13 Days Part 2

One typical example of the way in which we got some amus.e.m.e.nt out of our guards happened one morning when a German fatigue party was in the barracks loading up a wagon. One of the men had taken off his uniform cap and hung it up by the entrance to one of the buildings. Along came a certain English officer, interested in anything which might a.s.sist him to escape, saw the cap, s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and hid it inside his coat, while pa.s.sing into the building.

Ten minutes or so later, the work being finished, the German soldier looked round for his cap. Meanwhile, the story of the annexation of the cap had gone the round of the prison, so, when the wretched Boche pa.s.sed along the front of the building with his bald pate s.h.i.+ning in the sunlight, he had to run the gauntlet of a crowd of heads peering from all the windows and roaring with laughter at him.

For a long time, I, like the majority of Englishmen, was in a room half-English, half-French. We really got on very well together, but the usual rock upon which French and English split, cropped up in our case. We English wanted a fair proportion of the windows open; the French on the other hand wanted them shut, complaining of "les courants d'air mortels" (draughts).

A compromise was the only possible solution of this universal trouble.

On one occasion our allied friends received a consignment of live snails from France, which they proceeded to cook with garlic on a small spirit stove in our room. The smell was appalling. I had to bolt from the room, although I am not over particular. The odour of snails hung about for days afterwards.

These same friends of ours took up fret-sawing as a hobby. Have you ever tried to live in a room in which five or six fret-saws are working for hours at a time? They used to commence work before breakfast sometimes. However, we stuck it without complaining for months.

We had a most extraordinary prison companion, in the person of a Russian, who received the nick-name of "Cuckoo." This Russian was not really an officer at all, but during the great Russian retreat from Poland was a transport driver. Finding, or otherwise coming by, an officer's great-coat, he was dressed in it, when taken prisoner with many thousands of others. The Germans, who were not able to prove whether all officers were genuine, naturally concluded that he was one, and took him to an officers' internment camp in Germany. During his wanderings from camp to camp, he one day came to Crefeld. The Cuckoo grew his hair long, abnormally long, so that it fell in a matted ma.s.s, reaching to his shoulders. It was said that he had vowed never to cut his hair until the Germans had been kicked out of his village. He was called the Cuckoo, because when one day he had climbed a tree he was asked what he was doing by some officer, and replied that he was a cuckoo. This extraordinary person was not allowed to feed with the Russian officers, as they objected to having him with them. So he had to have his meals between the two services, which were normally within an hour of each other. The English officers belonging to the first service were always late in leaving the table, and so were frequently in the large dining-room when the Cuckoo was fed. It was a sight never to be forgotten. His manner of eating was truly marvellous.

On some occasions dried smoked fish were part of the meals, and the Cuckoo would pounce on these like a vulture and gnaw one, holding it by the head and tail with both hands. This was not his only stunt.

Another good one was the way in which he shovelled food down. His hands worked absolutely feverishly to supply his insatiable appet.i.te; great gulps of tea were rapidly interspersed, for lubricating purposes, I suppose. For all that, I can say that I saw him at the bath, which is more than can be said for all the prisoners in the camp.

A really plucky, but at the same time comic attempt to escape was made one Spring by a certain officer, who went by the soubriquet of "Peeping-Tom."

The refuse heaps and dust-bins were cleared out daily by an old German man and a boy, who removed the rubbish in a heavy two-wheeled cart drawn by an old ox. This rubbish-cart in these days used to leave the camp without being carefully searched and was emptied some distance from it. This fact was naturally well known to the prisoners, but the question, which most people took to be unanswerable, was how to remain hidden in the rubbish and yet be alive at the end of the unpleasant journey. It remained for "Peeping-Tom" to think of a gas-mask in connection with this scheme. Borrowing one from an officer, who had been lately brought in from the front, and had retained possession of this article of equipment, he dressed himself in it, and choosing a moment when the German boy was looking the other way, and the old man had departed on some other business, he rushed to the cart and got inside. A well-trained batch of English soldier-servants then arrived, each armed with a bucketful of rubbish which they threw over the top of him, successfully hiding him from view. All would now have been well, had not fate cruelly intervened, in the shape of an old German who worked the bath-house furnace, and who occasionally came out for a breath of fresh air.

