CHAPTER XXII
SENSATIONAL ESCAPES
In prison life one question looms up every day before many of the prisoners. It is that of possible escape. During the three years I spent in the Stadtvogtei several escapes took place. It would take too long to relate here a story in detail of all the escapes which occurred. I would like, however, to mention the case of two prisoners who evaded the guards on three occasions; twice getting through the lines of the camp of Ruhleben, and once escaping from the prison where I was confined. The two men were: Wallace Ellison and Eric Keith. They were Englishmen, and at the outbreak of hostilities they lived in Germany. Mr. Ellison was employed with the United Shoe Machinery Company, at Frankfort, and Mr. Keith was engaged with a firm the name of which I do not remember. He was born in Germany of English parents.
The first escape of both prisoners took place from Ruhleben camp at about the same time, but each in his turn had the misfortune to fall into the hands of Prussian Guards near the frontier of Holland. They were taken back to the jail at Berlin, where they were kept for several months in close confinement. Mr. Ellison was guarded solitary and alone for four months and a half. He was allowed no other food than the one daily serving of black bread and the two servings of the traditional soups.
Notwithstanding repeated applications to the German authorities for transfer to Ruhleben, they were forcibly detained in prison, because they refused to promise not to attempt further evasion. Numberless complaints were addressed by these prisoners to the Kommandantur and to the American Embassy in Berlin. All their efforts were unavailing. This happened in 1915 and 1916.
In December, 1916, what may be termed a wholesale escape took place. It was cleverly prepared a long time ahead. The prisoners somehow obtained the services of an expert locksmith, himself a prisoner. He made a key with which they were to open the prison gate facing on Dirksen street. Arrangements had been made with minute care. Provisions were obtained and forwarded outside to places known only to the prisoners concerned. All was ready and the day named for escape. Eleven prisoners of British nationality were walking in groups of two and three in the jail yard between five and six o’clock in the afternoon, in accordance with the daily custom. The doorkeeper occupied a room near the outer gate. He was at this time talking to a non-commissioned officer. The conversation was of a nature to absorb his whole attention. Thanks to this fortuitous circumstance, the rescuing key was introduced, unseen by the guards, into the lock by one of the eleven prisoners. A moment after the gate opened and eleven British prisoners disappeared from the jail and dispersed in the streets of Berlin. Ellison and Keith were amongst them.
There was a real sensation in the jail when the yard gate was found opened, fifteen minutes later. All the remaining prisoners were at once locked in their cells. It was the only means by which the authorities could ascertain exactly how many had succeeded in regaining their freedom.
The officer who had gone off duty at about four o’clock in the afternoon was apprised by telephone of what had taken place. Shortly afterwards he arrived in a state of great excitement. His first act was to throw the doorkeeper into a dungeon. By this time it had been learned that eleven British prisoners had disappeared. The detective office was notified, and telegrams were despatched to all the border towns in Germany, notifying the authorities to be on the look-out for the missing men. The whole force of detectives and the frontier guards were put on their mettle.
Of the eleven escaped prisoners, ten–to our great regret–were recaptured. Only one, a Mr. Gibson, got clean away. As to Ellison and Keith, they were caught after ten days and ten nights of exciting, exhausting experiences. The weather was very cold at that time, and one may imagine what sufferings these two prisoners underwent while attempting to wend their way to the frontier. The ten captured prisoners were brought back to the jail one after the other. The regulations henceforward became much more stringent and it was out of all question for them to make any further application for transfer to Ruhleben.
However, towards August, 1917, under an agreement made between Germany and Great Britain, their hardships were somewhat lessened. One of the clauses of this agreement stipulated that all prisoners who had attempted to escape, and as a consequence were actually confined in prison, should be immediately returned to the respective internment camps. The German newspapers were received at the jail every day, and no sooner had the report giving the clauses of this agreement been read than most of the prisoners concerned professed that they could foresee the dawn of their liberty. Ellison and Keith were particularly hopeful and they informed me that once at Ruhleben no long time would elapse before they would attempt to effect an escape into Holland.
Indeed, as early as September, they escaped from the Ruhleben camp, both on the same day, but acting separately. They rejoined in Berlin, and this time their attempt was successful. Together they succeeded in reaching Holland. A postal card addressed to me from that country by Mr. Ellison informed me of what had happened, without, of course, giving any details.
