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+Project Gutenberg's The Escape of a Princess Pat, by George Pearson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Escape of a Princess Pat
+       Being the full account of the capture and fifteen months'
+       imprisonment of Corporal Edwards, of the Princess Patricia's
+       Canadian Light Infantry, and his final escape from Germany
+       into Holland
+
+Author: George Pearson
+
+Release Date: June 3, 2008 [EBook #25683]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sigal Alon, Jeannie Howse and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Transcriber's Note:                                       |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has     |
+    | been preserved.                                           |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For     |
+    | a complete list, please see the end of this document.     |
+    |                                                           |
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT
+
+GEORGE PEARSON
+
+
+
+
+    [Illustration: CORPORAL (NOW SERGEANT) EDWARD EDWARDS, PRINCESS
+    PATRICIA'S CANADIAN LIGHT INFANTRY.]
+
+
+
+
+THE ESCAPE OF A
+PRINCESS PAT
+
+_Being the full account of the capture and fifteen months'
+imprisonment of Corporal Edwards, of the Princess
+Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, and his
+final escape from Germany into Holland_
+
+BY
+GEORGE PEARSON
+
+
+
+
+McCLELLAND, GOODCHILD & STEWART
+
+PUBLISHERS  ::  ::  ::   TORONTO
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1918,
+BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+TO THE MEMORY OF
+OUR COMRADES WHO FELL
+THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+In order to remove all question of doubt in the mind of the reader it
+might perhaps be well to state here that the facts as given are the
+bona fide experiences of Corporal Edwards, Number 39, Number One
+Company, P. P. C. L. I., and as such were subjected to the closest
+scrutiny both by the author and others before it was deemed advisable
+to give the account to the public. In particular great pains were
+taken to do full justice to all enemy individuals who figure in the
+story.
+
+Recognizing the seriousness of the charges implied by the recital, all
+those concerned with it are extremely anxious that the correctness of
+the account should constitute its chief value: In short the intention
+has been to make of the story a readable history.
+
+The main facts--having to do with the destruction of the regiment on
+the eighth of May, 1915, the identity and activities of the
+individuals mentioned and the more important of the later happenings,
+including the final escape into Holland--are matters of official
+record and as such have frequently been mentioned in the official
+dispatches. The more personal details are based on the recollections
+of Corporal Edwards' retentive mind, aided by his very unusual powers
+of observation and the rough diary which he managed to retain
+possession of during his later adventures.
+
+For the events preceding the capture of Corporal Edwards on the eighth
+of May the author has relied upon his own recollections; as he too had
+the honor of having been "an original Patricia."
+
+                                                   G.P.
+
+Sept. 1, 1917.
+Toronto, Canada.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER                                                           PAGE
+
+    I Polygon Wood                                                  14
+
+   II The Fourth of May                                             20
+
+  III Corporal Edwards Takes up the Tale                            23
+
+   IV Major Gault Comes Back                                        28
+
+    V The Eighth of May and the Last Stand of the Princess Pats     33
+
+   VI Prisoners                                                     45
+
+  VII Pulling the Leg of a German General                           61
+
+ VIII The Princess Patricia's German Uncle                          70
+
+   IX How the German Red Cross Tended the Canadian Wounded          76
+
+    X The Curious Concoctions of the Chef at Giessen                81
+
+   XI The Way They Have at Giessen                                  86
+
+  XII The Escape                                                   104
+
+ XIII The Traitor at Vehnmoor                                      115
+
+  XIV Away Again                                                   123
+
+   XV Paying the Piper                                             140
+
+  XVI The Third Escape                                             158
+
+ XVII What Happened in the Wood                                    177
+
+XVIII The Last Lap                                                 185
+
+  XIX Holland at Last                                              194
+
+   XX "It's a Way They Have in the Army"                           203
+
+The Evidence in the Case                                           210
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+Corporal (Now Sergeant) Edward Edwards, Princess
+  Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry                    _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                                  PAGE
+
+British wounded waiting for transportation to a dressing
+  station                                                           26
+
+The Princess Patricias in billets at Westoutre, Belgium             26
+
+German prisoners bringing wounded men down a communication
+  trench                                                            42
+
+Wounded Canadians receiving first aid after an attack               64
+
+Recipes from Corporal Edward's Diary                                84
+
+Fellow prisoners at Giessen                                         98
+
+Fellow prisoners at Giessen                                         98
+
+Record of second escape and recapture                              126
+
+German prisoners at Southampton                                    136
+
+High explosives bursting over German trenches                      136
+
+Salient details of the third escape                                170
+
+Private Mervin C. Simmons, C.E.F.                                  192
+
+The cemetery at Celle Laager Z 1 Camp                              206
+
+Corporal Edwards after his escape                                  206
+
+Homeward bound                                                     220
+
+
+
+
+THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT
+
+
+
+
+THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+POLYGON WOOD
+
+  Ypres and Hill 60--Preparing for the Gas--Why the Patricias
+  Cheered--The Retirement--The Thin Red Line.
