WHAT ONE AMERICAN DID[10][ToC]
If a person had been standing one night beside the railroad tracks in Germany in the fall of 1917, he would have seen a train speeding along through the darkness at about thirty-five miles an hour. He would have noticed through an open window a tall soldier in the uniform of an English flyer, a lieutenant in the R.F.C. (Royal Flying Corps), stand up on the seat as if to get something out of the rack; and then he would have been astounded to see the same tall English flyer come flying out feet first through the window, to land on the side of his head on the stone ballast of the opposite track.
Few persons could do this and come through alive. This English flyer a few weeks before had fallen eight thousand feet, with a bullet in his neck, when his airplane had been shot down in a fight with four German machines. When picked up within the German lines, he was enough alive to be taken to a hospital. The bullet was removed, and he recovered. He was a British flyer, simply because America did not enter the war soon enough for him, and like many other young Americans, he was eager to fight the German beast and "save the world for democracy."
He was being taken with six other officers from a prison in Belgium to a prison camp in Germany. He knew that, once there, his chances for escape would be very small; and he felt he preferred death to life in a German prison camp. He knew that, if he were not killed in his leap from the train, the Germans would doubtless shoot him as a spy, should they succeed in recapturing him. Some Germans wanted all Americans who enlisted in the Allied armies to be shot, as they had shot Captain Fryatt, on the ground that they were non-combatants attacking war forces; for this was before America entered the war against Germany. Besides, prisoners were not allowed to know what was going on in Germany. An escaped prisoner who could find out was, therefore, likely to be treated as a spy.
Pat O'Brien's cheek was cut open, and his left eye badly injured and swollen so that he could not open it. He had scratched his hands and wrists, and sprained his ankle. But he was hard to kill. In the excitement caused by his jump through the car window, the Germans did not stop the train immediately, and so did not reach the spot where he had fallen, until he had recovered consciousness and had got away from the track. He was careful in walking away to hold the tail of his coat so that the blood dropping from his cheek would not fall upon the ground and show which way he went. Before daylight he had been able to put more than five miles between him and the tracks. He then hid in a deep woods, knowing that he must travel by night and keep out of sight by day, for he was wearing the uniform of a British flyer.
The story of his adventures is one of the most interesting of all the strange and interesting stories of the World War. When he reached England, King George sent for him to come to Buckingham Palace and spent nearly an hour listening to it. Lieutenant O'Brien has published it in a book which he calls "Outwitting the Hun." Boys and girls who like an exciting story of adventure, a true story, will want to read this book.
He knew the North Star, and by this he set his course west, in order to reach Belgium, and then go north from Belgium to Holland. It rained a great share of the time, but this did not make much difference, for he had to swim so many canals and rivers that his clothes were always wet. At first he had taken off his clothes when he had to swim and had tied them in a bundle to his head to keep them from getting wet; but after he lost one of his shoes in the water in this way and had to spend nearly two hours diving before he recovered it, he swam with his clothes and shoes on. He never could have gone on without shoes. Had he not been a good diver, he could not have found the shoe in the mud under eight feet of water; had he not been a good swimmer, he could not have crossed the Meuse River, nearly half a mile wide, after many days and nights of traveling almost without food (as it was, he dropped in a dead faint when he reached the farther side); and had he not known the North Star, he would have had no idea at night whether he was going in the right direction or going in, a circle. Rainy and cloudy nights delayed him greatly.
He did not dare ask for food at the houses in Germany, for he would have been immediately turned over to the authorities. So he lived on raw carrots, turnips, cabbages, sugar beets, and potatoes, which he found in the fields. He knew he must not make a fire even if he could do so in the Indian's way, by rubbing sticks together. He had no matches. He found some celery one night and ate so much of it that it made him sick. He had only the water in the canals and rivers to drink, and most of this was really unfit for human beings. He lay for an hour one night in a cabbage field lapping the dew from the cabbage leaves, he was so thirsty for pure, fresh water.
One day before he reached Belgium, he was awakened from his sleep in the woods by voices near him. He kept very quiet, and soon heard the sound of axes and saw a great tree, not far from him, tremble. He was lying in a clump of thick bushes and could not move without making a noise. He knew that if the great tree with its huge branches fell in his direction, he would surely be killed or at least pinned to the earth and badly injured—and his capture meant that he would be shot as a spy. But there was nothing for him to do but wait, and hope. At last the tree began to sway, and then fell away from him instead of towards him. He had again escaped death.
When he reached Belgium, which he did in eighteen days after his escape through the car window, he followed the North Star, for he knew Holland was to the north, and once in Holland he would be free. His feet were sore and bleeding, his knees badly swollen, and he was sick from exposure and starvation. For a while, he had a severe fever and raved and talked all night long in his half sleeping state. He feared some one would hear him and that he would be taken. He was weary and tired of struggling and fighting, and ready to give up; but his will, his soul, would not let him. He tells us how he raved when the fever was on him, and called on the North Star to save him from the coward, Pat O'Brien, who wanted him to quit.