Amongst the prisoners who had sojourned for several months with these prisoners there was general rejoicing at their success. Last July I had the great pleasure of meeting Ellison and Keith in London. In the course of a never-to-be-forgotten evening we spent together, they related the events following their third escape. They told of their flight from Berlin to Bremen, from Bremen to the River Ems, then through the marshes a few miles from the German-Holland frontier, and, finally, their calling, at three o’clock in the morning, upon a Dutch farmer, where they learned that they were well out of Germany. It was a delight to hear these two men describe the rejoicing that was manifested in the home of that farmer, at their good fortune. The farmer’s wife, a worthy Dutch woman about sixty years of age, got up from her bed to welcome these two Englishmen. She prepared a hearty meal, after which the farmer, his wife, and my two friends danced together round the room in a delirium of joy. Mr. Ellison has since joined the English army and Mr. Keith the American army.
Another sensational escape was that of a Frenchman named B – . This man, a soldier in the French army, formed part of a platoon which, at the beginning of the war, was surrounded in a small wood in Belgium, in the neighborhood of the French frontier. In order to avoid falling into the hands of the Germans, he and some of his friends took refuge with a Belgian peasant. They discarded their uniforms and donned civilian clothes.
B – tried to flee to Holland by the north. He was caught and taken to the concentration camp for the French in Germany. After a few months’ time he again succeeded in getting away. He was dressed in a German uniform and even wore on his breast the ribbon of the Iron Cross. He was caught and thrown into a cell, at the Berlin jail. Here he was kept in solitary confinement, but finally was allowed to walk in the corridors just as we were allowed. Then he conceived the daring project of escaping through the roof, from his cell on the fifth floor of the building.
The windows of these cells, on the fifth floor, were underneath the roof which slightly overhangs, but which leaves no hold for the hand. The plan of this Frenchman was to saw through and remove an iron bar, get through the opening and climb on to the roof. This operation, which I was to witness, was duly executed. It necessitated, I must admit, a real acrobatic feat.
At eleven o’clock at night–so the prisoner informed me in advance–he would begin his attempt to escape. About that hour I stood on a chair so that my head was on a level with my window. In this way I could observe the Frenchman’s movements. We were on the same floor.
He managed to saw off the iron bar at its socket, and thus with a widened aperture he succeeded in passing through. He had protected himself with a towel tied to other bars in order to guard against a fall, which would inevitably have been fatal, since his window was sixty feet above the level of the paved yard.
My friend found a fulcrum on a small plank which he succeeded in placing at the top of his window, between the brick wall and the horizontal bars which hold the vertical bars. This plank projected about one foot beyond the outer wall. The working out of this scheme was exceedingly daring and dangerous, and almost incredible, and it was not long before the man, supporting himself with one hand on the little plank, reached, with the other, the water spout fixed on the roof, a short distance from the edge. The next instant he disappeared in the darkness. But having reached the roof, he was not yet “out of the wood,” for the outside of the prison formed a wall seventy-five feet high. My friend, however, had made a rope about sixty feet in length. He adjusted one end to the lightning-conductor and let the other end fall down the side of the wall. He slid down this rope to within about fifteen feet of the ground, and from that distance dropped on his feet.
We never saw him again, nor heard what became of him. But everyone of us, the officials included, were agreed that this escape was one of the most daring and extraordinary that had ever taken place.
CHAPTER XXIII
HOPE DEFERRED
It was in the month of May, 1916. I had then been a prisoner at the Stadtvogtei for one year. Repeated requests made by myself, through the American Embassy, and made on my behalf by the Canadian and British Governments to secure my freedom, had been of no avail. Sometimes my requests were not even acknowledged. I began to fear I might remain a prisoner until the end of the war.
One evening, about seven o’clock, after all prisoners had been locked up for the night, a non-commissioned officer employed in the office of the jail opened my cell and stated that he had good news for me.
“What news?” I asked.
“You are to be liberated,” he answered.
“When?”
“The day after to-morrow–Saturday. This news was telephoned a moment ago from the Kommandantur, and I have been instructed to inform you of the fact.”
I could not resist shaking the non-commissioned officer’s hand to thank him for the good news he brought to me. My door was hardly closed before I was standing on my chair at the window calling to my companions in captivity–that is to say, the men with whom I was in daily contact. I shouted to them the good news. They called back their congratulations and were sincerely happy at my good fortune.
The following day we appointed a real feast day when all the British prisoners should take part in celebrating the promise of my liberation. We decided to hold a reunion in my cell. We even resolved to organize a dinner! Remember, this was in 1916, when everybody in Berlin was subjected to food rationing. Our only diet was the prison menu. This meant that we had a real problem on our hands if we were to prepare an acceptable meal.
