The next thing to do was to avoid being shot on recapture. I stood still, whilst they all snarled round me, and beckoning the smallest man said to him in German, "Come here and I will give myself up to you." The fellow with the whip immediately came forward. "Not to you, you Schweinhund," I said; "you hit me with that whip." The little fellow was quite pleased, as I think there is 100 marks reward for the recapture of an officer, and caught hold of my coat tails, and we started off towards the fort. Wilkin had given himself up to two or three others by this time, but I saw that Kicq was trying to sneak off without being noticed while the mob was occupied with us. However, a few seconds later they saw him. Two or three gave chase, and he was brought in soon after us. We had not gone more than a few steps towards the fort when I saw the Feldwebel running across the snow towards us. He came up in a furious rage, cursing us and brandishing a revolver. We waved him aside and told him not to make such a fuss, as it was all over now, and he soon calmed down. Some soldiers then came up and marched us in, the Frenchmen cheering us as we came through the gate. Before we came to the fort we had to cross a bridge over the stream; and, as we walked along, I tore up my map and dropped it into the stream. I forgot to say that Kicq, when he went off by himself just before being taken, had managed to get rid of the Commandant's hat by stuffing it down a hole. As Kicq crossed the bridge he took out his map to throw it into the water, but was seen by his guard, a horrid little fellow who used to help with the clerical work in the bureau. Kicq dropped the map, and a scuffle ensued. Kicq got much the best of this and kicked the map into the stream.
There was quite an amusing scene in the bureau. We all of us had to take off most of our clothes and be searched. I had nothing I could hide, but both Kicq and Wilkin had compasses, which they smuggled through with great skill. Kicq had his hidden in the lining of his greatcoat, and Wilkin kept his in his handkerchief, which he pulled out of his pocket and waved to show there was nothing in it, at the same time holding the compass, and then put it back into his pocket. All our foodstuffs and clothes were returned to us, with the exception of my black flying-coat. I complained about this, and appealed to a German general who come round to inspect the fort a few days later, and it was returned to me, but was eventually confiscated when I tried to escape in it a week or two later. We had several tins of solidified alcohol with us for smokeless cooking purposes. These were taken, though we protested. For all the things taken off us we were given receipts by the Germans and told, rather ironically, that we could have them back at the end of the war.
Just as we were going out I saw my tin of solidified alcohol, which was valuable stuff (we used to manufacture it in the fort from paraffin and soap), standing almost within my reach, and very nearly managed to pocket it as I went out. However, I found Decugis outside, and explained to him the position of the tin, and suggested that he should take in one or two pals, have a row in there, and steal it back for me. This is the sort of expedition that the Frenchmen loved and were absolute masters at. Within ten minutes I had my solid alcohol back all right and kept my receipt for it as well.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Captain Unett had been sent to Fort 9 as a punishment for escaping from Clausthal.
CHAPTER XI
AN ESCAPE WITH MEDLICOTT
For the next six weeks life was rather hard. It froze continuously, even in the day time, in spite of the sun, which showed itself frequently, and at night the thermometer registered as often as not more than 27° of frost. The Germans, who had made many efforts to keep the ice in the moat broken by punting round in a steel boat kept for the purpose, now abandoned the attempt, and in consequence of this and of our escape across the ice we were denied the use of the inner courtyards. For the next six weeks the only place in which we could take exercise was the little outer court where Appell was sometimes held. It was only about 50 yards by 25, and was really an inadequate exercise ground for 150 active men. Still we kept pretty fit. Every morning all the English had an ice-cold shower-bath. Of the Frenchmen, Bellison, who lived in Gaskell's room, and one other, I think, had been used to take a cold bath every morning, but it was really astonishing what a number followed our example at Fort 9. When it was so cold that the water in the tubs above the shower-sprays was frozen solid, thirty or forty officers, by pumping the water from the well, used to take a bath regularly every morning. It was only when coal became so scarce that it was not possible to keep a fire going all day in the living-rooms, and when, if you took a bath cold you would never get warm again the whole day, that attendance dropped to some half-dozen men who, having before them the possibility of a ten days' march to the frontier in the dead of winter, looked upon the bath in the morning more as a method of making themselves hard and fit than as an act of cleanliness.