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CHAPTER XV
A FRESH ATTEMPT
The failure of our attempt had a stimulating effect upon us. Wallace, always ready to do anything at any time and under any circumstances, the more romantic and adventurous the better, nosed around on his own hook. C. and L. said little, but would have required no persuasion to do things which a person like me would have called foolhardy. I, myself, had been only too well aware of the many flaws in our previous plan to take its failure to heart. The biggest of these flaws was our intended procedure after we had broken prison. In the absence of a good opening I cogitated mainly upon the best way of action, once the start lay behind us. I will give here some of my reflections, because they shed light upon our subsequent proceedings.
To escape from the prison, a small amount of help from outside was more than desirable. To break out was not impossible; to do so carrying the necessary food and equipment meant minimizing our chances very considerably, and they were slender indeed, at the best. Once outside, what were we to do? Was it possible to walk through the streets of Berlin at night carrying bundles and hand-bags? It must be remembered that crime was rife in Germany, and the police as inquisitive as monkeys. Could one go to a hotel and wait there for an early train on which to get away? To walk out of the capital appeared impossible, for we had heard that a considerable number of military police, with power to stop anybody, were always about, looking for deserters and watching the roads to the country. None of us knew a friendly soul in Germany of whom we could ask assistance, nor had we a knowledge of the capital and its seamy side, which would have enabled us to disappear in the under-world of criminals and to purchase assistance there.
In August, two Englishmen, who had escaped from Ruhleben and who had managed to live in different towns of Germany for several weeks, had joined our band of prisoners. They had had false passports, an absolute knowledge of the German language, and had been caught only through their own carelessness. Both were awaiting trial on a charge of traveling with false papers, and on one other count. G., a tall, distinguished-looking man with a drawling voice and stately manners, had nothing to lose and everything to gain by another attempt. C. was approaching his forty-fifth birthday, and hoped for an exchange.
In September, S., another man from Ruhleben, had turned up. He said he was an escaper, but I had my doubts. I don’t think he was British, even technically speaking, although the Germans considered him so. He was daring and clever, however, and had friends in Berlin, and there was no doubting his sincerity when he swore that he would not stay in the Stadtvogtei at the pleasure of the Germans, even if an attempt to escape cost him his life.
G. and S. chummed up with each other. A German with an English name, of doubtful calling in civil life but of powerful physique, joined them. Toward the end of October, Wallace found out definitely that something was afoot, S. being the leading spirit.
Without conceit I believe I can say that my friends and I were regarded by all who knew us as “dead safe.” Nothing on earth, not excepting faithlessness on the part of those we trusted, or had to trust, would have made us squeal. We must naturally have appeared an easy prey for any unscrupulous man, since he would have nothing to fear. Private vengeance would have been far too costly for us.
This being so, Wallace’s questions received ready answers. S. was about to obtain a key for the main gate of the prison. A blank was being filed right then by one of his friends outside, to an approximate fit, according to a rough drawing he (S.) had made after a chance inspection of the key in the hands of the gatekeeper. When the rough key was delivered he would have to file it to a working fit. This done he and his party would wait for an opportune moment on a dark evening and walk out of the prison by the front door.
The scheme was an excellent one, as far as it went, and S. had no objections to our joining his party. On the contrary, he seemed to my liking far too pleased. Why should he receive us with open arms, when it was patent that the danger of discovery increased with numbers? Without promising definitely to join his party we agreed to help him in fitting his key and getting away. Almost three weeks went by before everything was ready, and this brought us into the middle of November.
This was another serious drawback. For a long tramp the weather was decidedly too cold. We could not hope to be able to take along even an inadequate equipment. Under these circumstances the hardships would be such as to make sleeping in the open for a week, or a fortnight, impossible. The use of the railway would be imperative, which was against C. and L.’s chances. Neither of them spoke a word of German, and both were so striking in appearance as to make their arrest almost a foregone conclusion. C. was about six feet tall, broad out of proportion, and the picture of well-nourished health; while L., with black hair, black bushy eyebrows on overhanging bone ridges, a mustache the like of which had never been seen in Germany, and a typical seaman’s roll, could have passed about as well for a full-blooded Chinaman as for a son of the “Fatherland.” A word from Wallace or me would make them withdraw, but that word we could not easily bring ourselves to speak.
Wallace, on the other hand, did his utmost to convince me that we must not let this opportunity slip by. The other conspirators would certainly go, and their escape would close this one avenue forever.
“If you stay behind, I’ll go with the others.” Another quandary. He would not get through, I felt sure, for he proposed to throw in his lot with S., looking to him for help, which he would get only as long as it suited S. and no longer. As we had no maps, and Wallace on his first escape had walked only a few miles, and those with a guide, our only chance lay in striking my old route. On this second trip we might cover the distance in two nights, which meant spending only one day in hiding. My knowledge of the disposition of sentries along that stretch of frontier might possibly get us across, even under adverse circumstances.
I had never felt so uncomfortable in my life as I felt when I had to explain to C. and L., that it appeared impossible to take them along with us, and my feeling of utter shamefacedness was only intensified by their immediate and good-humored withdrawal.
To take anything with us beyond what we could put in our pockets was not to be thought of. Could we send out a parcel or two and have them deposited at a station cloak-room? Neither Wallace nor I could. We had never sent parcels from the prison. S.? Yes. He was eternally sending them away. He proffered his services, which were accepted. A parcel was handed over to him to be deposited at a certain station, the cloak-room ticket to be handed to us. When the ticket came—there was only one—he showed it to me, but explained that he could not give it up, as some of his own luggage was booked on it. He would go with us for our parcel, or get it for us in another way. We were to meet him in Berlin anyhow, for we had accepted his offer to procure us quarters where we could stay a day or two in safety. His further assistance, which was to make our “getting through” a moral certainty, I had declined both for Wallace and myself.
On the morning of the 16th of November I said I would not go. At four o’clock I said I would, and meant it. Between five and six we went.
