CHAPTER XIV.
THE BOJAH CASE
Soon after the failure of our tunnel scheme several Englishmen, among whom were Gilliland, Unett, and Batty Smith, who had not been convicted by the Germans of any evil deeds during the last four or five months, were warned that they were going to be removed to Crefeld. Great preparations were made for escaping on the way, and Gaskell and de Goys seized the opportunity to try on the basket trick. Officers who have been prisoners for two or three years accumulate quite a considerable amount of luggage, and it was thought to be more than possible that the Germans would not trouble to search all of it as it left the fort, as it was quite certain to be searched carefully before it entered any new camp. Two large clothes-baskets were procured, of which the fastenings were so altered that they could be opened from the inside. Gaskell and de Goys packed themselves into these, and were carried by the orderlies into the parcel office in the fort with the rest of the heavy luggage. Unfortunately a week or two before this someone had been caught entering this room by means of a false key, and since then a sentry had been posted permanently outside the door. When Gaskell and de Goys, who had already spent nearly four hours in an extremely cramped position, attempted to get out of their baskets to stretch their legs, the wickerwork creaked so much that the suspicion of the sentry outside the door was roused. He called an N.C.O., and the culprits were discovered and led, rather ignominiously, back to their rooms.
From Fort 9, where the Germans were so very suspicious, this method of escaping would need, I think, more than an average amount of luck to be successful, though from a normal prison camp it was to my knowledge successfully employed on several occasions.
The party under orders for another camp left the next day and without further incident, and some weeks later we heard that six or eight of them got out of the train in the neighborhood of Crefeld, and four of them—Gilliland, Briggs, and two others—crossed the Dutch frontier after three or four nights' march and after overcoming considerable difficulties and hardships. Gaskell and I applied personally to the General to be transferred to another camp, and I think most of the remaining Englishmen did the same, but our request was received with derision.
The two officers who escaped gave, I think, rather an unnecessarily harrowing description of the life at Fort 9; for if in what I have written I have given a true picture, I think it will be realized that the feeling of bitterness was, under the circumstances, except in particular instances and with certain individuals, remarkably small.
Attempts to escape, although thoroughly earnest and whole-hearted, were undertaken with a sort of childish exuberance, in which the comic element was seldom absent for long. However, the feeling between the prisoners and their guard gradually grew worse, and several incidents intensified this bitterness to such an extent that towards the end of my time at Fort 9 it seemed scarcely possible that we could continue for much longer without bloodshed, which up to that time, by pure good fortune, had been avoided.
The Germans had been very irritated when we tore down and burnt in our stoves nearly all the woodwork of the fort, and the repeated attempts to escape got on their nerves. In addition to this, a store of blankets and bedding caught fire—or perhaps was set on fire by the prisoners, as the Germans believed. The place burnt for three days, and numerous fire-engines had to be sent out from Ingolstadt. Also a large pile of paper and boxes from our parcels, of considerable commercial value at that time in Germany, was deliberately set on fire by a squib manufactured for that purpose, although the pile was guarded by a sentry. These and other pinpricks undoubtedly led the Germans, as we learnt from one of the sentries, to issue most stringent orders to the guard to use their rifles against us whenever possible.
I have already recorded some of the occasions, mostly justifiable, when shots were fired at prisoners in the fort, but now there occurred an incident which roused the most bitter feelings amongst the prisoners.