Winning a Cause Part 9

"We have gone to the station three times at four o'clock in the morning to help feed the English soldiers who were on their way home after being exchanged for German prisoners. We had the privilege of giving some of them the first white bread they had had in four years. The men who had been kept working behind the lines were in a pitiable condition. One such man happened to be at my table,--for they are taken off the train for two hours, given hot tea and roast beef and ham sandwiches,--and the poor fellow began taking sandwiches, eating a few bites, and stowing the rest feverishly away in his pocket. He couldn't realize that he was in a place where he would be fed."

All of the seventy Americans at Villingen wished themselves anywhere outside the prison camp, and most of all back on the firing line, helping to win.

So much did they wish this that a few more daring than the rest had twice attempted to escape together. Their attempts had ended in failure, but that had only led them to spend months in making still more elaborate plans to gain their freedom.

Not all could leave the camp, they knew. Many did not care to risk it, while thirty of the seventy Americans were doctors and thought they ought to stay and do what they could for their weak and sickly fellow prisoners. But in the final plan, sixteen men were to try this break for liberty.

One of the men was Lieutenant Harold Willis of Boston, an aviator in the famous Lafayette Escadrille. He had been captured after a battle in the air. Not even fourteen months in a German prison could kill the daring spirit of this young lieutenant. Instead, the cruel treatment of the prisoners, the daily contact with the stupid German guards, made him long once more to cut through the clouds and bring down another boche. Accordingly, he became a leader in carrying out the plans for escape.

Lieutenant Edward V. Isaacs, of Cresco, Iowa, an officer in the United States Navy, was another leader. He was crossing the Atlantic in the big American transport, President Lincoln, when it was torpedoed by the submarine U-90, on May 31, 1918. He went down with the s.h.i.+p, but came to the surface again and crawled up on a raft where he stayed until one of the lifeboats came by and the men took him off. But the boat had gone but a short distance, when the guilty submarine pushed its nose up through the surface of the water near by. Its commander ordered the lifeboat to draw near and the helpless oarsmen had to obey. When asked the whereabouts of the captain of the vessel, the men in the lifeboat answered that, as far as any of them knew, he had gone down with the s.h.i.+p.

Then the commander, probably noticing his uniform, singled out Lieutenant Isaacs, demanded that he come on board the submarine, and informed him that if he did not find the captain, he would take him instead to Germany.

Two days later, the U-boat carrying this American officer was sighted by two American destroyers. Immediately the destroyers made for the submarine and tried to sink it.

The U-boat quickly submerged and floated far below the surface while the destroyers circled about for several hours dropping many depth bombs, five of which exploded not three hundred yards from the submarine. So great was the shock of these explosions that, in telling of his experiences afterward, Isaacs said it seemed as if the ocean shook the boat much as a dog shakes a rat.

During this time not a word was spoken except by the watch officers, who were at their posts like the rest of the crew, and reported to the commander the directions in which the bombs were falling, thus enabling him to move the boat about in a safe course. The bombing continued until nightfall. Then the commander thought he was safe. But the next day, another American wars.h.i.+p appeared, and the U-90 made for its home port as fast as possible.

Lieutenant Isaacs, more fortunate than many U-boat prisoners, was treated well by the officers and crew. He messed with the officers and heard them most of the time discussing why the United States entered the war. They told Isaacs that the only possible reason was that the United States had loaned so much money to the Allies that she was obliged to enter the war to make sure of being repaid.

But Isaacs had no intention of remaining in the U-boat. As it entered neutral waters about four miles off the Danish coast, it began running along above the surface.

Isaacs secretly left his room, hurried to the deck, and was just about to dive over into the water, hoping to swim ash.o.r.e, when Captain Remy, the commander, caught hold of him. He had suspected Isaacs and had followed him from below. "Stupid fool," he exclaimed as he drew him away from the side of the boat and ordered him below.

On landing at Wilhelmshaven, Isaacs was questioned by German intelligence officers, and then sent to Karlsruhe where he was again examined with the hope that he would give out information which would be valuable to the Germans. Here with several other prisoners, he was held for three days in a "listening hotel" where dictographs had been strung about the room. The German officers hoped that, left without guards in the room, the prisoners would talk over military matters, not knowing that the dictographs were there to record all that was said and thus reveal all to the Germans. But the prisoners expected some trick, discovered the dictographs, and pulled out the wires so that they would not work.

