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Escaping Club

<hr style="width: 65%;" />[182] <h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2> <h3>WE ESCAPE</h3> Towards midnight, after we had shut our eyes for an hour to try and induce the sentry to go to sleep, I hit on a plan, which I believe now to have been the only possible solution of the problem. There were six of us and a sentry in a small corridor carriage, so that we were rather crowded; both racks were full of small baggage, and there was a fair litter on the floor. When the train next went slowly, and when I considered the moment had come, I was to give the word by saying to the sentry, in German of course, "Will you have some food? we are going to eat." Then followed five or ten minutes of tense excitement, when we tried to keep up a normal conversation but could think of nothing to say. Medlicott had the happy thought of giving me some medicine out of his case, which came in most useful; but all he could say was, "It's a snip, you'll do it for a certainty." Suddenly the train began to slow up. "Now?" I said to Buckley, and he nodded, so I leant across and said to the sentry, "Wir wollen essen; wollen Sie etwas nehmen?" Then every one in the carriage with one accord stood up and pulled their stuff off the racks. The sentry also stood up, but was almost completely hidden from the window by a[183] confused mass of men and bags. Buckley and I both stood up on our seats. I slipped the strap of my haversack over my shoulder—we both of us already had on our Burberrys—pushed down the window, put my leg over, and jumped into the night. I fell—not very heavily—on the wires at the side of the track, and lay still in the dark shadow. Three seconds later Buckley came flying out of the window, and seemed to take rather a heavy toss. The end of the train was not yet past me, and we knew there was a man with a rifle in the last carriage; so when Buckley came running along the track calling out to me, I caught him and pulled him into the ditch at the side. The train went by, and its tail lights vanished round a corner and apparently no one saw or heard us. Whether the sentry saw us get out, neither Buckley nor I ever knew, but anyhow I think Medlicott had him pretty well wedged up in the corner. There must have been an amusing scene in the carriage after we left, and I am ready to bet that the officer shouted a bit.[5] As soon as the train was out of sight, Buckley and I walked back down the trackfor a couple of hundred yards and cut across country in a southwest direction. There was no danger from any pursuit from the train. It was a darkish night, and there were pine forests in all directions. A hundred men chasing us would not have caught us. Besides, if they sent any of our[184] guard after us, more prisoners would escape. Under a convenient hedge we made the few changes which were necessary in our clothes, threw away our military caps, and got out our compasses and a very poor sketch map of Buckley's, which was to serve us as a guide for the next hundred kilometres and more, till we could use our proper maps. We were, we reckoned, between 10 and 15 miles almost due north of Nüremberg. We would have to skirt this town—though we discussed the advisability of walking straight into Nüremberg and doing a short railway journey from there before any alarm or description of us could have reached the place. We had such a long way to go, and so little food considering the distance. But we could not bring ourselves to risk so much so soon after getting our liberty. "It is doubtful anyhow," we said, "whether it would be a judicious move; let's have a week's freedom at any rate before we take so great a risk." Considering the nature of the country, we thought we had an excellent chance of not being caught till our food ran out, if we took every precaution and had no bad luck. It was so extraordinarily pleasant to be free men once more, if only for a short time. First Night.—This was entirely without incident; we marched by compass, mainly by tracks through pine forests, and frequently caught sight of the lights of Nüremberg on our left. Just before dawn we lay up in a pleasant coppice a hundred yards or so from the edge of a quiet country road. We took the precaution of sprinkling some pepper on our tracks where we entered the wood, and thus, to some extent guarded against stray dogs, we[185] felt pretty secure. The day seemed intolerably long from 4.30 a.m. till 9.30 p.m.—seventeen hours; the sun was very hot and there was very little shade, and we were impatient to get on. Our water-bottles too held insufficient water: we only had about one and a quarter pint between us, Buckley having a small flask and I a watertight tobacco tin. Throughout the journey I think it was the weariness of lying up for seventeen hours, rather than the fatigue of the six to seven hours' march at night, which wore out not only our nerves but our physical strength. At no time of any day could we be free from anxiety. The strain of passing through a village where a few lights still burnt, or crossing a bridge where we expected to be challenged at any moment, never worried me so much, under the friendly cover of night, as a cart passing or men talking near our hiding-place. The general routine which we got into after about the third day out was as follows:—We went into our hiding-place at dawn or shortly after, that is to say, between 4.30 and 5.15, and after taking off our boots and putting on dry socks we both dropped asleep instantly. This may seem a dangerous thing to have done. One of us ought always to have been awake. But the risk we ran in this way was very small indeed, and the benefit we got from that first sound sleep, while we were still warm from walking, was so great that we deliberately took whatever risk there was: it was almost non-existent. Nothing ever seemed to stir in the countryside till after 6.30. During the rest of the day one of us always remained awake. After half an hour's sleep we would wake shivering, for[186] the mornings were very cold, and we were usually wet from the dew up to our waists. Then we had breakfast—the