Three Times and Out Part 6

This. suited our purpose, and it was hard for Bromley and me to keep our accustomed air of unconcern.

By a fortunate arrangement, we were occupying a room downstairs in the old boarding-house, which made our escape less difficult. The upstairs sleeping-place would hold only three more when the six of us arrived from Giessen the week previous, and that left three of us for a downstairs room. For this, Bromley and I, and a young Englishman called Bherral were chosen.

The walls of the house were of plaster, and the windows had a double barring of barbed wire, stapled in; but plaster does not make a very secure bedding for staples, and we figured it would not be hard to pry them out.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Two Pages from Private Simmons's Diary]

There was a light outside which burned all night at the corner of the house, and by it the windows were brightly illumined. This made our exit rather difficult. The doors were all locked, and there were about a dozen guards who slept in another room adjoining ours. Some of them slept, we knew, and we hoped they all did.

None of the prisoners at this place had ever attempted to escape, and so the guard had become less vigilant. I suppose they figured it out that if any of us were determined to go, we would make the start from the field where we were working, and where there were no guards at all.

But they made a fine bluff at being awake all night, for we heard them walking up and down in the early evening. However, we reasoned that they were not any keener on sitting up than any of the rest of us would be if we didn't have to; and it turned out that our faith in them was justified.

Although we did not have to work on Sunday, those who had to work in the mines had no seventh day of rest, and the night-s.h.i.+ft went out each night about ten-thirty when the day-s.h.i.+ft men came in. We had decided on eleven-thirty as the hour for our departure, giving the guard one hour in which to settle down after this disturbance.

We were lying on our mattresses, apparently wrapped in a heavy slumber, but in reality eagerly listening to every sound.... We heard the night-workers going out, and the day-men coming in and going heavily to rest.... A guard seemed restless for a while and tramped up and down the creaking floor... but at last the only sound to be heard was the deep breathing of tired men.

I heard Bromley gently reaching for his clothes, and I did not lose any time in getting into mine. Bherral and a little Frenchman, who were in our room, were wide awake and full of fear. They had tried to dissuade us.

But the guards, all unsuspecting, slept on.

They slept the sweet sleep of childhood while we pushed out the strands of barbed wire which protected the window; they slept while Bromley slipped cautiously to the ground, and while I handed him down the overcoats, boots, and parcels of food (which we had been saving for a month); they slept while I slid through the window and dropped to the ground, too.

Just then the wind caught the window, which was on a hinge, and slammed it noisily against the wall.

We grabbed our belongings, and ran!

CHAPTER VIII

OFF FOR SWITZERLAND!

We ran as if the whole German Army were in pursuit. Our feet did not seem to touch the ground. I believe if we could have held that pace we should have been in Switzerland in the morning!

Reaching a little hollow, we slackened our pace and listened. There was not a sound from behind. Either there was no more wind, or the boys had closed the window from within. We figured that they would do this, and open it before morning so they could claim they had not heard us go. Then we put on our boots.

The night was at its blackest, and a drizzling rain began to fall.

This was in our favor, for n.o.body was likely to be about on such a night. When we saw we were not pursued, we took time to arrange our packs. I carried my compa.s.s, which I had been able to secrete during numerous searchings, and my map, a pair of socks, pipe, tobacco, matches in a tin box, an empty beer-bottle, and several things to eat, saved from our parcels,--chocolate, tinned meat, biscuits, cheese, and bread. Bromley had a pack similar to mine, and when we got them ready and our overcoats on, we started off in a southeasterly direction, guided by the light from the place we had left. We walked as fast as we could in the darkness, which was heavy enough to hide in, but made progress very difficult, for we could not see each other or one step before us. We tripped over a railway track once, and if there had been any one near they might have heard us.

But in spite of the rain, which fell with steady insistence and began to weigh down our overcoats; in spite of the blackness which made the travelling unbelievably difficult; in spite of the fact that we were in a land of enemies, playing a desperate game against terrible odds, we were happier than either of us had been since being taken to Germany, for a weight had been rolled off our souls. We were on our way to freedom!

When we found it necessary to consult the compa.s.s, I took off my overcoat and lay flat on the ground with my compa.s.s and matches ready. Bromley put my coat over my head and shoulders, tucking it well in around me, so no light could s.h.i.+ne through. Then I struck a match, and in its light made the observation, always taking into consideration the fact that in that part of Europe the compa.s.s points sixteen or seventeen degrees west of due north.

We were careful to avoid the main roads and to seek out the seldom-travelled, ones, for we knew that our only chance was in not being seen at all, as we wore our own Canadian uniforms, which would brand us at once for what we were. Added to that, we could not form a single German sentence if we were challenged. Of course, I could say "that Herr Schmidt expected to have his young child baptized in the church next Sunday, G.o.d willing," but I felt that that was not altogether the proper reply to make to the command--"Halt! Wer da?"

The villages were very thick here, and our chief difficulty was to keep out of them. Once we ventured rather close to the road which ran near the railroad, and heard a number of people talking. They were travellers who had alighted from the train which had raced past us in the darkness a few minutes before. The station is often quite a distance from the village, and these were the pa.s.sengers walking back to their homes--the village which we had been avoiding.

We dropped to the ground, and the people went by, one old man singing. I knew he was old, for his voice was cracked and thin, but of great sweetness, and he sang an aria from a musical comedy which was popular then, called "The Joy of Life." I had heard a doctor in the lazaret singing it.

When the sound had grown fainter in the distance, we came out of our hiding-place and went on.

