Any suspected officers in either Kaserne received short shrift in these days, and were bundled unceremoniously from their rooms into safer quarters on the ground floor of A Kaserne, where the lower windows were never open and the flies and staleness of the atmosphere were correspondingly oppressive. Billets in this way were found for any officers who had been known to have escaped before and who were referred to feelingly by Niemeyer as “the yentlemen.” These particular rooms used to be visited two or three times in a night by a Feldwebel with an electric torch, which he used to flash on the occupant of each bed in turn, thereby effectually waking everybody up. Here lay the afore-mentioned and eloquent Beyfus, whose recent arrival had prevented his obtaining a place in the tunnel scheme, but whose record made him a marked man with the authorities. Here I myself lay, after yet another enforced migration from the attic floor in A house, and in accordance—so lied the official intimation—with orders from Hanover. And here also lay Leefe Robinson, V.C., whose gallant spirit Niemeyer, with subtle cruelty, had endeavoured for months past to break. That Robinson’s untimely death on his return from captivity was assisted indirectly by the treatment which he received at the hands of Niemeyer no one will deny who was in a position to witness that treatment.
The handling to which Leefe Robinson was subjected was so outrageous that it was communicated to the home authorities in a concealed report (in the hollow of a tennis racket handle) viâ an exchange party. Robinson had come from Freiburg in Baden, where he had made an attempt with several others to escape. “The English Richthofen”—as Niemeyer, with coarse urbanity, called him to his face—was at once singled out as the victim of a malevolent scheme of repression. He was placed in the most uncomfortable room in the camp, whereas his rank entitled him to the privileges of a small room; he was caused to answer to a special appel two or three times in a day; and he was forbidden under any pretext to enter Kaserne B. On the occasion of a visit from some Inspecting General, and on the pretext of all the rooms having to be cleaned up and ready for inspection by 9 o’clock appel, Robinson’s room was entered by a Feldwebel and sentries at 7.45 a.m., and Robinson himself was forcibly pulled out of bed and the table next to the bed upset on the floor. Two hours later Niemeyer was introducing “the English Richthofen” to the august visitor with a profusion of oleaginous compliments, and four hours later Robinson was in the cells for having disobeyed camp orders. Truly most damnable and cowardly persecution.
Notwithstanding all this, the Chamber of Horrors (as the room devoted to the criminals used popularly to be known) was the scene of many a humorous incident. Restricted space caused the bed of the eloquent Beyfus to be very near the door. On the flooring just inside the door lay the mat upon which Beyfus used to stand to undress. Whenever the Germans came into the room Beyfus always contrived that the door should impinge upon some part of his person and seized the occasion to call every German within hail—the Commandant, of course, for choice—to witness the unprovoked attack upon his blushing modesty. Great effect was added when the harangue was delivered in the passage and only in shirt and slippers.
The Spanish “flu,” which descended in those days in an all embracing form on the camp, brought some compensating humour. In the first place, Niemeyer got it at once and was reported, quite incorrectly, to be dying. The wish, both amongst Germans and British, was doubtless father to this rumour. Then all the orderlies got it at the same time and the officers swept and garnished for themselves. And finally, when the disease had filtered through from the orderlies and taken fair hold of the officers, every room in both barracks was filled with the groans of those who thought they were about to die. As a matter of fact not more than a dozen were at all seriously ill, and these recovered quite rapidly.
The long expected visit from the Kriegsministerium representative synchronised with the tail end of the outbreak and came at precisely the wrong moment.
In the first place, I was sick. It should have been my business to warn the senior British officer of the visit, and arrange for an English officer to interpret his remarks at the interview. Unfortunately, and through nobody’s fault, nothing of this sort was done. Colonel Stokes Roberts was sent for at a moment’s notice and had his hand forced. Niemeyer once again acted as interpreter, the blinkers were kept on throughout, and the visitor went away satisfied that the complaints made by the British had been grossly exaggerated, that Niemeyer, in spite of his reputation, was, after all, a very pleasant fellow, and that there was nothing to report on unfavourably in the conduct of the camp.
Thus the rebellion at Holzminden petered unsatisfactorily out; it had been no one’s fault that the chance had come and gone untaken. But it was evident that it would not come again, and that the last final effort to remove Niemeyer had been as fruitless as the first. On the other side, the charge of general mutiny was not pressed, and legal proceedings were reserved only for those implicated in the tunnel. Gradually the sombre camp resumed its normal working. A new Adjutant succeeded to office, and I, together with other suspected criminals, was transported to a camp of more fancied security. Under the new Adjutant some form of co-operation in the general interests with the German authorities became once more possible.
His predecessor, bundled out of the camp with two other officers at two hours’ notice, had the pleasure, before leaving, of firing one Parthian shot at the Commandant. The evening before, an unsigned postcard had been received from the Hague. It ran simply—“Cheeroh old bean,” and was addressed to Colonel Rathborne’s late mess-mate. We communicated the substance of this postcard to Niemeyer, and it was some consolation, before we shook the dust of Holzminden off our feet for ever, to see the confession of defeat written plainly in his face. Once again—and for the first time since the original discovery of the escape—speech fairly failed him.
Events, however, were moving too rapidly now for it to be a matter of great consequence to Niemeyer even that he should have let a full-blown Lieutenant-Colonel slip through his fingers. His own hour was near to striking. As the British advance in September continued without respite and the inevitable end came ever nearer, so this disreputable old man changed his tactics accordingly. He very rarely came within the precincts of the camp; but he saw the Adjutant almost daily, and at every interview some concession or other long striven for was now readily given. He even began to prepare the ground for a volte-face in his Prussian creed and politics. The picture of the Kaiser vanished from the wall of his sanctum. He became the strangest and most undignified contrast to the swaggering bully who had ruled this roost so long. And finally when, on the conclusion of hostilities, the Arbeiter und Soldaten Rat took over the military direction of affairs in the town, he was suffered to disappear unmolested and cover his tracks as best he might. It is not known what has happened to him; by some he is stated to be in arrest at Hanover, by others to have removed himself and his ill-gotten gains to a neutral country. It is quite probable that we shall never hear of him again, for he had no murders to his charge and may not be included by the Supreme Council in the punishable class[[12]]. But it is certain that he will never again walk up Bond Street or show his face in Milwaukee. He must rest on his laurels and be content with his European reputation.