The Escaping Club

by A. J. Evans

After half an hour of subdued rejoicing in the fort, for by that time the story had gone round, we suddenly heard an awful commotion among the Huns. The guards were turning out at the double, clutching their rifles amid a regular pandemonium of shouts and orders, and the roar of the Commandant could be heard above the tumult. We turned out into the passages to see the fun. The C.O. was raving like a maniac. The minute he caught sight of us laughing at him he brandished his fists and shouted at us to go to our rooms. Oliphant and I started to argue that the bell had not gone and therefore we need not go to our rooms, but he told off a sentry, who drove us back at the point of the bayonet, Oliphant protesting in his worst German, "Sie dürfen nicht so sprechen mit ein English Offizier."

We cheered like mad and sang the Marseillaise and "On les aura"—in fact, celebrated the occasion to the best of our ability.

What happened as soon as the party got outside the first door, Kicq told me afterwards. The second obstacle they had to pass was the gate which barred the roadway over the moat. This the sentry opened for them without a word, whilst Kicq trod on his toes to distract his attention. As they passed the guardhouse in the outer court several men came out and shouted at them, but they were unarmed, and Kicq & Co. paid no attention. The outer gate consists of a double door which they knew would pull open without being unlocked, once the bar was removed. They got the bar off and tore open the gate, and found a sentry waiting for them with a rifle and fixed bayonet outside. "Wer kommt dann hier?" said he. Kicq was out first, and holding up his hand said, "Ruhig, einer ist los!" (Be quiet, a prisoner has got away), and rushed past him into the darkness. Without giving the sentry time to recover his wits, the rest pushed past, throwing their mattresses, etc., on the ground at his feet, and disappeared. Kicq and Decugis went on together for a bit, thinking that the rest must have been held up and expecting to hear shots. Then they saw other figures moving near them in the darkness and thought at first they were Germans searching, but found they were the rest of the party. It was not for some minutes afterwards that the alarm was given; but the whole party, after nearly running into a sentry on a neighboring fort, managed to get away from their pursuers. After a terribly hard eleven days' march they were all caught near the frontier. It was in the middle of winter, and they suffered most dreadfully from cold and bad feet. All of them, with the exception of Kicq and Callens, had gone out (according to English ideas of escaping) very badly prepared for such a journey at that time of year. They had quite insufficient food (though they had opportunities of carrying out any amount), insufficient socks, grease, and numerous other things. They also lost their way rather badly the first two nights. Then Kicq took charge, and the latter part of the journey they went by the same route which Buckley and I afterwards followed. None of them had thought of going into proper training, and to have reached the frontier under such conditions was a wonderful feat of endurance. They were in a terrible condition when they were caught. When within 70 kilometres of the frontier, just north of Stockach, they separated, the Frenchmen going on together and making a forced march of 60 kilometres in one night, and the Belgians coming on in their own time. Both parties were caught on the same day and about the same time; the Frenchmen because they got into a country close to the frontier where they could find no decent place to lie up, and, as there was a light fall of snow, their tracks were traced. The Belgians were caught in a very unlucky manner. Their hiding-place was excellent, but on a Sunday the Germans usually go out shooting, and a shooting party came on them. A dog came up and sniffed at them, and then an old German with a gun stared into the bush and said, "Es ist ein Fuchs" (It's a fox).

They soon found it was not a fox, and Kicq and Callens were hauled out. The Würtembergers treated them very well indeed, and said they were almost sorry they had captured them, as they had made such a sporting effort, or words to that effect. They were escorted back to the fort by a very decent Würtemberg officer, who was furious with the Commandant when he laughed and jeered at them for being recaptured. "Well," said Kicq in excellent German to the Commandant, "if you leave all the gates open, how are prisoners to know that they are not allowed to go out that way?" The Würtemberg officer remarked, as he said good-bye to them outside, that "the Prussians were brutes, but the Bavarians were swine." Which remark seems to me very much to the point. All the party, with the exception of a very young Frenchman called La Croix, had painful and swollen feet, and all without exception were ravenously hungry for a week or more after they had been returned to prison. One of them retired to hospital for several weeks, and I believe that there was a danger at one time that he would lose his feet owing to frost-bite. However, they healed in time.

