The Big Book of Espionage

by The Big Book of Espionage (retail) (epub)

  The history of our battalion from that time onwards did not differ materially from that of any other. We went into the line for our tours of duty and we came back for our rests; we tramped out of Arras one day over seven hundred strong and returned three days later with a little over two hundred; we had one glorious fortnight in a sleepy village in the back area where we lay on our backs by a stream in the sunshine and had new-laid eggs and cream for breakfast; then new faces crowded in on us and we marched out again at full strength towards the old familiar rumble. Christmas 1917 came and went and with it rumours of a great German spring offensive.

  It is unnecessary to repeat the story of that great attack: it is now a matter of history that all may read. My own part in it was short and ignominious. I remember days of anxious waiting—surely the most trying of all a soldier’s jobs—and I remember being awakened in the small hours by a tremendous cannonade and muttering to myself: “Thank God it’s come at last!” as I felt for my flashlight and scrambled off the wire-netting bunk.

  Outside it was cold and dark and misty and very noisy. Most of our deeply buried telephone lines had gone already and it was difficult to get any trustworthy information. We stood to in our scattered posts and waited for the deluge.

  Dawn came at last, grey and cold and misty, and presently we knew by the lengthening range of the German barrage and the distant clatter of machine-guns that their storm-troops had gone over. But none of us knew what was really happening, though conflicting reports and rumours were plentiful.

  After a cup of hot tea I set off to visit some outlying posts and gather if possible some definite information. Some of the posts, I found, had already beaten off one or more attacks; others had not even seen a German. On the face of it, this seemed highly satisfactory, but the clatter of machine-guns, unmistakably German, sounding from two directions well behind our front, gave pause to any hasty optimism. As the newspapers have it, the situation was obscure.

  The mist lifted somewhat as the morning advanced, and from a Lewis-gun post above a sunken road I had my first sight that day of the enemy. They were no more than three hundred yards off and streaming towards us, not in closely packed ranks as in earlier offensives, but in little blobs and files.

  That particular attack lasted no more than a bare half-hour, and I know from personal observation it suffered heavily. The dozen odd men in the little post were jubilant, but I was not so happy myself. I caught glimpses now and again of those little blobs and files among the folds of the country to right and left. It was clear that several of our posts had been scuppered and that the enemy were steadily penetrating our front by way of the dead ground between those posts which still held out.

  I held on for another hour and then decided to send the gun back about half a mile to a place I knew of that commanded a shallow valley where there seemed to be considerable enemy movement.

  The post we held must be described, however. A sunken road crossed the side of a hill from the slope of which there was a very good field of fire. Some ten yards from the road a redoubt had been dug on the hill-side and wired all round. In this redoubt was a perpendicular shaft some twelve feet deep leading to a low tunnel which came out on the sunken road behind.

  The men went off under the sergeant while I remained to have a last look round. I stayed no more than three minutes at the most; then I slipped my glasses into the case, went down the rough ladder and groped my way along the tunnel. As I came out into the sunken road, stooping to avoid the low lintel, I cannoned into a man standing by the entrance. My eyes were dazzled after the darkness of the tunnel, and thinking the man was Sergeant Rowland, I started cursing him for having left the men; but I stopped suddenly with dropped jaw when I saw that he was wearing a scuttle-shaped helmet and field-grey. An automatic pistol was pressing gently against my ribs, a hand pulled my revolver from the holster, and my share in the great offensive was at an end.

  In due course and with many halts and questionings by the way I came at length to a prison camp in northern Bavaria. There life assumed once more an ordered monotony. We took exercise, read what books were to be had, groused about the food, had fierce arguments about trifling matters, found hilarious enjoyment in playing practical jokes on a pompous little German lieutenant of the reserve, took up hobbies with the enthusiasm of schoolboys and dropped them as quickly, separated into cliques, and were intensely bored; in fact it was the same old war—intense monotony but without the periods of excitement and danger.

  I became friends with a gunner captain named Benson. He confided to me one day that he had made up his mind to escape; he needed a partner for the venture and thought that I might be the man. I was; and from that moment I ceased to be bored.

  Benson had been collecting the necessary kit for some time, and by various subterfuges had amassed a treasure consisting of a complete civilian outfit, maps, compass, concentrated food, German money and a pair of home-made wire-cutters. He had been learning German and had made considerable progress; and he was delighted when he found that I too had a smattering of the language. Actually my knowledge was confined to a very limited number of useful phrases I had picked up from Cunningham, but on the other hand I have a good ear for copying sounds, and I had been told on more than one occasion that my accent was very nearly perfect. We proposed to travel by night and avoid all contact with the people of the country, but we hoped our German would be good enough to carry us through a chance encounter.

  My first task was to make or acquire a civilian outfit. I succeeded in dyeing a pair of khaki slacks a nondescript colour in a fearsome mixture of ink and boot polish and set about converting a service tunic into a civilian jacket by removing the pockets and buttons.

  Benson had already formed the rough outlines of a plan of escape, and the all-important details were gradually beginning to fall into place. It will suffice to say that the plan was based upon a very careful study of the routine of the camp and a diversion to be staged by some boisterous spirits at the critical moment. We were confident that helpers for this part of the plan would not be wanting when the time came.

