Soon after our arrival the prison was enlarged, as it always has to be when the camp becomes British. Fellows were often sent there for an offence about which they had never heard, without being able to say one word in self defence. In about two months I believe nearly half the camp had been in “clink.” Until latterly it was forbidden to open windows at night, but being English we took the law into our own hands and continued opening the windows, refusing to be deprived of fresh air in the stifling heat. This naturally resulted in more prison, which at first relieved and then increased the monotony. Though it is hardly credible, our colonel had to carry out a sentence of three days “stuben arrest” for losing his poker! About this time an Australian was put into prison for a trivial offence which had been committed by some one else, and did not even receive his sentence for three whole weeks!
While in “jug” in this camp we were not allowed parcels, writing materials, books or smokes. We complained about this to a general who inspected the camp later; he expressed surprise at this state of affairs and had things partially rectified. For about two months all cigars and cigarettes received in parcels were stopped, the only reason given being that in some cases they had contained poison for destroying cattle. Not only were chances of destroying cattle exceedingly small, but we offered to smoke any cigarette they chose to give us from our parcels to prove the falsity of the charge.
By an agreement between the Governments those serving terms of imprisonment for offences committed before the 4th of August, 1917, were released, a great number of the gaol-birds being sent to Ströhen. Residing in prison was a captain who made a hobby of being court-martialled. Under this new ruling he was taken out of cells for a few days, only to be put back to await trial for the trumped-up charge of having poison tablets on his person when recaptured after his last escape. I believe the only tablets he carried were either for purifying water, or Horlick’s malted milk. Every one recaptured when trying to escape in the late winter of 1916 or the following spring received a sentence of five months’ imprisonment, a fortnight the original punishment, and the remainder as a supposed reprisal for the sentence given to escaping Germans in England.
The food given us was very bad indeed, though the list must have looked quite nice on paper. Apart from the eternal and loathsome gherkins, of which no mention was made, it asserted that we received fish twice a week! The Tuesday fish was of a dried variety, and had such a delicious smell when cooked that it was impossible to enter the dining-room when it was on the prowl! While that on Friday consisted of heaps of old mussels containing quantities of sand and young pebbles, known amongst ourselves as those —— barnacles, scraped from the ships at Kiel. The whole time I was there I never once had an opportunity of buying any fresh fruit, though it was summer time and we could have paid good prices. The only result of my bayoneting episode was that the sentry was congratulated, and I was warned for a court-martial! When a staff captain arrived from Hanover to collect the evidence for the approaching trials, quite a cheery little crowd of accused officers were awaiting him. Several of them were to appear on two or three charges, and three R.F.C. officers were to be tried for dropping leaflets in the German lines. I believe it came to nothing in the end, as there was not enough evidence to convict them. Captain Scholtz and Lieutenant Wookey do not seem to have been so lucky. When my turn came, several German witnesses were produced who swore that after being struck on the foot with the butt, I had jumped forward to seize the rifle, asserting that the sentry had only acted in self-defence. (Such a truthful race!) When the captain was taking down my statement, we frequently got off the subject altogether. All of a sudden he would assert that the English had started the war and ask me the reason for their doing so. Thoroughly roused, I would reply that it was nonsense and he must know it. Then ensued an amusing but fiery argument about the neutrality of Belgium, the use of native troops, and frightfulness in general. His plea was that poor little unoffending Germany was only standing up for herself against a set of blood-thirsty enemies who wished to crush her. Needless to say, I did not feel much like sympathising. When we finally got back to business, all particulars were taken as a matter of form, my slaughterer’s name and address being taken down. Before my departure I managed to get a glimpse of it when the captain was out of the room. I do not suffer from loss of memory!
