The Escape Artists

by Neal Bascomb

  It was approaching 4:00 a.m. on August 6 when Gray spotted a string of faint lights ahead. Unless they had trekked far off their line, these would be the arc lamps illuminating the border. There were no towns nearby to explain their presence. The first blush of dawn would come soon, and they needed to be across the frontier before then. They crept slowly through the moor, feeling the stir of danger and the enlivening thrill of their goal being at hand. The rain muffled their movements, but they made sure to proceed as quietly as possible. Soon they were close enough to see a high dike, and on top of it individual lamps hung on posts, each spaced roughly two hundred yards apart. German sentries paced back and forth between the posts, framed by the light.

  The trio discovered that the dike was a sloped wall of mud and grass roughly twelve feet high. Backs flat against it, hidden from the eyes of the sentry patrolling above, they took a few minutes to calm themselves and ease their breathing. Then they started to watch the guard’s routine: how long it took him to walk from post to post across the gravel track on top of the embankment; whether he made any pauses along the way. Unable to see beyond the dike, they had to take on faith that it would be a continuation of the moor. Once “over the top,” Gray whispered, they would have to run as fast as they could through the muck. Only the darkness would protect them.

  They needed to go. The guard paced away from their position, and Kennard turned to climb the dike first. Digging the toes of his boots into the wall, grasping some clusters of short grass in his hands, he made it a few feet up before slipping down. Another attempt had the same result, and for an instant they feared the embankment might be insurmountable. Gray had an idea. Bracing his body against the wall, he threaded his fingers together, palms up, and told Kennard to use his hands as a foothold. This Kennard did, and with a quick jerk, Gray launched him against the embankment. Kennard gained some purchase on the wall, enough to place his feet on Gray’s shoulders to stop himself sliding back to the moor. Suppressing a grunt as Kennard bore down on him, Gray cupped his hands together again and heaved Blain up in the same way. Blain then used Kennard as ballast to clamber to the top of the embankment.

  At that moment, the sentry turned and headed back toward them. Blain pressed himself against the edge of the dyke wall, fingers clawed into the mud, trying to keep himself from tumbling backward. Kennard supported him as well, with Gray holding up the human ladder at the bottom under already exhausted legs.

  The sentry passed close enough to kick gravel down on top of them, but Blain remained unseen. After a short countdown, fearing Gray might buckle at any second, Blain scrambled completely onto the track and hunkered down. As the sentry distanced himself, Blain yanked Kennard to his side. Now they had to get Gray up before the German turned and headed back in their direction.

  Forming a chain to lean over the embankment, Blain at the top, grasping Kennard by the legs, they reached for Gray. Desperate as he was to join them, his boots slipped on the mud as if it were ice. Every attempt Gray made to grasp Kennard by the hand ended in a tumble down to the dank moor. After several tries, Gray saw that the sentry was about to make an about-face. “Duck!” he warned.

  Blain and Kennard slithered off the gravel track and clung to the embankment edge. With every second that passed, their fingers were losing the strength they needed to keep their hold. Both kicked their boots into the wall for further support only to create a tumble of mud that splashed into the puddles below. They were certain the sound would give them away, but the sentry continued on his beat.

  Gray had one more idea, one more chance to join Blain and Kennard on the embankment. Otherwise, they would have to go on without him. He would have to find another way across the border.

  He tied together the straps of the two rucksacks Blain and Kennard had left behind. Kennard looked down as Blain held tightly onto his legs. “Catch!” Gray half-shouted, half-whispered. He burst up the wall, at the same time throwing the bundle up, one hand grasping its end. Kennard grabbed the lead rucksack, and as he hauled Gray up the side of the wall Blain stepped backward on the embankment to bring them both up. Gray scrambled onto the top, and the three sat gasping together on the track.

  Just as they realized their effort had been successful they heard the sentry barking and saw him striding toward them.

