- 'Escape at the First Attempt'
- by H. G. Durnford
Giving the Enemy the Slip
The famous Holzminden Tunnel by which twenty-nine English officers escaped from a German prison will be remembered by most readers. Owing to the tunnel caving in the remainder of the men were unable to get away. The author took part in this dramatic incident but did not make his escape. He was later removed to Stralsund prison in company with two other officers who had failed in the Holzminden attempt.
The officers' Lager at Stralsund lay on an island, or rather on a twin pair of islands, called Greater and Smaller Danholm, separated from the mainland by a narrow strip of water over which a permanent ferry plied to and fro. On the farther side of these islands and separated from them again by a wider channel, perhaps two4hirds of the width of the Solent at its narrowest point, lay the pleasant shores of Rugen. The blue sea and the wooded slopes of this fair island recalled to the home sick prisoner the beauties of her smaller sister of the Wight.
Hither in the summer of 1918 came 500 odd hungry British officers, the unwilling guests of his then Imperial Majesty Wilhelm II. They were a not inconsiderable part of the many taken in the three gigantic German offensives between March 21st and May 27th. They came in big batches from the sorting-out camps of Rastatt and Karisruhe - the former place a memory that will endure for their lives with those who were there or in little driblets from the hospitals whence they had been discharged.
Hither came also in September 200 officers from Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle), the last of their illusions gone They had been sent from various camps to that place, the Stepping-stone for internment and happier things. They had stayed there two months. Their parcels, which should have been forwarded to them, went persistently " west." In many cases even their luggage had gone to Holland. They had been taken for walks and had viewed the promised land. And now, at the eleventh hour, the congestion of sick at Aachen had necessitated their removal and they had been side-tracked to the Baltic-to wait and wait, and begin the dreary round again. They moved our sympathy. They had had two and a half years of it, and now they had as little to eat as, and not much more to wear than, the new 'arrivals. But one of them had a typewriter.
And hither came also a little party of three from Holzminden Camp in Brunswick, transferred as suspected persons to a camp of really reliable security. Major Gilbert, Lieutenant Ortweiler, and myself had been told one morning that we had an hour and a half in which to pack. We packed and went. Stralsund was like a rest cure.
It is indeed a pleasant spot. A channel, narrow at the entrances, broadening to ninety yards in the middle, divides the islands. Standing on the bridge which spans the channel at its narrowest, one looks west to Stralsund town. Whether with the setting sun behind it or with the morning sun full on it, it is beautiful. Venice viewed from the sea could hardly be prettier. The dome of the Marianne Kirche dominates the town, and the bat-coloured sails of the fishing vessels could be just seen, with an occasional motor-boat, moving in the blue Sound. In Greater Danholm the chestnuts are magnificent. There is one avenue of trees which meet each other overhead as in a cathedral nave. And there was one little segregated,. fenced-off spot which for no particular reason we called King Henry VIIth's Garden-the name seemed to suit. One could take half an hour walking round the camp.
But it is not my intention by painting too glowing a picture to alienate my reader's sympathy. The place was good, but German. The buildings were good, but had held Russians. The air was good, but there were smells. We had been longtime prisoners-veterans, we considered ourselves, in this horde of "eighteeners." And it would be cold, very cold in winter.
We had a fortnight's holiday, revelling in the unexpected beauty, the much less uncomfortable beds with their extra sheet, the open-air sea bath in the mornings, the freedom and scope of movement, the almost latent wire, the inoffensiveness of the German personnel, the unobtrusiveness of the Commandant, the beer (liquorice, but still beer of a sort), the exchange of news with the new prisoners and the picking up of old threads, the sight of the sea from our landing window, the games on real grass. And then, in quite a different sense, we began looking round.
We learned that the authorities were quietly and politely confident that the place was escape-proof. They expected attempts. Oh! yes. "We know it is your duty. We should do it ourselves." And conventionalities of the sort that were common when German officers of a decent type and there were such on this island- found themselves in conversation with Englishmen. "But it cannot be done - no one has ever escaped from here. True, it might be easy to cut the wire and get on to the main part of the island, but we have our dogs. If you swim to the mainland you will be recognised and brought back Even if you get across to Rutgen you have to get off it and you would be missed. We have our seaplane to scour the sea. The ferry is guarded . . ." and so on.
Subsequent events appeared to justify this view. Attempts were made, and failed in quick succession. In each case the objective was the same, though aimed at by different methods-the open sea and the Danish island of Bornholm or Danish territory elsewhere. Two officers, yachtsmen born, cut the wire one night, swam out towards Rugen, hoarded an empty fishing vessel about 200 yards out and got clean away. They stranded off the north-west corner of Rugen and were recaptured. Three others commandeered a boat which had been left unpadlocked in the channel, rowed to the mainland, and separated. Two were recaptured immediately, the third was at large some days and was eventually arrested some way down the coast. I did not learn his story. Another party of three attempted to paddle over to Rugen on a cattle trough. They selected a stormy night, were upset fifty yards out of the channel, and got back, unobserved, with difficulty, and, as one of them could not swim, rather luckily.