The all-absorbing problem of camp life is escaping. Up to this time half a dozen fellows had succeeded in getting away from the camp, but were afterwards recaptured. I will endeavour to give an outline of the several attempts and the difficulties to be overcome, which must of necessity be very curtailed, this book not being originally written for the benefit of the “Bosch.” The most usual way is to cut the wire, but where sentries are numerous the undertaking is both difficult and dangerous. It is most natural to try stunts of the sort under cover of darkness. At this camp, however, the paraffin arc lamps were particularly brilliant, and when star-gazing on several occasions I have seen rats and mice scuttle across the white sand some distance away. Though storms often raged during the day, the wind almost invariably blew itself out towards night, leaving a dead calm, broken only by the tramp of sentries or the distant rattling hum of a nightjar. It is a brave man who, having determined this mode of exit, leaves his hut when others are sleeping, and vanishes. Presently, if he gets safely across the intervening ground, the faint yet feverish snipping of wire-cutters is heard, each time being followed perhaps by a slight “ping” as the strained wire separates. The ensuing silence is almost heart-breaking, for in contrast something else may at any instant be increasing its tension, a sentry’s trigger-finger. One stormy night, when in hospital, I had reason to believe that an officer would make an attempt in that part of the camp at a given hour, so had an excellent chance of watching operations, which was not wasted. I went to the window and settled down for a long wait. Outside it was still raining, the sentries being in their boxes. A little before the time I caught sight of a dark figure which clambered out of the orderlies’ hut and crawled into the neutral zone up to the outside wire, which he lay parallel to and commenced to cut. To my surprise, another figure joined him from the hut and lay there waiting; this was an orderly who had decided to join at the last instant. In about one and a half minutes a large enough gap had been cut, and the adventurers crawled through it, and were preparing to make a dash into the darkness when a sentry spotted them and stepped out of his box. Having burned their boats, off they went. The sentry ran a few steps, then, stopping abruptly, raised his rifle and fired. It was an anxious moment for the onlookers; the fugitives already knew the result, while, as yet, we did not. However, to our relief, the ghost-like figures continued their flight until they were swallowed up in the darkness, and the reflection of the artificial light on their wet rain-coats became too weak to give away their position. In their anxiety to leave the camp behind they tended to separate, but both fell headlong into a deep ditch, where they met again. In their first dash one of them dropped most of the provisions, which the Germans discovered and brought back to the camp in triumph. Six days afterwards they were recaptured, thirty kilometres from the border. Two officers cut the wire in broad daylight, when the nearest sentry was busy opening a gate admitting some orderlies. They left the camp by way of a ditch without being seen, crawling as they had never crawled before, their heads showing above the level of the fields, like two wobbling cabbages going for a hurried evening stroll. Their success was short-lived, for, only an hour afterwards, they were spotted and chased by some farmers, being finally brought to a stop by a man with a shot-gun. Another couple left the camp by the following ingenious method. A captain, who spoke German like a native, dressed up in the clothes of a Hun private (somehow acquired). Some of the essential things were missing, and had been manufactured in secret, such as a cap and a painted wooden bayonet, with a lovely coloured tassel. When everything was ready, about ten o’clock one morning, a perfectly good German private marched an R.F.C. lieutenant, disguised as an orderly, who carried two buckets (containing their kit), up to a gate in the wire, which he rattled to signify that it must be unlocked immediately. The sentry came along, unlocked the gate, and let him out. They proceeded to the road, which they followed for a short distance. That afternoon, while crossing a wild bit of country, they had the misfortune to be recaptured by a shooting party, being first completely surrounded by the beaters. Two other officers got out separately in an ingenious way, the first being recaptured crossing a bridge over the Ems, quite near Holland; the second lost direction, and was retaken four days after, having got thoroughly lost. One unlucky person was collared just outside the wire, dressed as an orderly, and was taken straight to prison to enjoy a period of perfect rest!
I worked in several tunnels at different times, fitted with air pumps and perhaps even electric light—who knows? Digging oneself out is, at the best of times, a slow and difficult proposition, which is almost invariably discovered sooner or later. The humorous side of tunnelling is so pronounced that, could “Bairnsfather” view one such episode, our bookstalls would shortly be surrounded by eager crowds, clamouring for the first edition of “Fragments from Germany,” depicting mud-bespattered “Old Bills” crawling for their very lives down narrow tunnels, closely pursued by the wily Hun!
About this time I made my second attempt to escape, and succeeded in getting outside the wire for the time being, early one afternoon during bathing hours, only to discover that my proposed hiding-place was occupied by Germans. After sitting solemnly beside my kit for an hour, expecting discovery every second, I was lucky enough to return, unmolested, with a party of bathers. During this period of anxious waiting I was surprised to find that the thought of losing my carefully prepared outfit was considerably more distressing than the actual prospect of imprisonment.
CHAPTER IX
“AN OUTLAW ONCE AGAIN”
When a sufficient number of officers had collected for baths at a little gate, a sentry allowed them to pass through it and along a short, wired path, or bird-cage (as we called it), and thence into the bath-room. This room was situated about ten yards outside the wire, in the middle of a wooden barrack, running parallel to, and about fifteen yards away from, the wire. It is subdivided to form a dressing-room and a place for the shower baths, every exit being strongly barred, and a sentry stationed at the door. After a minute inspection of every nook and cranny, I found that it was just possible, by standing upright, to squeeze into an alcove, about eleven inches deep and a foot wide, in an angle formed by a wall and the brickwork of a chimney which projected into the room.