  “Run!” Gray shouted. “Down the bank! Run!” They leaped over the side of the dike, tumbling and sliding down the embankment until they hit the moor at the bottom. Together they hurled themselves blindly through the uneven terrain. Several rifle shots rang out behind them, but the sentry was aiming at shadows in the dark and missed. Curses and shouts in German followed.

  The three men rushed on until the sentry’s threats faded away. They slowed their pace but kept moving until Gray was sure they were well out of range and far over the border. Then he drew to a halt. Blain and Kennard stopped beside him in the moor. “It’s all over,” Gray said, throwing an arm around each of their shoulders. “We’ve bloody well made it!” Together they yawped, leaped up and down, hollered, and splashed in the marshy moor like schoolchildren playing in puddles.

  In his young life, Blain had never experienced such joy; it overwhelmed him. Kennard felt the same. He sat down on the grass and ate his last sliver of chocolate, the one he had saved to celebrate their successful home run. Then he wept.

  “That, dear friends and fellow lunatics, is the Dutch village of Sellingen,” Gray announced, rallying them to their feet. Looking northward to the halo of lights, he quickly resumed his role as the steadying hand. “Come on, then. Let’s not waste time. There’s a war on, you know.” The three escape artists started toward the lights, their masterpiece complete.

  Twenty-four

  Outside Sellingen, Gray, Blain, and Kennard surrendered themselves to the first patrol they encountered. The Dutch soldiers received the three men as if they were honored guests and took them to the nearby town of Coevorden. Put up in top-class accommodations at the Hotel Van Wely, they ate, shed their filthy clothes, bathed and shaved, then collapsed into beds that must have felt like the most heavenly of clouds. The next day, they telegrammed their families. The notes were spare but victorious. Kennard’s read: “Escaped and arrived safely in Holland. Expect me home shortly—Caspar.”

  The next day, Tullis, Purves, and Leggatt joined them at the hotel. They too had made their home runs. The six of them, wearing wooden clogs, had their photograph taken, together with the owner of the hotel. Although their faces were gaunt, they all wore the looks of conquering heroes. Soon after, the Dutch military escorted them by train to Enschede, where they idled for a week in quarantine, segregated from a large contingent of German deserters. Bennett, Campbell-Martin, and Bousfield met them at the camp soon after.

  Including Rathborne, who had already gone ahead to England, ten of the twenty-nine who escaped Holzminden made it to Holland. It was the greatest escape of the war. Secret cables from the British Consulate in Rotterdam informed London, where Lord Newton and officials in the War Office, Military Intelligence, and the Air Ministry celebrated the triumph.

  Even before the escaped officers left the quarantine camp, brief reports about the tunnel escape were already hitting newspapers across Europe and in the United States. The New York Times headlined, “British Prisoners Dig Out,” but offered few details, since the sensational nature of the breakout had yet to be fully revealed. First, the men needed to be returned home and debriefed. On the evening of August 15, the Holzminden escapees boarded a small ship in Rotterdam. They had new clothes, temporary passports, and a pocketful of money for their journey to London. With them on the steamer was Henry Cartwright, the officer for whom Will Harvey had sacrificed his own escape from Aachen. As part of a large convoy escorted by destroyers, the ship pulled out of the Dutch harbor and traveled a circuitous route across the Channel.

  The next morning, the officers were moved beyond words by the sight of the English shoreline. They docked soon after in Gravesend. From the window of their train to t
he capital, Gray watched the countryside pass. It all looked as it always had: the rise and fall of fields bordered by hedges, cows lazing in the sun, towns tucked into hollows. Although he and the others had received updates on the war’s progress, including the renewed Allied offensive that began only a week before, they still feared that their homeland had been ground down into a hopeless state—as the “Confidential Liar” had promised for years now.

