Instead, two days later came a letter of explanation, stating that Lieutenant Karl Koch had fallen ill at the critical moment. The plan of escape, therefore, had to be indefinitely postponed. It was a bitter disappointment to the Vice-Consul, who pictured himself being reproached by his superiors for building castles in the air, if not being saddled with the whole of the expenses. But he consoled himself, in the presence of the captain of the Wehrt, with the argument that it was "just as well, since it would allow the authorities time to go to sleep." The astute seaman could not, however, quite agree with this. He knew the advantage of fine weather for such a perilous voyage as the one projected, and feared that if the escape were not effected soon it might be too late or too full of risk to be worth undertaking.
Lieutenant Koch's illness dragged on for week after week. August went by, September came, and the hopes of the Vice-Consul of Vigo fell lower and lower. In the first three weeks in September the officer entered the convalescent stage. One result of his breakdown was, indeed, in his favor; he was allowed greater and greater liberty, and, on the plea of taking the air, got out several times in a motor-car, with the authorization of the governor and doctor of the prison and under the discreet eye of an official. Soon even this supervision was relaxed, and then, when October came in, the U-boat lieutenant saw the chance for which he and his companions had been waiting. It was about this time that the Vice-Consul of Vigo (now almost on the verge of despair) unexpectedly received the long-awaited warning.
V—PLOT LAID FOR THE FLIGHT
On the morning of October 5th, Lieutenant Koch and his companions, having obtained a pass for an unofficial "joy ride" in two motor-cars, set out for a little country village some twenty miles from Pampeluna. As they were all on parole and the chauffeurs of the hired cars were connected with the police, permission was given to the party to remain at their destination for luncheon. It was understood, however, that as soon as the meal was over the return journey should be made, so as to be back well before the day was declining. Koch and his friends, through intermediaries introduced to him by the Vice-Consul of Vigo, laid their plans very cleverly. Just outside the village is a rustic inn where excellent luncheons are served. The dining-room looks out, at the back of the house, on to a garden with a bowling-alley and arbor, and this garden adjoins meadows, bordered by the railway line. Not far away is the little country railway station. What happened can easily be imagined.
The eleven officers had their luncheon served in the restaurant proper; the chauffeurs were served in a smaller room adjoining, looking out on to the front and the road. The landlord had been instructed (and had been well paid in advance for this and other little services) to ply these two worthy fellows with as much liquor as they could hold, with the result that they were deep in their cups long before the boisterous officers had got through their coffee and liqueurs. They were in such an advanced state of intoxication, indeed, that they took no heed when a singular silence followed the noise of voices and laughter in the adjoining room; and it was not until the appointed hour for departure had long since passed that they recovered their senses sufficiently to learn the truth. Their erstwhile "joy riders" had flown! They might have been seen, fully three-quarters of an hour before, strolling down the garden and making their way, as unobstrusively as possible, across the fields to the countryside railway station, where, provided beforehand with tickets for different stations on the line to Vigo, they boarded the train, once more in as nonchalant a manner as possible in groups of twos and threes, in different carriages. By the time the chauffeurs came to their senses and realized they had been fooled, the fugitives were well out of danger and, having got together again at the first big stopping-place, had put themselves en règle as regards through tickets for their common destination, to which they continued to travel, however, separately, in order to minimize the risks of capture. The outwitted chauffeurs had another unpleasant surprise on rushing to their cars, with the object of dashing back to Pampeluna and recounting to the authorities their sorry tale of misadventure. Though they cranked their machines like madmen, the motors stubbornly refused to work. The reason soon became evident: the sparking-plugs had been removed by the far-seeing Koch.
Meanwhile, on October 2nd, the interned Sergeant Dietrich Gratschuss had slipped away from Alcala. His escape, facilitated by the four uninterned officers from the Goeben, who provided him with a suit of civilian clothes, thrown over a wall into the prison-garden where he worked daily, was made doubly sure by certain judicious bribes to a sentry, who kept his back turned and eyes averted at the critical moment. Gratschuss slipped into his disguise in a tool-shed, and calmly walked out of the prison-yard—saluted by the unsuspecting man on guard—as though he had been a visitor. His friends were waiting round the corner for him with a hundred horsepower motor-car, in which, with the other uninterned Germans (the naval doctor, the law student, and the two sailors), he was whirled away at sixty miles an hour. The whole of the journey to Vigo was made in this powerful car, which the owners had been able to provide with an amply supply of petrol and food for a long and rapid flight, lasting well into the night.
The whole of the machinery of the Vice-Consul of Vigo was now in motion. All the fugitives reached that port in safety and scattered themselves over hotels and lodging-houses.
A hue and cry was, of course, set up from Pampeluna and Alcala de Henares; but the Spanish police went off on various wrong tracks before they thought of ordering a watch to be set at all the ports. Even when this tardy step was taken, no one ever suspected—so well had the Vice-Consul and his accomplices laid their plans—that Vigo was the port from which the escape was to be effected.
VI—MIDNIGHT—THE FUGITIVES BOARD THE SHIP
On October 6th the Virgen del Socorro, to allay any suspicion, made a voyage to sea, and, on returning, moored alongside the Wehrt. Then, one pitch-black night, the fugitives left their hiding-places. One by one they slipped out into the darkness and, following the narrowest and most deserted streets leading to the harbor, reached the quays unobserved. At such an hour of the night—it was getting on for eleven o'clock—they could be fairly certain of meeting no one, save, perhaps, a drunken sailor or two. These revellers took no more notice of Koch and his companions than they did of their own dim shadows. One by one, under cover of the darkness, the fugitives disappeared down the same iron ladder the Vice-Consul had used so often, into José's boat.