Three Times and Out Part 12

Then came roll-call!

None of us like the thought of getting out to work in this horrible climate, cold, dark, and rainy, and the roll-call brought out the fact that we had very few able-bodied men. He had a list of our names, and we were called in groups into an office. Bromley and I gave our occupations as "farmers," for we hoped to be sent out to work on a farm and thus have an opportunity of getting away.

Most of the Canadians were "trappers," though I imagine many of them must have gained their experience from mouse-traps. Many of the Englishmen were "boxers" and "acrobats." There were "musicians,"

"cornetists," and "trombone artists," "piano-tuners," "orchestra leaders," "ventriloquists," "keepers in asylums," "corsetiers,"

"private secretaries," "ma.s.seurs," "agents," "clerks," "judges of the Supreme Court," and a fine big fellow, a Canadian who looked as if he might have been able to dig a little, gave his occupation as a "lion-tamer."

The work which we were wanted to do was to turn over the sod on the peat bogs. It looked as if they were just trying to keep us busy, and every possible means was tried by us to avoid work.

The "lion-tamer" and three of his companions, fine, vigorous young chaps, stayed in bed for about a week, claiming to be sick. They got up for a while every afternoon--to rest. The doctor came three times a week to look us over, but in the intervening days another man, not a doctor, who was very good-natured, attended to us.

One day nine went on "sick parade"; that is, lined up before the medical examiner and were all exempted from work. The next day there were ninety of us numbered among the sick, and we had everything from galloping consumption to ingrowing toe-nails, and were prepared to give full particulars regarding the same. But they were not asked for, for armed guards came in suddenly and we were marched out to work at the point of the bayonet.

Steve Le Blanc, one of the party, who was a splendid actor, spent the morning painfully digging his own grave. He did it so well, and with such faltering movements and so many evidences of early decay, that he almost deceived our own fellows. He looked so drawn and pale that I was not sure but what he was really sick, until it was all over.

When he had the grave dug down to the distance of a couple of feet, the guard stopped him and made him fill it in again, which he did, and erected a wooden cross to his own memory, and delivered a touching funeral oration eulogizing the departed.

We all got in early that day, but most of us decided we would not try the "sick parade" again.

This was in the month of January, which is the rainy season, and there was every excuse for the boys' not wanting to work--besides the big reason for not wanting to help the Germans.

One night, when some of our fellows came in from work, cold, wet, and tired, and were about to attack their supper of black bread and soup, the mail came in, and one of the boys from Toronto got a letter from a young lady there who had been out on the Kingston Road to see an Internment Camp. He let me read the letter. She had gone out one beautiful July day, she said, and found the men having their evening meal under the beeches, and they did so enjoy their strawberries and ice-cream; and they had such lovely gardens, she said, and enough vegetables in them to provide for the winter. The conclusion of the letter is where the real sting came: "I am so glad, dear Bert, that you are safe in Germany out of the smoke and roar and dirt of the trenches. It has made me feel so satisfied about you, to see these prisoners. I was worrying a little about you before I saw them. But now I won't worry a bit. I am glad to see prisoners can be so happy.

I will just hope you are as well cared for as they are.... Daddy and Mother were simply wild about Germany when they were there two years before the war. They say the German ways are so quaint and the children have such pretty manners, and I am afraid you will be awfully hard to please when you come back, for Daddy and Mother were crazy about German cooking."

I handed the letter back, and Bert and I looked at each other. He rolled his eyes around the crowded room, where five hundred men were herded together. Two smoking stoves, burning their miserable peat, made all the heat there was. The double row of berths lined the walls. Outside, the rain and sleet fell dismally. Bert had a bowl of prison soup before him, and a hunk of bread, black and heavy. He was hungry, wet, tired, and dirty, but all he said was, "Lord! What _do_ they understand?"

Every day we devised new ways of avoiding going to work. "Nix arbide"

(no work) was our motto. The Russians, however, never joined us in any of our plans, neither did they take any part in the fun. They were poor, melancholy fellows, docile and broken in spirit, and the guards were much harsher with them than with us, which was very unjust, and we resented it.

We noticed, too, that among our own fellows those who would work were made to work, while the "lion-tamer" and his husky followers lay in bed unmolested. His latest excuse was that the doctor told him to lie in bed a month--for he had a floating kidney. Of course the doctor had not said anything of the kind, but he bluffed it out.

One morning when the guards were at their difficult task of making up a working party, they reported that they were twenty-five men short.

Every one had been at roll-call the night before, the guards were on duty, no one could have got away. Wild excitement reigned. n.o.body knew what had happened to them. After diligent searching they were found--rolled up in their mattresses.

They were all quickly hauled forth and sent out to work. The mattress trick had worked well until too many had done it, on this morning.

The morning was a troublesome time, and we all felt better when it had pa.s.sed; that is, if we had eluded or bluffed the guard. Bromley and I had a pretty successful way of getting very busy when the digging party was being made up. We would scrub the table or grab a gadbroom and begin to sweep, and then the guards, thinking this work had been given to us, would leave us alone!

