Escape

by Paul Dowswell

  He reached the ferry within ten minutes, and clung to the anchor cable as he got his breath back. Then, summoning his last reserves of strength he pulled himself up onto the ship. His luck held. No one spotted him coming aboard so he found himself a lifeboat and hid under the canvas cover. It was a warm night and when the water had dried from his skin he drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  “PEEEEEEEPPPHHH!!!”

  Plüschow woke with a start. Was that a police whistle? Had they caught him? Then it came again.

  “PEEEEEEEPPPHHH!!!”

  No, he realized, it was the ship’s horn. He peered out of his canvas cover to see that the Mecklenburg was about to dock in the port of Rotterdam in Holland. He’d done it!

  Feeling all too pleased with himself, Plüschow pulled out his knife, sliced open the canvas above his head, and slowly stood up, revealing himself to all. Much to his surprise, no one took the slightest bit of notice of him. The crew was busy preparing to dock, and the passengers were rounding up their luggage. This was probably a good thing. Plüschow looked absolutely filthy, which might easily have aroused people’s suspicions. Had they not been so preoccupied, he could well have been arrested on the spot and sent back to England.

  Feeling slightly foolish, Plüschow crouched beneath the covers again, and waited until the last of the passengers were getting off the boat. He mingled with them, probably being mistaken for a particularly dirty member of the ship’s crew. Once on the quay side he headed for a door marked “Exit forbidden,” and then he was free.

  Strolling into the town, he booked himself into a hotel, had a long bath and ate a meal big enough for three. The next day he caught a train back to Germany. After an extraordinary nine months since his escape from China, Gunther Plüschow was once again ready to fight for his country.

  After the escape

  Plüschow seems like a comic book hero from another age, and it seems oddly fitting that in later life he would also meet a heroic death. On his return home from England in 1915, he was awarded the Iron Cross medal for bravery, which was presented to him personally by Kaiser Wilhelm II. He survived the war to write about his adventures in England in the book My Escape from Donington Hall, from which much of the information in this account is taken.

  After the war he took up another great love – exploration. As a child he had been fascinated by Tierra del Fuego (“The Land of Fire”) at the tip of South America. It had a wild, rugged landscape, and was one of the last unexplored places on Earth. Plüschow became the first man to fly over this land and continued to explore, photograph and film the territory until January 1931.

  In that month he and his co-pilot Ernest Dreblow had to make a forced landing with their sea plane, in a desolate lake surrounded by glaciers. The descent badly damaged one of the floats the plane used for its landing gear. In dreadful, freezing conditions Plüschow and Dreblow battled for three days to fix their float. Eventually they managed to take off but soon afterwards the aircraft’s wing fell off. Plüschow parachuted from the plane, but his chute failed to open and he fell to his death. The plane crashed into another lake. Dreblow was not killed in the landing, but died of exposure after swimming ashore. Plüschow’s flight diary was found with his body and tells of their heroic and tragic attempts to survive.

  Escape or Die

  André Devigny lay on the bed in his small cell at Montluc military prison in Lyon, France. It was August 20th, 1943. He pulled his musty blankets around his head, trying to gain some warmth from the rough, thin material. The light creeping in under his door told him it was morning. Ahead lay another day of interrogation and torture, just like every other day for the last two weeks.

  As he drifted in and out of sleep he could hear noises. The prison was waking up. Far away, a door slammed. Guards shouted. Then, closer now, several heavy footsteps and the rattle of keys on a ring. The footsteps stopped outside his door, and the lock was drawn back. As the door opened, bright sunlight spilled in, and Devigny covered his eyes with his hand. Three German guards had come for him. One spoke curtly, in the few words of French he had learned at Montluc.

  “Out. Now. Hurry.”

  But Devigny was not taken away to be tortured. Instead, he was dragged before Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie, and told he was to be shot within the next few days. Bundled back to his cell, he was handcuffed and left with his thoughts. He was 26 years old, and now his life was to be brought to an abrupt end.