It was already dark at this time. On the ground floor and next to the stairs was the office of the prison. From its door one had an unobstructed view of the whole length of the corridor and of that part of the gateway connecting the street with the yard, nearest to the front gate. Fortunately the door was always kept shut at this time of the year on account of the cold.
The gatekeeper had his office in one of the cells off the corridor. He could not see the gateway without leaving the cell. The gateway was at right angles with the corridor, and not very well lighted. Two steps led down to its level. In passing from the corridor into the yard the front door was to the immediate right of the steps.
At this period of our imprisonment the prisoners had access to the yard at any moment during recreation time. It was cleared for the day at half-past six o’clock. Wallace and I went there at the appointed time—five o’clock—wearing our overcoats, as usual, but our best clothes underneath. The others were already there.
A sixth man had been admitted to the party, a German stockbroker. This upset Wallace so much that the slightest attempt at persuasion on my part would have made him give up the venture altogether. But now that I had made up my mind I rather urged him on.
That morning an N.C.O. had come on duty at the gate who some months before had insisted upon being armed while on duty, and who had declared his intention of preventing any one from leaving the building alive, if an attempt should be made. Since he was bound to discover the open gate almost at once, we had a fair chance of getting hurt, which greatly perturbed G.
At length the moment of action came. S., followed by the rest of the conspirators, made as if to return to his cell. Once inside, he went straight to the front gate, while the powerful German put his back against the gate we had just passed through, to prevent anybody from following us. Wallace and I walked up the steps into the corridor and stood there, chatting, to screen S. while he unlocked the door. He failed in his first attempt. The second time he was successful.
We slipped through the door and found ourselves in the deserted street in front of the prison. The others, contrary to agreement, broke into a run and disappeared around a corner on the left. Wallace and I walked leisurely until we turned underneath a railroad bridge to the right.
We felt somewhat relieved when we had turned the corner. During the walk up the street we had expected every moment to hear the crackle of automatics beginning behind us. It is one thing to face a gun; it is another to expect to be shot in the back.
We were to meet S. and G. at a certain cafÉ close to the railway station where our parcel had been deposited, but it took us a long time to get there, as we did not know our way about Berlin, and were unable to hire a taxi or droshky. They had almost given up hope when we arrived.
We sat down at their table in a well-lighted, large room. Everybody seemed at ease except me. I felt nervous, but tried to hide it. During the next half-hour S. left us several times to telephone, as he said, to the house where Wallace and I were to stay. Each time he came back saying he could not get the connection.
“Let us go and get our luggage, then,” I suggested.
“Didn’t you say you wanted to buy some things?” S. queried.
“Yes; we want to see whether we can get a couple of oilsilks, two water-bottles, a portmanteau, and, if possible, a couple of sleeping-bags.”
“You’d better hurry up, then. The shops will be open only for another hour. We’ll meet you at CafÉ —— at ten o’clock. In the meantime I’ll arrange for your lodgings.”
I was doubtful, but we had trusted him so far; it seemed foolish and impolitic to show suspicion now. Moreover, to have to carry the parcel would be a nuisance if not a danger. So we agreed and left them.
In a big department-store we bought the articles mentioned. The sleeping-bags were thin, by no means waterproof and almost useless, but better than nothing. Clothed as we were, in ordinary town clothes only, I was much concerned to get what extra protection from the cold we could.
While I was completing this purchase, a shop-walker addressed me and followed up his introductory remarks with a reference to the latest air raid on London and a pious wish as to the fate of the d——d English. I heartily endorsed his sentiments, while Wallace, with dancing eyes, grinned facetiously at me. Just at closing time we left the store and took the hand-bag to the station cloak-room.
Walking about the streets to wile away the time until ten o’clock, we met S. and G. carrying their luggage. “Hullo, what the ——! It’s all right, boys; be at the place at ten.”
We were there at half-past nine. We were still there at eleven. Nobody came. Several times I made the round of the cafÉ, even though we sat close to the only entrance and could not miss them if they came. At half-past eleven we left, but returned in twenty minutes. Then we gave up hope.
CHAPTER XVI
FROM BERLIN TO HALTERN
The night was bitterly cold. The extraordinarily mild weather of the last weeks had changed at the most inopportune moment. A few hard flakes of snow were now and again driven into our faces by a searching wind. We were without shelter, without food for the walking part of our enterprise, without adequate clothes. In Wallace’s case a year and a half, in mine seven months, of prison life had not improved the condition of our health. We were decidedly too soft to stand a number of days of cold weather without at least some fatty nourishment.
I pictured us sleeping in ordinary townish winter clothes on a freezing day, perhaps with snow on the ground, in thin sleeping-bags consisting of an outer cover of canvas and a light lining of shoddy. We should be wet through in half an hour. The moisture would freeze on our garments as the generation of body heat, already at a low ebb for want of food, decreased. Then, we would go to sleep.
I imagined us trying to slip through between two sentries, five hundred yards apart, with patrols in between, and over bare fields, while the snow-light gave tolerable vision up to a mile.
I was so disheartened that I proposed that we should walk to the prison and give ourselves up. We could plead that we had gone away for a lark. Our punishment would almost certainly be light. There had been precedents which warranted this view. It was not impossible that the German authorities might come to the conclusion that one escape apiece had been enough for us. In this way we might get another chance under more favorable circumstances. If we persisted now, we had not one in ten thousand, and we firmly believed that after capture we should be sent to a penitentiary prison and guarded beyond hope of another attempt.
With splendid pluck and determination Wallace talked me round. No, he was not going to do anything of the sort. Let them catch him, if they could, but no voluntary surrender for him. I could do as I liked, but we might find it easier than we thought.
“All right! Let’s go to a hotel!”
“That isn’t safe. We must try to get somewhere else.”
