PRISONERS ALL.
Sometimes of a morning I would pick Jacob up as I passed to the bath, and, perched upon my finger, he would participate with me in the rigorous joys of the cold douche, the water rattling off his back like rain from an umbrella. Latterly there were two jackdaws, and I have watched a German sentry feeding them with spiders collected in a matchbox, swinging them out on their own thread as an angler would cast a baited line. After the Armistice these two delightful vagabonds suddenly and mysteriously vanished. Rumour had it that they appeared on a German table in a German pie!
THE PRISON GATEWAY
IX
Escapes and Escapades
Only one officer ever escaped from Beeskow Camp, and he only by the dusty and tenebrous passage of Death. He was a Rumanian, and he actually succeeded in scaling the high wall encircling the Lager, but fell off into the dried moat and broke his neck.
Tunnelling under the ancient wall was the method that seemed to hold out most promise of success, and a number of efforts were made in this direction. These were all detected, however, at various stages of the mining operations. One such discovery led to a regular hue and cry and the hunt up for possible “holes.” Three or four Posten, one of whom put a facetious finger to the side of his nose, came clattering into the reading-room on this errand, when we all held up our feet to facilitate matters! In explanation of the gaping hole found behind a cupboard in one of the dormitories “rats” were suggested.