  Devigny was not surprised by the death sentence. He was a member of the French Resistance – a group of men and women who continued to fight against the German soldiers who had occupied their country during the Second World War. Four months before, in April 1943, Devigny had killed a German spy, and had been betrayed and arrested several days later.

  Montluc was where they took him. This grim, grey prison was a last bleak home to thousands of Resistance fighters, and Jewish prisoners who were held here before being transported to extermination camps. No prisoner who entered Montluc had ever escaped.

  Devigny was tortured by the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police, but gave away nothing. Once his captors realised he was not going to talk, it was time to kill him. Still, Devigny was not going to go without a fight. But he was weak from imprisonment and torture. How could he break out of such a fortress?

  As night fell, Devigny began to plot. A small smile played around his lips. He had a few tricks up his sleeve, and now was the time to play them. He may have been handcuffed, but his cuffs were not a serious problem. When Devigny arrived at Montluc, a fellow prisoner had slipped him a pin and he had soon learned to pick the lock on the cuffs. His jailers had given him a single metal spoon to eat his meals, and he had scraped the edge of the handle on the cold stone floor until it was as sharp as a chisel. Using this, he had quickly discovered he could remove a couple of slats from the bottom of his wooden cell door. While the guards were not making their rounds, he would squeeze out onto the corridor and talk to his fellow prisoners. He had also had a good look around.

  Devigny’s cell was on the top floor of the prison block. There was a skylight at the end of the corridor which led out onto the roof. Between his cell block and the outside of the prison there was a courtyard, another block, and an outer wall. It was a lot to get through.

  On one of his trips out to the corridor Devigny had come across a lamp frame, carelessly left by the prison guards. It was made up of three metal prongs, and would make a perfect grappling hook, if only he had a rope to attach it to. Devigny did not have a rope, but he did have a razor blade – a priceless gift slipped to him by another fellow prisoner. He began to shred some of his clothes and blankets into long, thin strips. He bound these together, along with wire from his mattress, to make a rope strong enough to hold his weight.

  Devigny worked long into the night, furiously fighting off the desire to sleep. His head nodded down from time to time, but he struggled on. He told himself there would be time enough to rest during the day, when the guards would take far more interest in what he was doing. He made the rope as long as his shredded clothes and blankets would let him, and hid it under his bed. If the guards had bothered to search his cell they would have found the rope easily enough, but they were confident their handcuffed prisoner would be unable to do anything to escape.

  Devigny fell into an exhausted sleep around dawn. Some time later his cell door crashed open, and he woke with a start. He imagined this was a guard detachment, come to take him to the firing squad. Relief swept through him as he realised that it was only another prisoner being delivered to his cell.

  One of the guards jeered: “Hey Devigny, you’ve got some company in your final hours.”

  The teenage boy who joined him sat sullenly in the corner. After a while, the two of them fell into guarded conversation, sizing each other up. Bit by bit, the newcomer told him his name was Gimenez, and he too had been arrested for working with the Resistance.

  This new arrival was a problem. What if Gimenez was a spy, come to make
sure Devigny did not escape? What if he was so desperate to avoid torture or execution, he would betray Devigny in the hope of saving his own life? Even if he was none of these things, prison rules at Montluc stated that any prisoner who did not alert the guards to an escape by a cell mate would be shot. If Devigny went, Gimenez would have to come too. There was no other way.

  Devigny decided he had no choice but to trust this stranger.

  “Look,” he said to him quietly, “I’ve had it here. Any day now…”

  He drew a finger across his throat.

  “I’ve worked out a way of getting out, and I’ve got to go real soon. You’ll have to come with me too. They’ll shoot you if you stay and don’t give me away.”

  Gimenez looked terrified.

  “Of course I won’t give you away,” he said quickly. His voice sounded tearful, and desperate. “But can’t you see I’m in enough trouble already?”