I intended to have my way now. “No fear! From what S. told us, it is safe enough. We both speak German pretty well. If we leave the place before eight o’clock we’ll be all right. Look at C. and G.! They never had to show their passports at the hotels. This way to the station for our luggage! Say, do you know a small hotel hereabouts?”
“Yes, there is the ——. I stopped there once. But it is a good long way from here.”
“Let’s try it, anyway.”
I had pocketed the luggage-ticket. At the station I could not find it. An agitated search through my pockets failed to reveal the square thin paper. We were standing in front of the cloak-room, and I was still hunting through my pockets when a man approached us.
I had caught sight of him out of the corner of my eye while he was still some yards away. If ever there was a detective in plain clothes, he was one. Deliberately I half turned my back toward him. He stepped up close to my shoulder and peered over it, listening to what we were saying. I dared not take any notice. Wallace’s eyes, boring for a moment into mine while he lolled against a counter, are still clear before me.
A few months earlier I had received an answer to one of our petitions, in a fine official envelop with a huge blue seal on the back. With an indefinite idea that the seal might be used as an effective camouflage, I had kept the envelop by me. I drew out my pocket-book, and while searching through it, held the back of the envelop conveniently exposed to the eyes of the detective.
“I must have left it at the hotel. Let’s go there and send for the luggage,” I said aloud in German. The detective turned away. So did we.
A single cab stood in front of the station. I turned toward the station police-office to get the brass disk, but was met half-way by the policeman, who had been watching us. He handed it to me without a word.
The hotel at which we wished to stay was full. After some palaver cabby took us to one near by, where we got a room. It was a very small place. The night-porter seemed to be the only servant on duty. He appeared somewhat suspicious, but said nothing about it.
The double-bedded room we were shown into looked very nice. We thought it ridiculously luxurious, but Wallace went to bed at once. It was about one o’clock. While undressing I found the luggage-ticket in an inner waistcoat pocket.
I had still about two hours’ work ahead of me, for I had to map out the route for the following day. I was quite convinced that Berlin was too hot for us. We had not yet discussed our further plans, but had bought a time-table at the station.
Finally, having considered a number of alternative routes, I selected a slow train, which was to leave the ZoÖlogical Garden Station, where our luggage was, at 10:24 A.M. for Hanover, and was due to arrive some time after 6 P.M. I went to sleep, dead tired, at about 2:45.
We got our knock and hot water at 6:30, as ordered. Having dressed, we went into the breakfast-room. A nice, comfortable-looking body presided there; I believe she was the proprietress. We had foreseen the formality of the visitors’ book, and had our names and addresses pat. The landlady peered at them, then at us. I had to negotiate with her for our breakfast, for we had no bread-cards and wanted something to eat.
“You are foreigners, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Good gracious, no! Why do you think so?”
“I thought so from your accent.”
“We’re not from this part of Germany, as you can see by the visitors’ book.” I was going to add that we had lived a long time abroad, etc., but, if I recollect rightly, I did not. I don’t believe it safe to volunteer information, unless one is telling the truth.
“That’s quite all right, then. We have to be so careful about strangers! Just sign these emergency slips for your bread-cards. Thank you, sir.”
During a very sketchy breakfast consisting of coffee, rolls, and butter, a young lieutenant passed down the room, and with a bright smile saluted us civilly. Wallace and I looked at each other, grinning covertly. What a lark! If he knew!
At a quarter to eight we left the hotel and slowly made our way toward the station. Having plenty of time, we entered a cafÉ to have a chat and another breakfast, even more sketchy than the first. We were the only guests in the place, and had to wait for the milk. Here I outlined my plans for the day. At last Wallace assented.
“Come along, then,” I said, rising. “Let’s see what we can buy in the way of food. Chocolate first.”
In a high-class confectioner’s we were told that chocolate was out of the question, but chocolates we could have.
“What price?”
“Nine marks [$1.75] a pound!”
We could not afford more than two pounds, because the things we had bought the night before had made a big hole in our joint capital of $125.00—in German money, of course. Next we obtained two small tins of sardines at $1.10 each. Our efforts to buy something in the way of meat or fat were not crowned with success.
At the station, however, things went well, in spite of my extreme agitation when buying the tickets.
Within the first half-hour we passed Ruhleben camp, and had a glimpse of the grand stands, the barracks, and the enclosure, which we knew so intimately from the inside.
At about 12:30 the train stopped for over an hour at Stendal. The station restaurant supplied us with a fairly ample fish meal, beer, and coffee. Another long stop occurred later on.
During the journey we passed a considerable number of prisoners’ camps. They seemed as a rule to be situated close to a railway line, within easy distance from a small station. The aspect of the huddled hutments, the wire fences around them with watch-towers at the corners, and the sentries on guard, was indescribably forlorn. At one station at which we stopped a transport of Russian prisoners entrained under a guard of ancient territorials.
Wallace was in high spirits all the time. I was, on the contrary, moody, irritable, and worried. My feelings were in complete accord with the weather.
A lowering gray wrack of clouds was being torn and driven by a whistling wind above the naked fields and copses. Occasionally showers of hard snowflakes could be heard rattling on the glass of the carriage windows. Our compartment was over-heated, as trains always are in Germany. Yet, I shivered occasionally, as I looked out of the window, while trying to construct a small optimistic raft to cling to in a sea of despondency. I made a bad companion that journey.
Hanover was reached on time, and the luggage temporarily disposed of in the cloak-room. The town greeted us with a brief but thick blizzard—about the worst thing that could happen to us short of arrest. Confronted with it, my spirits improved.
“Snow, or no snow, we’ll make the best attempt we can at the frontier,” I whispered.
“Just what I think,” Wallace agreed heartily.
His boots did not fit him well, and I urged him to buy bigger ones. A suitable pair, shown to us in a shop, cost $15.00, too much for our declining purse. When Wallace looked up at me from his chair, mutely shaking his head, I could not insist on the expenditure.
