Up to now I had depended upon my ears to warn me of anybody’s coming. After the discovery of the battering-ram, I made sure, by trying to get a glimpse of the next room through cracks in the door, that nobody was watching me. A part of the fire-engine could be seen, and on it a clean cup and saucer. “Somebody must have been in that room to-day! Nobody would have placed it there last night. Besides, I didn’t see anybody carrying anything. Couldn’t have been done while I was awake. Better go slow!”
Outside the window was a kitchen-garden with some fruit-trees. To the right, the corner of a house and a pigsty with a solitary undersized occupant terminated the view. My horizon was bounded by the roofs of a few houses which stood behind trees.
It was past seven o’clock when I heard the key turn in the outer door. Soon the door of my cell flew open, and in marched the short, sharp-featured man of the night before, with a pot of coffee, a cup and saucer, and something done up in paper, which turned out to be excellent bread and butter. Butter, mind you! With him entered a very young soldier, who nonchalantly sat down on my bed to survey me gravely. Around the opening of the door clustered the elder boys of the village, pushing and straining. Behind them were the girls, giggling and whispering nervously. All devoured me with their eyes. In the rear were the small fry. They overflowed into the street, where the urchins, feeling perfectly safe from the bad man inside, indulged in catcalls and disparaging shouts at my expense, while I had breakfast. I chatted the while with the man whom I shall call the warder, although he probably had many functions in the village. My efforts to obtain information from him as to whether or not I was likely to be taken away that day proved unsuccessful.
When my visitors had left me, I remembered that, experienced jailbird as I had become since the beginning of the war, I had a duty to perform—a scrutiny of the walls of the cell for any records former occupants might have left there. This leaving of inscriptions seems to be “the correct thing” among German prisoners—criminals, I mean. They are not always nice but invariably interesting, particularly under the circumstances in which they are read. The walls of my abode had been recently whitewashed, and there was only one inscription: “André—[I forget the surname] evadé Avril 2me 1916, repris Avril 3me 1916.” Thus a fellow-fugitive had been here only the previous day.
I very badly wanted my morning smoke, and unexpectedly I had found two cigarettes in my pockets, but there were no matches; and I had been warned that smoking was not permitted. A woman was walking about in the garden at this time. I took her to belong to the house whose corner I could see; she was probably the wife of the owner. I intended to appeal to her compassionate spirit. After a time she was joined by an elderly woman, perhaps her mother. Although they did not show obvious interest in me, yet they kept passing in front of my window. At last I addressed them, whereupon they stopped with alacrity. The elder woman was certainly talkative. She pitched into me at once, going over the whole register of my sins as an Englishman as conceived by the German mind, and telling me what a disgusting lot of robbers, thieves, and murderers we were. As soon as she had got it off her chest, she became rather friendly. “You’d be in Holland now, if you hadn’t been taken last night.”
“Surely not,” with a puzzled frown. “I thought I’d have another two-days’ walk from here.”
“Oh, no. It’s only a four-hours’ walk by the road into Holland from here.”
“In this direction?” I pointed east, into Germany.
“No, over there. You go through —— and ——, then take the —— road on the right. It’s not more than four hours, is it?” turning to her daughter, who nodded.