“As we rounded the spur of a hill, and the lights of the Lager, which looked so pretty from outside, were shut from our view, we said good-bye to Holzminden Kriegsgefangenenlager—a good-bye which unhappily turned out for us three to be only ‘au revoir.’”
In all ten escaped. Rathborne, as stated, was over in three days, and was able to report in person on the state of affairs in one camp in the Xth Army Corps in which he had held a responsible position. Gray, Bain, Kennard, Bennett, and Bousfield among the working-party, Purves, Tullis, Campbell Martin, and Leggatt amongst the others, followed in the course of a fortnight. Most of them had had some near shaves and were “all in” on arrival. Bousfield—an old Cambridge 3-miler—had on one occasion to out-distance his pursuers by running for it.
Those who had been recaptured were kept in cells until early in September without trial, although repeated protests were made to the Commandant and higher authority. They were then released to await court-martial. The accused being many and rolling-stock being valuable, the Court came to Holzminden to judge them. On the morning of the trial a lawyer came to represent the prisoners, and a representative of the Netherlands minister at Berlin also came to act in their interests. All the prisoners were tried together and were sentenced to six months’ imprisonment on a combined charge of mutiny and damage to property, the punishment to be carried out in a fortress. As it happened, and although the trial took place so early as 27th September, this sentence was never carried out. Whether this was due to the military situation or to some other cause is not known. The signing of the Armistice removed finally all possibility of the imprisonment ever being carried into effect.
Group of recaptured officers in a room at Holzminden.
It was unfortunate that while the Holzminden tunnel was under construction another tunnel was in progress at Clausthal, where the twin brother Niemeyer was Commandant. It is now known that the tunnel there would have been completed in about a week from the date on which the Holzminden escape took place. The “Poldhu” had been busy between the camps, but, no exact synchronisation being possible, it remained simply to go full steam ahead in each camp and trust to luck. As was anticipated, the Holzminden escape led to a very serious search at Clausthal, and the tunnel was discovered just as it was approaching completion. The tunnel of Holzminden was, however, so much the bigger affair that there was a rough justice in this award of Fortune.
CHAPTER XI
MAKING GOOD
The officers’ Lager at Stralsund lay on an island, or rather on a twin pair of islands, called Greater and Smaller Danholm, separated from the mainland by a narrow strip of water over which a permanent ferry plies to and fro. On the further side of these islands and separated from them again by a wider channel, perhaps two-thirds of the width of the Solent at its narrowest point, lay the pleasant shores of Rügen. The blue sea and the wooded slopes of this fair island recalled to the home-sick prisoner the beauties of her smaller sister of the Wight.