So far as the German precautions went, the net upshot of these attempts was that stringent orders were issued about leaving boats in the channel or on the shores of the island unpadlocked. For the rest, the Commandant was satisfied with his second line of defence, the water, which was moreover (it was now mid-September) growing daily colder and more unattractive.
Such was the position when the Holzminden trio began to put their heads together. I do not think any of us seriously entertained the idea of an escape by water. We were all hopeless landsmen, and Gilbert, at any rate, could not swim. A" stunt" by sea necessitated a combination of luck, pluck, opportunism, and above all, watermanship. Our armament, such as it was, was of a different kind. We all knew German, Gilbert and I in-differently, Ortweiler fluently. We had the wherewithal to bribe. We could lay our hands on a typewriter. We knew the ropes of a land journey by railway. G. and 0. had both been" out," the latter more than once; and I had heard these things much discussed. Moreover, Gilbert, being a Major, had secured a small room which he invited me to share, and Ortweiler was a member of our mess. In a deep- laid scheme privacy is almost an essential. Greatest asset of all, the Germans were not suspicious and they left us alone.
Our idea, very much in the rough, crystallised as follows: together or separately - as events might dictate - to bluff the sentry at the main gate, and at the ferry; to get on to the mainland and there travel by train to the Holland frontier; and to have our preparations so thoroughly made that, on paper at least, our plan was bound to be successful.
Our first idea was to co-opt three or four others and go out as a party of orderlies with one of us disguised as a German sentry in charge. Individual officers had on several occasions already been into the town with a party of orderlies on some " fatigue or other in order to have a look round. Our idea was to concoct some imaginary fatigue which would take us not only into the town but out of it, where we should have an opportunity of assuming our real disguise and separating on our respective routes. We got so far as to fashion out our bogus rifle in the rough, but before very long we discarded the whole idea for various reasons. The rifle would be too difficult to imitate to pass in broad daylight. We could not be certain of securing the uniform of our sentry; all the sentries on duty in the camp were likely to be personally known to one another. Difficulties of taking our disguise with us, difficulties of hitting on the right sort. of " fatigue " to disarm suspicion . . . the " cons " had it emphatically.
Moreover, in the interval the looked-for" key " had presented itself. Gilbert had succeeded in removing a workman's " permit" from his coat pocket while he was working in the camp. This permit " entitled the civilian in question to visit the camp and its environs between given dates, name and business being duly stated, and the permit signed by the Camp Commandant. Printed in German print on a plain white card, it appeared not impossible of exact imitation. Our hopes were more than fulifiled.
Lieut. Lockhead, one of the party weather-bound en route for a neutral country, had, we knew, performed yeoman service in this line when at Holzminden. We showed him the card. Within two days he had accomplished an exact replica, including the signature, so good as to be undistinguishable from the original. Our hopes rose. It remained to complete the remainder of our essential equipment : civilian clothes, German money, forged passports, maps, and compasses. With the two former I was entirely unprovided. One passport, forged on an old model, was in Gilbert's possession, but we doubted its efficacy in northern Germany. The two latter articles I was content to leave to the last moment, when I should have definitely decided on my route. One had the feeling that it was absurd to spend hours on acquiring articles necessary only for the last lap, when one might be stopped at the gate - a curiously illogical reasoning, as these things, or at least one of them, are indispensable for even a short journey across country . . . but there it was.
It was at this point that the event occurred which led me definitely to abandon my Holland scheme and decide for the Danish border. A German private soldier came into our room one day to do some work. He was in uniform but was on leave in Stralsund, which was his home, and in the then prevailing shortage of labour he was lending a hand to his erstwhile master.
No "escaper" ever omits a chance - provided he can speak German at all~f profiting by a conversation with some one from outside the camp. Indeed, this was so well known to the authorities that in most camps anybody coming in from outside was escorted by a sentry and not left alone during the period of his stay in the camp. Stralsund was an exception, possibly because the English had been there so short a time, possibly because of the Commandant's complacent idea as to its security. Be that as it may, I had this fellow fairly quickly sized up. It turned out his job was doing sentry on the Denmark border.
Is it dull there ?
"Frightfully."
Do many get over up there?
“Oh, yes."
What ? Prisoners ?
"A few, but smugglers and deserters mostly. We pretend not to see them."
Here was an eye-opener! I threw caution to the winds and found that I had not mistaken my man. He was a genial rascal, venal and disloyal to the core. Before he had been in that room half an hour he had committed himself far too deeply in the eyes of the German law for me to have any fear that he would turn round and blow the gaff on us. He told us (Gilbert had come in by that time) of a slackly guarded frontier, with wire so low that you could walk over it; of the exact route from Stralsund to the last station outside the Grenz-Gebiet (border territory) ; of the innocuous passage of an ordinary Personal-Zug (slow train) without the complications of passport-checking or examination over the dreaded Kiel Canal. He came in next day with some civilian collars and ties and an inadequate railway map, and on each day he went out the heavier by sundry woollen and flannel clothes, cigarettes, soap, chocolate, and cheese. He gave me in return about thirty marks in German money. He had promised to do even more, but he made some excuse that his leave was up and we saw him no more. Probably he funked it. Viewed as a commercial deal, the balance was in his favour; but he had given us information that was beyond rubies. Our hopes rose higher, and by this time Gilbert and I were more or less definitely committed to the Denmark scheme.