After that we walked about the streets, looking for a likely hotel. We decided on a dirty fifth-rate one, to which we resolved to return later, and then wandered back to the brighter, fashionable part of the town. We had dinner in a big restaurant. The warmth, the lights, the show of gaiety around us, and an ample but meatless meal accompanied by a glass or two of decent lager, made me feel subduedly optimistic. Wallace was nearly jumping out of his skin with joie de vivre.
At ten o’clock we went to our hotel. It was unnecessarily low-class. We did not seem to fit into the scheme of things there, and consequently were regarded with half-concealed suspicion. Nevertheless, no questions were asked. Our room was cheerless and cold. We waited until our luggage was brought; then Wallace crept into bed, while I sat in my overcoat near the guttering candle, looking up trains.
I intended to get to Haltern the following evening. The main railway lines lay across our route, and several changes were necessary, there being no direct trains over the branch lines we had to use. My task proved a difficult one. Few trains were running in Germany at that time. The fast corridor expresses, which we could have taken over comparatively small stretches, had to be carefully avoided, for we knew now of the existence of passport controls on them. The slow trains did not usually connect. After much comparing, testing, and retesting, I was fairly satisfied at last.
I had resolved not to leave Hanover from the main station. Detectives might be watching for us there. By using electric trams we could get to Hainholz, a village near Hanover, and there pick up our train. At about 12:30 we should be at Minden. A two-hours’ wait there, and a journey of about one and a half hours would take us to Osnabruck by about 5 P.M. Forty minutes later a non-corridor express would carry us to Haltern, where we should arrive at 7:30.
I was nearly beat when I tumbled into bed at two o’clock, envying Wallace, whose regular breathing had filled the room for hours past.
Bang, bang, bang! bang, bang, bang!
“All ri—” I began.
“Danke schÖn, danke! [Thank you],” shrieked Wallace, to drown my voice.
I opened my eyes foolishly, to a dark room. A match spluttered, the wick caught, and Wallace’s eyes glittered reproachfully into mine from behind his glasses. “I say, do you know what you said?” This in German.
“Well, I—”
“Shshsh, you chump, Deutsch!”
“We’d like breakfast, please!” This to a youth in the bar-room.
“Have you got your bread-cards?”
“No. We’re travelers; we’ll sign travelers’ slips.”
“Nothing doing. You can have a cup of coffee.”
“Look here, we got bread at a restaurant last night without them. Why can’t you give us some?”
At this suggestion the uncivil youth lost his temper completely, and we were fain to content ourselves with a cup of German coffee-substitute.
Before eight o’clock we were out of the place. Our luggage was again in the cloak-room of the main station. A long walk got rid of most of the time before us. At ten we tried to buy some nuts. The oil they contained would supply our bodies with fuel; but none were to be had.
Having got our luggage, we took a tram to Hainholz, where we arrived far too early. The cloak-room and ticket-office of the small station were closed. Some minutes after eleven the train left. It was a pleasant change to get into the hot carriage after the cold station.
At 12:30 we arrived at Minden. The huge dark waiting-room seemed full of intangible menaces. We spent an exceedingly uncomfortable time there, but were recompensed by an excellent meal. A considerable piece of veal, with plenty of vegetables, blunted our fears and appeased our ravenous hunger.
At the station where next we had to change we found our train waiting on a siding, and at 7:30 P.M. we arrived in Haltern.
The weather had been much the same as on the preceding day, a little colder, a little more snow. With the prospect of getting within walking-distance of Holland, my spirits were not so depressed. It is such a bonny feeling to get on “your own feet,” instead of having to wait in a railway carriage or station, expecting to feel a hand on your shoulder, and hear a voice asking you for your papers!
CHAPTER XVII
WESTWARD HO!
Until we got out into the open country I was to walk in front, carrying the portmanteau, which was a little too bulky a load for a man of smaller stature than mine. Wallace was to follow twenty or thirty paces in the rear, but not to lose sight of me.
Into the town and the market-place it was plain sailing. Without looking at the sign “To Wesel,” the existence of which I had forgotten, I turned into the right lane, recognizing it from its general aspect. Nevertheless, the darkness made the ground which I had traversed in daylight look different.
At the cross-roads a long procession of street lamps disappeared down the street which ought to have been the right one. On my first escape I had failed to notice these standards on what then looked like a country road. They are not very conspicuous in daylight. I had had my eyes fixed upon the landscape generally, rather than upon details close to me, which had no meaning for me at that time. Furthermore, I had very soon taken a path on the left.
For the moment I was confused, and, not being able to take bearings in the dark, I walked ahead, up a lane, pondering the situation. Here were no lights, which was inviting. A woman passed me, and a moment after Wallace closed up rapidly.
“Did you see that woman?” he asked. “She turned and looked after you. She’ll inform the police. We’ve got to get off the road!”
“All right! It’s dark enough for anything. There is no danger. Just let’s get off the road and see whether anything happens.”
We waited some time, but nothing occurred. Nothing could, as a matter of fact, for we didn’t wait long enough.
“I can’t recognize this road,” I complained. “The darkness makes everything look different. We’re too far east. That road with the lamps along it is the right one, after all.”
“You’re absolutely wrong,” came the quite unexpected opposition from Wallace. “We’re too far west.”
I had only been soliloquizing aloud, to give Wallace a chance of understanding every step we took.
“How can you know that?”
“I saw a sign, farther back, ‘To Wesel.’ That means we are too far west.”
“Are you sure you saw the sign, and did we pass along the road in its direction?”
“Absolutely certain!”
“I can’t understand it at all. We simply can’t be too far west!” Wallace had seen the sign in the market-place. This being the starting-point, his conclusion was not warranted. But he could not know that. I, on the other hand, was sufficiently doubtful on account of the lamp standards, and Wallace’s opposition turned the scales.