Seeing this extraordinary looking object disappear into the cart, the old Boche fetched his cap and went off to the commandant's office to report the strange event. Remarking this, another officer who had been a.s.sisting the attempt, walked past the cart and warned "Peeping-Tom"

that he had been seen and must get out. Suddenly a horrible looking object rose from the middle of the cart sending a shower of empty tins and other rubbish in all directions. For a moment his peaky masked face peered round, and then leaping from the cart, he went like the wind for the room of a friend in the nearest building. The German boy nearly fell flat on his back from fright when he saw this apparition, and could do nothing to hinder its escape from the cart. The Germans arrived in force shortly afterwards, but their bird had flown. From that day onwards, the rubbish was pierced with spikes every time it pa.s.sed through the main gate, so that this scheme never had another chance.

During the earlier days of our captivity, impromptu sing-songs sometimes used to take place. On one particular occasion this led to trouble with our prison authorities. Empire-day was a day which could be made something of by the English, as a set-off to the numerous Saints-days and fetes of the French and Russians.

This particular Empire-day, which we had decided to celebrate as a "jour-de-fete," happened to be the day of the declaration of war between Italy and Austria.

The noise made by the Empire-day celebrators was quite appreciable, and sufficiently loud to reach the ears of the many town-people promenading up and down outside the camp. As these Germans had just heard that their so-called ally and friend, Italy, had declared war on Austria, thus upsetting German calculations, they were very angry and depressed. On hearing these sounds of cheerful voices and other manifestations of joy they naturally concluded that our Empire-day celebrations had been especially arranged in order to celebrate the entry of Italy into the war, which fact, combined with their feeling of depression and indignation at what they termed Italian treachery, made them wild with rage, and complaints were sent in to the commandant, who believed also that the noise had been due to a celebration in honour of Italy. It was only after most persistent declarations on the part of the British senior officers, that it was at last satisfactorily explained to the commandant.

On the whole we were exceedingly fortunate in our German officers at Crefeld. One of them, however, was a most ludicrous person. He was nick-named the Crab, on account of his gait. He wore cuffs, which always a.s.serted their independence from his s.h.i.+rt, when he raised his hand to the salute.

This Crab was a fool in his dealings with the prisoners, and various little incidents occurred between him and his charges. On one occasion the order against smoking on parade was re-read to the prisoners, and then the German officers kept their eyes open for smoke for a time after this.

The Crab one day saw an English officer smoking and took his name, with the result that the victim got three days cells. In the course of his campaign against smoking, he next came up against the French.

One of these was observed to be smoking and accused of it. However, he declared his absolute innocence and the Crab was non-plussed. On looking round he found that the whole crowd of Frenchmen were smoking, and roaring with laughter at him. This was too much for him to tackle and he gave it up.

Occasionally our allies received him with a chorus of coughs or suppressed cheers if he came on parade late.

A very fine attempt to escape was made by a naval officer, who used the Crab as his model. One evening, knowing that the Crab was busy in the camp and would not be pa.s.sing out of the Commandantur gate for a few minutes, the Naval officer, dressed _a la Crab_ to the last b.u.t.ton, presented himself at the first barrier and got easily through without causing any suspicion. At the next gate, however, the sentry, as a matter of form, asked him for his pa.s.s, but unfortunately, not being conversant with the language, he was unable to understand what was required of him, otherwise a word in answer and the production of anything at all resembling the pa.s.s might easily have sufficed to allay the man's suspicions. Instead of which the sentry had to repeat his question several times, each time becoming more suspicious of this strangely silent German officer.

It wasn't very long before they discovered the trick which was being played on them and arrest quickly followed. The commandant, it was said, was extremely amused over the whole affair, and made the naval officer show him how he had copied the Crab walk.

He then sent for the Crab, who came to his office to find his double staring at him. The commandant roared with laughter, but the Crab only vouchsafed "very clever" in English as his remarks on the subject, looking very fed-up the while.

All the German employees in the prison used to laugh at the Crab, so this little masquerade caused a good deal of amus.e.m.e.nt among them.

We were always hearing rumours from someone who claimed to be in the know, about the mobilisation of the Dutch army and a rapid attack on Germany.