great moment of the day. At the beginning rations were pretty good, as I underestimated the time we should take by about four days. To begin with, I thought we should come within range of our maps on the third night, but we did not get on them till the fifth. Half a pound of chocolate, two small biscuits, a small slice of raw bacon, six oxo cubes and about ten tiny meat lozenges and a few Horlick's malted milk lozenges—this was the full ration for the day. We never had more than this, and very soon had to cut it down a good deal. We varied this diet with compressed raisins, cheese, or raw rice instead of the meat or chocolate. The oxo cubes and half the chocolate we almost always took during the night, dissolving the former in our water-flasks. Later on, when things began to look very serious from the food point of view, we helped things out with raw potatoes, but I will come to that later on. On the first day we took careful stock of our food, which we redistributed and packed; and then decided— (1) that we had at a guess about 200 miles to walk; (2) that we would make for the German Swiss and not the Austrian Swiss frontier; (3) that we would walk with the utmost precaution and not take a train or try to jump a train till we were at the end of our tether; (4) that by walking round Nüremberg we should be sure to hit a good road taking us south or southwest; (5) that we would not start to walk before 9.30 in the[187] open country, or 9.45 if there were villages in the neighborhood (we broke this rule twice, and it nearly finished the expedition each time); (6) that we would never walk through a village before 11 p.m. if we could help it; (7) last, but not least, that we would always take the counsel of the more cautious of the two at any moment. A very large percentage of the officers in the fort where we had been prisoners for the last six months had made attempts and had marched through Germany towards different frontiers for periods varying from a few hours to three or four weeks, so that we had a great quantity of accumulated experience to help us. For instance—contrary to what one would naturally suppose—it was safest and quickest to walk along railways—especially if you could answer with a word or two of German to any one who shouted to you. And there was the additional advantage that the chance of losing the way along a railway was very small. Second Night.—We started from our hiding-place about 9.30 p.m. and made our way for a mile or two across country and through woods, going with quite unnecessary caution till we hit a decent road going south, soon after ten o'clock. <div class="figcenter"> [188] <ANTIMG src="images/i196.jpg" width-obs="484" height-obs="600" alt="SKETCH-MAP SHOWING ROUTE OF ESCAPE FROM GERMANY" title="" /> SKETCH-MAP SHOWING ROUTE OF ESCAPE FROM GERMANY</div> After walking fast along this for an hour or so we were going up a steepish hill when Buckley complained of feeling very tired. This was a bad start, but after resting a few minutes he was strong enough to go on and gradually got better towards the end of the night. From there [189] onwards it was Buckley who was on the whole the stronger walker, at least he had most spare energy, which showed itself in those little extra exertions which mean so much—such as climbing a few yards down a river bank to get water for both, and being the first to suggest starting again after a rest. Of course we varied, and sometimes I and sometimes he was the stronger—and there is no doubt that between us we made much better progress than either one of us could have done alone. About 11.30 we got rather unexpectedly into a large village and had to walk boldly through the middle of it. There were one or two people about, but no one stopped or questioned us. A little later we crossed a railway which ran slightly south of west, and hesitated whether to take it on the chance of hitting a branch line leading south, but we decided to stick to the road. An hour or so later, however, the road itself turned almost due west, and we were forced to take a poor side road, which gradually developed into a track and then became more and more invisible till it lost itself and us in the heart of a pine forest. We then marched by compass, following rides which led in a south or southwest direction. I afterwards found out by studying the map that there are no main roads or railways leading in a south or southwest direction through that bit of country. Time after time during the first five nights we were compelled to take side roads which led nowhere in particular, and we found ourselves tripping over hop-poles and wires, or in private property, or in the middle of forests. Towards 5 o'clock we were getting to the edge of this piece of forest,[190] and lay up in a thick piece of undergrowth, and heather—a very pleasant spot, though we were rather short of water, not having found any in the forest. The day, a very hot one, passed without incident, though several carts and people passed within 25 yards of our hiding-place. Third Night.—About 9 o'clock we were absolutely sick of lying still, and very thirsty. As the whole place seemed deserted we decided to start walking. We soon found a stream, and after quenching our thirst walked by compass and hit a main road leading slightly east of south about half a mile farther on. We found ourselves on the northeast side of a valley about a mile broad which had the appearance of a marsh or irrigation meadow covered with rank grass. On either side were hills covered with thick pine woods. The only thing to do was to go along the road, even if it did lead slightly east of south. I may say here that we badly miscalculated the distance the train had brought us north on my maps. We hoped during this third night to see on a sign-post the name of a town mentioned on the map which would tell us where we were, and for this purpose we had learnt by heart the names of all the towns and villages along the northern border of the map. It was all a question of time and food, and progress through pine forests by compass was very slow work. It was therefore essential to hit a main road going south as soon as possible, and we determined to ask our way. As we were filling our water-bottles from a rivulet at the side of the road a man and a boy came by on bicycles. I hailed them and asked what the name of the village was which we could see in the distance.