Isaacs remained in Karlsruhe for some time, then was placed on a train with several officers and started for the prison camp at Villingen in Baden. At Karlsruhe he had been shamefully treated and he determined he should never arrive in Baden.

On the train he was put in the charge of two guards and so closely was he watched that he despaired of having any chance to escape. But within five miles of his destination, he noticed that one guard became drowsy, while the other had his attention on the pa.s.sing landscape.

Then it was, with the train running forty miles an hour, that he jumped to his feet and dived through the little car window. He landed on his head and knees on the opposite track. Although badly stunned, he struggled to his feet and began to run. By this time the train had been stopped and the guards were pursuing, firing as they came on.

Isaacs went some distance but could hardly run for he had badly injured his knees. A bullet whistled by his ear and he dropped and let the guard come up to him.

Mad with rage the German kicked him, and beat him with his gun until he broke it. The rest of the guards soon came up. Then they made Isaacs walk the five miles into Baden, beating him now and then on the way.

On reaching the camp he was first taken to the officers' quarters and threatened with death if he tried again to escape. After being plastered with paper bandages he was put into solitary confinement for three weeks. So poor was the prison food that had it not been for the nourishment furnished by the American Red Cross, Isaacs never would have recovered.

He had been threatened with death if he tried again to escape, but he began at once to make plans and would have gained his liberty much sooner than he did, had not the Russian prisoner attendants each time betrayed his plans before he could try them. And now he and Lieutenant Willis with fourteen other men decided to try again for freedom.

The prisoners were sometimes permitted to take walks with the guards about the country. In this way the men who were to escape were able to learn about the roads and the best hiding places. They managed to secure maps and compa.s.ses by bribing some of the Russian attendants.

But these would only be of help when once outside the camp, and how to get out was a serious question. Some believed that the best way was to get past the guards through the big gate. To climb over the two wire fences, so heavily charged with electricity, seemed entirely impossible.

But Isaacs discovered a way across that barbed wire.

He had seen two of the prisoners marking out the whitewashed lines on the tennis court where the German officers played each day. The lines were made by the use of two narrow wooden boards, eighteen feet long, fastened together by crosspieces, allowing a small s.p.a.ce of about two inches between. While the boards seemed very light, they were so fastened together that they were really quite strong. They could be made even stronger by nailing on more cross-pieces. Then they would form a sort of bridge over which the men could crawl from the barracks'

windows to the outer fence, where they could drop to the ground and run from the sentinels.

For months the men gathered their necessary materials together. Many of the prisoners, who were not to try to escape, were let into the secret and helped as much as they could. They drew the screws out of the doors and windows, and brought strips of wood from broken provision boxes with which to finish making the bridges.

Best of all they secured three pairs of wire cutters, one from a Russian prisoner, and a second from a Russian attendant. The third pair was made by one of the prisoners.

This secret collection was a constant source of danger, as the prisoners were searched nearly every day. It is said that one prisoner was given solitary confinement because a map was found sewn in the seat of his trousers. Therefore, much of the work, such as bringing the boards into the barracks and nailing the bridges together, was left until the last. A month before they were to escape, they were suspected and the guard was doubled. Still they worked on and hoped on.

Their plans were nearly completed when it was suddenly announced that the camp at Villingen would be used in the future as a prison for Americans only. All other nationalities would be transferred at once to some other camp. This, the prisoners knew, would mean first a thorough searching of every corner and crevice in camp. Thus it seemed necessary to break away at once before this careful inspection should be made, or they probably could not escape at all that winter.

For two days they worked steadily and carefully. Night was their best time to escape, but somehow the electric lighting system, as well as the electric current in the wire fences, must be shut off. To do this, it was necessary to find strips of wire for making short-circuiting chains. A few of these strips they cut from the fencing back of the tennis courts. Most of them, however, were taken from the steep prison roof where they were used to hold the slate tiles in place. Nearly all of these wires were drawn out, so that if a whirlwind had suddenly swept across the country, that roof would have been scattered in every direction.

All this had to be done very quietly. One or two would work at it while others attracted the attention of the Germans by creating some excitement in distant corners of the camp.

The night before the camp was to be inspected, the break was made. The sixteen men were divided into four groups of four each, one in each group acting as a leader.