This interested us very much of course, as we had visions of being released by Dutch cavalry. However--cheering as these rumours were at first--they became decidedly unpopular when nothing ever happened according to the programme of the rumour.

Sometimes we heard of misgivings in the town when our offensives were stretching the German armies to cracking point. The people didn't believe their official reports without applying a grain of salt to them first, on many occasions. The _Times_ was largely read in the town, and I have heard it actually said by a German that he read it so as to get news of the war,--the German papers containing nothing but stuff entirely favourable to the Fatherland.

There was an official report issued by the Great Headquarters every afternoon and this appeared in the _Extra Blatt_, a yellow sheet of paper specially printed. This _Extra Blatt_ used to be carried past the prison by an old Boche, who always shouted the same thing--"heavy losses of the English, French and Russians." At last, after hearing him daily for two years or more, the prisoners began to a.s.sert themselves, and he was received with cheers, which daily grew louder, until the commandant ordered that the old man should not come past any more and give opportunities for the prisoners to practise their sarcasm at the expense of the communiques of the Great Headquarters.

The reports about the Jutland battle sent the Germans into a great state of excitement. At first they were very happy, while we said very little to those Boches we met about the camp. A day or two later their joy was rather more a.s.sumed than real, until nearly a week afterwards, the sudden marvellous discovery by the German authorities that they had lost some more s.h.i.+ps, and the consequent admission of this unfortunate little fact, finally wiped out altogether the dreams of a German domination of the seas, which many deluded people seemed to consider a "fait accompli" after that battle. It was then our turn to smile and drop insinuations and hints that probably their authorities could tell them more if they liked.

Of course we were told what would happen to England when the submarine campaign began. The Unter-Offizier in charge of the parcel room informed us with great glee that the English would be unable to receive any more parcels. Although pooh-poohing his suggestions many prisoners had secret fears on the subject.

There was great excitement in Boche circles when the first batch of parcels bearing postmarks of a later date to that of the first day of the unlimited submarine campaign arrived in the camp. This did not look a all like a complete blockade of England!

After careful thought a satisfactory explanation was forthcoming from the "under officer." "Of course the English postal authorities must have faked the postmarks in order to cause these very misgivings to arise in the minds of true Germans"! Again he and his satellites were able to look on the bright side of things. But not for long did their joy last. The steady stream of incoming parcels continued and joy gave way to sulkiness and then disillusionment in the minds of those Germans who saw with their own eyes. Depend upon it these men told others what they had seen and so it spread. All the same they still imagined, in May, 1917, that we had far less food in England than was really the case.

Talking about food reminds me of the behaviour of the Crefeld children when we prisoners went out for walks on parole. Although undoubtedly brought up upon ideas of hate against England, and presumably thoroughly informed of the odious natures of all Englishmen, these children very soon forgot their lessons and rapidly became great friends with the prisoners--English, Russians, French, Belgians and Arabs alike. Of course to a certain extent their behaviour was due to their hopes of getting odd bits of chocolate or a biscuit or two from their enemy friends. It was not unusual to see the "Walk," generally consisting of about forty prisoners, returning with a crowd of kids of all kinds and description hanging on to its edges. Their usual practice was to get hold of a prisoner's hand and trot beside him, asking sometimes for chocolate and occasionally for old tennis b.a.l.l.s.

These children's disregard of the att.i.tude, which the war lord has decided must be displayed against the English, was not allowed to continue unchecked. I expect the children were the subject of a special army order, as they suddenly ceased to join us in our walks, and the usual crowd of urchins who stood for hours in the road outside the barracks in the hopes of having something thrown out to them, were chased from their points of vantage and silence once more reigned in the one time noisy road.

On special occasions the schools were given holidays by orders from headquarters. A victory or the occupation of a town was always commemorated in this way. On these occasions, the headmaster or mistress would march the school past our prison and order the kids to sing patriotic songs. We always laughed at them, and the girls would sometimes forget to sing and would wave their handkerchiefs to us instead, causing their bear-leaders to get wild with rage. Eventually when the Germans got tired of victories and wanted food instead, their holidays ceased and we no longer had to listen to shrill voices shrieking "Die Wacht am Rhein" or "Deutschland uber Alles," time after time _ad nauseam_.

