Could I be blamed if my spirits fell a little, and if I became quite indifferent to my interests? I confess I was so discouraged that the next morning I did not find sufficient energy to leave my hiding-place in time, and only escaped over my fence after the proprietor of the timber-pile had passed close in front of my retreat several times. That day I walked up to London on foot from Gravesend, and returned by the other side of the Thames to Tilbury. All this, in order to find a boat that I could purloin unnoticed. It was quite incredible that I could not do so; several lay there, as if waiting for me; but they were only too well guarded. I gave it up in despair.
That evening I went to a music-hall, with the firm intention of blowing my last pound, and then staking everything on one card, and try to get to the docks and hide there on a neutral steamer. And if this plan miscarried—as it had with Trefftz—I decided to give myself up to the police.
I stood in the upper gallery of the biggest music-hall in London and watched the performance. An inner voice whispered to me: “Your place is at Gravesend, working for your escape. Your duty is to throw off this slackness, otherwise you are not worthy to be a German sailor!”
So when I saw the tableaux vivants, scenes from the trenches and allegories of the coming Victory and Peace, in which the Germans naturally figured as fleeing and conquered, when at last, in the chief picture, Britannia appeared—a shining figure with the Palm of Victory in her hand, and a field-grey German soldier lying prostrate beneath her right foot—I felt consumed by a flame of righteous anger, and in spite of the forcible protests of my neighbours I fled from the theatre, and was able to catch the last train to Tilbury.
Only then did I feel happy again. And I felt so certain now that my plan would come off, that no room was left for doubt.
After I had passed the first fishermen’s huts of Gravesend, I found a small scull. I took it with me. In mid-stream, just near the landing-place of the fishing-vessels, a little dinghy bobbed on the water. Not more than twenty feet away sat their owners on a bench, so absorbed in tender flirtation with their fair ones that the good sea-folk took no heed of my appearance on the scene.
It was risky, but “Nothing venture, nothing have,” I muttered to myself. And, thanks to my acquired proficiency, I crept soundlessly into the boat—one sharp cut, and the tiny nutshell softly glided alongside a fishing-boat, on whose quarter-deck a woman was lulling her baby to sleep.
As there were no rowlocks in the boat, I sat aft, and pushed off with all my strength from the shore. I had, however, hardly covered one-third of the distance, when the ebbtide caught me in its whirl, spun my boat round like a top and paralysed all my efforts at steering. The time had come to show my sailor’s efficiency. With an iron grip I recovered control of the boat, and, floating with the tide, I steered a downstream course. A dangerous moment was at hand. An imposing military pontoon-bridge, stretching across the river, and guarded by soldiers, came across my way. Summoning cool resolution and sharp attention to my aid, looking straight ahead and only intent on my scull, I disregarded the sentry’s challenge and shot through between the two pontoons. A few seconds after the boat sustained a heavy shock, and I floundered on to the anchor-cable of a mighty coal-tender. With lightning speed I flung my painter round it, and this just in time, for the boat nearly capsized. But I was safe. The water whirled madly past it, as the ebbtide, reinforced by the drop of the river, must have fully set in. I had now only to wait patiently.
GUNTHER PLÜSCHOW IN THE DISGUISE OF A DOCK LABOURER IN WHICH HE ESCAPED