  Then just when everything was shaping well, disaster descended upon us. Benson was playing deck-tennis one afternoon on an asphalt pitch, when in jumping for a high ring he slipped and fell. A broken leg takes six weeks or more to mend, and for some time after that he would be in no condition to tackle a long and exhausting march across country.

  It could not be helped; we should have to possess our souls in patience and wait till he was fit again. But he would have none of it. He urged me to take his kit and find another partner or carry on by myself. He pointed out that he would probably be sent to the military hospital more than thirty miles away and might never return to that particular camp. In any case it would be impossible for him to smuggle his escaping kit with him, and therefore it was only common sense for me to take it and carry on.

  He left the camp that night for hospital. It seemed to me as though the bottom had been knocked out of my world. My one absorbing interest was gone, and in spite of his arguments I had not the heart to carry on without him. For two days I mooned about the camp by myself completely at a loose end. I did not try to find another partner; I gave up all idea of attempting to escape. Then chance took a hand.

  Half a dozen officers arrived one day to inspect the camp. Such inspections were not infrequent, and we derived considerable amusement from them by watching, and occasionally innocently retarding, the feverish efforts of the camp staff to impress the visitors. On this occasion, however, no untoward incident occurred, but in the course of my prowling round the camp later that afternoon I chanced to pass close by the Kommandantur and saw through the open door the caps and greatcoats of the inspecting officers hanging in a row on the pegs in the passage. Evidently the visitors had stayed on for a drink and possibly a meal.

  I passed on slowly but with my heart beating like a hammer, for it had come to me suddenly
that in one of those coats and caps I would have a sporting chance of marching unchallenged out of the camp.

  After Benson’s departure I had given up all idea of escape, and I acted now on the spur of the moment. I turned and came back slowly, whistling and with my hands in my pockets. I gave one quick glance round and shot up the steps. My luck was in: the passage was empty. It would have been madness to have attempted to carry the clothes across the open square in broad daylight, but there was a window in the passage giving on to a small waste piece of ground backed by a high wall. I opened the window quietly, took the coat and cap from the nearest peg, and threw them out. Then I closed the window and slipped back down the steps.

  The whole operation had taken less than half a minute. I was jubilant; but I had yet to retrieve the coat and cap from the waste ground and convey them to some place where I could put them on after I had changed into civilian clothes. What had been done had been done on the spur of the moment, and I had no plan, but as I strolled along thinking matters over, chance came again to my aid.

  Two British orderlies from the adjacent Tommies’ camp were crossing the square carrying a large laundry basket between them. I knew one of the men to be a good fellow who would probably be willing to help, and I turned slightly to the right so that our courses converged. “If you want to do me a good turn,” I said quietly as we came near, “follow me and say nothing.” The good fellow gave me one intelligent look and followed without a word. I strolled round the angle of the main building and up the side, where I was out of sight of the square, to the door of the waste piece of ground. The two orderlies with the basket followed me through.

  Under the frosted glass window lay the coat and cap. I picked them up and began to whisper a word of explanation to the two orderlies, but at the sight of the German uniform, Read, the fellow I knew, just grinned and lifted the cover of the basket without a word. I pushed the coat and cap inside.

  “March across past the back of the latrine by the side gate,” I whispered; “but give me a minute to get there first.” The two men grinned again and nodded, and with a word of thanks I strolled off towards the latrine.

  As luck would have it, no-one was there, though it hardly mattered, since none of my fellow prisoners would have given me away. I waited till I heard the orderlies’ footsteps at the back, and then I went out. The little building screened the spot from the rest of the square, though one of the sentries on the wire fence was in sight. Fortunately he had his back turned, and in a moment I had whipped the cap and coat from the laundry basket and shot back into the latrines. The orderlies, admirable fellows, continued imperturbably on their way.

  I hid my spoil behind a cistern and strolled back as casually as I could to the main building. Up in my room I retrieved poor old Benson’s escaping kit from its various hiding-places, put on the civilian clothes and pulled on my uniform over the top, while Grey, the only one of my room-mates who happened to be present, looked on with interest.

  “Heading for home?” he asked laconically at last. I nodded as I stuffed the maps in an inside pocket. “Want any help?” I told him I would be grateful if he could manage to cover my absence from the evening appel or roll-call so as to give me as big a start as possible. He promised to see to it.

  I had decided that the best time to make the attempt was at dusk when the daylight was failing and the big arcs surrounding the camp were still unlighted. The German is a most orderly animal, as I have proved to my own satisfaction more than once during the course of the war; the camp lights were switched on every night three-quarters of an hour after sunset to the minute, and I knew that if I timed my attempt ten minutes earlier, I should run no danger of being caught by the lights.

  Unfortunately there was still half an hour to go, and I was in a fever of impatience. That half-hour was the longest I ever spent. Every moment I expected to hear the uproar that would announce that the visiting officers had finished their tippling and had discovered the loss of the coat and cap. But the longest wait must have an end and at last it was time to go.

