Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons: Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben

by Frederick Arthur Ambrose Talbot

As the hours rolled by I began to feel fainter and hungrier. I had had nothing since the usual cup of acorn coffee at seven in the morning. Although I became so weak that I felt as if I must drop, I buoyed up my flagging spirits and drooping body by the thought that I should soon meet and enjoy the company of K——. But I was aboard a fourth-class train and it appeared to be grimly determined to set up a new record for slow-travelling even for Germany. The result was that I did not reach Cologne, or Köln, as the Germans have it, until one o'clock the following morning, having stood on my feet for eleven hours and without a bite to eat.

I fell rather than stepped from the train and turned out of the station. Again my spirits sank. The city was wrapped in a darkness which could be felt. There was not a glimmer of light to be seen anywhere. To pick one's way through a strange city in a strange land and without more than a bare smattering of the language under conditions of inky blackness was surely the supreme ordeal. At every few steps I blundered against a soldier with his loaded rifle and fixed bayonet, ready to lunge at anything and everything which, to a highly strung German military mind, appeared to assume a tangible form in the intense blackness. Since my return home I have experienced some striking specimens of British darkened towns, but they do not compare with the complete darkness which prevailed in Cologne that night. Not a single faint gleam of light came from a window. I am confident that if I had dared to strike a match I should have been surprised by a volley of bullets from all directions.

Cologne was indeed a city of darkness and of the dead. Only the footfalls of the guard and the clank of rifles were to be heard. To proceed was impossible. I concluded that before I had gone very far in my wanderings I should be arrested and find myself in the privacy of a prison cell. Moreover I was absolutely exhausted. Sore at heart I returned to the station, and walking up to the first officer I saw, introduced myself as "Mahoney, late of Sennelager Camp."

At this revelation the officer stared as if confronted by an apparition and sternly demanded my authority for being at large. I drew out my "pass," together with the address of K——, for which I was searching so vainly.

Thrusting my "pass" into his pocket the officer gruffly ordered me to follow him. I demanded the return of the small piece of paper which constituted my sole protection, but he rudely declined to accede to my request. I followed him and we turned into a room at the station which happened to be the sleeping quarters of the night guard.

Here I was again interrogated somewhat sharply, but taking the bull by the horns I boldly declared that I was an Englishman and had been arrested and imprisoned upon the charge of being a spy!

My candid statement amazed the officer, who appeared to consider that he had made a most fortunate capture. An interpreter, who understood only a little English, was summoned to my assistance, and we contrived to understand one another. He was visibly impressed by my distressed and sickly appearance and enquired if I were in need of something to eat. I said I was famished and he explained the situation to the officer. The upshot was that a few of those present gave me some bread and cold rice, which I devoured ravenously.

I was handed over to a guard who was instructed to take me—somewhere? We set out through the dark streets, and it was an eerie journey. Sentries were stationed at intervals of a few yards and in crossing the bridge we were frequently stopped and not permitted to proceed until my guardian, although in uniform and armed, had given the password. In due course we reached a towering building which I discovered to be the Polizei Prasidium. Here I was handed over to the official in charge, my military guard evidently explaining the whole circumstances.

The official scrutinised me closely. Bidding me to follow him he again plunged into the darkness. After taking me to the address of K——, which I had produced, and finding no one there, he led me to a restaurant. The proprietor was roused and ordered to take me in for the night. When he learned that I was an Englishman on "pass" he commenced to swear and curse in a fearful manner, finally declaring he would not shelter any such swine in his house. The official had a short way with this individual. He drew his sword, drove the awakened and enraged German into his restaurant, and in a tone which could not be misconstrued demanded that accommodation and meals should be found for me. The threatening attitude of the officer completely cowed the proprietor, but I, fearing that the latter would round on me once I was at his mercy, intimated to the guard that I was not going to spend the night in this hotel.

There was a brief altercation, but at last we returned to the Prasidium. Here I intimated that I was perfectly willing to sleep upon the floor of the guard-room, but the official explained that this was a flagrant breach of the rules and the idea could not be entertained for a moment. We haggled for a few minutes and then a solution of the distracting problem occurred to the officer. He would lodge me for the night in a cell! I accepted the suggestion with alacrity and thereupon passed below where I made myself comfortable, the official assisting me as much as he could.