  “You’re up to your neck, mate,” said Devigny. “But don’t think they won’t torture you, then kill you, because you’re young. Come with me. If you stay here, you’ll die. If you escape, at least you’ve got a chance…”

  Gimenez sighed a deep, troubled sigh.

  “OK,” he said softly, and the two prisoners fell silent.

  So, on the night of August 24th, 1943, Devigny and Gimenez began their escape. The first part was easy. After the guards had settled down, the two prisoners squeezed their way through the already loosened wooden slats on the door and out into the corridor. Next came the skylight. Devigny stood on Gimenez’s shoulders and began to force open the glass window. Already he felt weak, and wondered if he had the strength to make such an exhausting escape. But the skylight gave way to a mild heave, and Devigny hauled himself out onto the roof. Gimenez followed on, making use of the rope.

  Standing on the roof, breathing cold, fresh air into their lungs, they both felt an odd sense of freedom. The night was clear, still and moonless – perfect for an escape, with only the prison lights casting a dim glaze over the route before them. The light may have been an advantage, but on a night like this, the slightest sound would carry all too easily, and alert the prison guards. But luck was with them again. A railway ran right past the prison, and every ten minutes goods trains thundered past, their gradual coming and going cloaking the progress of the two men for a good minute or two.

  They crept forward to the edge of the block, and looked down onto the courtyard below. By now their eyes had grown used to the dark. The position of the guards was betrayed by the occasional glow of a cigarette end, or the glimmer of a belt buckle or bayonet as it caught in a floodlight. Plotting out the route they would have to take, Devigny saw that one guard stood exactly in their path. This man would have to die.

  “Look, this is what we’ll do,” Devigny whispered to Gimenez. “When the time is right I’ll climb down and deal with the guard there, while you wait here. When we can get through, I’ll whistle once. So listen out!”

  Gimenez looked very afraid.

  “If we kill a guard, they’ll shoot us on the spot!” he said.

  He was swallowing hard, his eyes wide with fear. Devigny spoke firmly, and placed a hand on his companion’s shoulders.

  “We’re dead men already, Gimenez, unless we get out of here.”

  As they stood on the roof the prison clock struck midnight. While the chimes rang out, one group of guards was replaced by another. Low voices muttered cheerless greetings and the new guards settled down to a long, dull night. Devigny and Gimenez looked down unseen for a whole hour, taking in any routine or change of position the guards might make.

  The clock struck one. As the single chime faded into the night, a goods train thundered by. It was time to go. Devigny lowered his rope into the gloom. It was so dark he did not even know whether it would touch the ground. When there was no more rope to lower, he swung over the parapet and slithered down the side of the block. He was so jittery he cut his hand on a piece of wire threaded into the rope. But luck was with him. The rope was long enough to take him to the courtyard. There he waited, concealed by black shadows, until another train passed and he raced over to the other side of the yard. Before him, staring in the opposite direction, stood the guard.

  Devigny looked at the man with some pity. There he was, bored, restless, waiting for his shift to end, probably longing for a hot breakfast and a comfy bed. But to escape and save his own life, Devigny would have to kill him in cold blood.

  The guard turned to face him and Devigny sprang from the shadows. He grabbed him by the throat, and then killed him with his own bayonet.

  The dead man was swiftly hauled into the shadows, his leather boots dragging softly on the floor. Devigny waited to see if their struggle had been overheard, but the night was as still and silent as before. He made a low whistle, and Gimenez hurried over to join him. Their path was clear up to the next block, but Devigny was shaking with exhaustion and fear, and too weak to climb the side of the building.

  “You’ll have to go first,” he whispered to Gimenez. “I haven’t got the strength to climb.”

  Gimenez climbed up the building. He passed the rope down to Devigny, who had now realised his companion was essential to his escape, rather than the nuisance he imagined he would be. They hurried across the roof of the block and peered over. They were on the outer edge of the prison. Only a perimeter wall 5m (15ft) away stood between them and freedom.