+
+
+The Princess Patricias had lain in Polygon Wood since the twentieth of
+April, mid-way between the sanguinary struggles of St. Julien and Hill
+60, spectators of both. Although subjected to constant alarm we had
+had a comparatively quiet time of it, with casualties that had only
+varied from five to fifty-odd each day.
+
+By day and night the gun-fire of both battles had beat back upon us in
+great waves of sound. There were times when we had donned our water
+soaked handkerchiefs for the gas that always threatened but never
+came, so that the expectation might have shaken less steady troops.
+Quick on the heels of the first news of the gas the women of Britain,
+their tears scalding their needles, with one accord had laboured, sans
+rest, sans sleep, sans everything, so that shortly there had poured in
+to us here a steady stream of gauze pads for mouth and nostril. For
+the protection of our lungs against the poison of the gas they were at
+least better than the filthy rags we called handkerchiefs. We wore
+their gifts and in spirit bowed to the donors, as I think all still
+do. We soaked them with the foul water of the near-by graves and kept
+them always at our side, ready to tie on at each fresh alarm.
+
+Once there had come word in a special army order of the day: "Our
+Belgian agent reports that all enemy troops on this front have been
+directed to enter their trenches to-night with fixed bayonets. All
+units are enjoined to exercise the closest watch on their front; the
+troops will stand to from the first appearance of darkness, with each
+man at his post prepared for all eventualities. Sleep will not be
+permitted under any circumstances."
+
+The consequence had been that that night had been one of nervous
+expectation of an attack which did not materialise. We always carried
+fixed bayonets in the trenches but the Germans were better equipped
+with loopholes, as they were with most other things, and were forced
+to leave their bayonets off their rifles in order to avoid any danger
+of the latter sticking in their metal shields when needed in a hurry,
+to say nothing of the added attention they would draw in their exposed
+and stationary position at the mouth of a loophole. The "Stand-to" had
+come as a distinct relief that morning.
+
+And always there had been the glowering fires of a score of villages.
+The greater mass of burning Ypres stood up amongst them like the
+warning finger of God. Occasionally the roaring burst of an ammunition
+dump flared up into a volcano of fiery sound. The earth under our feet
+trembled in convulsive shudders from a cannonade so vast that no one
+sound could be picked out of it and the walls of dug-outs slid in,
+burying sleeping men. But like the promise of God there came to us in
+every interval of quietness, as always, the full-throated song of many
+birds.
+
+Our forces consisted of the French who held the left corner of the
+Ypres salient, then the Canadian division in the centre, next the 28th
+Division of the regular British Army and then our own, the 27th, with
+Hill 60 on our right flank. The enemy attacked both at Hill 60 and at
+the line of the Canadian Division and the French, and we held on to
+the horse-shoe shaped line until the last possible moment when one
+more shake of the tree would have thrown us like ripe fruit into the
+German lap.
+
+So near had the converging German forces approached to one another
+that the weakened battery behind our own trenches had been at the
+last, turned around the other way and fired in the opposite direction
+without a shift in its own position. For our own protection we had
+nothing. And later still these and all other guns left us to seek new
+positions in the rear so that only we of the infantry remained.
+
+Daily there had come orders to "Stand-to" in full marching order, to
+evacuate; at which all ranks expostulated angrily. And then perhaps
+another order--to stick it another day; at which we cheered and
+slapped one another boisterously on the back so that the stolid
+Germans over yonder must have wondered, knowing what they did of our
+desperate situation.
+
+But the dreaded order came at last and was confirmed, so that under
+protest and like the beaten men that we knew we were not, we slunk
+away under cover of darkness on the night of the third of May to
+trenches three miles in the rear, and with us went the troops on ten
+more miles of British front.
+
+The movement as executed was in reality a feat of no mean importance
+on the part of the higher command. Faced by an overwhelmingly superior
+force, our badly depleted three divisions had barely escaped being
+bagged in the net of which the enemy had all but drawn the noose in a
+strategetic surrounding movement.
+
+In detail, the movement had consisted of withdrawing under cover of
+darkness with all that we could carry of our trench material, both to
+prevent it falling into hostile hands and equally to strengthen our
+new position. A small rearguard of fifteen men to the regiment had
+held our front for the few hours necessary for us to "shake down" in
+the new position. Their task was to remain behind and to give a
+continuous rapid-fire from as many different spots as possible in a
+given time, thereby keeping up the illusion of a heavily manned
+trench. Then, they too had faded quietly away, following us.
+
+Our new trenches were three miles behind those we had just evacuated
+in Polygon Wood. Zillebeke lay just to the left and beyond that,
+Hooge. We were in the open, with Belle-waarde Wood and Lake behind us.
+
+We continued to face vastly superior forces. To make matters worse the
+trenches were assuredly a mockery of their kind and there was even
+less of adequate support than before. And at that the drafts arrived
+each day--if they were lucky enough to break through the curtains of
+fire with which the enemy covered our rear for that very purpose, as
+well as for the further one of curtailing the arrival of all necessary
+supplies of food and ammunition.