We had not long to wait for an opportunity of seeing how our passports should read. I will say no more. Even at this distance of time, immeasurably magnified by the intervening events, there still may lurk the long arm in German law, and we need not doubt that there are still too many souls in Germany attracted by the thought : Wie soll ich Detective werden? (How shall I become a detective ?) to make it altogether safe for those concerned if I were to, be more explicit in print. Suffice it to say that our tools were of tender years, cheaply bought, and therefore on both accounts the less deserving of retribution.1 I had sold my field service ration boots for 45 marks, through the agency of Ortweiler. I had therefore collected about 75 marks, and this was, of course, ample for my requirements. I was all the time anxiously on the look-out for civilian clothes. I had got a pair of old blue trousers from Captain Clarke of the Merchant Marine. I had an old pair of ration " Tommy" boots which on comparison with the home-grown article might just "do." I had shirt, collar, and tie. I wanted hat, coat, and, in view of the lateness of the season, some sort of overcoat.
By great good luck the hat, or, as it happened, cap materialised. A new naval suit with cap had arrived for a merchant skipper who had gone to Aachen for a medical board with the hope of exchange. As soon as we had heard he had been passed and gone over the border, G. and I promptly closed for the suit, of which we had secured the refusal, with his chargé d'affaires. Shorn of its buttons the suit made a smart civilian costume for Gilbert, and shorn of its badge the cap became merely of the naval type of headgear so common amongst German boys or men of the working-class. I had always decided I would shape my r6le according to the clothes which I could find, and I now decided that I should travel fourth class, as some sort of mechanic. For a coat I had to fall back upon a brand new English coat sent out from home and confiscated by and re-stolen from the Germans. I made it as shabby as I could in the short time at my disposal but even so it was far too smart to pass for my class of "character" except at night. I therefore decided that if travelling by day I would wear over my coat a very old dark blue naval raincoat which had been given me. I was thus equipped. I might possibly have done better if I had waited, but the completion of my arrangements had to synchronise, as far as possible, with that of the others. I had also been able to copy a fairly good map of northern Schleswig, showing roads and railways, and, by great good luck and at the eleventh hour, I secured what I believe was the last com p ass but one in the whole camp. The shortage of these articles seemed extraordinary, when one reflected on the abundance of them in most of the old camps of longer standing. To the donor on this occasion I am eternally indebted, as I could not have managed very well without it.
From one of the camp personnel I had elucidated the fact that the Hamburg train went at six-forty in the morning. From another source we heard there was also a train at six-forty-three in the evening.
Gilbert meanwhile had been busy with the typewriter which he had secured with great forethought from its owner in the Aachen party. The "Ausweis" forms were completed, each according to our own particular specifications.
Mine ran as follows:
PERSONAL-AUSWEIS
Fur Karl Stein aus Strakund
on the outside, and on the inside: on the left-hand side, my photograph (I had been photographed in this very camp by the Germans and I had been wearing at the time an old Indian volunteer tunic which in the photograph looked much like a German tunic. This was pure chance and very lucky.)
On the right side, my particulars: Karl Stein.
Date of Birth: 4/6/1880. Place of Birth: Stralsund. State belonging to: Prussian. Height: i.6o metres. Chin: Ordinary. Eyes: Brown. Mouth: Ordinary. Hair: Brown. Nose: Large. Beard: Moustache. Particular marks: None.
Authentic Signature: Karl Stein.
(A very lame and halting hand this!)
Herewith certified that the owner of the pass has subscribed his name with his own hand."
(Signed) LIEUTENANT OF POLICE, STRALSUND.
The stamps affixed to the passport-two on the photograph, one on the right-hand side-were an amazingly clever imitation by Lockhead (the friend who had already helped us with the forging of the permit cards). He did these stamps by hand through some purple carbon paper that I still had with me from an old army message-form book, and to be believed they should be seen in the original.
G. took infinite trouble with the filling up of these passports. He had acquired a good flowing German hand and he filled the particulars in himself, with a flourish for the signature of the Police Leutnant at the bottom. He also filled in the permit-cards. We had each two passports, one made out as from Stralsund, and the other as from Schleswig. We should naturally show the Stralstind one in the Schleswig territory and vice versa.
We were now ready, or as ready as any one is until the actual time comes to go, when there are always a thousand and one things to be thought of.
It was arranged amongst ourselves that Ortweiler should have the first shot, as he stood easily the best chance of effecting escape. Accordingly, on Monday the 14th October he made his exit. He was well made up with a false moustache stuck on with some very diluted form of spirit gum, and fiercely curved at the tips. It was only tow, but it served its purpose in the dark.
Our duty was to patrol the avenue leading to the main gate between 5 and 6.30 p.m., to mark down what dangerous Germans had left the camp, and to stop 0. if any one who was likely to suspect him hove in sight.