It was extraordinary how the feelings of the German people changed towards us while at Crefeld. At first nothing was too bad to say or do to the captives of the Kultur nation, but it is marvellous what a good blood-letting and perpetual food shortage has done for them. So tame did they get that our windows, at first only open at the very top and all covered with white paint, were eventually made so that one could sit and look out quite easily. No fist shaking or gestures of hate were made by the time the windows were allowed open, so prisoners and Boche civilians simply stared at each other quite peaceably.

There was one thing that specially worried us in the camp. By some means or other all attempts to escape by digging tunnels were discovered. Although the foundations of the prison buildings were literally honey-combed with tunnels and attempts were made without number, never once did one succeed.

Most ingenious efforts were made, but despite the most rigid secrecy and the utmost caution, sooner or later in would come a search party and go straight to the scene of the excavation and often catch the diggers red-handed. It was believed that there were spies among the prisoners; at any rate everything that went on was known in the commandant's office sooner or later. The members of one party on being caught were actually complimented on their fine work by the Boches, who were full of joy naturally at having found the tunnel.

For many months before we left Crefeld the Germans used to search the ground floor rooms and cellars daily. Not infrequently they would pay two or three visits to the cellars in one night. Their searching included tapping the walls, ceilings and floors for hollow places.

Periodically a search for the earth excavated from these holes and hidden away, would lead to the Boches discovering many hundredweights of sand and rubble stowed away safely.

Searches were sometimes made in our rooms for articles of contraband.

Civilian clothes, and maps, compa.s.ses and various tools were the chief objects of interest to them. These searches on some occasions were extended to the persons of the prisoners, especially after an order forbidding the possession of real German money had been issued. Of course none of us liked being searched and we showed our searchers pretty clearly what we thought of the whole affair. I must say that the commandant did not order many searches and probably those that did occur were due to the orders of a superior.

These searches were usually carried out by the under-officers and men of a different unit from that which guarded the camp, in order to prevent those who were quite friendly to us among the prison guards letting us off too lightly.

During 1915 we were all inoculated and vaccinated against a number of diseases. In all we were each punctured seven times. Many prisoners objected to these measures and did their utmost to avoid being done.

The German authorities caught the majority and treated them to these unpleasant attentions however.

The inoculation was a comic sight. One after the other the prisoners filed past the doctors, who worked automatically at their p.r.i.c.king job. It often was a case of almost leather punching when the tough skins of some of the rougher types of prisoners had to be pierced. The needles were far from sharp, and I believe had to be constantly changed.

Small parties of prisoners were constantly leaving and arriving at the camp. This was done, so it was generally thought, to let the people see prisoners being taken about and make them imagine that the German armies were always taking new batches.

New arrivals from the front were sometimes brought in, and we would generally worry the lives out of them for their first few days, asking for news of all kinds. Hardly ever were they able to tell us anything we did not know from the newspapers, but it often happened that all sorts of wild rumours arose from the remarks of fellows who were simply badgered into saying things they did not really mean or had not thought over thoroughly.

Early in the Spring of 1917 the Germans brought a hundred odd mercantile marine officers and men from Karlsruhe to our camp at Crefeld, with what object n.o.body rightly knew. These men had been through a very bad time and were very pleased to get to a camp where there were English army officers. The majority of them had been captured by the _Moewe_, and some of them had been in her for weeks while she cruised about sinking other s.h.i.+ps. They had been half-starved and had very little clothing with them. In several cases the Germans had sunk their s.h.i.+ps so quickly that the wretched crews had had no time to put on any of their clothing and had had to take to the boats in whatever garments they were wearing at the moment.

When they arrived at Crefeld they were received by the military officers and had a breakfast given them at once. They were extraordinarily pleased to get some decent food, and we so arranged it that they never lacked English food with which to augment their camp rations while at Crefeld.

In connection with this, the Germans were very amusing. They expressed their astonishment that officers of our army should take so much interest in British mercantile marine common seamen as to provide them with food and actually wait on them at the first decent meal they had seen for months.

A collection of clothes of all descriptions was made, and most extraordinary sights were to be seen as the result of this. Stokers promenading in the uniforms of Guards officers, and s.h.i.+p's boys in huge "British Warms."