+
+Every camp and hospital from Ypres to Rouen and the sea and from
+Land's End to John O' Groat was combed and scraped for every eligible
+casualty, every overconfident office holder of a "cushy" job, and in
+short, for all those who could by hook or crook hold a rifle to help
+stem this threatening tide. And in our own lot, even those wasteful
+luxuries, the petted officers' servants were amongst us, doing
+fighting duty for the first time, so that we almost welcomed the
+desperate occasion which furnished so rare and sweet a sight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE FOURTH OF MAY
+
+  The Unofficial Armistice--The Clash of the Scouts--"Sticking It"
+  on the Fourth.
+
+
+We suffered cruelly on the Fourth. The dawn had discovered two long
+lines of men, madly digging in plain sight of one another. There was
+no firing except that one little storm when the stronger light had
+shown our rear guard ridiculously tangled up with a screen of German
+scouts so that some of each were nearer to foe than to friend and so
+had foes on either side. They shot at one another. Some of us in our
+excitement shot at both, scarce able to distinguish one from the
+other. Others amongst us strove to knock their rifles up. And the
+Germans in their trenches shot too. Both of us of the main bodies
+continued to respect the tacit truce imposed by the conditions under
+which we found ourselves, insofar as we ourselves were concerned, and
+fired only at the poor fellows in between.
+
+As for them, I fear the absurd nature of their tragic plight excited
+more of wonder than of concern. They merged into hedges and ditches
+swallowed them. Their case was only one incident of many, and what
+became of them I have never heard, except that Lieutenant Lane who
+commanded our rear guard was with us on the Eighth, so I presume that
+some must have crawled up to us that night and so saved themselves for
+the moment. Anything else would have been a great pity for so brave a
+squad.
+
+The digging continued until the better equipped Germans had finished
+their task; when they sought their holes with one accord, an example
+which we as quickly followed.
+
+This was at nine o'clock on the morning of the fourth of May. From
+then on until dusk the intensity of a furious all-day bombardment by
+every known variety of projectile had been broken only at intervals to
+allow of the nearer approach of the enemy's attacking infantry. The
+worst was the enfilade fire of two batteries on our right which with
+six-inch high explosive shells tore our front line to fragments so
+that we were glad indeed to see the night come. Only once had ours
+replied, one gun only. That was early in the morning. It barked
+feebly, twice, but drew so fierce a German fire that it was forever
+silenced.
+
+Some infantry attacks followed but were beaten off. Only a weak half
+of the battalion was in the front line trench. The remainder were in
+Belle-waarde Wood, the outer fringe of which was a bare one hundred
+yards behind the front line. They were fairly comfortable in pine
+bough huts which were, however, with some of their occupants, badly
+smashed by shell fire that day.
+
+The outcome was that although all attacks were beaten off, our losses
+were well on to two hundred men, most of whom were accounted for in
+the more exposed front line.
+
+The order had been that we were to hold this front for several days
+more although the regiment had been in the trenches since April the
+20th, and, except for a march back to Ypres from Polygon Wood, since
+early April. But after such a smashing blow on men who were already
+thoroughly exhausted, the plan was changed and our line was taken over
+by the King's Shropshire Light Infantry, the "Shrops" we called them,
+a sister regiment in our brigade, the 80th.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CORPORAL EDWARDS TAKES UP THE TALE
+
+  Amongst the Wounded--Trench Nerves--Resting in Coffins.
+
+
+It was on this day that I rejoined the regiment. I had been wounded in
+the foot at St. Eloi in February and had come up in a draft fresh from
+hospital and had lain in the supports at the huts all of the Fourth.
+
+The survivors of the front line fire joined those at the huts shortly
+after nightfall. They were stupid from shell fire, too dazed to talk.
+I saw one man wandering in half circles, talking to himself--and with
+a heavy pack on. There were others in worse plight; so there was no
+help for him.
+
+Myself, I was too much engrossed in a search for my comrade Woods to
+bother with other men less dear, however much I might sympathise with
+them.
+
+He and I had been "mates" since Toronto days, had made good cheer
+together in the hot August days of mobilisation at Ottawa and had
+rubbed mess tins together under the starry sky at Levis before the
+great Armada had taken us to English camps and other scenes.
+
+It was he who had fetched me out of danger at St. Eloi. And now it was
+my turn. They told me he was somewhere on a stretcher.
+
+I searched them all. I struck matches--and was met by querulous
+curses; I knelt by the side of the dying; I inquired of those wounded
+who still could walk, but find him I could not. It appears that a new
+and heavy moustache had helped to hide him from me. I was in great
+distress, but in the fullness of time and when our small circles had
+run their route, I discovered him in Toronto.
+
+The word was that we were to go to Vlamertinghe, where the Zeppelins
+had bombed us in our huts. It lay well below threatened Ypres.
+
+We of Number One Company passed Belle-waarde Lake, with its old
+dug-outs and its smells, and struck off across the fields, the better
+to avoid the heavy barrage fire which made all movement of troops
+difficult beyond words. We reached the railroad up and down which in
+quieter times the battalion had been wont to march to and fro to the
+Polygon Wood trenches.
