§ 1
As military regulations state that it is the duty of every prisoner of war to make immediate and strenuous effort to escape, and as every man is at heart an adventurer, it is not surprising that our languid community was from time to time regaled by the rumours of impending sorties.
No one has ever yet managed to escape from Mainz, and even if the war had lasted for another twenty years, I believe it would have retained its impregnability. For the citadel had been constructed so as to resist the old-fashioned frontal assault, in which infantry without the aid of a barrage endeavoured to demolish vertical walls. Round the buildings ran stone battlements{153} usually fifty feet high. At any point where it would be possible to jump down was stationed a sentry, and between these battlements and the buildings were two distinct chains of wire netting, that were continually patrolled. At an early date I decided that, in my personal case, the possible chances of escape in no way counteracted the enormous inconvenience to which an attempt would inevitably put me. And if I did get away, it would result in the probable loss of the greater part of my library, and of all my MSS. All things considered, it hardly seemed worth while.
But for other and more daring spirits personal inconvenience was a thing of trifling importance. They would talk of their duty, of their hatred of the Hun, of their desire to be in the thick of things again. But the chief allurement was the love of réclame: every man is at heart a novelist; and they would picture to themselves the days of “What did you do in the great war, Daddy?” and the proud answer, “I escaped{154} from Mainz,” and there was also the glory of standing in the centre of the stage. They liked to be talked about in undertones, to hear a whisper of “Don’t tell any one, but that fellow’s going to try and beat it to-morrow.” They hankered after excitement, and in consequence when their schemes began to ripen to maturity, they enveloped their actions in all the theatrical paraphernalia of Arsène Lupin. It was wonderful what they made themselves believe. Spies were lurking everywhere, and in consequence their every action had to be most carefully concealed. One officer, who thought he was being hoodwinked, disguised himself by shaving off his moustache, and wearing a cap all day to hide the thinness of his hair. Of course to those who really took the business seriously every credit is due. They spent hours preparing maps, and ropes, and many marks in bribing sentries. But to the majority an escape consisted chiefly in a bid not for liberty but for fame. For it was only with the most deep and carefully{155} laid plans that any one could have hoped to get away.
It is unnecessary to say that in the machinery of these enthusiasms our old friend Colonel Westcott played his heroic part. When he amalgamated into his Pitt League such existing organisations as the Future Career Society, he considered that he had taken under his wing all the imperial activities of the camp; and so one branch, and a very select branch, of his scheme included those desirous of freedom. It was quite a harmless affair, this little society, and in no way jeopardised the chances of escape. All that the Colonel wanted was to feel that he had a share in every sphere of the life of which he was the central embodiment. He liked to have these young fellows sitting round him discussing their plans; he liked to be able to drop here and there the necessary words of advice; it was an understood thing that no one was to attempt to escape without first submitting his ideas to the Colonel; and within a brief time this{156} amiable gentleman had led himself to believe that he was the fount from which all these alarums and excursions flowed.
The first attempt did not take place till we had been prisoners a little over four months, but its preliminaries began a good deal earlier. One of the accomplices was in the same room as myself, and for weeks he used to carry about with him an air of mystery. In a far corner of the room he would be observed tracing maps of the various roads to the frontier, and from time to time he would take me quietly aside.
“Don’t tell any one,” he said, “but I’m going to clear soon, and I’m getting the maps. I tell you, of course, because—oh, well, you’re in my room, and all that. But keep it dark.”
He spoke like that to nearly all of his acquaintances. It is all very well to talk of breaking laws just for the fun of the thing, but one does want the rest of the world to know what a devil of a fellow one is.{157}
I remember one Sunday afternoon, at school, how I cut the cord of the weight on the chapel organ, with the result that that evening the music suddenly stopped and the choir wrecked. It was a noble piece of work, which I surveyed with a justifiable pride. But I was not really satisfied till I had told the whole house about it; naturally, of course, swearing each individual to secrecy.
“Don’t tell a soul, of course, old man. I should get in a hell of a row if it was found out.”
Suave, mari magno.... When one is perfectly safe, it is delightful to imagine all the punishments that might have been visited on one, if the Fates had been less kind; we always hunger for sensation; from the security of a warm fire the imagination gloats over the ardours of warfare and the splendours and agonies of adventure. We like to feel that danger overhangs us; we shiver with apprehensive delight beneath the sword of Damocles. We like to be told that there will be a social upheaval within{158} our lifetime. Perhaps it will come in five years’ time. Perhaps to-morrow. At any rate, to-day we are secure. And it was in this spirit that the glamorous web was woven round that first escape.
The efforts that were made to avoid suspicion were superb. The conspirators felt that anything might give away their secret. Had not Sergeant Cuff found at one end of a chain of evidence a murderer and at the other a spot of ink on a green baize tablecloth? and so they left nothing to chance. A loose board beneath the stove served as an admirable hiding-place for maps and plans. And in consequence our room was used as a sort of general dump.
It was a great nuisance; they would do the mystery stunt so very thoroughly; and it was such a noisy business. To open their underground cupboard a few nails had to be abstracted, and a few wedges applied. The resultant noise would have woken not the least suspicion in even the most distrustful Teuton, and would have played a{159} very insignificant part amid all the accumulated turmoil of the day. But no risks must be run. And so while the cupboard was being prized open, an operation that would sometimes take over ten minutes, one of us had to be detailed to go outside and break up wood so as to disguise the noise. It was a deafening business, that occurred two or three times each week; and it did not seem as if the contents of this cupboard demanded such strict secrecy. I once asked what they kept there.
“Only a few papers,” was the answer, “a compass and provisions for the journey.”
That a compass, being contraband, should be carefully concealed, I could well understand. But the papers consisted of a field officer’s diary and a few maps abstracted from the backs of a German Grammar; while the bag of provisions contained only those delicacies that we received in parcels, of which chocolate formed the greater part. And a more unhealthy place to store it, it would be hard to find.{160}
“Look here,” I said one day, “what’s the idea of keeping that chocolate there?”
“To escape with, of course. Splendid stuff for giving staying power.”
“But why can’t the fellow keep it in his room?”
I was immediately fixed with that sort of look that seems to say, “Good Lord, do such fools really exist!”
“My good man,” he said, “how could he keep it there? It would give the whole show away at once. What would you think, if you were a German officer, and found a big store of chocolate in one of the cupboards? What would you think of it?”
There was only one answer to that.
“That the ass didn’t like it, I suppose.”
But my remonstrance was useless, and soon I began to regard these noises and secrecies as part of the inevitable machinery of prison life.{161}
§ 2
The first attempt savoured, it must be confessed, very strongly of the ludicrous. The protagonists were three colonels who had managed to provide themselves with German money and with suits of civilian clothes, made, so it was reported, out of dishcloths. They chose as their headquarters a room situated directly above the main gate. It was a drop of some forty feet to the ground, and a sentry box was stationed immediately underneath. The chances of getting away were in consequence very small, but there was, at any rate, no need for preliminary man?uvres among the meshes of wire netting. The gallant adventurers relied solely on the somnolence of the sentry. It was a cold, rainy night, and their experience of guards at dep?ts might well have led them to expect a certain lack of enterprise and enthusiasm on the part of their warder. Nor were they disappointed.
It began to rain heavily, and after a few{162} deprecatory glances at the heavens, the sentry sat down in his box, and with............