Outwitting the Hun: My Escape from a German Prison Camp

by Pat O'Brien

The first swim was uneventful. When I landed on the other side I drank till my thirst was quenched, and then swam back. After resting awhile I started across a third time, with my shoes and several other things firmly tied to my head. Just about ten feet from the opposite bank one of the shoes worked its way loose and sank in about eight feet of water. There was nothing to do but finish the trip and then go back and dive for the missing shoe, as I could not go on with a single shoe.

Diving in my weakened condition was considerable strain, but I had to have that shoe, and I kept at it for nearly an hour before I eventually found it, and I was pretty nearly all in by that time.

That was the last time I ever took my shoes off, for my feet were becoming so swollen that I figured if I took my shoes off I might be unable to get them on again.

This stunt of crossing the river and diving for the lost shoe had consumed about three hours, and after resting some fifteen minutes I went on my way again. I had hardly gone a mile when I came to another river, about the same size as the one I had just crossed. I walked along the bank awhile, thinking that I might be lucky enough to find a boat or a bridge, but after walking about half an hour I received one of those disappointments which "come once in a lifetime." I found that this river was the one I had just swum! I had swum it on the bend and was still on the wrong side! Had I made only a short detour in the first place, I would have avoided all the annoyance of the past three hours and saved my strength and time. I was never so mad in my life at myself as I was to think that I had not paid more attention to the course of the stream before I undertook to cross it, but, as a matter of fact, there was really no way of telling. The river was not shown on my map at all.

Now I had to cross it, whereas before I could have turned it. I walked boldly into the water, not bothering to take my clothes off this time, nor did I ever bother to take them off afterward when swimming canals or rivers. I found it was impossible to keep them dry, anyway, and so I might just as well swim in them and save time.

All the next day I spent in a forest, to which my night's travel had brought me about five o'clock in the morning. I kept on my way through the woods until daylight came, and then, thinking the place would afford fairly good concealment, I concluded to rest until night.

The prospects of even a good sleep were dismal, however, for about the time the sun's face should have appeared a drizzling rain began and I gave up my search for a dry spot which would serve as a bed. Some of the leaves were beginning to fall, but of course there were not enough of them to have formed a covering for the ground, and the dampness seemed to have penetrated everywhere.

I wandered around through the woods for two or three hours, looking for shelter, but without any success, for, though the trees were large, the forest was not dense and there was practically no brush or shrubbery. Consequently, one could get a fairly clear view for some distance, and I knew it would be unwise to drop off to sleep just any place, or some one would surely happen onto me.

Once I came very near the edge of the woods and heard voices of men driving by in a wagon, but I couldn't make out just what they were, and instinct told me I had better not come out of the woods, so I turned back. Here and there small artificial ditches had been dug, which at a dry season might have cradled a weary fugitive, but now they, too, were filled with water. Once I singled out a good big tree with large branches and thought I might climb into it and go to sleep, but the longer I looked at it the more I realized that it would require more energy than I had in my present weak and exhausted condition, so I didn't attempt that.

Finally I chose a spot that looked a bit drier than the rest, concluded to take a chance on being discovered, and threw myself down for a nap. I was extremely nervous, though, throughout that whole day and would scarcely get settled into a comfortable position and doze off for a few minutes when, startled by some sound in the woods, I would suddenly waken.