"It seems hard," said Bromley, "to be fighting with people who can sing like that. I can't work up any ill-will to that good old soul, going home singing--and I don't believe he has any ill-will to us.

I couldn't fight the Germans if they were all like this old chap and Sank!"

"You wouldn't need to," I said. "There would not have been any fighting."

And then we strained our ears to listen to the song, not a word of which we understood, though to us the music was full of good-will and joy.

"We've got to keep farther out," I said at last. "We are sure to run into some one and then it will be all up with us!"

We found, at last, after much stumbling over rough ground, a road quite gra.s.s-grown and apparently abandoned. We followed it for about a mile, making good progress, until we came to a stream over which there was a bridge. We hesitated a minute before going over, but the place was as silent as a cemetery, and seemed perfectly safe. So we cautiously went over, keeping a sharp outlook all the time. When we were over the bridge, we found ourselves in the one street of another village.

We stopped for a minute and listened. There was not a sound. We then went forward. Most of the streets of the villages are paved with cobblestones, but these were not, and our boots made no sound on the dirt road. Not even a dog barked, and just as we were at the farther end of it, the village clock rang the hour of three!

"That's all right for once," I said, "but it's risky; I don't think we'd better try it again. Some barking dog is sure to awake."

Soon after that the east grew red with morning, and we struck straight into the woods to find shelter. We soon found ourselves in high rushes growing out of swampy ground, and as we plunged along, we came to a high woven-wire fence, which we supposed marked the bounds of a game preserve.

We quickened our pace, although the going was bad, for the light was growing and we knew these German peasants are uncomfortably early in their habits. We came on a garden, carefully fenced with rails, and helped ourselves to a few carrots and turnips to save our supply of food, and, finding near there a fairly thick wood, decided to camp for the day.

That was Monday, October 4th, and was a miserable day with sudden bursts of suns.h.i.+ne that made our hearts light with the hope of getting both warm and dry; but the suns.h.i.+ne no sooner came than it was gone, and then a shower of rain would beat down on us.

However, we managed to make our feet comfortable with the extra pair of socks, and we ate some carrots, bread, and cheese. But it was so cold, we could not sleep.

We were glad when it grew dark enough for us to start out again. We found we were in a well-cultivated district; almost every acre was in garden, potatoes and sugar beets, whose stalks rustled and crackled as we went through them, and this made our going slower than it otherwise would have been. There were a few late apples on the trees, but they were poor, woody ones. I do not know whether they were a sample of the crop or just the culls that were not considered worth picking. But we were glad of them, and filled our pockets.

The streams which we came to gave us considerable trouble. We were not exactly dry, but then we could have been wetter, and so we hunted for bridges, thereby losing much time and taking grave chances of being caught. We were new in the matter of escaping, and had a lot to learn. Now we know we should have waded through without losing a minute.

That morning, just before stopping-time, in crossing a railway Bromley tripped over a signal wire, which rang like a burglar alarm and seemed to set a dozen bells ringing. We quickened our pace, and when the railway man came rus.h.i.+ng out of his house and looked wildly up and down the track, we were so far away he could not see us!

We kept well to the east, for we knew the location of Frankfort and that we must avoid it. Bromley had difficulty in keeping his direction, and I began to suspect that he thought I was lost, too. So I told him the direction the road ran, and then made an observation with the compa.s.s to convince him, but many a time in the long, black middle of the night, I thought I detected a disposition to doubt in his remarks.

When the North Star shone down on us, we could find our way without trouble, but when the night was clouded, as most of the nights were, it became a difficult matter.

The third night there was a faintly light patch in the sky, by which I guided my course and did not use my compa.s.s at all. Bromley had evidently not noticed this, and declared that no human being could keep his direction on as black a night as this. The faint light in the sky continued to hold, and I guided our course by it until we came to a road. Here Bromley insinuated that I had better use my compa.s.s (I was thinking the same thing, too). I a.s.sured him it was not necessary, for I knew the road was running east and west. It was, I knew, if the light patch in the sky had not s.h.i.+fted.

When we made the observation with the compa.s.s, we found it was so; and Bromley asked me, wonderingly, how I could do it. I told him it was a sort of sixth sense that some people had. After that he trusted me implicitly. This saved him a lot of anxiety, and also made it easier for me.

Soon after this we got into a miry part of the country, with the woods so thick and the going so bad that we knew we could not make any progress. It was a veritable dismal swamp, where travellers could be lost forever.

As we stumbled along in this swampy place, we came to a narrow-gauge railway, which we gladly followed until we saw we were coming to a city. This we afterwards knew to be the city of Hanau. Just in the gray dawn, we left the track and took refuge in a thick bush, where we spent the day. This was October 5th.

Our first work was to change our socks, spreading the ones we took off on a tree to dry. We then carefully rubbed our feet until they were dry, and put on the dry socks. We soon learned that we must leave our boots off for a while each day, to keep our feet in good condition. The pressure of the boots, especially with the dampness, made the feet tender and disposed to skin.

This day was a showery one, too, but the sun shone for about an hour in the morning, and when Bromley lay down to sleep, I decided to go out and see what sort of country we were in. I wanted to check up my map, too, for if it were correct, we should be near the Main River.

I made my way cautiously to the edge of the wood, marking the way by breaking the top of a twig here and there, to guide me safely back to Bromley. Ordinary travellers can call to each other, but the ways of escaping prisoners must all be ways of quietness, although their paths are not all paths of peace!