+
+The fire became heavier here and the going was rough so that what with
+the burden of packs which seemed to weigh a ton and all other things;
+we moved in a mass, as sheep do. When slung rifles jostled packs, good
+friends cursed one another both loud and long. This was trench nerves.
+
+Shortly, we ran into a solid wall of barrage fire. The officer
+commanding the company halted us. We were for pushing on to that rest
+each aching bone and muscle, each tight-stretched and shell-dazed
+nerve fairly screamed aloud for. But he was adamant. We cursed him. He
+pretended not to hear. This also was trench nerves.
+
+It was growing late. The star shells became fewer. The search-lights
+ceased altogether. In half an hour those keen eyes in distant trees
+and steeples would have marked us down--and what good then the agony
+of this all-night march? Better to have been killed back there in
+Belle-waarde. We were still a good two miles from Ypres town.
+
+The officer literally drove us back over the way we had come. His
+orders had anticipated this eventuality so that rather than force
+the passage of the barrage fire, merely for a rest, we should rest
+here where no rest was to be had. Undoubtedly, if we had been "going
+up" it would have been different. We should have gone on--no fire
+would have stopped us.
+
+    [Illustration: BRITISH WOUNDED WAITING FOR TRANSPORTATION TO A
+    DRESSING STATION.]
+
+    [Illustration: THE PRINCESS PATRICIAS IN BILLETS AT WESTOUTRE,
+    BELGIUM. ON TOP OF WAGON IN FOREGROUND IS "KNIFE-REST" TYPE OF
+    WIRE ENTANGLEMENTS.]
+
+The half hour limit brought us to a murky daylight and an old and
+sloppy support trench which bordered the track and into which we flung
+ourselves, to lay in the water in a dull stupor that was neither sleep
+nor honest waking.
+
+Later, when the rations had been "dished out" we bestirred ourselves
+and so found or dug queer coffin-shaped shelves in either wall. Out of
+courtesy we called them dug-outs.
+
+I do not remember that any one spoke much of the dead.
+
+The rain stopped and for a time the unaccustomed sun came out. We
+drove stakes in the walls above our coffins, hunted sand-bags and hung
+them and spare equipment over the open face and then crawled back into
+the water which, as usual, was already forming in the hollows that our
+hips made where we lay. Until noon there was little heard but the
+thick breathing of weary men. Occasionally one tossed and shouted
+blasphemous warnings anent imaginary and bursting shells; whereat
+those within hearing whined in a tired and hopeless anger, and, if
+close by, kicked him. Trench nerves.
+
+All day the fire of many guns sprayed us. Near by, the well defined
+emplacement of one of our own batteries inevitably drew to the entire
+vicinity a heavy fire so that one shell broke fair amongst our
+sleeping men.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+MAJOR GAULT COMES BACK
+
+  "The King Is Dead": "Long Live the King"--Back to
+  Belle-waarde--The Seventh of May.
+
+
+That was on the fifth. In the afternoon young Park came to us. He was
+the Commanding Officer's orderly. There was down on his face but he
+was full of all that strange wisdom of a trenchman who had experienced
+the bitter hardships and the heartbreaking losses of a winter in the
+cursed salient of St. Eloi, by Shelley Farm and The Mound of Death.
+But just now this infant of the trenches had the round eyes of a
+startled child, which in him meant mad excitement.
+
+"The C.O.'s hit."
+
+The word slid up the trench: "The C.O.'s hit."
+
+"Strike me! Cawn't this bleedin' regiment keep a bleedin' Colonel----?
+That makes two of them!"
+
+"How did it happen?"
+
+"What the devil are we goin' to do?"
+
+"Who says so?"
+
+"The second in six weeks!"
+
+"Parkie."
+
+"By----! This mob's in a Hell of a fix, Bo'."
+
+Park was leaning on his rifle, trench fashion. "Oh, dry up. You give
+me a pain."
+
+And then he launched his thunderbolt, "Gault's back."
+
+The chorus of despair became one of wild delight.
+
+"We're jake!" "He'll see us through." "Where is he?" "How's his arm?"
+"The son-of-a-gun! Couldn't keep him away, could they?"
+
+"No fear. Not 'im. Bloody well wanted to be wiv 'is bleedin' boys, 'e
+did. 'E ain't bloody well goin' to do 'is bloody solderin' in a
+'cushy' job in Blighty--like some of 'em. Not after rysin' us. Do it
+wiv 'is bloody self like a man; an' that's wot 'e is."
+
+The speaker glared accusingly; but his declaration agreed too well
+with what all thought for any one to take exception to it.
+
+The new Commanding Officer had been wounded at St. Eloi on March 1st
+and this was our first intimation of his return.
+
+Park took up his tale. "He's over there with the C.O. now," and
+switching: "Shell splinter got him in the eye. Guess it's gone and
+maybe the other one too."
+
+"By----!" he burst out passionately: "I hope it don't. He's been damn
+good to me--and to you fellows too," he added fiercely, while his
+lower lip quivered.
