II—IN A "BLACK HOLE" ON WHEELS
I have no wish to paint the picture in lurid colors, yet I wish some of our pro-Germans and "pacifists" could have had a taste of that journey to Germany. Over seventy of us were packed together in one cattle-truck, occasionally kicked or prodded with bayonets by the gentle exponents of Kultur. Food? We were shown loaves of bread, we were asked to look at buckets of water—but these things were not for us; they were merely exhibited to torture us, a typical example of German spite. For three days and three nights we were huddled in that truck "Black Hole" on wheels. Not all of us reached Germany alive.
As for myself, I was too hard to kill, too full of hate and detestation of my captors to go under without a struggle, and during the seven-kilometre tramp from the station to the "Münster Laager" I registered a mental vow that "this child" was going to make a bid for freedom at the first opportunity. As we left the station the civil population, who were none too delicate in their attentions, sang "Deutschland über Alles." And they seemed to think it was true, too.
This, however, was only on a par with the arrogance we encountered in the Laager. The guard told us how German hosts had invaded England—or were going to do it in two months; and of how the All-Highest War Lord, the Kaiser, was to have his Christmas dinner at Buckingham Palace. The ignorance of some of these "educated" Huns was colossal, and you will perhaps scarcely credit the fact that I have been asked by Germans whether it was possible to get all the way to England by train!
Soon after we got into camp we begged an officer to give us water, but with a contemptuous sneer he advised us to go to England for it. Battens of straw, laid on bare boards, were our beds, and there was no covering. With so many French, English, and Russians as prisoners, I can tell you it looked rather hopeless just then for the Allies' chances of victory. Those were the early days, remember, when the Germans seemed to be winning all along the line, and when every success made them all the more brutal.
Right through the winter of 1914-15 food was scarce and clothing scant, and punishment more liberal than either. For a paltry offence I was tied to a post, six hours at a stretch, for ten days, while for telling a brutal German what I thought of him I was put into a dark cell for nine days. This particular Hun had knocked down and kicked a Norfolker, who then went for him with his shovel. The Englishman was marched off—to what fate I am ignorant.
A piece of black bread and a cup of coffee was our customary breakfast, and for dinner we had each a pint of soup which got steadily worse as the winter advanced. Six pounds of bread served ten men for a day, and occasionally—it was like an angel's visit—we had a bit of beef or sausage. I spent the first twelve months of my imprisonment between Redbarn, Münster, and Sennelager, often going out in charge of working parties, for a non-commissioned officer doesn't actually labor except of his own free will. I cudgelled my brains until my head ached in trying to devise plans to escape, but so far had seen no opportunity.
At the Münster camp, where I again found myself permanently lodged in September, 1915, I slept in a big wooden shed which accommodated two hundred of us. Right round the camp, at a height of eight yards, ran a fence of "live" electric wire. To attempt to pass through this meant certain death. I had no wish to try electrocution as a means of suicide, although it would have been speedier and less irritating to the temper than the kicks and cuffs and manifestations of spitefulness to which we were all liable. On the outer side of the wire perambulated the sentries. What chance had a prisoner to escape?
My straw bed was placed in a far corner of the "little wooden hut" to which I have referred. At last a happy thought occurred to me. I would burrow my way from the hut to the outer world, or, in other words, beyond the deadly wire! This, however, was easier said than done, but after a time I commandeered a shovel and surreptitiously removed a piece of board from one of the rafters. Possessed of these implements, which I carefully hid, I waited until all was quiet and the tired sons of England, Russia, and France were fast asleep. Then, raising two or three boards beneath my heap of straw, I started upon a voyage of discovery.
III—"HOW I TUNNELED TO LIBERTY"