As far as I remember they received no special punishment for this escape. They probably got five days' "jug," each, but, as I have explained before, this was a mere farce. Each of the three sentries whom they had passed got three months—and I don't imagine that was any farce at all for the unfortunate sentries.

During the spell of fine weather which we had before the winter set in, Medlicott and Buckley joined forces and made an attempt to escape by a method which, in my opinion, was as unpleasant and risky as any which was attempted in Fort 9. With the help of the Commandant de Goys they persuaded some French orderlies to wheel them out concealed in the muck and rubbish boxes. We buried them one afternoon beneath potato peel and muck of every description, heaved the boxes on to a hand-cart, and then from the top of the ramparts watched four orderlies escorted by a sentry wheel them out to the rubbish-heap about 200 yards from the fort. In the boxes they were lying on sacking, so that when the box was upset the sacking would fall over them. We saw the first box upset apparently successfully, but as they were about to deal with the second, which contained Medlicott, there was a pause. The sentry unslung his rifle, and it was obvious to us that they had been discovered. Buckley's account of what happened was as follows:—

"At about 4.45 Medlicott and I proceeded to where the boxes stood, and after some of the rubbish had been taken out we were thrust into its place by the willing hands of Evans, Milne, Fairweather, and Oliphant, and covered up again with rubbish. In due course the orderlies arrived, the boxes were loaded on to the cart, and the 'procession' started. All seemed to be going extremely well as far as I could judge from my uncomfortable position; the sentry was picked up at the guardhouse, and I heard with joy the gate of the fort being unlocked to let the party out. The orderlies stopped the cart at the rubbish-heap (or rather some hundred yards short of it, as we found out afterwards, our combined weight having made farther progress in the snow impossible), and started to unload the box in which I was concealed. As instructed, they unloaded us as far away from the sentry as possible. I felt my box taken off the cart and turned over. I lay still, and seemed to be well covered with rubbish and to be unnoticed. I heard Medlicott's box unloaded alongside of me, but just as this was being completed I felt some one tugging at the Burberry I was wearing, a corner of which was showing from under the rubbish.

"It had been arranged previously that if either of us was discovered the one discovered first was to give himself up at once and endeavor to conceal the presence of the other. I lay still for a few seconds, but as the tugging continued, I concluded the game was up and I stood up, literally covered in sackcloth and ashes. I must have looked a fairly awe-inspiring sight, and I evidently caused some alarm in the noble breast of a German civilian who had come to hunt the rubbish heap for scraps of food and clothing, and who evidently thought he had discovered a gold mine in the shape of a Burberry which he had been trying to pull off my back for the last few minutes. Anyway, he retired with some speed to a safe distance! The sentry, who up to the time of my getting up had noticed nothing wrong, at this point began to perform rifle exercise in the close proximity of my person, and generally to behave in an excited and dangerous manner. Then followed for the next few minutes the unpleasant and, alas! far too frequent experience of staring down the muzzle of a German rifle, held as it seemed with remarkable steadiness in spite of the excitement of the man behind it. The guard, whose attention had been attracted by the combined shouts of the civilian and the sentry, next appeared on the scene at the double. They were cold, hungry, and excited, to say the least of it.

"Having failed to convince my sentry that I was alone and that there was nobody under the other heap of rubbish, I warned Medlicott of the guard's approach and advised him to get up. This he did, and was at once set upon by the oncoming Landsturm, who really looked as if they meant to do him in. After a considerable show of hate, in which I received a hefty clout over the knee with the butt of a rifle, we were marched back to the fort. A wild and disorderly scene followed between Medlicott, the German Commandant, and myself, of which I have a very vivid recollection. It ended by my being ejected by force from the Commandant's office, but not before both Medlicott and I had either concealed our valuable maps and compasses or had passed them unobserved into the hands of the willing friends who had come to see the fun."

Soon after the recapture of Kicq and party, the moat froze over, and though the Germans for several days were able to keep it broken by going round in a boat every day, they at last had to give it up. It was rather hard to get any conclusive proof as to whether the ice would bear or not, but one evening, after testing the ice with stones, we decided that if there was a frost that night we, that is to say, Oliphant, Medlicott, Milne, Fairweather, Wilkin, and myself, would run over the south rampart and across the ice just before the evening Appell. We made complete preparations, and every one had ten days' rations and everything else necessary for a march in winter to the frontier.