I should mention here that from the barrack selected as dressing-room to the main gate is about 200 yards. From the main gate on to the ferry is another 350 yards. After dark at this time of year various Germans living in the town were likely to be leaving the island for the night, and the ferry was thus constantly on the move. Our object was primarily to avoid the more dangerous Germans, e.g. an officer or the interpreter, who knew us all well by sight.
All went well. I gave the signal "all clear" at about six-thirty and G. and I piloted Ortweiler out, slowing down as he passed us forty yards from the main gate. We saw him take out his card and hand it to the sentry, who then let him through the postern. It had worked I We breathed a sigh of relief. Just as we were going back, we met the interpreter homeward bound for the ferry. He was too close behind 0. to be exactly safe, so I engaged him in conversation. He was in a hurry and I could only think of something rather fatuous to say, but I held him up a minute or two and that may have caused him to miss Ortweiler's particular boat.1
We" cooked" Ortweiler's appel at 8 p.m.-this is a familiar device for concealing escape. The result was that the barrack Feldwebel did not report his absence till next day at 9 a.m. roll-call. He had thus twelve hours' clear start, by which time he was most of the way to Berlin. We thought him almost a certainty to get over with his fluent knowledge of German, and he did, in point of fact, escape into Holland, via Berlin, Frank-fort, and Crefeld, after a night's thrilling experience on the actual border which would be a story in itself.
G. and I were naturally elated, the more so as from inquiries it transpired that the authorities had absolutely no suspicion of how 0. had got out. Owing to repeated wire-cutting and escapes into the island, the guard had been increased and placed outside the wire. No one had passed the sentries who had not the proper credentials. Of that they were quite convinced. It was believed that he was still hiding in the camp. We hugged ourselves.
Friday of that week, the i8th, the day selected as" der Tag," was an unforgettable one. Our kit had to be packed and labelled; final arrangements made about feeding in the event of recapture compromising documents of any sort had to be destroyed; at the last moment I realised that I had no braces, no German cigarettes, and no matches. To crown all there was a barrack hockey match which we could not very well avoid.
During the day it so happened that we were twice invaded by Feldwebels. On the first occasion the door was locked and we had to throw a ma p into the corner and then open the door, an action which would in itself have been of damning suspicion m most camps. On the second, the Feldwebel found G. cutting sandwiches of German Kriegs Brot (war bread). G. had to explain that it was a new attempt to make Kriegs Brot palatable, and invited the Feldwebel to come and see the result at dinner time. Doubtless he came, but there were no sandwiches and no us. At 4 p.m. we had our high tea-four Copenhagen eggs each and tea and jam. At 5 p.m. the roll was called, and immediately after it we started transferring our disguise under cover of the growing darkness to the barrack from which we were going to make our final exit.
It had been arranged after some discussion that Gilberi should leave not before dark, and not later than six, and that I should give him ten minutes clear before leaving. This would give me little time to catch the six-forty-two train to Hamburg if I was at all held up (a forecast which was verified by events) but there was no help for it. It was necessary that Gilbert's disguise should be assisted to the full by darkness.
We had let a few friends into the secret and these were cruising about like destroyers up and down the avenue, reporting the departure of dangerous Germans, Gilbert did not eventually get off much before six, and it seemed a long time before the leader of the convoy reported that G. was safely through the gate. I gave him ten minutes, conscious mainly of the fact that I had forgotten any German I had ever learnt, and then stepped forth.
I was Karl Stein, firm of Karl Stein & Co., Furniture Dealers, Langestrasse, Stralsund; I had been into the Kommandantur to arrange about a new contract for officers' cupboards. I knew the shop because I had seen it the day before when I went to the town hospital under escort with a party of officers for massage. I needed no massage, of course, but had only done this to acquaint myself with the geography of the town.
With a blank stare I passed several brother-officers walking up and down the avenue and reached the ate. My great moment had come, but the sentry simply looked at my card carefully, said ‘schon’, and handed it back. I walked very fast down to the ferry. There was no boat on my side and I saw I should have to wait some minutes. The sentry at the ferry examined my card and handed it back. How should I avoid the two Germans who were already there on the jetty waiting for the boat? I decided to have a violent fit of coughing.
I must here mention that my knowledge of German, acquired during captivity, was not such as would enable me to support a cross-examination of more than a minute or two. I had, however, practised the "pure" German accent with assiduity. In point of fact I hardly spoke a hundred words on the journey, and some of these were not absolutely necessary.
At last the ferry boat came over, empty. I got in and sat in the bows. There was an English orderly working the bow oar-I had seen him the previous day. I kicked him, and he realised what I was and shielded me as much as he could from the other occupants of the boat, which was now gradually filling. It was a long five minutes and I continued my violent fit of coughing, leaning over the side as if in a paroxysm. There were two Germans in the bows and one of them touched me on the shoulder and suggested that I should trim the boat by sitting in the middle. I complied meekly, feeling really very wretched indeed.
