The room was on the ground floor and looked out on to the courtyard of the military prison; it seemed but a simple matter to jump out of the window into the courtyard, whence, by turning a corner round the building, a clear exit could be made on to the main road. We got some French officers to start an animated conversation in the doorway in order to hide us from the sentry, and we had previously arranged with Kicq (who had returned to his cell during lunch and whose window overlooked the room in which we were collected) to give us the signal when all was clear.
At the given signal from Kicq, Medlicott jumped on to the window-sill, and was just about to drop into the courtyard below, when to my amazement I saw him scramble back into the room again and burst into fits of laughter. On looking out of the window I discovered the cause. There, leaning up against the wall, immediately below, was "Fritz," the canteen man from the fort—"Fritz," fat and forty, with an ugly leer on his face and brandishing a fearsome looking revolver in his hand. He had apparently been stationed round the corner, where Kicq could not see him, and had only just arrived below the window as Medlicott was about to jump out.
I might remark that this was the only occasion during my whole stay in Germany that I ever came across a really intelligently posted guard.
The examination of Bojah, Kicq, and later De Robiere, continued till late in the afternoon. Kicq received a sentence of two years, De Robiere one year, and Bojah nine months. As an instance of the gross injustice of the whole affair, during De Robiere's trial the public prosecutor stated that Kicq's action did not receive the support of his brother officers, either British or French. This, of course, was quite untrue, and De Robiere, who tried to protest, was immediately "sat upon" by the president of the court. De Robiere made frantic efforts to get a hearing, and failing in his attempt endeavored to waylay the public prosecutor on his way out of court. This brave functionary was unfortunately able to elude De Robiere's wrath by escaping from a side door.
Medlicott and I entered the court-room and stood side by side facing the officers who composed the court and who were seated on a raised platform at the far end of the room. The court consisted of about eight officers presided over by an old colonel covered with a multitude of parti-colored ribbons. Our two cases were taken together. We were accused of insulting the Commandant, escaping from arrest, disobedience to orders, and a few other minor offenses; Medlicott, in addition, was accused of having broken the ventilator over the door of his cell.
The proceedings opened in a lively manner by Medlicott, who was in his usual truculent mood, refusing to answer any questions. This immediately brought down the wrath of the president upon him, and he was told that if he persisted in his attitude he would be put in solitary confinement for contempt of court. As this didn't suit Medlicott's book at all (he was at the time planning a fresh escape), I took it upon myself to accuse the interpreter of having falsely interpreted what Medlicott had said. I explained that Medlicott wished to ask if he had the right to refuse to answer questions. This luckily satisfied everybody (except the interpreter, who didn't count).
After the Commandant and Feldwebel had given their evidence, the former with some anger and more excitement, I got up and read a long speech in German in Medlicott's and my own defense. It is my greatest regret to-day that I have no copy of this classic document, which had been carefully prepared for me by an Alsatian officer. In it I "let myself go" and accused both the Commandant and the Feldwebel of cowardice and of shirking going to the front. In fact, I thoroughly enjoyed myself at their expense; so also, I think, did Medlicott, who turned round during my speech and grinned openly in the faces of the Commandant and the Feldwebel, who were sitting directly behind us. After I had read our defense, the public prosecutor summed up the case against us, and, if I remember rightly, asked that we might be sentenced to two years' solitary confinement each. I think he was rather annoyed at the time because we had been able to get hold of a German military law book in the fort in which I found that we had been accused under the wrong paragraph, and this mistake I had enlarged upon in our defense.
We were then marched out of court, and returned a few minutes later to hear the verdict of six weeks' solitary confinement for Medlicott and six and a half months for myself. Against these findings we both naturally appealed.
The whole affair had been unjust in the extreme. In the first place, the proceedings had been conducted in German, of which Medlicott understood next to nothing. We were allowed no defending lawyer; and, finally, our request to call witnesses in our defense was disallowed.