“All right,” I conceded ungraciously, for I am rather touchy about my woodcraft, “if you’re so sure of it, we’ll walk straight north. In that way we’ll come across the road we are looking for, if you’re right. If not, we can turn back. Now we’ll find a place to pack our knapsacks and get rid of this beastly bag.”
We left the road definitely now, close to a church which stood dark and lonely among open fields. We were still near Haltern, but the night increased the distances.
A drop of rain struck my face. Delighted, I turned to Wallace, who was behind me: “I say, I believe it’s coming on to rain. It would be fine if the weather got mild again!”
Behind a wall, which enclosed a churchyard, we stopped to get ready for the road. We packed our knapsacks as best we could in complete darkness, for our only flash-lamp refused to act. While we were doing so, it really began to rain, and we slipped into our oilsilks. Then we started out across-country, due north, walking by compass.
The going was terrible. The ground was frozen hard and the rain on coming in contact with it congealed to ice, which caused us to slip and stumble on the unyielding ridges between the furrows, and now and again to come down hard. The exertion kept us warm. When I took off my hat for a moment, to wipe my forehead, I found the brim full of solid ice.
We proceeded for about half an hour, up-hill all the time. Then the edge of a wood stopped us. That decided me: I knew now that we were following the wrong course.
“Look here, Wace, there’s not a shadow of a doubt in my mind that we are too far east. Haltern is bearing south. If we were anywhere near the right road, it ought to lie in a southeasterly direction. If we had been too far west, we should have come to the woods much sooner. We can make one very decisive test. We’ll go east, until the eastern extremity of Haltern bears south. Then we shall know that we are too far to the east!”
We altered our course accordingly and proceeded in this new direction. Suddenly the ground disappeared from underneath my feet, and I fell headlong down the banks of a deep, hollow road. Wallace was saved by being last. Up the other side and across more fields we came to another road. Here we almost ran into a man, whom our sudden appearance frightened out of his wits, to judge by the way he hurried off toward the town.
“Now, then, Haltern bears almost southwest now. Back we go to the cross-roads. Southeast will take us there in a straight line. Come along.”
On the way back I noticed for the first time a change in my companion. His steps, all of a sudden, seemed to have lost their elasticity, while I grew stronger and more contented every minute.
“What’s the matter with you?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Of course there is. I know it from the way you walk!”
“I don’t feel extra well. Something wrong with my stomach. It’ll pass soon, I expect.”
That was bad news. We came to a lonely wooden hut, like a very small barn. I stopped. “Tell me frankly if you think you can’t go on. In that case we’ll break in here. We’ll have a certain amount of shelter inside. There is no danger. To-morrow will be Sunday and nobody is likely to come near us. It is much better to stop in time, before you have drawn too much upon your reserve strength. The situation is not precarious enough for that. You’ll want that later on.”
“No,” he insisted; “I can go on.”
At last we turned into the road we were looking for. The rain had changed to sleet. The road was slippery with ice. Progress would have been slow under any circumstances, but it was slower on account of Wallace’s failing strength. He was plucky, however, and he kept going.
The usual thirst began to trouble us. Fortunately we had filled our water-bottles at the hotel in Hanover. To husband our supply on Wallace’s behalf, I contented myself with sucking the ice which I peeled in lumps from my hat brim.
In due course we came to the first clearing. The outlines of a barn on the right, and a house on the left, seemed familiar. “Let’s rest a bit,” I proposed to Wallace, for he seemed almost done. He propped himself in a sitting posture against the wall of the barn, while I scouted around.
There was a farmyard behind the structure. The barn itself consisted of a loft, reared on strong uprights. Only half the space below was enclosed by boards, and filled with compressed straw. The other half was open, and contained a big farm wagon. Between its wheels and the straw a number of clumsy ladders were tightly wedged. In the gable of the loft an open door showed a black interior.
“There will be straw up there,” I said to Wallace. “The cattle were given a fresh bed to-day, probably. Nobody will want to fetch straw on a Sunday. We’ll be quite safe.” And I went through the same argument as before.
Wallace was undecided for a moment, I believe. But, to tell the truth, I had spoken rather too sharply to him a little time before. My only excuse is that I was exceedingly worried. Rotten as he felt, he was bound to be nettled. “No,” he said; “I will go on.”
It was obvious that he was suffering from an attack of something akin to indigestion. I was unable, though, to make head or tail of his attack. When I pressed him for information, he told me he had swallowed some shaving-soap, mistaking it in the dark for chocolate. He had hardly any pain, but our pace decreased gradually to a crawl as we neared the crest of the spur of hills, where the path which I had used on my first escape branched off. Not having a torch, I missed it, but discovered my mistake about two hundred yards beyond. We had come out of the forest. Plowed fields on our right had given me the first hint of my error.
“We’ll have to turn back. I’ve missed the path,” I informed my friend.
“I can’t move any farther. I must lie down,” answered Wallace indistinctly, swaying on his feet.
Too miserable to say anything, I led him back, and some way into the timber got out his flimsy sleeping-bag, and put him inside. Then I felt his pulse. It was going at the rate of about one hundred and thirty a minute.
“How do you feel?” I asked.
“Done for, old man. But don’t you worry. You go on. No use spoiling your chance. You leave me here. I’ll be all right.”
“I’m not going to leave you, except for a few minutes. I want to find that path. I’ll be back in a quarter of an hour. You’ll be all right that long, won’t you?”
I was still hoping for a miraculous recovery, although Wallace’s rapid pulse had upset me sorely. My mind was tenaciously holding to the idea of “carrying on,” and I wished to know how to get my companion on the right road without wasting his precious strength.
It took me less than ten minutes to find the path. The groping about in the darkness of the wood had taken my mind off the real issue. Now, on my way back, I had to face the ugly situation we were in.
I had not enough medical knowledge to gage the insignificance of the accelerated heart action, and thus almost feared the worst. If only he could be sick! Perhaps he was going to die on my hands! If he lived through the night, could I hope that his strength would return to him on the morrow and allow us to proceed?