At the last I thought I was really done for. The German adjutant got into the boat. He didn't know me by sight, but I thought it was more than likely that he would suspect me. Mercifully he began to talk to some lady typists from the camp who had just preceded him.
We shoved off eventually, almost full. I continued coughing till we got across. When the boat discharged I went ashore almost last. I gave them a wide berth in front, and as soon as I was clear made off at my best pace for the station. Now I was Karl Stein of Schleswig, carpenter, ex-army man, and recalled for civilian employment, catching the train for his native country. I tore up my" permit" and dropped it in the road-one month off my sentence, anyway.
As I expected, I just missed my train. I had no watch, but the clock on the Marianne Kirche showed me I should be late. I reached the station about six-fifty; it was rather full of people. I wondered if Gilbert was away in that train . . . and then, vaguely, what the chances were of my being nabbed before the next went-this, I noted, was at six-forty the next morning (Saturday). I think if there had been any outgoing trains that night I should have taken them, even though they led me east instead of west. But as it happened there were none. I went into the men's lavatory in the station, shut myself in a closet and reflected. I thought at that time to my horror that I had forgotten my matches, so I denied myself a smoke - my matches turned up later and I needed what few there were. I solaced myself with a slab of chocolate.
The position was not encouraging. Our information about trains was correct. Our friends would not be able to camouflage our absence, which would certainly be discovered by 8 p.m., reported by 9 p.m. It was more than likely that they would telephone to the station. I determined not to be in the station at all between nine and twelve. If I was arrested next morning, I was. In the meantime it was good to be free. It was a beautiful October night in Stralsund. I braced myself up and begged a light for a cigarette from a youngster at a street corner, and then strolled along the streets that led from the station to the Kirche. I knew these now quite weil enough not to get lost. I sat on a bench and looked across the moonlit water, which near the station runs right in in a broad and lovely sweep. I lit a pipe from my German cigarette and smoked comfortably. Should I get off next morning? .
I was cooling down now, and wandered down past the Marianne Kirche to a cinema in the Langestrasse. A boy there told me the booking office was shut. I wandered round and round till one o'clock. I sat for a long time on my old bench over-looking the water; at another place I entered a private garden and sheltered for an hour under a wall right on the water's edge. It was blowing fairly fresh.
About one o'clock I returned to the station and entered the waiting-room, full of recumbent figures, mostly soldiers and sailors. I got hold of two chairs and tried to sleep. There was a sailor on the other side of the table.
At four o'clock I got up and had a cup of coffee. The waiting-room was now fairly full of people, most of them presumably going by my train.
I had by now a two-days' growth of beard and my moustache was fairly long and well down over the corners of my mouth. Moreover, I had had a fairly sleepless night.
In my pockets I carried three large sandwiches of German bread with English potted meat inside, about twenty slabs of Caley's marching chocolate, a box of Horlick's milk tablets, a spare pair of socks, some rag and vaseline, my pipe and tobacco, English and German cigarettes, my compass, money, and papers. I had an old German novel in my hands which I pretended to read with great assiduity. Half an hour before the train was due to start, I went to the booking office. I was surprised to hear my own voice. Fourth to Hamburg, please." I had no idea what it cost, so I tendered a 20-mark note. The ticket cost only seven marks I I went back to the waiting-room, and a few minutes later faced the barrier. No questions, no suspicion. I breathed again and wondered what that Commandant had done. Wired to Rostock perhaps.
My carriage was not over-full at the start-four or five women and two elderly men. I had no trouble with them. Their conversation began and maintained itself exclusively about food, but they were cheerful enough.
Before Rostock the carriage had filled up and I with British politeness was strap-hanging. An old woman began asking me to shift her Korb (basket). I could not exactly understand what she wanted and must have looked rather foolish. However, I did the right thing eventually.
We changed at Rostock. I was half-expecting trouble but nothing happened. A porter told me the platform for the Hamburg train. I got this stereotyped question fairly pat.
To Hamburg the train was overflowing; we were over forty in a tiny compartment I was wedged in against the window, strap-hanging. At one intermediate station a young soldier got in with a goose hanging out - of his haversack. He immediately became the centre of an admiring throng. He was a cheerful youth and bandied repartee with all and sundry-I could not catch his sallies, which were in low German and greeted with roars of laughter. I suppose he was the son of some farmer and had" wangled "this goose, which would probably have fetched 150 marks in the market, to take back to his messmates. He got out just before Hamburg. I could not have asked for a better foil.
Hamburg! I had never hoped for even so long a run as this. Was there really a chance? . . . In any case, I was now well clear of the Stralsund zone. I began to realise that the heavy week-end traffic was helping me and that I was indeed no more than a needle in a haystack. I ate a sandwich and an apple which I had bought at Lubeck.
We ran into the big station at about two-forty in the afternoon - it was very full. It did not take me long to find the "departure" notices, Kiel three-ten. I took my place in the "queue” for the fourth-class booking office. Behind me two women had an altercation as to priority of place in the "queue." I was rather afraid they were going to appeal to me. I had no wish for the r6le of Solomon at that moment.