The first group, with Lieutenant Isaacs leading, was to get over the two fences from the windows by crossing on the bridges. The second group, led by Lieutenant Willis, was to cut its way through the wire fences. The third had ready some ladders made of strong rope, by which they hoped to climb over the fences. The last group intended to rush out with the guards when they ran through the gates to catch those who were jumping from the bridges.

At 10:30 that night, a signal was given and everything followed like clockwork. One of the prisoners short-circuited the wires, shutting off the electric lighting system and the current in the wire fences.

There was no moon, and the camp was left in utter darkness.

At first the guards did not suspect anything, thinking the affair just an accident.

But immediately Isaacs began cutting away the bars at the window. When this was done, the prisoners helped him and his companions to throw over their bridges. The first man got out upon this flimsy bridge and when he was half way over, the inner end of the board was pushed out farther and farther until it touched the outer fence. Reaching the end, the man sprang to the ground, the inner part of the bridge was drawn back in by the prisoners at the window, and another man crawled out. This was continued until the four men had gone. It had been decided that the lightest man in the company would try getting over the bridge first, and Lieutenant Isaacs being the lightest led his group across.

When he dropped to the ground, he landed on his hands and knees not six feet from two German sentries, both of whom fired but did not even touch him. Without waiting for the others he ran into the woods to a spot two miles from camp which he and Lieutenant Willis had chosen for a meeting place, if they should get away safely.

Unprepared, as always if taken by surprise, the Germans when they realized the meaning of the disturbance rushed wildly about, one officer shooting frantically straight up into the air.

Willis had started cutting a way through the wires; but when his group was fired upon, they decided to change their plans and dash through the gate with the last group as best they could. Willis knew that in the darkness he might easily pa.s.s for one of the guards, so carefully had he disguised himself. He wore an old raincoat, decorated with German insignia and numerals, and a large belt-buckle, all cut out of a tin can. He carried a dummy wooden gun, bundles of food, maps, and a compa.s.s; and he wore a German cap.

He expected that the gates would be opened at once, but they remained locked while the patrol went into the guardhouse to report. But as they marched back again, the gates were thrown open and Willis and the other men dashed out.

They sped past the camp toward the dense forest. Willis darted off across the fields to a steep hill up which he ran, the guards firing continually at him.

As he reached the summit, he turned into the forest and hastened in the direction he had agreed upon with Isaacs. He soon met him, and together they started off toward the southwest, guided by the compa.s.s they had brought with them. They did not see any of the other men, with the exception of one whom Isaacs had heard puffing and grunting past him as they ran from camp. In the darkness he had not been able to recognize him.

That night they traveled about twenty-five miles. Hidden in the brush, they slept by day and traveled on again at night. It was a perilous trip through the forest, lasting eight days. Often they could only push their way backwards for long distances, through the terrible thickets. It rained and they were cold and wet. But on the eighth day they found themselves on the top of a dizzy precipice just above the Rhine. There they lay hidden until nightfall, although they were in constant danger of being discovered by German sentinels and townspeople who pa.s.sed near them. When darkness came, they crawled about for two hours, seeking to find a trail that would lead them down to the river.

If only they could cross the river, they were sure of safety. But wherever there was a possible way of reaching the river, there was a German sentry. Once Willis kneeled on a dry twig which snapped. In a trice a German sentinel flashed a bright pocket searchlight--but in the opposite direction.

The hearts of the two men sank in fear lest having nearly gained their freedom they should again be captured. Then they decided that they must creep down by one of the little tributaries flowing into the Rhine. So they stepped into the little stream and crawled down it, feeling for loose stones that might rattle and attract the attention of the sentry.

After several hours they reached the water's edge, about two o'clock in the morning.

The water was freezing cold, as the streams flowing into the river come from the mountains where snow and ice are found nearly the year around.

As they stood knee-deep in the water and looked across to the other sh.o.r.e, they doubted whether they could swim the long distance. Here the Rhine is about seven hundred feet wide. Moreover, there are many whirlpools in the river and the current itself is very swift. The men besides were tired and weak from lack of food. But they could not think of turning back, and there was no other way of getting across.

So they removed their shoes and outer garments.

Isaacs stood talking softly with Willis, when suddenly there was no answer to one of his questions. He moved toward the spot where Willis had been standing, but his feet went from under him and he was carried by the current out into the river. Then he knew that the same thing must have happened to Willis, and that he had not called to him for fear of being heard by the sentry.