  But as they crouched on the roof, an odd squeaking sound came within earshot.

  “What the devil is that?” said Gimenez.

  They found out soon enough. Below, circling around the ground between the prison buildings and the wall, was a guard on a bicycle. He made the trip around the prison perimeter every three minutes.

  So close to success, Devigny was seized by a desperate need to get the whole escape over with. Their cell lay empty. The skylight to the roof had been opened. Worst of all, a dead man lay in the shadows. Surely, at any time, a prison guard would find some evidence to point to an escape in progress, and raise the alarm? With every passing minute the chance of discovery grew greater. But Devigny kept these thoughts to himself. The last thing he wanted to do was panic Gimenez.

  Then, their chances looked even more desperate.

  “Listen,” said Devigny, “I can hear voices below. There must be a couple of guards beneath us too.”

  But when the cyclist rode by, the men could see that he was talking to himself. Both breathed a long sign of relief and got ready for the final push.

  As the clock struck three, Devigny threw the rope over to the outer wall. The lamp frame grapple gripped the brickwork, and held firm. They tied their end of the rope to a solid chimney stack and prepared to cross. But just at that moment, the guard on the bicycle decided it was time for a rest. He parked his bike right below the men and stood beneath them wheezing.

  Devigny and Gimenez could not believe they were so unlucky. Agonizing minutes passed, each man expecting to hear the cry of a guard raising the alarm at any second. In the east a pale light touched the rim of the sky. Soon it would be dawn. But the guard below never did look up to see their rope. He got back on his bike and cycled off.

  It was now or never, but the strain was beginning to show all too clearly on the two escapers.

  Devigny spoke softly: “You go first, Gimenez, and I’ll follow.”

  “No…” said the boy fiercely. “What if the rope breaks? What if I get spotted and shot? What if I fall? You go and I’ll follow.”

  Devigny’s patience was at an end, and he snapped: “Go now, or I’ll throttle you on the spot.”

  A fierce, whispered row continued between them. Eventually Devigny threw himself onto the rope and hauled himself over as fast as he could. Gimenez followed swiftly after, and the two edged along the outer wall until they came to a place where it was low enough to the ground to jump down.

  Each man dropped with a dull, muffled thump. They were free. The prison had no uniform, so Devigny and Gimenez were abl
e to mingle with workers on their way to the early morning shift at a nearby factory. By the time their empty cell and the dead body of the guard had been discovered, the two prisoners had both vanished into the nearby countryside.

  After the escape

  André Devigny escaped to Switzerland, and made his way to North Africa where he joined up with French army forces. After the war, French president General De Gaulle awarded him the prestigious Cross of Liberation medal, and appointed him to a senior post in the French secret service. In 1957, French director Robert Bresson made a film of the escape from Montluc. It was shot at the prison and the actors even used the same rope that Devigny and Gimenez had used. Devigny was hired as an advisor on the film. He retired in 1971, and died in 1999.

  Gimenez, his companion in the escape, was not so lucky, and was recaptured. Although his fate is unknown, he was almost certainly executed.

  The prison chief Klaus Barbie escaped to Bolivia after the war. He was arrested and brought back to Montluc in 1983. He was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment for war crimes, and died in prison in 1991.

  Ten Locked Doors

  (and how to unlock them)

  A visitor to Tim Jenkin’s cell, at Pretoria Prison in South Africa, would have to pass through no less than ten doors to get to him. Walking through the outer yard they would first go through two doors at the ground floor entrance of the prison, then another inside the hallway. From there, a long corridor would take them through another three doors before they reached a prison guard’s office. Then, another corridor led to a door at the base of a stairwell to the first floor. Here they would pass through another door to another long corridor. This was where Jenkin’s cell was, along with all the other political prisoners in the jail. Even his cell had an inner and outer door to get through – and every single one of these doors was locked at night.