I booked direct to Flensburg-about four marks' worth-and made my way downstairs to the departure platform, which was indicated clearly enough. I did not like the odd quarter of an hour which I had to wait before the train came in. I was not very happy about my dark-blue waterproof. I could not see anything approaching its counterpart. If one stands still, one can be examined at leisure; if one moves up and down, one runs the gauntlet of a hundred restless eyes, any one pair of which may at some previous date have had first-hand cognisance of a typical naval rubber-lined English waterproof.
Then I blundered. There was a coffee-stall on the platform. I went up to it and asked for a cup. I had drunk nothing since four o'clock in the morning. Fortunately neither of the Frauleins in the stall paid any attention to me. Just then I saw the notice "for soldiers and sailors only "printed up in big letters. I should have known that, but no one had noticed anything.
When would that train come in?
It came at last. I chose the carriage with fewest soldiers in it, and most women, and made for my strategical position by the window. But it was impossible to avoid men altogether. I had one strap- hanging next to me from Hamburg to Kiel. Everybody started chattering at once. How could I keep out of this all the way to Kiel without suspicion ? Of course, they were talking about food-various ways of dishing up potatoes.
I looked out of the window, pretending to be interested in the country. It was impossible even to pretend to read in that crush. A man on the seat was forcibly expressing his views to two Frauleins on the new (10th) War Loan. They giggled.
I often wonder if those Hamburg folk then had any notion that another fortnight would see the Red Flag floating in their midst.
At Neumunster we had an invasion. The carriage, full already, became packed. Four girls of the farmer class-sisters, I judged them-got in at my window. I lost my place of vantage and was relegated to the middle of the floor. I felt a pasty-faced youth quite close to me sizing me up. .
Fortunately the farmer girls riveted all attention for half a dozen stations. They were in boisterous spirits and screamed with laughter at their own jokes. They spoke dialect and I could not understand them, but I grinned feebly in unison. When they got out, I recovered my post by the window. Bless them, anyway, for a diversion.
At the next station an elderly man who was sitting on a basket immediately in front of me said something to me directly.
He was not in any way a formidable character, but he spoke villainous dialect and I could not make head or tail of his question. He was referring to something in the station. I said Ja and looked out of the window in a knowing way. But I could not risk a second question. I felt the pasty-faced youth's eyes on me again, and I made a bee-line for the lavatory. When I emerged I took up a fresh position.
The train was empty as we approached Kiel, and for a time I got my head out of the window and enjoyed the draught. Then a little girl standing by me asked me to pull up the window again. I had my second sandwich.
We ran into Kiel at about six o'clock. There was no difficulty. A guard, in answer to my question, pointed at the Flensburg train. The carriage I got into was not lit at all and almost empty. What a relief to sit! A girl came in to check my ticket, and I went to sleep. We went over the canal in the dark. There were two men in my carriage. I woke up at some wayside station and asked if it was Flensburg. They laughed and said Flensburg was two hours away yet. I muttered sleepily that I was a stranger, and pretended to drop off again.
I reached Flensburg about 10.30 p.m., and thought of the unforgettable scene in The Riddle of the Sands. I was no less depressed than Carruthers on that occasion. I was very thirsty, but it was a poky little station and there was nothing in the shape of a waiting-room or coffee-stall. I lingered on the platform and saw a porter who appeared to be closing down for the night. I asked him what time the train to Tondern went next day. He first said six o'clock, but then reflected that the next day was Sunday and there would not be a train till eleven. He added that the train went from the other station. So there were two stations in Flensburg! My sentry friend had not told me this. I asked him where the other station was and he directed me. My German at this juncture was so abominable that I think he must have been a Dane.
At the other station, which I found to be the main one, there was a fairly large crowd in the booking hall. They were waiting for the in-coming eleven o'clock train from the north. Entry to the platform and waiting- rooms was barred. The train came in, the crowd dissolved, and the station was shut up for the night. I had got to put in twelve dreary hours in this place.
I took risks that night in Flensburg, risks that might have been fatal farther south. I argued that here if anywhere one might expect to find a scrubby-faced man with a nautical cap and overcoat. I walked for about an hour past the quays, past the two main hotels, then up towards the church and down again to the quays. I could find no public drinking fountain, which was what I was looking for, but I had learned the rough geography of the place.
There was a low barrier leading on to one of the quays. The gate was locked but I climbed the barrier and sat down on a bench. Behind me was one of those pavilions such as are seen on an English pier-head; in front, a steamer moored alongside. Both were quite deserted. Here at least I could sit and find solitude.
I took off my boots and attended to one of my toes which I had rubbed playing hockey the day before what weeks ago it seemed I went through my pockets and-joy I-found my matches. I smoked a luxurious pipe. Then, still in my socks, I boarded the steamer and searched her for water without success. She was fitted up for passengers and for a moment I entertained the idea of stowing myself away on her.
Just as I had finished putting on my boots again a man-a nightwatchman I suppose he came on to the quay from the left. He must have been attracted by some movement. I confess I thought it was all up.
"What are you doing here?"