Invitations had been sent to all the British prisoners requesting the pleasure of their company to lunch that same day, “in Parlor No. 669, in the International Hotel of the Stadtvogtei, to meet Mr. Beland and celebrate his approaching departure for England.”
The invitation cards bore the following instructions: “Each guest is requested to bring his plate, knife, fork, tea-cup, glass, and his own bread. Salt will be supplied on the premises.”
My table was placed in the centre of the cell. We had covered it with paper napkins, and had succeeded in obtaining some canned meat. At that time this was a marvelous accomplishment, believe me.
The dinner was a very joyful one. Toasts were proposed and congratulatory speeches were made. The following afternoon I was granted leave to go to the city. For the first time, after twelve months’ incarceration, I was allowed to walk the streets! It was late in May. The vegetation was luxuriant and for the first time in a year I enjoyed the liberty of walking among the verdant foliage and flowerbeds of the square adjoining the prison. Never before had nature appeared so wonderfully beautiful. I was tempted to smile even at the Germans who walked about the streets.
Two hours later I returned to the jail, and learned that my departure, which had been fixed for the next day, would be delayed owing to the fact–so I was told–that a certain document had not yet been signed by the high command. It was represented to me that the signing of this document was a mere formality, and my release was a thing decided and assured. I was to be allowed to leave on the following Wednesday.
On the Tuesday, I was ready to start. My baggage was packed. Then I was advised once more that the missing document had not yet arrived; that I must wait a few days longer. Of course, I was very much distressed at this repeated delay, but I tried to be patient through the ensuing two weeks, which appeared centuries to me.
One day I was called into the office of the jail. Major Schachian had come to explain that the Kommandantur in Berlin had really decided to give me my liberty, to allow me to go back to my family in Belgium, and particularly to be near my wife, who had been ailing for six months–but a superior authority had now over-ridden this decision.
One can conceive my disappointment. I remarked to that officer that being a physician I was being detained contrary to international laws; that, moreover, I had on several previous occasions received assurances from the military authorities in Antwerp that I should not be molested; that I had practised my profession, not only in a hospital, before the fall of Antwerp, but since that date among the civil population of Capellen. The officer did not attempt to deny all this, but he said: “You practised medicine for charity; you did not practise it regularly.”
Was it conceivable that a man of his position and intelligence could make such a remark? I was astounded, and dared to reply: “I always understood the liberty of physicians in time of war was guaranteed by international conferences, because physicians are in a position to relieve the physical sufferings of humanity, and not because they may be allowed to make money.”
The officer saw he had made a bad break, as the popular expression has it. He attempted to effect a retreat in the best order he could. He was really embarrassed, and left me, while I returned to my cell, my heart bowed down by deception and disappointment.
A full year elapsed before any substantial change was made in my life of captivity.
CHAPTER XXIV
A COLLOQUY
I had been in prison then for two years, seeing nothing outside but the sky and a wall pierced by some fifty iron-barred windows. For two short hours, one year before, as stated in the previous chapter, I had been granted the privilege to walk on the streets, to breathe the free atmosphere of the city. My general health was bad. I could neither read nor sleep. Mentally I was seriously depressed. I had abandoned all hope of regaining my liberty before the end of hostilities.
But one day the old jail physician, a very kind man, Dr. Becker, visited me in my cell. We had previously talked together on medical matters. He knew, of course, that I was habitually called to attend the sick during the twenty-three hours he was absent every day from the prison. He had placed at my disposal his little dispensary. Indeed, from the medical point of view, one can truthfully say that between the prison doctor and myself diplomatic relations were never severed.
The object of his visit to me now was to inquire about my health. He had noticed that my general appearance left much to be desired.
“Well, how are you?” he asked on entering my cell.
“Bad,” I replied.
“I am truly sorry,” the doctor remarked. “I have observed lately that you appeared to be far from well.”
“The fact is,” I told him, “I cannot sleep nor eat. I am very nervous, and I feel weak and depressed.”
The old German practitioner eyed me critically through his spectacles, and it seemed to me that through his glasses I could see reflected a feeling of genuine sympathy.
“But,” he urged, “you are a physician. You know, perhaps, just what it is that is particularly ailing you.”
“Nothing more than the effects of continuous, close confinement,” I answered. “You know, I have been deprived of fresh air and exercise for the past two years.”
“But, surely,” he exclaimed, “you go out when you feel so disposed!”
“What do you mean?” I asked him. “Do you profess to believe that I have the privilege of going out of the prison for exercise, according to my free will?”
“I do,” the doctor replied.
