CHAPTER XI
Free for Three Days
At last one summer’s evening they gathered around the supper table and Ben failed to appear. I would give worlds to have seen the expressions on their faces then, and on the sentry’s later when he came and found no Engländer there to lock up. I had come to seem too permanent there! I was as much an institution on the place as the dog, Telo, or the broken pump.
While they were making these rude discoveries I lay crouched on a bed of moss in a secluded dell in one of the grand duke’s forests smoking my pipe and speculating as to whether another fortnight would find me in Denmark or in a German jail. I had just finished a good supper of bread, “bully,” condensed milk, and dates from my box of English provisions and was resting a moment before going on.
My linen collar wilted with perspiration and I threw it away, having plenty more in my bag to put on in the morning. I had spent most of the afternoon in putting together my civilian attire, for I had to escape from the village in my prisoner’s garb. I carried patches of black cloth in my pockets, accurately cut out to fit the prisoner’s stripes on my cap and trousers. These I sewed on in the midst of a rye field immediately I got clear of the village. My coat, I had found, would not admit of alteration, so I had contrived to get another. I walked into the little room adjoining the barn, belonging to Warner, the old care-taker, and selecting the best of the coats hanging there, a gay cream-colored creation, I put it on under my black one. Then I put two suits of my new English underwear in a parcel under his bed, for I did not care to steal from Warner. He had seen me thrash a German boy without reporting it and had befriended me on various occasions. On top of the parcel I scribbled a note:
“Dear Warner:
“This underwear is in exchange for your coat which I must take with me. Danke schön. Auf Wiedersehen!
Ben.”
I spent most of the time tramping, stopping when tired or when the view pleased me, for a rest, and sleeping in the middle of the day. I passed through numerous villages and towns whose names I usually learned from the mile-posts along the road. These were about ten feet high and at night I had to climb up them and hold my eyes close to the board to read the inscription. It was the first time I had spent the night outside of my cell for many months and I enjoyed the sight of the moon and the stars again. The long North German twilight was glorious, too, and I often lay on some hillside above the fields and meadows and villages, and watched it while I rested.
I was seldom accosted. I nearly ran into an old gentleman in a forest on one occasion, however. He was a thin, academic-looking old chap, wearing glasses and a frock coat, and carrying a cane. What brought him to the forest at that unseemly hour I have never been able to imagine. It was just after midnight and the darkness was so dense that we could neither of us see the other until we were within a few inches proximity, and the mossy earth so effectually concealed the sound of our footsteps that we narrowly averted a collision.
“Donnerwetter!”[9] he screamed in a squeaky voice, throwing up his hands and dropping his cane.