  Arriving at the station, they found the platforms crowded with young men in uniform. Outside, buses and taxis crammed the streets, and pedestrians thronged the sidewalks. Shops were open and restaurants bustling. To their quiet relief, Britain was alive and eager still. Dispatched straight to the War Office, the men underwent a series of interviews, mostly run by the Intelligence Department, to learn about their experiences and what they had seen during their captivity in Germany. Gray delivered his well-worn report of prisoner abuses from earlier in the war. Then, as one escapee recounted, they were instructed to “take three months’ leave and get fat.”

  Soon after their return, King George V invited them for a private audience at Windsor Castle, then sent a kind personal note to each. Blain’s was similar to those of the others: “The Queen joins me in welcoming you on your release from the miseries and hardships which you have endured with so much patience and courage. During these many months of trial, the early rescue of our gallant officers and men from the cruelties of their captivity has been uppermost in our thoughts. We are thankful that this longed for day has arrived, and that back in the old Country you will be able to once more enjoy the happiness of a home and to see good days among those who anxiously look for your return.”

  As the tunnelers reunited with their families, reports of their breakout spread. They were feted in their hometowns and former schools, by their fellow soldiers and airmen. Now that the details could be revealed, their exploits captivated the nation and the world. “The Tunnel to Freedom: British Officers’ Escape from German Black Hole” headlined the Daily Sketch. “Daring Escape” reported the Evening Express, in bold type. With so much sacrifice and horror on every front, the Holzminden escape was a bright banner of hope—not to mention proof of British derring-do—that portended an Allied victory over Germany.

  The ten men were put up for Military Cross medals. Despite all the attention that the Holzminden breakout artists received, most of them simply wanted to get back into the fight. After their leaves were over, Gray and his fellow pilots Blain and Kennard returned to their duties, albeit in squadrons stationed in England. They still had a war to win.

  On August 16, 1918, the day after the Holzminden tunnelers arrived in London, Will Harvey was being made to board a train to Stralsund. He spent the next two months in yet another camp, this one beside the Baltic Sea. The sunsets were remarkable, but Harvey could not see beyond the “green mold” that once again settled over him like a great weight. He rarely left his bed. He again grew out his beard. He wrote no letters home, and the only reading he could manage was Chambers’s Twentieth Century Dictionary. Yet it was in words—in poetry—that he was saved. Written at that time, “The Treasury” speaks of the liberating power of the imagination.

  I have such joy in my heart’s coffer,

  Little I care what Life may offer;

  Little it matters if I lie

  In dungeons, who possess the sky.

  The sparkling morn, the starry night,

  Are locked away for my delight.

  But in my heart there hangs a key

  To open them, called memory.

  How should I ever lack a friend

  Who so have lovers without end?

  How can I ever lose my home

  Who bear it with me where I come?

  My home is in my heart, and there

  In dreadful days I do repair;

  And I have broken off the seal

  Of that Dream-box, whose dreams are real

  So rich am I, I do possess

  Their overpowering loveliness;

  And have such joy in my heart’s coffer,

  Little I care what Life may offer.

  In late October, the Germans finally returned Harvey and dozens of other prisoners of war to Aachen. The camp commandant swore he would soon be free, but Harvey had lost faith in such promises. Several days later, however, he and a number of others were sent across the border at last. There, they were welcomed by a crowd of Dutch children with joyous shouts and blown kisses. Harvey was moved beyond measure by the sight. At a seaside resort outside The Hague, he was reunited with Colquhoun as well as Rogers, Mossy, and the other Pink Toes. Together they belted out “The Old, Bold Mate,” one of their favorite prison songs, set to a melody by Harvey’s friend Ivor Gurney.

  Oh, some are fond of red wine and some are fond of white,

  And some are all for dancing by the pale moonlight,

  But rum alone’s the tipple and the heart’s delight

  Of the old, bold mate of Henry Morgan.