"Nothing."
"But you have no business to be here at all."
Silence implied assent. He beckoned me after him. He was not a Prussian, this man, whatever else he was. Perhaps he was afraid of me. He appeared to be taking me into some form of building on my right. I pretended to be coming along after him, when I swerved to the right, scrambled over the barrier and ran for 200 yards down the street. Fortunately there was no one about. I was not followed. I was thankful I had got my boots on in time.
I passed the first hotel and saw a woman with a man carrying her bag go in and ask for a room. She got one. I followed in after her and asked for a bed. The proprietor said he was full up and shut the door in my face. Could a two days' growth of beard make such a difference in a man? I was rather hurt.
But worse was to follow. I entered another hotel and saw some German sailors being given the keys of their bedrooms by a Fraulein. I asked her or some coffee. "No." "Water?" "No." "Nothing to drink?" "No, nothing."
I came to my senses and fled. . .
I went up towards the church, which stands on the top of a steep hill. There are some gardens sloping down the hill. I found an old sort of summer-house in one of these and went to sleep. It was about I a.m., and none too warm. 636 H. G. DURNFORD I was up at dawn and started again on my weary pilgrimage of the streets of Flensburg. How I hated that place! I half-thought of altering my plan and doing the rest of the journey on foot. It was about seventy kilometres to the frontier.
I passed three military policemen in half an hour and wondered resentfully what they were doing in such large quantities on a Sunday morning.
At about eight I got to the station, and ate my last sandwich. Assuming that the porter had been right the previous night, I had got to put in three hours more dreary waiting. There was no overhead notices, but I noticed a useful-looking collection of time-tables stuck up on big boards in a little alcove just out of the booking hall. If I could get behind the rearmost of these I could put in much of my time unobserved. People might come and people might go, but they would never dream that I had been there all the time.
I examined the time-tables. I could make nothing of the Sunday trains, but I found the name Ober-Jersthal. That had been the station given by our informant at Stralsund as the last station outside the Grenz-Gebiet. In the maps we had seen in the camp we had never been able to verify this place. Ober-Jersthal must be on the main line running up the east Schleswig coast. So far so good, but at what time would this train go? It could not be the same train as the Tondern train, for Tondern is west Schleswig.
I wandered on to the platform. The bookstall was open and I bought a paper and also a Pocket Railway Guide. The Guide had a good map. I saw from this that the Tondern and Ober-Jersthal lines branched off at Tingleff-possibly the two trains went in one as far as Tingleff. I had not long to wait for corroboration. At the cloak-room I heard a man ask the attendant what time the train went for a station which I knew to be north of Ober-Jersthal on the same line. The answer was eleven-three. There could be no doubt of it now. I booked for Ober-Jersthal.
I had still an hour to wait. It passed somehow. I went into the waiting-room and got my first drink for twenty-nine hours, a glass of beer; it was washy stuff but went down wonderfully well. There was a lot of Matrosen (sailors) in the waiting-room. Some of them stared at me and I began to have the Hamburg platform haunted sensation over again. I pretended to read my paper fiercely for half an hour and then went on to the platform. I began to regret that I had not had a shave that morning.
The train came in punctually. There was no incident till Tingleff, about twenty kilos northward. There I saw the passport officials waiting on the platform. I had almost forgotten about this part of the business. I took a sudden resolution and left the train. I reckoned that I had not more than forty miles to walk from this point, and by alighting here I might dodge the passport men altogether. But I was undeceived. An official was waiting at the entrance to the subway. He looked an easy-going fellow and was engaged in conversation with some one. He took my passport, glanced at it, and handed it back without a word. He did not even look to compare my face with the photograph. The great moment which Gilbert and I had rehearsed countless times had come and gone.
I hurried through the subway, and saw another passport official talking to the ticket collector. I handed in my Ober-Jersthal ticket. The man looked up in some surprise, but I was ready for him.
"I have shortened my journey."
Ach ! So.
He asked no more questions. If he had, I doubt if I could have answered them. I was conscious only of one great wish, to be rid of the railway for good. I struck due north out of the station and found myself in a cul-de-sac. I was so overjoyed to be quit of the rail that I plunged into the fields. I had not gone very far before I had reason to repent. There was water everywhere, and I made very heavy weather of it. My objective was Kilgumkloster, about twenty miles north-west from Tingleff, and I reckoned that it could not be very long before I struck the main road. After about two hours-it was now two o'clock in the afternoon - I found the road. There were very few people about, and those I met gave me good day civilly enough. If questioned at this point, I was going to have been a South German staying with relatives in Flensburg and out for a cross-country ramble-an improbable enough story
My hopes had risen and it all seemed reasonably plain sailing now. The people were not suspicious. I had my map with a few important names . . . my compass . . . I might even do it in the next night.
I wondered exactly where old Gilbert was at this moment. It never even occurred to me that he had been caught, but such, as afterwards transpired, must have been the case.
Passing through one village I met some French prisoners.