[191] They got off their bicycles and came towards us, and the man answered some name which I did not quite catch. Then he looked curiously at us and said: "Sie sind Ausländer" (You are foreigners). "No, we aren't," I said; "we are North Germans on a walking tour and have lost our way." "Sie sind Ausländer," he answered in a highly suspicious voice. Buckley said he did not care a damn what he thought, and I added that just because we did not speak his filthy Bavarian dialect he took us for foreigners, "Good evening"—and we walked off down the road. He stood looking after us, but we both had thick sticks and he could not have stopped us whatever he may have thought. We walked till we were out of sight round a bend and then, perforce, as the open valley was on our right, turned left-handed and northwards into the pine forest. During the next hour and a half we made a huge left-handed circle, always with the fear upon us of being chased. Several times we thought we heard men and dogs after us, and in several different places we covered our tracks with pepper. It was a thoroughly unpleasant experience, but about 11.30 we felt sure we had thrown off any pursuers and determined to walk in the right direction. We should have done this before, only the valley lay right across our path. We struck a high road leading almost south, and soon afterwards found ourselves entering a village. It was a long, straggling village, and before we were half-way through dogs began to bark. We hurried on and got through without seeing any men. After a mile or two the road turned almost east, and we[192] suddenly found ourselves on the same old spot where we had spoken to the man. We kept on down the road and avoided the next village by an awful detour through thick pine woods and over very rough country, and then hitting the road again we crossed to the southwest side of the valley and made good progress along pathways and tracks in an almost southerly direction. At every sign-post Buckley used to stand on my shoulders, and with the help of a match read out the names and distances whilst I took them down for comparison with my map in the day time. About 2 o'clock we cut at right angles into a main road going east and west. I insisted on taking this, arguing that we had already marched too much east and that our only chance of hitting a south-leading road lay in marching west till we hit one. After a short time the road turned south and we made excellent progress till 5 o'clock, when we passed through a village in which we dared not stop to examine the sign-post, and lay up on a wooded hill on the south of it. Only one incident frightened us a good deal. It was getting towards morning when we saw a man with a gun approaching us along the road. However, he passed with a gruff "Good morning," which we answered. We found ourselves when morning came, in an almost ideal spot for "lying up," and could sit in safety at the edge of our coppice and see the country for miles to the east of us. I was lying there studying the map, hoping, in vain as it proved, to find on it some of the names which we had taken down from sign-posts, when it suddenly occurred to me that the valley at which we were looking[193] fitted in very well with one of the valleys on the northern edge of the map. After prolonged study we were unable to decide for certain—there were some annoying discrepancies; but "the wish is father to the thought," and we thought we were right. The next night's march would decide, anyhow. If we marched southwest through a pine forest for about an hour we would hit a road and a railway and a river all together, and then we would know where we were; and if we did not hit them, we should know we were still lost. Fourth Night.—We started about 9.45, having learnt our lesson from the previous night, and after walking through a forest for over an hour, without coming across the desired road, river, and railway, we found ourselves falling over things like hop-poles with wires attached, and running up against private enclosures, and still in the middle of an almost trackless forest. Several times we had anxious moments with barking dogs. When we got clear of these my temper gave way and I sat down, being very tired, and cursed everything I could think of—forests, hop-poles, dogs, the roads, and Buckley. Buckley recovered himself first, telling me "not to be a fool," and we struggled on once more. From that night on we swore we would stick to the roads and have no more cross-country walking. I seem to remember that we zigzagged all over the place that night, always keeping to the roads, however, and walking fast. After midnight we came through several villages and started the dogs barking in each one. Once a man came out with a light and called after us; we said "good night" to him and pushed on,[194] but it was most trying to the nerves. My God, how we loathed dogs! Later we came on a valley in which was a river 20 yards, or more broad. Our road passed through a village at a bridge-head, from which came sounds of revelry and lights were showing; so we turned off, and instantly got into the middle of a perfect network of hop-poles. Eventually we found a bridge lower down near an old mill. There was a road running parallel with the river on the far side, and something above it which on investigating turned out to be a railway. The question was, "Is this the valley we are looking for?" It soon turned out that it was not. The direction which the line took after we had followed it eastwards for several miles decided the question, and after going a mile out of our way back to the river to get water, we took a good road leading south. We were both very tired, and struggled on, with great difficulty and several rests, up a steep hill through the longest village I have ever seen. It seemed miles and miles, and dogs barked the whole way. The villages about here had drinking-troughs for horses at