Outwitting the Hun: My Escape from a German Prison Camp

by Pat O'Brien

While looking out of that top-floor window one day I noticed a cat on a window-ledge of the house across the street. I had a piece of a broken mirror which I had picked up in the house and I used to amuse myself for an hour at a time shining it in the cat's eyes across the street. At first the animal was annoyed by the reflection and would move away, only to come back a few moments later. By and by, however, it seemed to get used to the glare and wouldn't budge, no matter how strong the sunlight was. Playing with the cat in this way was the means of my getting food a day or two later—at a time when I was so famished that I was ready to do almost anything to appease my hunger.

It was about seven o'clock in the evening. I was expecting Huyliger at eight, but I hadn't the slightest hope that he would bring me food, as he had told me that he wouldn't take the risk of having food in his possession when calling on me. I was standing at the window in such a way that I could see what was going on in the street without being observed by those who passed by, when I noticed my friend the cat coming down the steps of the opposite house with something in his mouth. Without considering the risks I ran, I opened the front door, ran down the steps and across the street, and pounced on the cat before it could get away with its supper, for that, as I had imagined, was what I had seen in its mouth. It turned out to be a piece of stewed rabbit, which I confiscated eagerly and took back with me to the house.

Perhaps I felt a little sorry for the cat, but I certainly had no other qualms about eating the animal's dinner. I was much too hungry to dwell upon niceties, and a piece of stewed rabbit was certainly too good for a cat to eat when a man was starving. I ate it and enjoyed it, and the incident suggested to me a way in which I might possibly obtain food again when all other avenues failed.

From my place of concealment I frequently saw huge carts being pushed through the streets gathering potato peelings, refuse of cabbage, and similar food remnants which, in America, are considered garbage and destroyed. In Belgium they were using this "garbage" to make their bread out of, and while the idea may sound revolting to us, the fact is that the Germans have brought these things down to such a science that the bread they make in this way is really very good to eat. I know it would have been like cake to me when I was in need of food; indeed, I would have eaten the "garbage" direct, let alone the bread.

Although, as I have said, I suffered greatly from hunger while occupying this house, there were one or two things I observed through the keyhole or from the windows which made me laugh, and some of the incidents that occurred during my voluntary imprisonment were really rather funny.

From the keyhole I could see, for instance, a shop window on the other side of the street, several houses down the block. All day long German soldiers would be passing in front of the house, and I noticed that practically every one of them would stop in front of this store window and look in. Occasionally a soldier on duty bent would hurry past, but I think nine out of ten of them were sufficiently interested to spend at least a minute, and some of them three or four minutes, gazing at whatever was being exhibited in that window, although I noticed that it failed to attract the Belgians.

I have a considerable streak of curiosity in me and I couldn't help wondering what it could be in that window which almost without exception seemed to interest German soldiers, but failed to hold the Belgians, and after conjuring my brains for a while on the problem I came to the conclusion that the shop must have been a book-shop and the window contained German magazines, which, naturally enough, would be of the greatest interest to the Germans, but of none to the Belgians.

At any rate, I resolved that as soon as night came I would go out and investigate the window. When I got the answer I laughed so loud that I was afraid for the moment I must have attracted the attention of the neighbors, but I couldn't help it. The window was filled with huge quantities of sausage. The store was a butcher-shop, and one of the principal things they sold, apparently, was sausage. The display they made, although it consisted merely of quantities of sausage piled in the windows, certainly had plenty of "pulling" power. It "pulled" nine Germans out of ten out of their course and indirectly it "pulled" me right across the street. The idea of those Germans being so interested in that window display as to stand in front of the window for two, three, or four minutes at a time, however, certainly seemed funny to me, and when I got back to the house I sat at the keyhole again and found just as much interest as before in watching the Germans stop in their tracks when they reached the window, even though I was now aware what the attraction was.

One of my chief occupations during those days was catching flies. I would catch a fly, put him in a spider's web—there were plenty of them in the old house—and sit down to wait for the spider to come and get him. But always I pictured myself in the same predicament and rescued the fly just as the spider was about to grab him. Several times when things were dull I was tempted to see the tragedy through, but perhaps the same Providence that guided me safely through all perils was guarding, too, the destiny of those flies, for I always weakened and the flies never did suffer from my lust for amusement.

The house was well supplied with books—in fact, one of the choicest libraries I think I ever saw—but they were all written either in Flemish or in French. I could read no Flemish and very little French. I might have made a little headway with the latter, but the books all seemed too deep for me and I gave it up. There was one thing, though, that I did read and re-read from beginning to end—that was a New York Herald which must have arrived just about the time war was declared. Several things in there interested me, and particularly the baseball scores, which I studied with as much care as a real fan possibly would an up-to-date score. I couldn't refrain from laughing when I came to an account of Zimmerman (of the Cubs) being benched for some spat with the umpire, and it afforded me just as much interest three years after it had happened—perhaps more—than some current item of worldwide interest had at the time.