Such was the position when the Holzminden trio began to put their heads together. I do not think any of us seriously entertained the idea of an escape by water. We were all hopeless landsmen, and Gilbert at any rate could not swim. A “stunt” by sea necessitated a combination of luck, pluck, opportunism, and, above all, watermanship. Our armament, such as it was, was of a different kind. We all knew German, Gilbert and I indifferently, Ortweiler fluently. We had the wherewithal to bribe. We could lay our hands on a typewriter. We knew the ropes of a land journey by railway. G. and O. had both been “out,” the latter more than once; and I had heard these things much discussed. Moreover, Gilbert, being a Major, had secured a small room which he invited me to share, and Ortweiler was a member of our mess. In a deep-laid scheme privacy is almost an essential. Greatest asset of all, the Germans were not suspicious and they left us alone.
Our idea, very much in the rough, crystallised as follows: together or separately—as events might dictate—to bluff the sentry at the main gate, and at the ferry; to get on to the mainland and there travel by train to the Holland frontier; and to have our preparations so thoroughly made that, on paper at least, our plan was bound to be successful.
Our first idea was to co-opt three or four others and go out as a party of orderlies with one of us disguised as a German sentry in charge. Individual officers had on several occasions already been into the town with a party of orderlies on some “fatigue” or other in order to have a look round. Our idea was to concoct some imaginary fatigue which would take us not only into the town but out of it, where we should have an opportunity of assuming our real disguise and separating on our respective routes. We got so far as to fashion out our bogus rifle in the rough, but before very long we discarded the whole idea for various reasons. The rifle would be too difficult to imitate to pass in broad daylight. We could not be certain of securing the uniform of our sentry; all the sentries on duty in the camp were likely to be personally known to one another. Difficulties of taking our disguise with us, difficulties of hitting on the right sort of “fatigue” to disarm suspicion ... the “cons” had it emphatically.
Facsimile of the original permit-card copied by Lockhead.
Moreover, in the interval the looked-for “key” had presented itself. Gilbert had succeeded in removing a workman’s “permit” from his coat pocket while he was working in the camp. This “permit” entitled the civilian in question to visit the camp and its environs between given dates, name and business being duly stated, and the permit signed by the Camp Commandant. Printed in German print on a plain white card, it appeared not impossible of exact imitation. Our hopes were more than fulfilled. Lieut. Lockhead, one of the party weather-bound en route for a neutral country, had, we knew, performed yeoman service in this line when at Holzminden. We showed him the card. Within two days he had accomplished an exact replica, including the signature, so good as to be undistinguishable from the original. Our hopes rose. It remained to complete the remainder of our essential equipment—civilian clothes, German money, forged passports, maps, and compasses. With the two former I was entirely unprovided. One passport, forged on an old model, was in Gilbert’s possession, but we doubted its efficacy in northern Germany. The two latter articles I was content to leave to the last moment, when I should have definitely decided on my route. One had the feeling that it was absurd to spend hours on acquiring articles necessary only for the last lap, when one might be stopped at the gate—a curiously illogical reasoning, as these things, or at least one of them, are indispensable for even a short journey across country ... but there it was.
It was at this point that the event occurred which led me definitely to abandon my Holland scheme and decide for the Danish border. A German private soldier came into our room one day to do some work. He was in uniform but was on leave in Stralsund, which was his home, and in the then prevailing shortage of labour he was lending a hand to his erstwhile master.
No “escaper” ever omits a chance—provided he can speak German at all—of profiting by a conversation with someone from outside the camp. Indeed, this was so well known to the authorities that in most camps anybody coming in from outside was escorted by a sentry and not left alone during the period of his stay in the camp. Stralsund was an exception, possibly because the English had been there so short a time, possibly because of the Commandant’s complacent idea as to its security. Be that as it may, I had this fellow fairly quickly sized up. It turned out his job was doing sentry on the Denmark border.
“Is it dull there?”
“Frightfully.”