I gave them good-day and told them who I was. They invited me to come into their room in the farm where they were working. They were able to tell me what village I was in, Dollderup, and this was a great assistance. I thanked them in execrable French, gave them one of my remaining cigarettes, and told them what news I could-they had heard nothing for months. I don't think anything on the whole journey was more difficult than framing those few simple French sentences.
The signposts made the journey easy after that. At 3 p.m. I had eighteen kilometres to go to Lugumkloster. I turned off the road, lay down in some young fir trees, took off my boots, ate some chocolate, and had half an hour or more's sleep.
I started again towards dusk. I was feeling very fit now and full of hope. If only I didn't muck it on the frontier.
The signposts did their duty nobly. There was a keen wind from the north and the road was good. I had been out just two complete days.
In one village a soldier with a rifle came out of a house just as I passed it. He replied to my "Guten Abend" courteously.
I reached Lugumkloster, I suppose, about half-past nine or ten. It is a big rambling village, and I made a bad mistake here on leaving it. I meant to take the Arrip-Arnum road, which runs roughly north-east. I took a road running north-east, but after about an hour's walking I found it was leading me gradually more east than north-I had not noticed that the wind had shifted from north to east. I decided to leave the road and make due north on the compass, trusting to pick up the right road later on.
Then began a trying time. The ground was terribly wet and intersected with continual wired ditches. I tore my clothes rather badly here and I don't think my trousers at the end of my journey would have stood another rip. However, I kept due north, tacking as little as possible to avoid the ditches, and eventually reached the road. It was, I supposed, about 2 a.m. I estimated I was still quite ten miles from the frontier. There was a strong wind, and I had not enough matches to spare to look more than once or twice at my map. Added to this, the signposts, previously so well-behaved, became infuriating. They only mentioned names which I had never heard of, or at least had not committed to memory.
Slog! Slog! Slog! I was getting tired. A man passed me with a cart. What on earth did he think he was doing at that time of night?
There was lots of water about and I did not go thirsty. My cap made an effective cup.
A light railway running parallel to the road-this was the Klein Bahn (light railway) the fellow had told us of. Slog! Slog I SI What on earth was that? A sentry box on the roadside, and in the box a sentry yawning and stretching himself. On each side of the road a belt of barbed wire running east and west.
I took these things in vaguely, disconnectedly. Had I miscalculated and was I over the border after all? He hadn't even challenged.
A mile later I crawled into a little hollow by the roadside to rest and get warm. I was getting strangely light-headed. I remember addressing myself as a separate entity. I pulled myself together and sat down to think. "I must go back and have another look at that wire. It can only be a protective belt for military purposes."
I went back. The wire was there sure enough. So was the sentry box, but I didn't go up to it. The wire was like the rear defence lines one had seen in France.
I retraced my steps. I still had the idea of picking myself up from the hollow where I had left myself.
I continued my way, praying for the night to end. With the dawn, I felt I should be able to think clearly again.
"Arnum four kilometres." The signposts were German enough, anyway.
Arnum, I had made out from my map, lay about three or four kilometres away from the point of the salient where I meant to cross the border. It was nearly dawn and I saw that I could not get over that night.
It was getting light as I reached the village. I left the road and struck west across the fields, up on to some high ground.
Somewhere in front there was Denmark.
I chose a hiding-place in some young firs and heather. I was sheltered from the wind and was fairly comfortable.
One more whole day! What an age it seemed ! I got out my railway map and looked at my position. I could not be more than five or six kilometres from the frontier. Somewhere in the valley to the north-west stretched the line of sentries. I decided to sally forth while it was still light in the late afternoon, take my bearings, and go over at dark.
As I lay there I heard footsteps. A boy came by singing and passed within two yards of me. He didn't see me. Just as well perhaps. . .
I took off my boots, rubbed my feet down, and had some chocolate.
About noon it started raining and went on for about three hours. I got wet through, but welcomed the rain on the whole as it would get darker sooner.
I was now thinking quite connectedly, and, it being impossible to sleep, I went over in my mind again and again what I meant to do, and what I knew already about the frontier.
I suppose it was about five when I started out. I reckoned there would be about one more hour's daylight. I steered due north-west across fields and marsh land for about three kilometres. Suddenly, to my right - about 400 yards off-the sentries' boxes came full in view. There was no mistaking them, about 200 yards between most of them, and quite 300 yards between the two opposite me.
I plumped down in the heather where I was standing, and watched them. I saw a sentry leave his box and was about twenty yards up and down. I could see nothing that looked like wire. Only marsh and heather in between.
Looking from where I was into Denmark, there was a farmhouse immediately between the two sentry boxes. I could take my course on that-it would be silhouetted long after dark.
I waited till it was quite dark, and then started off, taking no risks crawling. I came to a ditch with wire on each side of it. This was the only wire I saw. When I judged I was well through the line, I got up and walked to the farmhouse. A tall figure answered my knock. I began in my best German .
He shook his head to indicate that he didn't understand. I could have kissed him.
At last we hammered it out.
"Engelsk Offizier. Fangen. Gut."
He beckoned me in with beaming face.
I had made good in just seventy-two hours. Beginners' luck I
The End