+
+I think all stared anywhere but at Park, in a curious embarrassment.
+
+"Got it goin' from one trench to another to see about the rations
+comin' up instead of stayin' in like a 'dug-out wallah.' Got out on
+top of the ground, walked across an' stopped one," he added bitterly.
+
+A considerable draft of "old boys," ruddy of face and fresh from
+hospital, together with some more new men reached us that night. We
+"went up" again with the dusk of the following night and "took over"
+our previous trenches in front of Belle-waarde Wood.
+
+We were told that the Shropshires had been rather badly cut up in the
+interval of their occupation by a further course of intense
+bombardment and some fierce infantry fighting. Nevertheless, the
+trenches had been put into much better shape since our earlier
+occupancy of them, so that what with our work that night they were by
+the morning of the seventh in fairly good shape.
+
+The night was not unusual in any way. There was the regular amount of
+shelling, of star shells, of machine gun and rifle fire, and of
+course, casualties. Those we always had, be it ever so quiet.
+
+Even the morning "Stand-to" with that mysterious dread of unknown
+dangers that it invariably brought gave us nothing worse than an hour
+of chilly waiting--and later, the smoke of the Germans' cooking fires.
+
+There were none for us. It was as simple as algebra. Smoke attracted
+undue artillery attention--the Germans had artillery; we had not. They
+had fires; we had not.
+
+The day rolled by smoothly enough. Except for the fresh graves and a
+certain number of unburied dead the small-pox appearance of the
+shell-pitted ground about might have been thought to have been of
+ancient origin; so filled with water were the shell holes and so large
+had they grown as a result of the constant sloughing in of their
+sodden banks.
+
+During all these days the German fire on the salient at large had
+continued as fiercely as before but had spared us its severest trials.
+
+The night of the seventh passed to all outward appearance pretty much
+in the same manner as the preceding one.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE EIGHTH OF MAY AND THE LAST STAND OF THE PRINCESS PATS
+
+  Morning in the Trenches--The Artillery Preparation for the
+  Infantry Attack--The P.P's Chosen to Stem the Tide--The Trust of
+  a Lady--Chaos--Corporal Dover--The Manner in Which Some Men Kill
+  and Others Die.
+
+
+It seemed as though I had just stepped off my whack of sentry go for
+my group when a kick in the ribs apprised me that it was "Stand-to." I
+rubbed my eyes, swore and rose to my feet. Such was the narrowness of
+the trench that the movement put me at my post at the parapet, where
+in common with my mates, I fell to scanning the top for the first
+signs of day and the Germans.
+
+The latter lay on the other side of the ravine from us as they had
+since the Fourth, except for such times as they had assaulted our
+position. The smoke of Ypres and all the close-packed villages of a
+thickly populated countryside rose sullenly on every hand.
+
+Over everything there hung the pallor of the mist-ridden Flemish
+morning, deadly quiet, as was usual at that time of the trench day
+when the tenseness of the all-night vigil was just merging into the
+relieving daylight.
+
+At half past six that stillness was punctuated by a single shell,
+which broke barely in our rear. And then the ball commenced--the most
+intense bombardment we had yet experienced. Most of the fire came from
+the batteries in concealed positions on our right, whence, as on the
+fourth, they poured in a very destructive enfilade fire which swept up
+and down the length of the trench like the stream of a hose, making it
+a shambles. Each burst of high-explosive shells, each terrible
+pulsation of the atmosphere, if it missed the body, seemed to rend the
+very brain, or else stupefied it.
+
+The general result was beyond any poor words of mine. All spoken
+language is totally inadequate to describe the shocks and horrors of
+an intense bombardment. It is not that man himself lacks the
+imaginative gift of words but that he has not the word tools with
+which to work. They do not exist. Each attempt to describe becomes
+near effrontery and demands its own separate apology.
+
+In addition, kind Nature draws a veil for him over so much of all the
+worst of it that many details are spared his later recollection. He
+remembers only the indescribable confusion and the bursting claps of
+near-by flame, as foul in color and as ill of smell as an addled egg.
+He knows only that the acid of the high-explosive gas eats into the
+tissue of his brain and lungs, destroying with other things, most
+memories of the shelling.
+
+Overhead an aeroplane buzzed. We could even descry the figures of the
+pilot and his observer, the latter signaling. No gun of ours answered.
+The dead and dying lay all about and none could attend them: A rifle
+was a rifle.
+
+This continued for an hour, at the end of which time we poked our
+heads up and saw their infantry coming on in columns of mobs, and some
+of them also very prettily in the open order we had ourselves been
+taught. Every field and hedge spewed them up. We stood, head and
+shoulders exposed above the ragged parapet, giving them "Rapid-fire."
+They had no stomach for that and retired to their holes, leaving many
+dead and grievously wounded.
+
+It was at this time that we saw the troops on our flanks falling back
+in orderly fashion. I called that fact to the attention of Lieutenant
+Lane, who was the only officer left in our vicinity. He said that the
+last word he had received was to hang on.