One thing was out of the question: I could not leave him alone, even if he was out of danger and in shelter, for we were both fully persuaded that, in the event of capture, we should be sent to a penal prison. But what was to be done? Wallace could not lie out in the cold the rest of the night and all the next day. The only shelter reasonably near was the barn, which we had passed some time before. We should have to go back to it. We had to reach it, even if I had to carry him.
The snow, which had come on again, was whispering in the trees when I entered among them, groping in the thick darkness for his recumbent form. It sifted straight down through the still air, while the wind shrieked and roared overhead. He called feebly when I came close to him in my blind search.
“Well, how goes it?” I inquired, with seeming cheerfulness.
“I think I’m better.” This through chattering teeth. “But I’m aw-aw-awfully cold.”
“Get up. I’ll help you.”
“I-I-I don’t want to.”
“But you can’t stay here,” I protested. “You’d be frozen stiff before morning. We’ve got to get back to that barn we passed.”
“A-a-aren’t you going to lie down, too? We might keep each other warm.”
“No, I’m not,” very emphatically. “Get up, d’you hear, get up!”
Partly by sheer force I got him out of the thing we had bought for a sleeping-bag. Already the wet had penetrated in places. While Wallace stood leaning against a tree, I groped round for our knapsacks.
Carrying the double burden, which privilege cost me another struggle with Wallace, I led back over the ground which we had covered on our way up, my friend lurching drunkenly by my side. Then he fell and lay in a faint, but recovered quickly. After I had got him on his feet again, I kept his arm, supporting him as much as I could. Every few hundred steps or so he half collapsed, his knees doubling under him. When this happened I let him slide to the ground, thus to get some rest.
I do not know how often this had occurred when I noticed something wrong about the road. The clearing on the left, with stumps standing black against white snow patches—surely I could not have twice missed noticing it! The ground, too, fell rather sharply. “Traveling toward the Wesel road!” I thought. “I remember no villages there, if I recollect the map.”
Wallace had been sitting on the ground all this time. I helped him to his feet and urged him on: “We’ve got to be traveling! Up hill now! Awfully sorry, old chap, but I missed the road.”
Three rests, and the old track was under our feet. Three more, and we were drawing near to the little settlement.
“It’ll not be very long now, old man; cheer up!” I said encouragingly.
“Mus’ get into warmth. Knock first house come to. Can’t stick it,” Wallace muttered in reply.
“Try to make that barn, won’t you? It’s close by.”
We came abreast of a house with a light in the passage, which showed dimly through some panes of glass above the front door. The time must have been about 2:30 A.M.
Wallace stopped and peered at it. “Is that a house?”
“Yes.”
“Knock!” and with a contented sigh he slid to the ground.
I was not prepared to give up so soon. That is what his command meant, as it appeared to me. My pal moved and struggled into a sitting position.
“Knock!” he repeated.
I knocked. No answer. I knocked again, but less determined. The same result. The third time my knuckles met the wood with a nice regard for the sleepers inside. I did not intend them to hear me; it was only for Wallace’s satisfaction that I went through this performance.
“They don’t hear,” I announced, having gone back to my companion. “Come on, make another effort. Let’s get to the barn. It’s only a few more steps,” I urged.
“Did you knock?” he asked suspiciously.
“Yes, three times!” I replied, with veracious if somewhat misleading detail, and I dragged him up and on.
At last we reached it. Wallace was soon resting in the same place as he did hours before, while I went to get a ladder. Three of them were wedged in on one side between a wheel of the wagon and a support of the barn, and by the compressed straw on the other. I tore, and heaved, and struggled with berserk rage until I got one out, the sweat pouring from underneath my hat brim. It was an enormously clumsy affair, and trying to rear it against the barn and into the door opening off the loft, I failed again and again by an inch or two. After a brief rest I went at it again. The last inch seemed unattainable. Another effort! Suddenly it leaped right up and into position. Turning in surprise, I saw my friend standing behind me. His little strength had been added to mine just at the right moment.
“I’ll go up first and have a look!” I told him. The rear of the loft was four feet deep in clean-smelling straw. Thank God for that! We should be warm!
“Up you go!” I was on the ground again to help Wallace up the ladder. He managed to ascend it, and then pitched forward. I let him lie and fetched our knapsacks. The ladder I left in position for the time being. If a few hours’ rest would improve my friend to such an extent that it became feasible to “carry on” during the following night, I intended to drag it up after us, and hide it at the rear of the barn, where I proposed to conceal ourselves. It would not be missed on a Sunday.
A hearty heave and shove sent Wallace sprawling on the straw. Soon I had a hollow dug for him, into which he crawled, and I covered him as best I could. Then I flung myself down by his side, too fagged to care for overcoat or covering.
Fighting against the drowsiness which immediately stole over me, I must have fallen asleep for a short spell, for I felt suddenly very cold. Too tired to move immediately, I lay shivering, listening to the dying wind and the faint beating of snow against the thin walls and the roof of our shelter. When the cold became intolerable, I crawled with stiff joints into the corner where I had flung our knapsacks, got my overcoat out, and put it on. The exercise cleared my dulled brain, and I perceived that I had better look after Wallace. His teeth were chattering when I bent over him. As well as I could, I got him warmer after a time. I now kept wide awake, trying to piece together what was left of our hopes.
I did not anticipate hearing any one stirring in the few houses around until late daylight, and dully wondered at the sound of voices which penetrated to our hiding-place, hours before some chinks in the roof showed faintly gray. We could not see the door from where we rested.
With an effort I turned to Wallace. “Are you awake?”
“Yes.”
“Do you feel you’ve got to get into warmth?”
“Yes.”
“That means going to a farm and meeting people!”
“Yes.”
Poor Wallace! His voice sounded so flat and tired! I have often wondered since whether I ought not to have made another effort to keep him where he was, and to proceed with him the next night. He might have stood it. I don’t think he quite realized what it meant getting into shelter. I believed at the time that he did. However, I acted according to my lights, without another word.
