We had a 7-mile walk to the station and, as always in Germany, a two hours' wait there. We spent those two hours infuriating the officer in charge of us by taking as little notice as possible of any orders that he gave us, and by talking or shouting to all the French, Russian, or English Tommies who passed us in working parties from the large soldier prisoner-of-war camp at Ingolstadt. At last we were rather tightly packed into quite decent second-class carriages. Six of the English got together in one carriage, and a sentry was put in with us. We edged up and gave him the corner seat next the corridor, and another sentry marched up and down the corridor outside. At the first review the situation seemed rather hopeless. The only chance was a large plate-glass window of the normal type, which we were compelled to keep closed. There was not much chance of our fellow going to sleep, with the sentry in the corridor continually looking in. German sentries always work in pairs like that, and usually one would report the other without hesitation. There was no door in the side of the carriage opposite to the corridor. Just before we started, the officer came in; he had been fussing round a great deal, and was obviously very anxious and nervous. Prisoners from Fort 9 had a bad reputation. He asked if we were comfortable. I answered yes for the party, and told him that we strongly objected to being shouted at, as he had shouted at us in the station. He apologized. It was only his way he said. We had disobeyed orders and he had got angry and then he always shouted. He hoped that now we would have a comfortable quiet journey and no more trouble. I said he would not help matters anyhow by shouting—as it only made us laugh. He took this rebuke quite well and went off. I am afraid he had a good deal of trouble ahead of him, and I have no doubt he shouted at frequent intervals most of that journey.
As we got into Nüremberg, the first large town, about 70 miles north of Ingolstadt, it was beginning to get dark. There we waited for two hours or more.
Up to that time no incident of any interest had occurred, and the chance of escape had been very small. It was hardly worth it in the daylight, and we were now a devilish long way from the frontier. However, Buckley and I decided that if we got an opportunity any time during the night we would take it. After leaving Nüremberg we went slowly through a fairly dark night. It was not too dark to see that we were traveling through a well-wooded and rather hilly country, and our hopes began to rise. On leaving Nüremberg, Buckley and I took the two corner seats near the window. It had been decided in the carriage that as Buckley and I were best prepared, both in the matter of food and by the fact that we alone talked German, the others should give every assistance in their power to get us away. They were a good lot of fellows in that carriage, and the spirit of self-sacrifice which existed in Fort 9, where three nationalities were crowded together, was beyond anything which one could possibly have anticipated. Escaping came before everything, and was an excuse for any discomforts which one or two members might bring on the rest of the community. If you wished for help, almost any man in the fort would have helped you blindly, regardless of consequences.
CHAPTER XVI
WE ESCAPE
Towards midnight, after we had shut our eyes for an hour to try and induce the sentry to go to sleep, I hit on a plan, which I believe now to have been the only possible solution of the problem. There were six of us and a sentry in a small corridor carriage, so that we were rather crowded; both racks were full of small baggage, and there was a fair litter on the floor. When the train next went slowly, and when I considered the moment had come, I was to give the word by saying to the sentry, in German of course, "Will you have some food? we are going to eat." Then followed five or ten minutes of tense excitement, when we tried to keep up a normal conversation but could think of nothing to say. Medlicott had the happy thought of giving me some medicine out of his case, which came in most useful; but all he could say was, "It's a snip, you'll do it for a certainty." Suddenly the train began to slow up. "Now?" I said to Buckley, and he nodded, so I leant across and said to the sentry, "Wir wollen essen; wollen Sie etwas nehmen?" Then every one in the carriage with one accord stood up and pulled their stuff off the racks. The sentry also stood up, but was almost completely hidden from the window by a confused mass of men and bags. Buckley and I both stood up on our seats. I slipped the strap of my haversack over my shoulder—we both of us already had on our Burberrys—pushed down the window, put my leg over, and jumped into the night. I fell—not very heavily—on the wires at the side of the track, and lay still in the dark shadow. Three seconds later Buckley came flying out of the window, and seemed to take rather a heavy toss. The end of the train was not yet past me, and we knew there was a man with a rifle in the last carriage; so when Buckley came running along the track calling out to me, I caught him and pulled him into the ditch at the side. The train went by, and its tail lights vanished round a corner and apparently no one saw or heard us. Whether the sentry saw us get out, neither Buckley nor I ever knew, but anyhow I think Medlicott had him pretty well wedged up in the corner. There must have been an amusing scene in the carriage after we left, and I am ready to bet that the officer shouted a bit.[5] As soon as the train was out of sight, Buckley and I walked back down the trackfor a couple of hundred yards and cut across country in a southwest direction. There was no danger from any pursuit from the train. It was a darkish night, and there were pine forests in all directions. A hundred men chasing us would not have caught us. Besides, if they sent any of our guard after us, more prisoners would escape. Under a convenient hedge we made the few changes which were necessary in our clothes, threw away our military caps, and got out our compasses and a very poor sketch map of Buckley's, which was to serve us as a guide for the next hundred kilometres and more, till we could use our proper maps.
We were, we reckoned, between 10 and 15 miles almost due north of Nüremberg. We would have to skirt this town—though we discussed the advisability of walking straight into Nüremberg and doing a short railway journey from there before any alarm or description of us could have reached the place. We had such a long way to go, and so little food considering the distance. But we could not bring ourselves to risk so much so soon after getting our liberty. "It is doubtful anyhow," we said, "whether it would be a judicious move; let's have a week's freedom at any rate before we take so great a risk." Considering the nature of the country, we thought we had an excellent chance of not being caught till our food ran out, if we took every precaution and had no bad luck. It was so extraordinarily pleasant to be free men once more, if only for a short time.
First Night.—This was entirely without incident; we marched by compass, mainly by tracks through pine forests, and frequently caught sight of the lights of Nüremberg on our left. Just before dawn we lay up in a pleasant coppice a hundred yards or so from the edge of a quiet country road. We took the precaution of sprinkling some pepper on our tracks where we entered the wood, and thus, to some extent guarded against stray dogs, we felt pretty secure. The day seemed intolerably long from 4.30 a.m. till 9.30 p.m.—seventeen hours; the sun was very hot and there was very little shade, and we were impatient to get on. Our water-bottles too held insufficient water: we only had about one and a quarter pint between us, Buckley having a small flask and I a watertight tobacco tin. Throughout the journey I think it was the weariness of lying up for seventeen hours, rather than the fatigue of the six to seven hours' march at night, which wore out not only our nerves but our physical strength. At no time of any day could we be free from anxiety. The strain of passing through a village where a few lights still burnt, or crossing a bridge where we expected to be challenged at any moment, never worried me so much, under the friendly cover of night, as a cart passing or men talking near our hiding-place.