At one of the most luxurious hotels in the world, we had a most heavenly bath, and changed into beautiful clean clothes lent to us by H. That night H. gave a dinner in our honor. Buckley and I were ravenously hungry, and in fact for the next fortnight were quite unable to satisfy our appetites. But besides the good food the dinner was otherwise most amusing, because the German Embassy inhabited the same hotel and dined a few tables from us, and no secret was made of what we were and where we had come from. The next morning we had the oft-anticipated breakfast in bed. I ordered, by telephone from my bed, the largest breakfast possible, and was disgusted to see the moderate-sized feed which arrived, the waiter explaining that the amount of one breakfast was limited by law. I instantly ordered a second breakfast exactly like the first, and ate all that too. I found out afterwards that Buckley had employed exactly the same ruse for obtaining more food!
That day we were invited to lunch by the English Minister, who was extremely kind, but I think rather astonished at our appetites. After lunch, Buckley and I strolled about for a bit, and then by common consent made for a tea-shop, where we had another good feed. In fact, we made pigs of ourselves in the eating line, and for the next fortnight or three weeks ate as much and as often as possible, without ever being satisfied, and, which is still more astonishing, without any ill effects. I suppose we were safeguarded by the fact that we ate good food, and as we were in civilized society it was scarcely possible to eat more than a limited amount at any one meal.
H. lent us money, and in Berne we bought expensive watches and ready-made clothes, and then obtained leave to visit my brother and sister at Mürren. This was the same brother to whom I have already referred as a wounded prisoner-of-war. A few months before our escape he had been invalided out of Germany, and my sister, who was a trained masseuse, went out to Switzerland to look after him, and I believe did much useful work among the exchanged prisoners. H. sent us over to Mürren in the embassy car, a most beautiful journey all along the edge of the lake. At one point our car was stopped by a party of exchanged English officers, who, poor fellows, mostly keen regular soldiers, were condemned to spend the rest of the war in Switzerland. They wanted to hear our story, and were full of enthusiasm because we had scored off the Germans.
At the foot of the funicular railway we met my brother and sister, and at Mürren itself which I had no idea was a camp for exchanged English soldiers, all the men turned out, and, headed by a wild Irishman with a huge placard "Welcome back from Hun-land" and a bell, gave us a tremendous reception, for which Buckley and I were entirely unprepared.
This brings to an end all that is of any interest in my German experiences. After two very pleasant days at Mürren we traveled via Berne to Paris, and then by car to General Headquarters (where I fear we were unable to give much information that was of value), and so home to England.
There is one other thing I should like to say before I bring this story to a close. Although Buckley and I are among the few English officers who have escaped from Germany, there were many others who tried to escape more often, who took more risks, who were at least as skilful as we were, but who had not the luck and consequently never tasted the fruits of success. Several died or were murdered in their attempts.
In my opinion no prisoner-of-war has ever escaped without more than a fair share of luck, and no one ever will. However hard you try, however skilful you are, luck is an essential element in a successful escape.