CHAPTER XXVI A BOLDER PLAN
At last I got tired of these continual failures, and began to see that these methods would never succeed. If I was going to escape it must be by some method that no one had yet thought of trying. Only in this way, aided by unlimited bluff, should I succeed. I was thinking not only of the actual escape from the camp, but of the possibility of getting out of the country. Escapes from all the camps had been made by the dozen, but only one in a hundred was actually successful. The worst of it was that that big sheet of water, the North Sea, lay between England and Germany! How much easier it was for English officers in Germany, who, in two days' march, were in neutral territory, Holland, and consequently in safety!
All who had so far attempted to escape from English camps had started out with the idea of finding a ship or a boat that would take them to Germany. The consequence was, that the coast, and particularly the ports, were closely watched, especially when it was known that prisoners had broken out of camp. If I were to succeed, then, I must find some other way. After weeks of anxious thought I hit upon a method that seemed to offer chances of success. I would go by air!
The plan sounds very daring at first. I was therefore not very angry with my friends who declared me mad when I broached my scheme. All the same I was so persevering that I at last found a few friends who declared themselves willing to help me.
I had thought long and carefully about the problem of getting out of the camp, and had found a possible solution. The great difficulty was to find (1) an aerodrome in easy distance of Donington Hall, and (2) a trained flying-man, for I had never sat in an aeroplane.
From a map in Meyer's Encyclopædia I reckoned that the distance from Nottingham (in the neighbourhood of Donington) to Ostend would be roughly 300 kilometres by air route. With a modern type of machine, therefore, one ought to reach Ostend in about two hours, if all went smoothly. If the machine which I intended to annex had not enough petrol in the tank we should have to come down on the sea and trust to chance to find a rescuer. But I was certain that petrol could be found somewhere or other in the aerodrome. On my journey to London I had noticed that the flying ground at Hendon, at that time the largest in England, was practically unguarded. What was the use of detailing a large number of sentries, seeing that no one had ever yet thought of stealing an aeroplane!
I became so enthusiastic at the idea of being free much sooner than I had expected and of taking home an up-to-date aeroplane that some nights I never slept a wink.
Of the flying men in camp none was suitable. They had all been captured early in the war and had never handled a modern machine. But as new prisoners were constantly arriving I was confident that sooner or later a flying man would turn up. There could be no doubt there was a flying ground somewhere in the neighbourhood of Donington, for almost every day aeroplanes flew over the camp in a northerly direction. They always landed a long way off in one certain direction. Watch in hand, we observed their flight every day, noting when and where they landed, and were, in this manner, able to estimate approximately the distance of the flying ground. I used the same method in studying the neighbouring railway system. By observing the speed of the locomotives and by noting the time that elapsed before the first stop, we were enabled roughly to locate the neighbouring railway stations. We made our observations independently, and fixed in this manner also the direction of trains which we could hear but not see. Naval-Engineer Lieut. Laurer was very helpful to me in preparing two large maps by the aid of our observations and of a tiny map which we had discovered in an old novel. One of them represented the immediate surroundings of Donington; the other represented the southern portion of England and a strip of the North Sea as far as Ostend.
From new prisoners who arrived at the camp via Nottingham I learned that an aerodrome was being built near the railway about eight miles from the camp. Two hangars were finished and a third was in course of construction. All our information pointed to the conclusion that a big biplane was already stationed there.
This was extraordinarily favourable. The smaller the aerodrome, the smaller would be the guard. One night-watchman would certainly be the only guard here. Even if there were two sentries we should have no difficulty in overpowering and tying them up and then flying away before the alarm was given.