The Escaping Club

by A. J. Evans

THE FRONTIER

When we got to Crefeld I saw that the station was on the east side of the town, but after my experience at Düsseldorf I thought it would be much safer to walk boldly right through the middle of the town than to skirt round the edges. My brother was at this time interned at Crefeld, and I thought how amusing it would be if I were to meet him in the town and wondered if he would keep a straight face when I winked at him. The walk through the town was without incident. One fellow, in Landsturm uniform, a prison guard I should think, turned round and looked at me in a nasty way, perhaps recognizing my likeness to my brother, but I walked quickly on and nothing came of it. It must have been just after 2 p.m. when I got through into the open country on the southwest side of Crefeld, and a more horrible country I have never seen; it was absolutely flat, no trees and no signs of cover of any sort. There were one or two disused factories, which I inspected, but did not like the look of them as hiding-places. I passed several parties of French soldiers working in the fields, but did not dare to speak to them. The day was very hot and my bag was very heavy, and I could not help feeling I was rather a suspicious figure wandering about through the fields with a heavy traveling-bag within 20 miles of the frontier. It was a most unpleasant walk, and at times I thought of just throwing myself down in the middle of a field of roots, but the country was so flat that I could never be quite sure that someone would not see me crawling into them. It was not till 3.30 that I found a small alder copse with thick undergrowth, which I thought would do. There were a number of people working in the fields quite close to it, but I walked by them and round the copse, and putting the copse between them and me I doubled back into it. It was quite a small copse, about 50 by 20 yards, with thick rank grass in between the clumps. The people outside were only about 50 yards from me, and I could hear them talking and laughing. Still I was very comfortable and there were no tracks, and when I had made up some yarn to tell them if I was discovered, I went to sleep. Later on I opened a tin of Oxford sausages and had a good meal. Once a dog came through hunting rabbits, and once a man and a girl came quite close, but neither disturbed me. I began to find things very tedious and looked forward to the night's walk. Soon after 10 p.m. I started out from my hiding-place and walked hard with very few rests till 5.30 next morning, when I found a good place to lie up in. Considering the amount of energy expended, I made very little progress. Many detours were necessary to avoid the villages and houses, and for the most part I walked across country by small paths which were very clearly shown on my excellent map. However, my bag and the going were both heavy, and three-quarters of an hour's halt between 1 and 2 a.m. and some hot cocoa were most refreshing. At one place where there was a level crossing a man came to open the barrier, so I took the initiative and said, "Nach Anrath gerade aus?" (Straight on to Anrath?) He said, "Ja wohl," and opened the gate. (After that I always kept the name of the next village of which I was sure of the pronunciation in my head, so as to be able to ask my way there.)

At about 5 o'clock I was pretty tired and found myself with the large village of Süchteln in front of me, through which I had to pass, as it is on a river. I funked it, as the bridge over the river was such an obvious place to have a sentry. After thinking it out, I decided it would be less suspicious to go through just after daylight when there were a few people about, so I lay up and went to sleep in a bush in the middle of a water meadow. When I woke up, shivering with the cold, it was about 5.30 and still dark, so I crossed the road and found a splendid warm spot in the middle of a haycock, which completely covered me up. Still, I thought, they might cart the hay that day; so at 6.15 a.m., when it was just getting light, I walked boldly through the village. There were one or two people about, but they took no interest in me. At 6.30 I had found an excellent hiding-place on the far side of the town. It was rather hot all day, and I had no water-bottle and suffered from thirst a good deal, but otherwise it was very pleasant, being up in the thick bushes on the top of an old gravel pit. The time seemed very long, and in the afternoon I very foolishly wandered about a bit in the woods. I was seen by one man, but I don't think he was suspicious, and so making a short detour I got back to my hiding-place. That is the worst of being alone; it is almost impossible not to do foolish things.