the street sides, which were a great boon to us. Soon after dawn we got into an excellent hiding-place without further adventures. We were very exhausted, and were beginning to feel the lack of food. The cross-country marches of the last two nights had been a heavy tax on our strength. We were not yet on our maps, and the most moderate estimate of the distance from the Swiss frontier, when considered in relation to our food supply, made it necessary to cut down our ration very considerably from this time onwards. We were much worried during[195] that day by shooting which went on in the wood round us. It is the German habit to go out shooting for the pot on Sundays, and many escaping prisoners had been recaught in this way. We had to lie consequently most of the day with our boots on, prepared to bolt at any moment. However, our hiding-place was good, and though men and carts passed close to us, I don't think we ran much risk of being found. Fifth Night.—The first village we came to lay across a stream in the middle of a broad and marshy valley. It was about 11 o'clock, and as we approached we heard sounds of music, singing, and laughter coming from the village. It was Sunday night, and I suppose there was a dance on or something of the sort—it was too much for us at any rate, and as there seemed no way round owing to the river, we sat down in a clump of trees outside the village and waited. About 11.30 the sounds died down and just before 12 o'clock we got through the village without mishap, though we passed two or three people. We were making excellent progress along a good straight road which ran, for a wonder, in the right direction, when suddenly we heard a whistle from the woods on our left and ahead of us—the whistle was answered from our rear. We are fairly caught this time, we thought, but we walked steadily on. We had big sticks and the woods were thick at the sides of the road. There were more whistles from different sides, and then just as we were passing the spot where we had heard the first whistle a line of men came out of the woods in Indian file and made straight for us. There were ten or twelve of them trotting in a crouching[196] attitude. They passed a yard or two behind us, crossed the road, and disappeared into a corn field on the other side. "Boy scouts, begorra," said Buckley. "I wish we were well out of this," I said. "I hope to heaven the little devils won't make it part of the night operations to arrest every one coming down that road. If we have to knock out some of them, the villagers would murder us; and we should never shake them off, once they had an inkling of what we were; I would rather tackle men any day." Buckley agreed heartily, and we walked on fast. Several times afterwards those cursed whistles sounded, but we gradually left them behind. At last we hit a railway, running east and west, of course. Our road here took a right-angle turn and ran beside the railway, and we were compelled to take a much worse road leading uphill among trees. The road gradually got worse. We soon recognized the symptoms. How often in the last few days had we followed roads which degenerated by slow degrees and ended by entangling us in hop-poles and private gardens in a forest! A quarter of an hour later this one proved itself to be no exception to the rule. Buckley was all for pushing on by compass through the forest. I absolutely refused, and after some argument we decided to retrace our steps to the railway and follow it westwards. This we did, and after walking several miles along the railway we took a good road which ran north and south, cutting the railway at right angles. After walking for an hour or more along this road we came to a milestone which, as usual, we inspected carefully. On it were the words: Gunzenhausen, 8 Kilometres.[197] We could have shouted for joy. Gunzenhausen was marked on the northern edge of my map. We knew where we were. It is impossible to describe what a difference this knowledge made to us. For the last three days we had been oppressed by the feeling that we were lost, that we were walking aimlessly, that we were continually on the wrong road and using up our food and strength in making detours. For the future we would know that every step we took would be one step nearer the frontier, and during the day we could lie and plan out our route for the following night—we could make fairly accurate calculations with regard to food—in fact, the whole problem of distance and food supplies was now clear and simple, and we had some chocolate to celebrate the occasion. At the next village we saw by a sign-post that the road to Gunzenhausen turned almost due west. I wished to go straight on southwards down a decent road, but Buckley wished to go for Gunzenhausen, the only name which we knew as yet. After a rather heated argument I gave way. Our tempers were rather irritable, but we were never angry with each other for more than five minutes, and as soon as we had recovered our tempers we used to apologize. We almost walked into a sentry in Gunzenhausen before we knew we were in the town. However, we retreated, and making a short detour lay up in a small oak wood about 3 miles south of the town, having accomplished that night a very good march. The place where we were hiding was by no means an ideal spot, as the undergrowth was not very thick. It was rather an anxious day, as we again heard[198] shooting in the woods in the neighborhood, but no one disturbed us. After a careful study of the map we found that, by cutting across in a southwest direction about five miles of flat, low-lying country, we would hit a railway which went due south to Donnauwörth, about 60 miles away. <div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> <div class="footnote">[5] I have learnt since from Major Gaskell that nearly a minute elapsed before the sentry realized that we had departed. After the discovery there was a good deal of ill-feeling, which was accentuated by two Russians escaping in much the same manner an hour later, but they were recaptured. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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