CHAPTER XIII
I HAD been transferred in April from a camp 150 kilometres from the frontier to another much nearer to it. I had scarcely arrived at my new abode when the idea of escaping took firm hold of me, and from that moment I was careful to neglect nothing that might be useful to me later on. I soon got to know some of the men who had been at the camp from its start, and made them tell me about the escapes that had been attempted, whether successful or otherwise. In all the stories I heard I found matter for reflection, and I gained from them hints and details of information that helped to swell the stock that I possessed, and should be able to use when need arose.
I heard about the famous attempts of some ingenious fellows who, under the noses of their keepers, dug in closets they had condemned as insanitary on their own authority a tunnel about forty metres long. This tunnel passed under the protecting network, and beneath the very feet of the sentinels, to a place outside the camp. Everything failed at the last moment. I learned of the happy success of some, of the lamentable death or weary imprisonment of most of those who had endeavoured to escape. These stories tended to keep my impatience within bounds, and caused me to make up my mind not to attempt anything until I had the best possible chance of success.
I spent long hours, by day and night, studying the camp enclosure, the coming and going of the men on fatigue duty, the manner and uniform of the sentinels, and the change of guard. I thought over a hundred ways of escape, each more ingenious than the others; but finally, in spite of the few cases I had heard of, I came to the conclusion that it was practically impossible to get away from the camp, and that it would be unwise to be waiting there in culpable idleness for a chance of flight that would perhaps not come for months.
The gate of the camp was, in fact, strictly guarded during the day by a group of sentinels. At night it was closed, and was charged by an electric current. Sentries were always on the watch. Even supposing that, by some fortunate stratagem, a fugitive succeeded in deceiving for an instant the vigilance of the soldiers, he would still have to pass in front of huts occupied by German infantry. These would not fail to arrest on suspicion any man not in German uniform. It was best not to cherish false hopes, but to give up all idea of getting out through the gate.
As for getting over the barricades, it would have been mad to think of it. Only rats and birds could have done it. The camp was surrounded not only by a trellis of barbed wire two metres high, but also by an electric current of 5000 volts, and again was guarded by a network of barbed wire. Behind this wicked arrangement sentries were placed fifty metres apart. They kept strict watch. Beyond the line of sentinels a deep ditch, four metres deep and five wide, encircled the camp, and beyond that again, running parallel with it, was a mound five metres high and six wide at its base. It was consequently useless to dream of crossing this organisation of defence.