13 Days: The Chronicle of an Escape from a German Prison

by John Alan Lyde Caunter

"AT LAST THE TWO WOMEN GOT UP" (page 113).[ToList]

At last, at about 11 o'clock, the two women got up, and after standing talking for a few minutes I heard one of them say to the men, "You must now remain quite quiet! Nicht?" And they answered yes, and I heard them all say good-night and the women walked back along the road across the bridge and went into their own house, leaving the two men still in the bushes. I waited for them to go also, but they did not budge. A silence as of the dead came over everything, and I knew then that they were an ambush, and a very cunningly placed one too. Naturally, anyone looking to see if a bridge was guarded or not would expect to find the sentries on the middle or at either end of the bridge itself and could then clear away from the place if it proved to be unhealthy. However, this ambush was placed so as to catch any wretch moving cautiously along the side of the road, straining his eyes eagerly forward to see if the near end of the bridge was or was not guarded, little thinking as he did so of any cunning ambush fifty to sixty yards away from the bridge itself.

Thursday, 21st June. I now set myself to tire the Germans out by waiting, and hoped that in the early hours of the morning they would be less alert than usual.

I lay there, bitten all over by mosquitos, and having a very uncomfortable time of it. I heard one of them cough, and then, after an hour or two of silence, another cough. Altogether I waited about four hours, and it was not till roughly three o'clock that I thought I could risk a move.

Very cautiously I now began to crawl on all-fours towards the road, carefully feeling all the ground as I did so in order to be able to remove the dead sticks lying across my track. By pushing through the bushes very slowly I avoided making much of a noise and gained the embankment along the top of which ran the road, without causing any suspicion. Here I had a breather and then continued my crawl upwards. I reached the top of the bank which was the edge of the road, and, knowing that I was well against the sky-line to the eyes of watchers below, did not waste much time before turning towards the bridge, and keeping well down, crawled steadily onwards, reducing the space of time in which I risked being seen very rapidly. Another fifty yards on all fours and I ventured to get on to my feet and walk, in my rubber-soled shoes. Fifty yards more and I was safely off the planking of the bridge and on to the road proper with plenty of cover all round me.

As my clothes were of a light coffee tint they assimilated very well with the colours of the dusty road and the white painted woodwork of the bridge.

I felt inclined to roar with laughter at the ambush after gaining the far side of the river, and would dearly have loved to have shouted insults and gibes back at them, instead of which I continued my walk quietly along the road, keeping well to one side under the trees which so often border country roads in Germany. I soon came to a village, and feeling that this one was too close to the bridge, which had been guarded, to require anything for itself in this line, walked through it without even causing a dog to bark. I continued for an hour before anything else happened, and then I very nearly made a bad error. I was sleepy I suppose and was not so sharp on the look-out as I ought to have been, and I suddenly got an awful shock on distinctly seeing in front of me in the first light of the dawn two men in dark clothes approaching. I immediately turned about and walked away from them as hard as I could go. Gaining on them rapidly I continued till they were too far behind to be seen and then jumped into the corn on the right of the road, and after running fifty yards into it, lay still. Sure enough these two men had slowly continued their walk and now passed me, carrying on for a hundred yards before they also stopped. Thinking that it was time to be off, especially as it was getting lighter every moment, I took a detour through the corn-fields and striking the road about half a mile further on crossed it and took a turn in the corn on the other side. Then after about a mile of making winding tracks through their precious wheat, rye and barley crops, I again struck the road and hurried along it to make up for lost time.

This wandering about I considered necessary in order to delay and perhaps bamboozle any police dog put on my track. I had no doubt that these two men were policemen and that they had only just caught a glimpse of me which had made them curious. I am certain I again had to thank my whitish suit for my immunity from determined pursuit.

After this little excitement I had to move very rapidly as it was already nearly daylight, and I wished to get to the banks of the next river before hiding.

Pushing along the road I struck a small town, and crossed the end of it, taking a level crossing on the way. Seeing nobody at the station near-by I gained more confidence again, and was not so upset as I might have been when I found that I had to walk for a mile or more along a road flanked on both sides with houses.