We found nothing remarkable that night and made our way back to bed again, intending to renew our search next night. Night after night we repeated these excursions, and were once within a hair's breadth of being discovered. The 'Visiting Rounds' lit up the chapel inside just as we were about to cover up the opening with the plank. There we stood as stiff as mummies, with our faces turned to the entrance, carrying the whole weight of the heavy oak seat on our heads, for in our hurry we had not had time to replace it in its old position.
One of the soldiers actually turned the light on our faces for several seconds. Then the heavy door was slammed and next moment we heard the 'Tommies' continue their rounds. Once again luck had been on our side. Probably the men had just turned out of their bunks and were really half asleep as they stumbled through the camp. By the time they got to our beds we were under the clothes, and we snored loudly when the same lamp was held to our faces which had almost betrayed us a few minutes earlier.
After about a fortnight's work we were unwillingly forced to the conclusion that our hopes had been unfounded. There was not the slightest indication that this massive wall contained an entrance to a tunnel. Several determined attempts to loose one of the big stones had to be given up as hopeless for want of necessary tools.
In any case we should have had to desist, for a few days later one of our comrades, Naval-Lieutenant Prondczindsky, was caught while attempting to escape, and the guards again became very strict. It was a pity that Prondczindsky's plan did not succeed.[18] He tried to cross the barbed-wire entanglement, which was eight or nine yards deep, by means of a board which he had made.
He had spent nearly five months putting together a sort of box-like structure about seven yards long, eight inches wide, and four inches deep, made from the wood of cigar-boxes. Big pieces of timber were unobtainable in the camp, and he had calculated with mathematical precision the carrying capacity of his plank.
To increase our difficulties, the guard was now increased by twenty men in consequence of this attempt. As the winter was coming on our chances became still smaller, for now there was nothing in the fields to satisfy one's hunger in case of necessity. The daily camp rations were getting visibly smaller in consequence of the activity of the submarine war, so that it was difficult now to save up even a week's food. Even bribery helped us little, for it often happened that English soldiers, with whom we were for certain reasons on good terms, came to us, who had so little, and begged a piece of bread because their own rations had become so short.
I gave up one plan after another, but took pains all the time to give the impression that escape was the last thing I thought about. I was a regular attendant at the hospital, sometimes with justification, sometimes without. I wished to give the doctor the impression that in my impaired state of health it would be impossible for me to support the fatigues of an escape. My knowledge of English stood me in good stead in intercourse with the English officers and men who were now getting more and more trustful. If they chanced to ask me whether I ever thought of escaping I told them with a most innocent look that only a fool would think of making an attempt now that the conditions had become so difficult.
I had gradually worked out a code system by which I communicated with Germany in a round-about manner. This system of communicating secret news was so well conceived that the most alert English censor would have found nothing suspicious in the contents of my letters. Even if he did suspect something, all his arts and appliances, magnifying glasses, acid-baths, photographing, and ironing of the letters, would not help him a bit. The letters revealed nothing. To make assurance doubly sure, I had my letters in code signed by comrades who were not regarded by the English as suspicious; for I had reason to believe that all my letters were stopped. In this manner I succeeded in communicating with friends in Germany, asking them for things necessary for the escape, English money, tools (the parts of which were sent separately), and so forth. The letters, which arrived safely at their destination, were understood and the various commissions executed. For obvious reasons I do not intend to disclose how the articles were sent. Unfortunately, very few of them reached me, for when they began to arrive at the camp I had already escaped.
I had read in the newspaper that some of my brave crew had escaped from their camp and been recaptured. As I learned later, they had conceived the plan (a hopeless one) of setting me free and then trying to get out of the country. Shortly afterwards I was taken to London to appear before the Prize Court. I got such short notice that I had no time to provide myself with civilian clothes with the object of escaping during the long journey or when we were in London. Without money and in uniform I could not make the attempt. Immediately after my return to camp I addressed a long letter to the Prize Court, in which I requested that the previous decision should be revised, and that the money taken from me and my crew should be restored to us.
The Swiss Embassy was kind enough to forward this letter (and many others) to the proper quarter, although the American Embassy, which was still 'neutral' at that time, had refused to transmit it. In the next chapter I shall have something to say about the effect of these letters.