As time went on, the Commandant became more and more worried. I think he realized that he had a tough bunch to handle. If he had understood English, he could have heard lots of interesting things about his Kaiser and his country--particularly in the songs. The "lion-tamer"

and his three followers generally led the singing, sitting up in their bunks and roaring out the words.

The singing usually broke out just after the guards had made an unsuccessful attempt to pull the bedclothes off some of the boys who had determined to stay in bed all day; and when the few docile ones had departed for the peat bog, the "shut-ins" grew joyful to the point of singing.

This was a hot favorite:

"O Germany, O Germany; Your fate is sealed upon the sea.

Come out, you swine, and face our fleet; We'll smash you into sausage-meat."

Another one had a distinctly Canadian flavor:

"Kaiser Bill, Kaiser Bill, you'd better be in h.e.l.l, be in h.e.l.l!

When Borden's beauties start to yell, start to yell, We'll hang you high on Potsdam's palace wall-- You're a d.a.m.ned poor Kaiser after all."

They had another song telling how they hated to work for the Germans, the refrain of which was "Nix arbide" (I won't work).

The Commandant came in one day to inspect the huts. The "bed-ridden"

ones were present in large numbers, sitting up enjoying life very well for "invalids." The Commandant was in a terrible humor, and cried out "Schweinstall"--which is to say "pig-pen"--at the sight of the mattresses. He didn't like anything, and raged at the way the fellows had left their beds. It might have seemed more reasonable, if he had raged at the way some of them had not left their beds! The men he was calling down were the gentle ones, those who were out working.

But to the "lion-tamer" and his followers, who were lazily lying in their beds, laughing at him, he said never a word.

We knew enough about Germany and German methods to know this sort of a camp could not last. Something was going to happen; either we should all be moved, or there would be a new Commandant and a new set of guards sent down. This Commandant had only handled Russians, I think, and we were a new sort of Kriegsgefangenen (prisoners of war).

Bromley and I wanted to make our get-away before there was a change, but we had no compa.s.s--my card had not been answered.

There was a man named Edwards, who was captured May 8th, a Princess Pat, who once at Giessen showed me his compa.s.s and suggested that we go together next time. He was at Vehnemoor, too, and Bromley and I, in talking it over, decided to ask Edwards and his friend to join us.

Then the four of us got together and held many conferences. Edwards had a watch and a compa.s.s; I had maps, and Edwards bought another one. We talked over many plans, and to Edwards belongs the honor of suggesting the plan which we did try.

The difficulties in the way of escaping were many. The camp-ground was about three hundred feet long and seventy-five feet wide, surrounded by a barbed-wire fence about ten feet high. The fence had been built by putting strong, high posts in the ground and stretching the wire on with a wire-stretcher, so that it could not be sprung either up or down. The bottom wires were very close together. Inside of this was an ordinary barbed-wire fence with four or five strands, through which we were forbidden to go.

Outside the camp at the northwest corner was the hut where the guards lived when not on duty, and beside this hut was the kennel where the watch-dog was kept. He was a big dog, with a head like a husky! The camp was lighted by great arc-lights about sixty feet apart. German soldiers were stationed outside and all around the camp, and were always on the alert.

We planned to go on Friday night, but an unforeseen event made that impossible. A very dull German soldier had taken out about a dozen Frenchmen to work on the moor. Two of them had slipped away some time during the afternoon, and he did not notice he was short until he got in. Then great excitement prevailed, and German soldiers were sent out in pursuit. We watched them going out, dozens of them, and decided this was a poor time to go abroad. The moon was nearly full and the clouds which had filled the sky all day, were beginning to break, all of which was against us.

On Sat.u.r.day, just as we feared, an extra guard of about twenty-five men was sent in from Oldenburg, and as the guard changed every two hours, and this was about 5.30 o'clock in the evening when they came, we reasoned that the double guard would go on at seven. After the guard had been doubled, there would be but little chance for us.

It was now or never!

CHAPTER XIV

OFF FOR HOLLAND!

The eastern fence was the one we had marked as our point of departure, and, Sat.u.r.day being wash-day, there was nothing suspicious in the fact that we had hung our clothes there to dry. They had to be hung somewhere.

The boys were expecting parcels that night, for a ca.n.a.l-boat had come up from Oldenburg, and every one was out in the yard. Several of the boys were in our confidence, and we had asked them to stroll up and down leisurely between the hut and the east fence.

Just at the last minute the fourth man, Edwards's friend, came to me and said:--

"Sim, we will never make it. The guards will see us, and they'll shoot us--you know they'll just be glad to pot us to scare the others. It is madness to think we can get away from here with these lights s.h.i.+ning."

I told him I thought we had a chance, but did not try to persuade him. Of course, we all knew we were taking a grave risk, but then, why shouldn't we? It was the only way out.

"Don't go, Sim," he said earnestly.

I told him we were going, but if he felt as he said, it would be better for him not to come, and already I could see that Edwards, who was in the group of strollers, had dropped on his stomach and was filing the lower wire of the inner fence, and when the wire broke he crawled through to the other fence.

I joined the party of strollers then, and walking toward the fence, could see what Edwards was doing.