+
+This we proceeded to do, and so, we are told, did the others. We
+learned later that the battalion roll call that night showed a
+strength of one hundred and fifty men out of the six hundred and
+thirty-five who had answered "Present" twenty-four hours earlier. And
+the official records of the Canadian Eye Witness, Lord Beaverbrook,
+then Sir Max Aitken, as given in "Canada in Flanders," state that
+"Those who survive and the friends of those who have died may draw
+solace from the thought that never in the history of arms have
+soldiers more valiantly sustained the gift and trust of a Lady,"
+referring to the Color which had been worked for and presented to us
+by the Princess Patricia, daughter of His Royal Highness the Duke of
+Connaught, then Governor-General of Canada.
+
+We were on the apex of the line and were now unsupported on either
+side. It was about this time, I believe, that a small detachment of
+the King's Shropshire Light Infantry, a sister regiment in our
+brigade, fetched to the companies in our rear twenty boxes of badly
+needed ammunition and reënforced the Princess Patricias.
+
+Following the beating off of their infantry attack the Germans gave us
+a short breathing spell until their machine guns had been trained on
+our parapet and a school of light field guns dragged up into place.
+The aeroplane came out again, dropping to within three hundred feet of
+our trench, and with tiny jets of vari-colored smoke bombs, directed
+the terribly accurate fire of the enemy guns, already so close to, but
+so well insured against any harm from us that they attempted no
+concealment. And the big guns on the right completed the devastation.
+
+This continued for another half hour, at the end of which time there
+remained intact only one small traverse in the trench, which owed its
+existence to the fragment of chicken wire that held its sides up. The
+remainder was absolutely wiped out. This time there was no rapid fire,
+nor even any looking over the top to see if the enemy were coming on.
+Instead, the Germans fairly combed the parapet with their machine
+guns. Each indication of curiosity from us drew forth from them such a
+stream of fire that the top of the parapet spat forth a steady shower
+of flying mud, and, which made it impossible for us to defend
+ourselves properly, even had there been enough of us left to do so.
+
+The rest was chaos, a bit of pure hell. Men struggling, buried alive
+and looking at us for the aid they would not ask for. Soldiers all.
+And the Germans now pouring in in waves from all sides, and especially
+from our unprotected flanks and rear, hindered only by the desultory
+rifle fire of our two weakened companies in the support trenches. We
+were receiving rifle fire from four directions and bayonet thrusts
+from the Germans on the parapet. Mowed down like sheep. And as they
+came on they trampled our dead and bayoneted our wounded.
+
+The machine-gun crew had gone under to a man, doing their best to the
+last. I think Sergeant Whitehead went with them, too; at least he was
+near there a short time before, and I never saw him or any of the gun
+crew again. The only living soul near that spot was Royston, dragging
+himself out from under a pile of débris and covered with mud and
+blood, his face horribly swollen to twice its normal size, blinded for
+the moment.
+
+To quote "Canada in Flanders" again:
+
+"At this time the bombardment recommenced with great intensity. The
+German bombardment had been so heavy since May 4th that a wood which
+the Regiment had used in part for cover was completely demolished. The
+range of our machine-guns was taken with extreme precision. All,
+without exception, were buried. Those who served them behaved with the
+most admirable coolness and gallantry. Two were dug out, mounted and
+used again. One was actually disinterred three times and kept in
+action till a shell annihilated the whole section. Corporal Dover
+stuck to his gun throughout and, although wounded, continued to
+discharge his duties with as much coolness as if on parade. In the
+explosion that ended his ill-fated gun, he lost a leg and an arm, and
+was completely buried in the débris. Conscious or unconscious, he lay
+there in that condition until dusk, when he crawled out of all that
+was left of the obliterated trench and moaned for help. Two of his
+comrades sprang from the support trench--by this time the fire
+trench--and succeeded in carrying in his mangled and bleeding body.
+But as all that remained of this brave soldier was being lowered into
+the trench a bullet put an end to his sufferings. No bullet could put
+an end to his glory."
+
+George Easton was firing with me at the gray mass of the oncoming
+horde. "My rifle's jammed!" he cried.
+
+"Take mine." And I stooped to get one from a casualty underfoot. But a
+moment later, as I fired from the parapet, my bayonet was broken off
+by a German bullet. I shouted wildly to Cosh to toss me one from near
+by.
+
+Just then the main body of the Germans swarmed into the end of the
+trench.
+
+Of this Lord Beaverbrook says: "At this moment the Germans made their
+third and last attack. It was arrested by rifle fire, although some
+individuals penetrated into the fire trench on the right. At this
+point all the Princess Patricias had been killed, so that this part of
+the trench was actually tenantless. Those who established a footing
+were few in number, and they were gradually dislodged; and so the
+third and last attack was routed as successfully as those which had
+preceded it."
+
+His conclusion that we had all been killed was justifiable even
+though, fortunately for me, it was an erroneous one. So I am glad for
+other motives than those of mere courtesy to be able here to set him
+right.
+
+Bugler Lee shouted to me: "I'm shot through the leg." A couple of us
+seized him, planning to go down to where the communication trench had
+once been. But he stopped us, saying: "It's no good, boys. It's a dead
+end! They're killing us."
