The Escaping Club

by A. J. Evans

Then there was a French colonial colonel and Moretti, both Corsicans. The colonel had been in command of the disciplinary battalion of the "Joyeux," that is to say, the French criminals who do their military service in Africa in a special military organization. You can well imagine that the colonel of the battalion, to which the most incorrigible cases are sent, is likely to be a pretty hard case himself. The French used to say that all Corsicans, as soon as they get a command of any sort, imagine themselves to be budding Napoleons. This was rather the case with the colonel. He had been badly hit on the head by a bit of shell, and was not always quite sane. He was a middle-sized man, very strong and active, with close-cropped hair and rugged face, and I am sure he would stick at absolutely nothing to gain his ends. He considered himself a great strategist (with regard to escaping at any rate), but it was Moretti who had the brains and ingenuity, as well as the skill to carry out the plans.

Moretti was very short but wonderfully well made, with a round cheerful face and a funny little flat nose. He was always laughing or ragging some one. He and Buckley were inseparable companions in crime and stole oil, potatoes, coal, or wood together, keeping up a continuous flow of back-chat all the time. He had been an adjutant chef (sergeant-major) in a "Joyeux" battalion at the age of 28, which is extraordinarily young, considering that only the very best N.C.O.'s can be used for such work, and had won his commission in France. Having been employed for the eight years previous to the war in managing and outwitting the most ingenious criminals that exist when they tried to escape, he knew just about all there was to be known about stealing, cutting iron bars, picking locks, etc. He told wonderful stories of the doings of his "Joyeux" in France. He used to say they were the best troops in the world, and I believe they were extraordinarily good as troupes d'assaut. He told us how in the early days of the war 450 of his "Joyeux" had stormed a trench system and killed 600 Germans with their knives alone. That was at Maisonette, I think. He had some wonderful stories of the second battle of Ypres, where the Germans were driven back into the canal which they had crossed at Bixschoote, and were killed almost to a man. He saw more corpses there, he said, than at Verdun. When his "Joyeux" were billeted behind the lines, a special warning had to be sent to the inhabitants to lock up all their belongings.

There were, of course, a number of other Frenchmen who helped us, and whom we helped at various times, and who practically without exception were our very good friends, but I think I have mentioned those with whom we came most in contact. Among the Russians there were several excellent fellows, but as a whole we did not find them very interesting. Curiously, few of them spoke any language but their own really well, and except for Oliphant, and afterwards Spencer, none of us spoke much Russian. They were very generous fellows, and whenever they did have any food, which was seldom, they used to give dinners and sing-songs. With regard to escaping, if you needed anything such as a leather coat or a greatcoat (the Russian greatcoat can, with little alteration, be turned into a very respectable German officer's greatcoat), you could be sure to get it as a gift or by barter from the Russians if they could possibly spare it. The difficulty of saying anything about them is added to by the fact that I cannot recall their real names.

"Charley" was a very rough diamond, but as generous and kind-hearted a fellow as one could meet anywhere; he and Buckley were good friends. He spoke German perfectly and played hockey, so I also got to know him a bit better than most of the others. Lustianseff was a Russian aviator. He spoke French well, and used to teach me Russian. So did Kotcheskoff, a regular Hercules of a fellow, but mentally an absolute babe—a sort of Joe Gargery. He was universally liked, and continually had his leg pulled by the Frenchmen in de Goys' room, where he and Lustianseff lived. Kotcheskoff could talk English not much better than I could talk Russian; he also talked French and German very badly; consequently he and I could never manage much of a conservation with one another without the help of all four languages. There were, however, several Russians, real good fellows, whom I never got to know well. One of them had escaped from a camp with some friends, and had reached the frontier after walking for over thirty days. His friends had got across, but he had been recaptured. I heard a short time ago that he had escaped and had crossed the Swiss frontier at the same place as Buckley and I did.

Our day at Fort 9 was regulated to a certain extent by Appells or roll-calls. When I first went to Ingolstadt there were three Appells a day—at 7 a.m., at 11.30 a.m., and between 4 and 7 in the evening, according to the time of year. After I had been there a month or so a fourth Appell was added at 9 o'clock at night. After this fourth Appell, the door leading from each wing to the center of the fort was locked and bolted, so that the two wings were cut off from communication with each other. The 7 a.m. Appell took place whilst we were still in bed. A German N.C.O. came round and flashed a torch in each of our faces or satisfied himself that we were all there. Immediately afterwards the great iron doors leading into the inner courtyards were opened. It was in these inner courtyards that we played hockey and tennis and football, and did our exercises, etc.