Sliding from the straw I approached the door, to stop in wonder for a moment before going down the ladder. Long icicles had grown from the upper edge of the opening almost to the floor of the loft in the few hours we had been inside, and between them the cold light of a winter morning, strongly reflected by a white, unbroken surface, met my eyes. It was eight o’clock by my watch. The icicles snapped with a glassy sound and fell noiselessly outside when I broke through their curtain.
Beyond it the world was white,—the ground, as far as I could see it; the air, thick with dancing flakes; and the sky. What mattered it now whether we stayed in the loft or sought the shelter of a farm?
CHAPTER XVIII
THE GAME IS UP
The farmhouse door was opened by a girl of about sixteen, who turned back into the kitchen to call her mother, a woman whom incessant toil seemed to have aged beyond her years.
“May I speak to your husband?” I asked politely.
“He’s not at home.”
“Do you expect him soon?”
“No; he’s away,”—hesitating—“at Haltern.”
“Well, it’s this way. I am with a friend. We came from Bremen yesterday, and we’re on our way to Cologne for a holiday. We’ve relatives living at Klein Recken, and thought of spending a few days with them. We tried to walk there last night from Haltern, but in the awful weather we lost the road. My friend fell ill, too. Fortunately, we found your barn, and slept in the straw. We’ll pay, of course, for what damage we did. But the question is this: Can you put us up for a day or two, until my friend gets really better? We’ll pay you well, if you would.”
“You can’t stay here that long, but you may come into the kitchen and warm yourself. You may stay until twelve o’clock.”
I reflected. A few hours’ grace! We had better take it and see how things turned out.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll fetch my friend and our knapsacks.”
With the assistance of the son of the house, a strong lad about fifteen years of age, I got Wallace into the kitchen. We were given seats in front of the roaring kitchener. My friend seemed much better.
Our arrival was obviously an extraordinary event, as well it might be; but if the people did conjecture at all, they showed it only in a suppressed kind of excitement. There was no atmosphere of suspicion, and the few curious questions the woman asked us were easily parried.
There were three girls and the boy in the family, all approaching maturity. While the woman bustled about preparing a breakfast for us, two of the girls and the boy made ready to go out. I did not like that, and tried to find out where they were going.
“You’re going to church, I suppose?” This to the eldest girl.
“Yes,” shyly.
“Have you got one near by?”
“No. We go to Haltern to church. My sister will be back soon from the first service.” So there was a fourth girl!
“Did she go to Haltern, too?”
“Yes.”
“It seems a long way to walk on a day like this.”
Silence.
“You do get up early, even on Sundays, don’t you? I thought I heard you about very early, this morning.”
“We get up at five o’clock,” broke in the old woman.
“You don’t say so. I always thought there was little farm work to be done in winter. You don’t seem to take advantage of your slack time.”
“There’s lots to do.” And she ran through a list of duties.
“Do you feel the war as much as we do in town? How are you off for food?”
“We manage all right.”
“Well, we don’t. We’re chemists in an ammunition factory, and we’re worked to death and don’t get much to eat. There’s nothing one can buy. We applied for a holiday, being tired of the everlasting long hours, and got three weeks. A bit too late for Muller, here. He oughtn’t to have come, feeling as he did.”
The coffee was brewed, and bread, butter, and a plate of cut sausage were on the table. Both of us went at it cheerfully. In the middle of the meal the fourth girl, the eldest, came in, and the boy and his two sisters left. This was about half-past nine.
When I had an opportunity, I whispered to Wallace: “We’ve got to get away from here soon after eleven. Play up.” Then I addressed him aloud: “What do you think we’d better do?”
“I hardly know. I feel pretty rotten still.”
Turning to the woman, I asked: “It’s about two and a half hours to Klein Recken, isn’t it?”
“About that.”
“Do you think you can manage that, Muller?” I looked seriously at Wallace, who understood and answered, equally serious:
“No; I’m afraid it would be too much for me.”
“Well, then, we had better go back to Haltern and on to Cologne from there. Let me see what train we can catch.” Luckily we had kept our time-table. It came in handy now.
“There’s a train at eleven-fifty-four to Cologne. We might catch that, don’t you think?”
“Anything you like, Erhardt.”
“Right-o.” To the woman: “How long do you reckon to the station in Haltern from here?”
“You can do it in a little over three quarters of an hour.”
“That’s what I make it. We’ll leave here at eleven.”
A dollar and a quarter seemed to satisfy the old woman. Indeed, she obviously had not expected so much, but she quickly hid the money in her purse. Then we took our leave.
The weather had cleared somewhat. It was freezing slightly. The clouds were thinning here and there, and an occasional ray of sunshine drifted over the landscape. It was a regular Christmas picture. Two or three inches of snow covered the ground, reflecting strongly the dispersed light from the sky. Black and sharply defined, the woods were outlined against it or the unblemished white of the fields, where they stretched up the hillsides behind them. Each branch had a ridge of snow on its upper surface, and looked as if it had been drawn with India ink and a sharp-pointed pen on glazed paper. The boughs of the dark-green pines were bending under masses of downy white, lumps of which slid to the ground as we passed. Then the boughs, relieved from part of their load, swayed upward.
“You see why I wanted to be off,” I explained to Wallace as soon as we were out of earshot, glad to drop back into English, since nobody was about. “Our unexpected appearance at the farm was sufficiently extraordinary to make the girls serve it up hot and strong to their friends in Haltern. It’ll fly round the town like bazaar talk, and we’d have had the police coming for us in a couple of shakes. But what now?”
We talked it over. Again Wallace asked me to leave him, but my stern answer silenced his arguments. Again it was he who urged “carrying on,” although he admitted that to walk any distance was out of the question for him. He submitted a plan which did not strike me as particularly hopeful, but it was the best we could do under the circumstances.