+
+Cosh swore. "Don't give up, kid! We'll beat the ---- yet!" A German
+standing a few yards away raised his rifle and blew his head off.
+Young Brown broke down at this--they had just done in his wounded pal:
+"Oh, look! Look what they've done to Davie," and fell to weeping. And
+with that another put the muzzle of his rifle against the boy's head
+and pulled the trigger.
+
+Young Cox from Winnipeg put his hands above his head at the order. His
+captor placed the muzzle of his rifle squarely against the palm and
+blew it off. There remained only a bloody and broken mass dangling
+from the wrist.
+
+    [Illustration: GERMAN PRISONERS AFTER A SUCCESSFUL CANADIAN
+    ATTACK, BRINGING WOUNDED MEN DOWN A COMMUNICATION TRENCH.]
+
+I saw a man who had come up in the draft with me on the 4th, rolling
+around in the death agony, tossing his head loosely about in the wild
+pain of it, his pallid face a white mark in the muck underfoot. A
+burly German reached the spot and without hesitation plunged his
+saw-edged bayonet through the throat.
+
+Close by another wounded man was struggling feebly under a pile of
+earth, his legs projecting so that only the convulsive heaving of the
+loose earth indicated that a man was dying underneath. Another German
+observed that too, and shoved his bayonet through the mud and held it
+savagely there until all was quiet.
+
+This I did not see, but another did and told me of it afterward.
+Sergeant Phillpots had been shot through the jaw so that he went to
+his knees as a bullock does at the slaughtering. He supported himself
+waveringly by his hands. The blood poured from him so that he was all
+but fainting with the loss of it.
+
+A big German stood over him.
+
+Phillpots looked up: "Play the game! Play the game!" he muttered
+weakly.
+
+The German coolly put a round through his head.
+
+I was still without a bayonet, and seeing these things, said to
+Easton: "We'd better beat it."
+
+He swore again. "Yes, they're murdering us. No use stopping here. Come
+on!"
+
+And just then he, too, dropped. I thought him dead. There was no use
+in my stopping to share his fate or worse. It was now every man for
+himself. At a later date we met in England.
+
+The other half of the regiment lay in support two hundred yards away
+in Belle-waarde Wood and in front of the château and lake of that
+name, where my draft had lain on the fourth. I made a dash for it.
+What with the mud and the many shell holes, the going was bad. I was
+indistinctly aware of a great deal of promiscuous shooting at me, but
+most distinctly of one German who shot at me about ten times in as
+many yards and from quite close range. I saw I could not make it. I
+flung myself into a Johnson hole, and as soon as I had caught my
+breath, scrambled out again and raced for the trench I had just left.
+I was by this time unarmed, having flung my rifle away to further my
+flight, notwithstanding which another German shot at me as I went
+toward him.
+
+As I landed in the trench an angry voice shouted something I could not
+understand. And I scrambled to my feet in time to see a German
+sullenly lower his rifle from the level of my body at the command of a
+big black-bearded officer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+PRISONERS
+
+  A German Version of a Soldier's Death!--The Courage of
+  Cox--Robbing the Helpless--Water on the End of a Bayonet--The
+  Curious Case of Scott--Prussian Bullies--Why I Was Covered with a
+  Fine Sweat.
+
+
+The Germans were by this time in full possession of this slice of
+trench, and for the next few minutes the officer was kept busy pulling
+his men off their victims. Like slavering dogs they were.
+
+He did not have his lambs any too well in hand, however. O.B. Taylor,
+a lovable character in Number One Company, came to his end here. The
+Germans ordered him and Hookie Walker to go back down the trench. He
+had no sooner turned to do so than a German shot him from behind and
+from quite close, so that it blew the groin completely out, making a
+terrible hole. We could not tie up so bad a wound and he bled to
+death. Hookie Walker remained with him to the last, five hours later,
+when he said: "I'm going to sleep boys," and did so. Fortunately, he
+did not suffer. And all the others except young Cox were equally
+fortunate, since they were murdered outright.
+
+Taylor's was the most calculated of all the murders we had witnessed
+and outdid even those of the wounded because the excitement of the
+fight was two hours old and he was doing the bidding of his captors at
+the time. The killing of those who resisted was of course quite in
+order. Why he was killed while Walker was left unharmed and at his
+side to the last we did not know and could only credit to a whimsy of
+our captors. No punishment was visited upon his murderer or upon any
+of them so far as we were able to learn.
+
+Upon my later return to Canada I found that Taylor's sister there had
+received a letter from a German officer enclosing a letter addressed
+to her which had been found on her brother's body, together with three
+war medals and a Masonic ring. The latter was the key to the incident
+since the officer also claimed to have been a Mason. In his letter
+this officer said that her brother had met a soldier's death!
+
+Some said that our friendly officer was not a German but an Irishman.
+I doubted that but it may have been so, for it was true that his
+speech contained no trace of the accent which is usually associated
+with a German's English speech. His was that of an English gentleman.
