striking. As the British advance in September continued without respite and the inevitable end came ever nearer, so this disreputable old man changed his tactics accordingly. He very rarely came within the precincts of the camp; but he saw the Adjutant almost daily, and at every interview some concession or other long striven for was now readily given. He even began to prepare the ground for a volte-face in his Prussian creed and politics. The picture of the Kaiser vanished from the wall of his sanctum. He became the strangest and most undignified contrast to the swaggering bully who had ruled this roost so long. And finally when, on the conclusion of hostilities, the Arbeiter und Soldaten Rat took over the military direction of affairs in the town, he was suffered to disappear unmolested and cover his tracks as best he might. It is not known what has happened to him; by some he is stated to be in arrest at Hanover, by others to have removed himself and his ill-gotten gains to a neutral country. It is quite probable that we shall never hear of him again, for he had no murders to his charge and may not be included by the Supreme Council in the punishable class^[12]. But it is certain that he will never again walk up Bond Street or show his face in Milwaukee. He must rest on his laurels and be content with his European reputation.

To give some idea of the actual difficulties of the final exit and escape, it may be well to include the following graphic account from the first man through:

“The kits of the first (working) party were got down in the daytime. I had been chosen to cut out, and as soon as the ten o’clock roll-call was over in the rooms, L., C., and I (we were going to ‘travel’ together) went off through the swing doors, the hole into the eaves, the orderlies’ quarters, and so into the tunnel.

“I left my room at about 10.15 p.m., and in ten minutes I was worming my way along the hole for the last time, noting all the old familiar ups and downs and bends, bumping my head against the same old stones, and feeling the weight of responsibility rather much. I am not ashamed to say that I did a bit of praying on the way along. When I got to the end, into the small pit which we had dug to drop the earth of the roof into, I put my kit on one side and got to work with a large bread knife. It was of course pitch dark. I was kneeling in the pit, digging vertically up. The earth fell into my hair, eyes, and ears, and down my neck. I didn’t notice it much then, but found afterwards that my shirt and vest were completely brown. By about 11 p.m. I had a hole through to the air about 6 inches in diameter. It was raining, but the arc lamps made it look very light outside. I found, to my delight, that we had estimated right and that I had come up just beyond a row of beans which would thus hide my exit, with any luck, from the sentry. By 11.40 the way was open, and I pushed my kit through and crawled out. The sentry nearest us had a cough, which enabled me to locate him, but as he was in the shadow of the wall and not in the light of the electric lamps I could not see him. This made it a bit more uncomfortable, as I didn’t know but that he was staring straight at me. I crawled to the edge of the rye-field and looked at my watch. It was 11.45 p.m. Just at that moment the rain stopped, a bright full moon shone out and an absolute stillness reigned. The rye was very ripe and crackled badly, and so, after a whispered consultation with L., I decided to crawl in a southerly direction down the edge of the rye-field, keeping under cover of the gardens.

“If there had only been the three of us to escape we could have barged straight through the rye, but we had to think of the hordes behind us, and could not afford to take risks.

“We reached the end of the cover afforded by the gardens and were debating what to do, when luckily the rain started again, and we crawled through the rye, the noise of the rain pattering on the rye being sufficient to drown that made by our progress.

“When through the rye, we stopped to put on our rÜcksacks, and then made for the river Weser which we had to cross. Close to the river bank we found four or five large hurdles. Piling these one on top of the other, we made a raft, on which we ferried across first our kits and then our clothes. The water was warm, but the wind cold. We dressed and started again. It was by this time about 2 a.m. C. thought he heard a shot, and we were afraid that the Boche had spotted someone getting out.

“As we rounded the spur of a hill, and the lights of the Lager, which looked so pretty from outside, were shut from our view, we said good-bye to Holzminden Kriegsgefangenenlager—a good-bye which unhappily turned out for us three to be only ‘au revoir.’”

In all ten escaped. Rathborne, as stated, was over in three days, and was able to report in person on the state of affairs in one camp in the Xth Army Corps in which he had held a responsible position. Gray, Bain, Kennard, Bennett, and Bousfield among the working-party, Purves, Tullis, Campbell Martin, and Leggatt amongst the others, followed in the course of a fortnight. Most of them had had some near shaves and were “all in” on arrival. Bousfield—an old Cambridge 3-miler—had on one occasion to out-distance his pursuers by running for it.

Those who had been recaptured were kept in cells until early in September without trial, although repeated protests were made to the Commandant and higher authority. They were then released to await court-martial. The accused being many and rolling-stock being valuable, the Court came to Holzminden to judge them. On the morning of the trial a lawyer came to represent the prisoners, and a representative of the Netherlands minister at Berlin also came to act in their interests. All the prisoners were tried together and were sentenced to six months’ imprisonment on a combined charge of mutiny and damage to property, the punishment to be carried out in a fortress. As it happened, and although the trial took place so early as 27th September, this sentence was never carried out. Whether this was due to the military situation or to some other cause is not known. The signing of the Armistice removed finally all possibility of the imprisonment ever being carried into effect.

It was unfortunate that while the Holzminden tunnel was under construction another tunnel was in progress at Clausthal, where the twin brother Niemeyer was Commandant. It is now known that the tunnel there would have been completed in about a week from the date on which the Holzminden escape took place. The “Poldhu” had been busy between the camps, but, no exact synchronisation being possible, it remained simply to go full steam ahead in each camp and trust to luck. As was anticipated, the Holzminden escape led to a very serious search at Clausthal, and the tunnel was discovered just as it was approaching completion. The tunnel of Holzminden was, however, so much the bigger affair that there was a rough justice in this award of Fortune.