My German Prisons / Being the Experiences of an Officer During Two and a Half Years as a Prisoner of War

by Horace Gray Gilliland

Again we were disturbed by the sound of something moving roughly through the heather behind us. We were now threatened on both sides, so that immediate action was necessary. To slide down into the road, we waited till the sentry was apparently walking away from us, and then let ourselves head-first down the sandy slope. I dug my nails and toes into the sand, but the descent was too steep. Swish! and I found myself lying by the side of the road, waiting for my partner to follow suit. Swish! and he too lay beside me. For a moment we listened to hear if the sentry was on his return beat—we could not be sure. In that moment of waiting the moon came out again clear and bright, and the steps of the sentry were coming nearer and nearer. He could not fail to see us; our dark bodies against the glistening white of the road must stand out in relief. We lay still, hardly breathing. In a moment he would see us—perhaps he had done so already; he was taking aim, and we waited for the bullet. Oh the suspense of the moment! Slowly—it seemed ages—he advanced, and then we heard him swing round, and he was walking away again. Immediately we wormed our way on our stomachs across the road, and attempted to climb the other side in silence; but it was steep and sandy, similar to the side we had just come down, and for every two feet we went up we came down one.

Once more the sentry was on his return journey, which forced us to be silent again; but this time it was not so easy, as we were on the slope. In vain we dug our hands and feet into the sand; we slipped down slowly but surely, inch by inch. He could not fail to hear the slipping sand, or so we thought; but he didn’t, and on his again walking away from us we scrambled up, regardless of the noise we made. Still he seemed to hear nothing, but we gained the top in safety.

As soon as we got our breath, and had time to survey our new position, we found, to our surprise, that we were lying beside a new railway track under construction. Directly up against us was a large heap of flint-stones, evidently for use on the track. To pass over this, without dislodging a single flint, would be impossible. However, get over it we must, and we finally managed to cross without making very much disturbance; but it was no joke for me, without any boots on. Once over the other side, we hurried across the track. In front of us was a large shed, evidently used for stores and tools, as there were several wheelbarrows about. Fearing there might be a night watchman

of some sort, we started to skirt round it to the right, and had not cleared the track more than a few feet when we practically ran into the arms of a sentry. Whether he saw us first or we him I do not know. He wasn’t more than forty yards away, only a small hedge separating us from him.

We were fairly caught. Immediately I grabbed my friend’s arm, and walked him straight up to the tool-shed, knocking at the door. The sentry was walking rapidly towards us. At the moment I knocked he called “Halt!” at which the two of us doubled round the shed on the other side, putting it between him and us. Twice we heard him frantically yell “Halt!” but we had seen a tall hedge to our left, running in the direction we were making for. To this we sprinted, and kept on running under its shadow, till we dropped for want of breath. Every moment we expected to hear the whiz of a bullet, but evidently we had shaken him off.

It was now pitch-dark, the moon having disappeared for good, for which we were very thankful. But before we had recovered our breath sufficiently to press on again, the silence of the night was rudely broken by the sound of six shots, fired in quick succession. This firing must have been half a mile to our right, but in the stillness of the early morning it sounded very much nearer. Alas! in our own extremity of the moment, we had forgotten the other pair of escapers. Fortunately we never connected these shots with our late comrades, or the knowledge would certainly have caused us great anxiety for their safety.

Very soon we felt sufficiently recovered to go on, also we were anxious to get farther away from the sentry who had so nearly taken us, fearing that he might be putting dogs on our track, although we calculated that we must now be out of danger, even if we were not actually over the frontier, since we had passed two lines of guards in the broom, and now this last line which we had just got through. The Germans could not possibly have more than three lines, as they were too badly in need of men at the front, or so we thought, to be able to waste them guarding the frontier.

Slowly and painfully—for we were very nearly at the end of our tether—we made our way eastward through a thinly planted wood, on the other side of which we traversed a large area of plough. We felt so certain that we were over and safe that we actually began to discuss the fact, without troubling to lower our voices very much. Suddenly a man called “Halt!” Looking to our left, we saw a figure bearing down on us. He could not have been more than twelve yards away, or we should not have seen him in the darkness. “Come on!” and we were running over plough for dear life. “Halt!” On we raced. Then his first shot rang out. What a wicked crack it made, as the bullet struck the ground somewhere by my feet! I was doing better time than I had ever done on the wing in my footer days, and then the second bullet came just under my nose. I could feel the rush of air on my mouth. His third shot passed a foot or two above my head.