The rules of the fort stated that the 11.30 Appell should take place either in our rooms or in the outer courtyard, the place where it was being held when Kicq and I first arrived, at the discretion of the Commandant. As the feeling between the Germans and the prisoners became more and more bitter, the Appell outside became really very exciting, and from the German point of view an almost intolerable performance. We always used to object to this outside Appell owing to the nuisance of turning out and to the waste of time, as the Germans never managed to count us in less than half an hour. I will say that they had a pretty difficult task; we never stood still and gave them a fair chance, as the general spirit of Fort 9 was to be insubordinate and disobedient whenever possible, so the Germans more or less dropped this outside Appell and only had it when the C.O. had some order or Strafe to read out to the prisoners as a whole. If the Germans wished the 11.30 Appell outside, they gave one ring on an electric bell which sounded in our passage, and if inside, two rings. As 11 a.m. was our usual time for breakfast, we used to listen for the second ring with some impatience. About ten minutes after the bell had rung for outside Appell the greater part of the prisoners would congregate in the outer courtyard. They turned up in any sort of costume, smoking cigarettes and talking and shouting and laughing. In the courtyard on the far side of the moat a guard of some twenty or thirty Hun soldiers was drawn up, and on either side of the main gate stood eight or nine more villainous looking Bavarian soldiers with rifles and fixed bayonets.

The C.O. usually kept us waiting for a minute or two, being perhaps under the delusion that we might get into some sort of order if we were given time. He came from the bureau through the main gate followed by his Feldwebel (sergeant-major) and several N.C.O.'s, and, though the majority used to take no notice of him whatever, he was usually greeted by some confused shouting in four languages. By this time nine-tenths of the officers had ranged themselves very roughly five deep on the right-hand side of the main gate, which was immediately closed by a cordon of sentries. Several officers would continue to stroll about behind the ranks or wander from one part to another to talk to friends; and in several parts of the line, and especially at the English and French end of the line, little knots of men would hold animated discussions of the latest news. The front ranks stood firm, but the rear ranks paid little or no attention to the Germans. On the left of the gateway the orderlies were drawn up and stood in a fairly regular and silent mob, highly amused at the disorder in the ranks of the officers. The C.O. would stand in front for perhaps a couple of minutes, hoping vainly that things would calm down. He then saluted us formally. A few Frenchmen, and most Englishmen and Russians, who happened to be looking in that direction answered his salute. Then a scene something as follows used to take place.

The C.O. called out, "Meine Herren," then louder, "Meine Herren, etwas Ruhe bitte." This had some small effect, though there would be one or two cries of "Comprends pas," "Parle pas Bosche," of which the Germans took no notice. One or two Englishmen whose breakfasts were getting cold would try to make the Frenchmen shut up, but only added to the noise. Two N.C.O.'s were then sent off to count us. One went along the front and one along the rear of the ranks trying to get the officers to stand in files of five. As the prisoners were continually moving about this looked an impossible task, but they eventually used to manage it, though they sometimes had to give up in despair and start again. As soon as this was over the numbers were reported to the Feldwebel, and two more N.C.O.'s were sent into the building to count the sick who had remained in their rooms, while we stood stamping our feet in the cold and waiting for them. Perhaps some Frenchman would call out to an Englishman, "Savez-vous combien de prisonniers Bosches les Anglais out pris hier?"—"Onze mille trois cent quatre vingt deux Bosches." A certain amount of laughter followed, and the ranks would break up more or less and start walking about and talking. After ten minutes' wait, the N.C.O.'s who had been counting the sick would return and give their counts to the Feldwebel. Sometimes the tally was right and sometimes wrong—if the latter, the whole thing had to be done over again, accompanied by cries of derision, contempt, and impatience from the prisoners.

Very often the riot got so bad that the C.O., after glancing anxiously over his shoulder, beckoned the guard to come in to overawe us. The old Landsturm, as they came pouring through the gate over the moat, were greeted with hoots and yells. At the order of an N.C.O. they loaded—this had no effect on the Frenchmen, who laughed and ragged the C.O. and sentries in French and bad German. But why did the Germans never shoot? It is not difficult to understand. We had no reason to suppose that the Commandant was tired of life, and we knew that his Feldwebel was an arrant coward; and the one thing quite certain was, that if the order to fire on us was given, the first thing we should do would be to kill the Commandant and the Feldwebel, and they knew it very well—and that was our safeguard.

Many times during those outside Appells at Fort 9 I was sure we were pretty close to a massacre—and the massacred would not have been confined to the prisoners. There were in that small courtyard only about forty armed Germans, all oldish men, and there were of us, counting the orderlies, nearly 200 extremely active men. We should have won easily—and the Germans knew it. At any time we wished, we could have taken that fort and escaped, though if we had, none of us would have got out of the country alive. You must understand then that the Germans did not tolerate this insubordination because they liked it or because they were too kind-hearted to fire, but because for the sake of their own skins they dared not give the order to fire. The prisoners, on the other hand, were prepared to risk a good deal for the sake of demonstrating how little they cared for German discipline, and for the sake of keeping up their own spirits, but most especially just for the fun of ragging the hated Bosche.