We were to go back to a certain town in Germany, get help there, and rest in security until Wallace’s condition and the weather had improved sufficiently to make another attempt feasible.
Our exchequer was at low water, and I had my doubts whether we could reach the town. But we might try.
Sundry groups of people were coming from Haltern; some of them stared rather hard at us. Wallace was improving, and enjoyed the walk, but he seemed very weak, and his feet hurt him so that he limped painfully along.
The weather changed again for the worse, and as we approached the station it began to snow. I took tickets to a junction not far off. During the twenty minutes until the train was due we intended to wait on the platform.
“Why don’t you wait in the waiting-room? It’s beastly on the platform,” said the ticket-collector.
“Might as well,” I said indifferently, and turned back.
We took our seats and ordered coffee. At the counter opposite us stood a young lieutenant in the long green, peace frock-coat of a rifleman. We saw the ticket-collector come in and address him, whereupon the lieutenant walked straight up to us.
“Where do you come from?”
“We walked in from Klein Recken this morning,” I answered.
“Show me your papers!”
I smiled and addressed Wallace in English: “Game’s up, old man!” He nodded glumly. The lieutenant stared. Then I explained.
The officer did not seem very much surprised, and the miraculous way in which an armed soldier appeared at his elbow showed that he had been expecting a dÉnouement.
“I’ll have to send you to the guard-room at present,” he said. “Don’t try any tricks. My men are hellishly sharp.” I reflected a moment. Escape was out of the question for the present. Wallace’s condition, the tracks we should leave in the snow, etc., would make an attempt absurd.
“I don’t know whether you will accept our word that we sha’n’t run away while in your charge. We’ll give it, if you like. That’s right, Wace, isn’t it?” I turned to my friend with the last words. Wallace nodded.
The lieutenant had been in the act of turning away, but wheeled sharply when I had spoken. Looking us over carefully, he said: “Right, I will. Are you hungry?”
“We could do with something to eat,” Wallace spoke up for the first time. The officer turned to his soldier:
“You will take these men to the guard-room. Leave your rifle here. They are to have double rations of whatever you get.”
“Besten Dank, Herr Leutnant!” we acknowledged.
With a salute we turned and followed the soldier across the railway lines to the guard-room. It was in a wooden hut, and similar to all other guard-rooms. We had a wash and made ourselves as presentable as possible. Wallace shaved. I was still wearing a beard.
About five o’clock the lieutenant came over to search us. Warning us to give up everything of importance, he merely asked us to hand him what we had in our pockets, and glanced through our knapsacks.
At six o’clock we were taken to his office in the station building, escorted by two armed soldiers.
“You gave me your word that you were not going to make another attempt!” the lieutenant reminded us.
“Yes, sir, as long as we are in your charge, or that of your men.”
“Good. I shall have to send you to prison now. I can’t keep you in the guard-room. Don’t let the warder search you. I’ve done that. You are military prisoners, not under civil authority. If you prefer it, try to make him give you a cell where you can be together. Tell him I said you were to have one. You’ll be here for a few days before an escort can be got for you. Good-by.”
He called our escort in while we stood outside, nobody, seemingly, heeding us in the least. When he had finished with the two soldiers, we marched off. They were particularly nice chaps from the Rhine, not proper Prussians, and largely influenced by socialistic ideas. They twitted us good-humoredly about having been caught. Laughing and joking, we arrived at our destination.
The old prison building in a narrow side street near the market-place looked particularly uninviting. After much ringing of the bell and, at last, thumping with the butt end of a rifle, the door opened, and we were confronted by a large, flabby-looking man in uniform, with the placid, unlined face of a person whose life had flowed past him like a pleasant, quiet stream. He was something between a policeman and a warder, as it appeared. At the moment he was smoking a long pipe with a porcelain bowl.
Our arrival agitated him as much as his natural phlegm and his military training would permit. For a time he seemed undecided what to do, and repeated over and over again every one of his sentences. This was a trick of his, which amused us considerably during the days we were under his care, but made conversation slow and unprofitable. As he collected his wits, he became more official.
“So, two Englishmen, are they? They are two Englishman, they are. You’ve brought two Englishmen. Well, well, well! Where are their papers? Have you got their papers? You must give me their papers. They are not quite in order; no, no; they are not in order; no, they are not in order.”
The soldiers explained patiently that they were.
“Well, well, well! Do they speak German? They speak German, I hope.” To us: “Do you speak German?
“Well, well, I must search you, my men. I must search you, I must; I must search you.”
“Hold on,” said one of our escort, “the lieutenant says they are not to be searched. The lieutenant saw to that. And you’ve got to do the best you can for them, and you are to put them in a cell together. Orders from the lieutenant!”
“Well, I must search them,” repeated the warder helplessly. “I must search them, you know; prison rules, you know. I must search them for concealed weapons!”
“Nothing of the sort. They were searched, and we’ve got orders to see that you don’t bother them again.”
“Have you any knives, pistols, revolvers, or other weapons on you?” Stubbornly the warder had turned to us. The habit of years is not so easily discarded.
“Oh, let’s give him our pocket-knives, Wace, and get it over,” I said, half laughing, half annoyed.
“Come into this room; come in here; come into this room. Now I’ll enter the articles in this book; yes, I’ll enter them in this book.” He began to write, speaking the words aloud: “No. 000000, one ivory-handled pocketknife. No. 000001, one horn-handled pocketknife.… Now, I’ll give them back to you when you leave, you see; I’ll give them back to you when you leave; yes, I’ll give them back to you.”
“Yes, but we want to get back ourselves,” said one of the soldiers. “Hurry up and show us their cell. We are to have a look at it, the lieutenant said.”
“All right, all right, all right! I’ve got a single cell will do for the two of them; a single cell for the two; yes, for the two.”
At last we were in the cell, which was of course as dark as the nether regions, having taken quite an affectionate farewell of our escort.
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