“Well,” I rejoined, “all I have to say is that I cannot understand how you, the doctor of this prison, have never learned that during the two years I have been here I–like every other prisoner–never am permitted to go on the street. I may say that during this period the only occasion on which I was allowed to go outside was just one year ago. I was then granted special leave to visit the stores to buy a few things necessary to my departure for Belgium. I had been promised liberty, and the promise was not fulfilled. With the exception of this outing of two hours, I have been confined within the walls of this prison continuously for the past two years. You know how vitiated the atmosphere of these corridors becomes, since hundreds of prisoners must traverse them every morning as they are engaged in the work of cleaning their cells after thirteen hours’ seclusion therein. You know the yard in which we are permitted to spend a few hours each afternoon. You know as well as I do that when one has walked seventy paces he has traversed the whole limit of the three sides of the triangle. This yard is bounded by walls seventy-five feet high; thirty-five toilet cabinets, as well as the cell windows and the kitchens, open on to it, and I believe its atmosphere is even worse than that I breathe in my cell.”
“Well,” said the doctor after listening to me with an air of pained attention, “I am surprised. Why don’t you make application to the authorities asking to be allowed to go into the city, for a daily walk? I will support your demand.”
I thought the opportunity favorable to tell the doctor what I thought of the arbitrary conduct the authorities had shown towards me.
“Well, you will excuse me,” I said, “if I say that I cannot act upon your kind suggestion. It has become impossible for me to ask any favor from the German Government.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because each and every fair, reasonable and just request which I have hitherto made has been either ignored or refused. God only knows how many requests and petitions I have addressed to the German authorities during the last two years.”
“What did you ask for in particular?” he inquired.
“First,” I said, “I protested against my internment, pointing out that in my quality of physician it was contrary to international laws to keep me in captivity. In reply, I was told there was no documentary proof that I was a doctor. This was at the beginning of my captivity. Through the American Embassy I obtained from the Canadian College of Physicians and Surgeons, and from the university from which I was graduated, the documents which established that I was a licensed and practising physician. I was informed in the month of October, 1914, that these documents had been remitted to the competent authorities here, in Berlin. I then renewed my demand for liberty. I repeated over and over again my requests, but without any other results than that of seeing, after two or three months’ anxiety and trouble, an officer of the Kommandantur who came and took my deposition to prove why I came to Belgium in the first place and what I had done in that country since my arrival. All these things the authorities had known for a long time. I had to sign an insignificant transcript of the proceedings made by the officer, who left me with an ill-concealed air of mockery at my misfortunes.
“My wife,” I went on, “was taken ill. For many months her illness advanced. The news received each week from my children and the doctor indicated clearly that recovery was hopeless. I begged to be allowed to visit my wife. I received no answer to my request. During the last two weeks of her illness I was notified by telegram that the case was urgent and I was urged to hasten to my wife’s bedside. I besieged the Kommandantur with daily petitions for leave of absence, but no answer was vouchsafed. I offered to pay the expenses of two soldiers to accompany me from Berlin to Antwerp, and to return the next day. This request was curtly refused. My correspondence was held up for about twelve days and during that critical time I was without news of my family, and after these twelve days of unspeakable anguish an officer informed me that my wife was dead. I implored him to go immediately to the Kommandantur and ask permission to accompany me to Antwerp and Capellen that I might be present at the funeral. His reply was ‘Madam was buried two days ago!’
“You will understand, doctor, that after being treated in such an inhuman manner, it is quite impossible, while I maintain my self-respect, to ask for any favor from the German Government. I was refused justice when I entreated for what was just. I have nothing to demand now.”
My statement perceptibly saddened and embarrassed the old doctor. Apparently I had opened his eyes to a phase of German mentality which he had not hitherto realized. He hesitated for a few seconds and then promised that he would at once take steps to alleviate my suffering and relieve some of the pressure of the hard prison regime.
He fulfilled his promise. Two days afterward instructions were received which bore this out. At the same time it should be remembered that the German authorities were mindful of the possibility of reprisals from Great Britain after the fact had become known in London that my health was seriously threatened by my internment. The new instructions now issued to the jail authorities stipulated that I was to be permitted to go out of the jail on two afternoons of each week, under the escort of a non-commissioned officer. I was to be allowed to walk in a certain park, but must not communicate with anybody during my promenades. Moreover, the officer and his prisoner were to make the short journey to the park and return by railway. I, of course, at once availed myself of this privilege to go out and breathe the fresh air twice a week, and this contributed to a very appreciable extent to re-establish my health, physically and mentally.