  Months passed before Harvey finally made his way back to the Redlands in Gloucestershire, the place he loved so well. On many nights after his return, he stayed in and read to his mother, listening to the crackle of flames in the hearth, gazing at the white moon through the window, and thinking, “This is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me!” He was once again home, in the countryside he celebrated in his poetry. There he would remain, a solicitor, and a writer, married to Anne, for the rest of his life.

  In the period after receiving the telegram from Rathborne, Commandant Karl Niemeyer became unhinged, whether due to shame over the mass escape, too much drink, or the ravages of the Spanish flu then spreading among the prison population. Like never before he raged at his charges, accusing them of insurrection and firing his revolver into the air at the slightest provocation. William Leefe Robinson, the Zeppelin killer, endured the worst of the commandant’s abuses and was scarcely hanging on to life in solitary.

  Not content with abusing his charges, Niemeyer stabbed his cane at the laundry the prisoners hung from the wire fences, a sight that one officer likened to Don Quixote tilting his lance at windmills. The men’s continued escape attempts, mostly by cutting through the perimeter wire, only enraged him further.

  As promised, he court-martialed the nineteen prisoners who were recaptured after the tunnel breakout. On September 27, 1918, officials from Berlin held the trial at Holzminden. The defendants were charged with mutiny and “conspiring to destroy Imperial Government Property.” Finding the indictment a farce, some of the officers decided to give suitably farcical answers to questions about their name, rank, religion, and prewar occupations. One declared himself a shepherd, others gave their professions as diamond trader, grammar-school pupil, and pensioner. The judges sentenced the lot to six months’ solitary confinement in a prison fortress for “having made an escape by force with united forces.” But with 250,000 American troops landing in France every month, Allied advances puncturing holes in the trench lines across the Western Front, mass desertions of German soldiers, and civil unrest in Berlin and elsewhere, the war promised to be over long before they could serve a fraction of that sentence. Negotiations for an armistice were already in the works.

  Within days of the court-martial, Niemeyer effected a sudden change of heart toward the men, transforming himself into a pliant friend of the prisoners. He hired a photographer to come into Holzminden, and made awkward attempts to joke with the men and gather them into happy groups for shots. “They would all be home for Christmas” came the promise. No longer did he bluster around the yard, cock of the walk. He stayed mostly in the Kommandantur, inviting the senior British officer, Stokes-Roberts, to his office, making frequent approvals of any requests. Fewer roll calls, longer parole walks—whatever the men wanted. Throughout the camp, portraits of the kaiser disappeared.

  Of course, Niemeyer was keen to the fact that the British knew all about his actions at Holzminden—Lord Newton having once demanded his removal. What he feared w
as a trial of his own, for war crimes. When some prisoners at the camp confirmed to him that justice would come calling, he claimed that he had “always done all he could for the officers and that if there had been any unpleasant orders, they came from above.”

  The prisoners were wise to his intentions. With their newfound freedoms came access to more than the Continental Times. On October 3 one wrote in his secret diary, “The war will soon be over. Austria has seceded to President Wilson’s peace terms. Things look pretty cheery. Our boys at the Front are certainly working hard. They have sure pushed the Germans back a long piece.” Most believed they would be home before Christmas. Apart from what the newspapers reported, the prisoners knew well that Germany could not hold out for long. Not if the stirrings of popular revolt in the town of Holzminden were any sign. There was a string of food riots, and many of the town’s inhabitants were dying from starvation and the Spanish flu.

  Finally, on November 11, the Armistice was announced, along with the news that Kaiser Wilhelm II had fled to the Netherlands, his rule over Germany at an end. At Holzminden, the prisoners tossed their caps in the air. They cheered and danced in the Spielplatz. They removed the German flag that flew atop Block A. They freed those still in the solitary cells in Block B. They drank and feasted in celebration into the wee hours of the night. Neither the guards nor Niemeyer tried to stop them. In fact, their commandant immediately shed his uniform for a plain suit and declared to the camp, “You see, I am no longer a Prussian officer, but a Hanoverian gentleman.”