  Grey went with me. Trying to look as unconcerned as possible, we strolled slowly across to the latrines. As luck would have it they were empty. I tore off my uniform and put on the German greatcoat and cap. I had the maps, food, compass and money bestowed in various pockets of my civilian clothes; a trilby hat was rolled up in my trouser pocket. Grey gave me a final look over to see that all was well, pulled the cap to a more rakish angle, and as a final touch stuck his watch-glass in my eye as a monocle. Then he went out to see if the coast was clear, for we were close to the side gate and it would never do for the sentry there to see a German officer issuing from the prisoners’ latrines.

  I stood in the shadow of the entrance and waited, trying hard to keep calm; waiting is always so much more difficult than action. Perhaps a minute went by, or maybe two, and then at last I heard him call that the sentry’s back was turned. It was now or never.

  I stepped out from my shelter, gave him a wink as I passed and headed for the gate.

  My heart was beating like a hammer, but I strutted along with a lord-of-all-creation air and tried to look as Prussian as I could. The sentry did not see me till I was close on the gate, and then for a moment he did nothing. I thought that he had recognized me and that the game was up; but suddenly he came to life and began to fumble with the lock. I stared at him coldly through my monocle, which combined with my stony silence and haughty air seemed to fluster him so that he took a long time to open the gate. Meanwhile I was in a cold fear that the man would recognize me.

  At last he had the gate open. I passed through; but there still remained the gate in the outer wire to be opened, and he fumbled badly with that too. It was really a comic situation, for the poor man was even more scared than I was. But the second gate also was open at last, and I passed through it with a lordly acknowledgement of the sentry’s salute.

  The camp was surrounded by woods, and my first impulse was to dive for the shelter of the undergrowth; but I realized that my only chance of avoiding recapture was to get beyond them before my escape was discovered, for once a cordon were thrown round the woods, escape from them would be difficult. Therefore I walked down the road at a moderate pace till I was out of sight of the camp; then I dived in among the undergrowth, tore off the German coat and cap with feverish haste, put on the trilby, and emerged as an inconspicuous civilian. The road would take me beyond the woods more quickly than a winding woodland path, and as time was the all-important factor, I set off along the road again at my best speed.

  I did not breathe really freely till I came to the end of the trees and saw the open sky above me. I took a deep breath then, pulled out my map and compass and set a course by the stars. I kept going steadily all night, skirting the villages, and by dawn when I lay up in a copse to sleep, I had put many miles between myself and the camp.

  There is no need to give the details of that nightmare march, for a nightmare it became after the first few days. I marched at night and slept in hiding during the day. Twice at dusk I bought food in village shops, and I tried to mask any imperfections of language and accent by tying a handkerchief round my face and feigning toothache.

  I was heading for the Dutch frontier on the course Benson and I had worked out together, but by the ninth day I had begun to wonder if I would ever make it. The cold nights, exposure to bad weather, and the poor food had tried my strength severely, and the wire fence guarding the Dutch frontier, which we had so cheerfully decided could present no real obstacle to determined men, seemed to grow more formidable with every mile I travelled.

  One morning just before dawn as I dropped exhausted in the shelter of a wood, I knew that I could never reach the frontier now on foot. But I told myself that I was not done yet. The Rhine was only a few miles off, and if I could reach the river and find a Dutch bargee, it might be possible to bribe the man to smuggle me across the frontier in his barge. I was h
appier after that decision and I slept like a log all day.

  I reached the river the following night after a comparatively easy march and began my search for a Dutch barge. But I failed to find one. A few German barges were moored along the bank—the port of registration painted on each told their nationality—but no Dutch.

  While I lay in hiding the next day I did some hard thinking. A short distance lower down the river lay Cologne with large docks and many barges, and among them surely at least one Dutch. It was unfortunate that the city and the docks were on the opposite bank of the river and to reach them I should have to cross a bridge, but that was a risk I was prepared to face. If the bridge were guarded it would be foolish to attempt to cross it at night when few wayfarers were about, but during the day I hoped it might be possible to slip across unchallenged among the crowd.

  On the following morning I walked boldly into that suburb of Cologne that stands on the east bank of the river. I walked with a stiff leg and very square shoulders, as I thought that the role of a discharged wounded soldier was the best to adopt; and with my worn face and clothes hanging loosely about my emaciated body I must have looked the part to perfection.

  A little short of the bridge I came upon a group of people waiting on the pavement. A tramcar rattled up as I pushed my way among them and I was carried forward with the rush. Acting on the impulse of the moment, I climbed inside and took my seat with the rest. Several of the passengers read newspapers and paid their fares in silence, and when the conductress came to me, I held out a few pfennigs as the others had done and received my ticket without having to utter a word. The tram rumbled on over the great bridge, and a few minutes later I got down unmolested in the shadow of the great cathedral.

  After my long solitude it was a strange and exciting experience to find myself walking the streets of a busy city, but no-one of that hurrying throng took any notice of me, and as time passed my confidence grew. I searched along the river bank and the docks for a Dutch barge and found three, but each had many men about her loading or unloading, and it would have been suicidal to have approached a skipper there in broad daylight and put him to the test. I therefore decided to return after dark and try to creep aboard unseen.