I started off again about 9.30 p.m., hoping to cross the frontier that night. I was about 10 miles from the frontier, but reckoned that it would be necessary to walk nearly 15 miles if I wanted to avoid all the villages, as the country was very thickly populated. There is nothing much to say about this night's walk—it was much like the other, though I suffered rather more from thirst. At all the places where there was water there were also houses, and I did not dare to stop. I managed to quench my thirst to a certain extent by chewing roots from the fields. Unfortunately, after crossing the canal, I took a wrong road and went many miles southwest instead of west, and found myself in a long straggling village. Fortunately for my nerves there were very few dogs (very different, as I found afterwards, from Bavaria), and after walking through about two miles of village I extricated myself and got into the big wood on the frontier at about 4.30 a.m. It was a very wild spot, and rather like some thickly wooded parts of Scotland. It was also very hilly, with ridges of thick heather or long grass between almost impenetrable fir woods. I had an extremely pleasant sleep in the heather, and at 6.30 a.m. decided that I would move on cautiously. It was an ideal place for stalking, and I thought I would try and locate the frontier in the day time and if possible find out what obstacles I had before me. From my map it appeared that I had about 3 kilometres of forest between me and the frontier, but of course I did not know whether the guards would be placed exactly on the frontier. It seemed to me at the time absolutely essential, and even now I think I was quite right, to try to find out by day exactly where the sentries' line was. For all I knew there might be electrified wires, and on a dark night in the forest one was more likely than not to walk straight into them without ever seeing them at all. The rides would almost certainly be guarded, and the woods were so thick that it was impossible to crawl through them without making an awful noise. I know now that a forest is not only the most obvious place to try and cross the frontier, and for that reason the best guarded, but under any conditions, and for many reasons, the open country is the best place to try. However, I felt pretty confident that I should see the sentries before they saw me, so I went forward cautiously, examining every ride before I went down it. I went slowly through the woods for about three hours, in a west or northwest direction, steering by compass, and then began to think I must be getting pretty near the frontier. I was confirmed in this idea by finding a well used path down one of the rides, so I crawled into the wood at the side and lay down to think it out and have lunch. While I was sitting there a soldier wheeling a bicycle came down the path. When he had gone I crawled out to the edge of the ride and had a good look around. Almost north of me I could make out the roof of a house through the trees with a flagstaff and flag beside it. Like a fool, I never grasped that that was the frontier blockhouse—and then I suddenly saw a figure half a mile away, with something on his shoulder, cross the end of the ride—a soldier with a rifle, I thought, but could not be sure.

After resting till about 10.30 I retraced my steps to look for a bit of map which had fallen out of my pocket, but was unable to find it. However, it did not matter, as the map was no longer of much use to me. Once on the move I felt very restless and not a bit tired, and as the cover was so good I determined to try and find out a bit more about the frontier. I found a ride leading in the right direction and followed that along very cautiously, mostly on my hands and knees, crawling through thick heather. I crossed two more rises without seeing anyone, and still crawled on. It was really madness to go any farther now, but it all seemed so safe and the woods were so thick that the necessity seemed to me greater than the danger. It only shows the great advantage of having a friend with you when you escape—if Kicq had been there I am sure we should both of us have got across; alone, it is almost impossible to refrain from taking undue risks. It is partly overconfidence and partly boredom with doing nothing, and partly a sort of reckless and restless feeling which comes over every one, I think, at times. Buckley and I, when we got away some six months later, nearly always adopted the more cautious of two plans. The occasions on which the more cautious advice was abandoned in favor of the more reckless, though few, three times nearly led to disaster. On this first expedition of mine I had no rules and regulations for escaping prisoners, such as one learned at Fort 9, and no experience of escaping. I had to carry on by the light of nature. However, instead of making further excuses for what I did, I had better go on with the story.

After crossing a ride, I climbed a steep bank and came out on to a sort of plateau, about 100 yards across. The undergrowth was thick but there were only a few trees about, though there was a wood on the far side again. I was crawling through this undergrowth when I suddenly stopped short and held my breath. There, 15 yards from me, was a low wooden hut and I caught sight of a German soldier through the open door. I stymied myself from the hut by a bush and looked over my shoulder for the best line of retreat. Just as I was about to crawl off, a German sentry walked by me from the right, walking towards the hut. He was only about 10 yards off and was unarmed, and was buckling up his belt as he passed. I was not very well under cover from that direction, as my legs were sticking out of the bush, but I thought he would not see me if I lay quite still. When he was 5 yards from me, he stopped to adjust his belt and turned towards me, and as he looked up he saw my legs. He was a big heavy built fellow, and as he walked quickly up to me he said, "Who are you? What are you doing here?" I crawled out of the bush and stood up. "I am a papermaker from Darmstadt out on a holiday," I said.

"Have you got any papers?"

"Yes," I lied.

"Well, you must come and show them."

I took no notice of this hint, but said, "Could you kindly tell me if this is the Dutch frontier just here?"