+And to him we undoubtedly owed our wretched lives that day.
+
+I in particular have good cause to be grateful. A German, all of six
+foot four, who swung a tremendously broad headsman's axe with a curved
+blade, tried several times to get at me. Each time the officer stopped
+him. Still he persisted. He apparently saw no one else and kept his
+eye fastened on me with deadly intention in it. He pushed aside the
+others, Prussians and prisoners alike; he whirled the shining blade
+high above a face lit up with savage exultation, terrible to see, and
+which reflected the sensual revelling of his heated brain in the
+bloody orgy ahead. As I followed the incredibly rapid motions of the
+blade, my blood turned to water. My limbs refused to act and my mind
+travelled back over the years to a little Scottish village where I had
+been used to sit in the dark corners of the shoemaker's shop,
+listening to him and others of the old 2nd Gordons recount their
+terrible tales of the hill men on the march to Kandahar with "Bobs."
+And now I felt that same tremendous sensation of fear which used to
+send me trembling to my childish pallet in the croft, peering
+fearfully through the darkness for the oiled body of a naked Pathan
+with his corkscrew kris. Terror swept over me like a springtime flood.
+He saw no one else. His eye fastened on me in crudest hate. But as he
+stood over me with feet spread wide and the circle of his axe's swing
+broadening for the finale, the thread of rabbit-like mesmerism broke
+and I sprang nimbly aside as the blade buried itself deep in the mud
+wall I had been cowering against. I endeavoured to dodge him by
+putting some of my fellow prisoners between us. No use. He followed
+me, shoving and cursing his way among them, swinging his axe. My hair
+stood on end and I felt rather critical of their much-vaunted Prussian
+discipline. Another endeavoured to bayonet Charlie Scarfe. The officer
+at last stopped them both.
+
+Our captors belonged to the Twenty-first Prussian Regiment and were,
+so far as we knew, the first of their kind we had been up against,
+all previous comers on our front having been Bavarians and latterly
+of the army group of Prince Ruprecht of Bavaria--"Rupie," we called
+him. They wore the baggy grey clothes and clumsy looking leather top
+boots of the German infantryman. The spiked _pickelhauben_ was
+conspicuous by its absence and was, we well knew, a thing only of
+billets and of "swank" parades. In its place was the soft pancake
+trench cap with its small colored button in the front.
+
+The enemy were armed for the most part with pioneers' bayonets, as
+well adapted by reason of their saw edges for sticking flesh and blood
+as for sawing wood; and, if for the former, an unnecessarily cruel
+weapon, since it was bound to stick in the body and badly lacerate it
+internally in the withdrawal; especially if given a twist.
+
+The trench front had been about-faced since its change of ownership
+and the Germans were already casting our dead out of the shattered
+trench, both in front and behind, and in many cases using them to stop
+the gaps in the parapet; so that they now received the bullets of
+their erstwhile comrades.
+
+We were ordered up and out at the back of the parapet and then made to
+lie there. The German artillery had ceased. We had none. Odd shots
+from the remnant of our fellows still hanging on in the supports
+continued to come over, but none of us were hit. In all probability,
+they withheld their fire when they saw what was afoot. Some German
+snipers in a farmhouse at the rear were less considerate, but
+fortunately failed to hit us.
+
+Later we were ordered to take our equipment off and those who had
+coats, to shed them. We did not see the latter again and missed them
+horribly in the rain of that day. Two of the Prussians "frisked" us
+for our tobacco, cigarettes, knives and other valuables.
+
+This was in bitter contrast to our own treatment of prisoners under
+similar conditions. True, we had always searched them but had
+invariably returned those little trinkets and comforts which to a
+soldier are so important. And I think our men had always showered them
+with food and tobacco.
+
+We were then marched to the rear, with the exception of one, who, by
+permission of the officer, remained with the dying Taylor.
+
+There were ten of us all told. I have only heard of a few others who
+were captured that day. Roberts is still in Germany and Todeschi has
+been exchanged and is now in Toronto. The latter lay with a boy of the
+machine-gun crew for a couple of days in a dug-out, both badly
+wounded. A German stumbled on to them. They pleaded for water. The
+German said, "I'll give you water" and bayoneted the boy as he lay. He
+raised his weapon so that the blood of his comrade dripped on
+Todeschi's face.
+
+"All right," Todeschi cried in German, "kill me too, but first give me
+water, you----"
+
+The German lowered his rifle in amazement: "What, you schwein, you
+speak the good German? Where did you learn it?"
+
+"In your schools. For Christ's sake--give me water--and kill me."
+
+"What! You live with us and then do this? Schwein!"
+
+"All right, I will give you water and I will not kill you; just to
+show you how well we can treat a prisoner."
+
+Todeschi was then taken to the field dressing station where according
+to his own account his mangled leg was amputated without the use of
+any anesthetic. But that may have been because in such a time of
+stress they had none. Later he was exchanged.
+
+I met Scott in the prison camp a few days later and he told his tale.
+It appears that in the confusion of the earlier fighting he had become
+separated from the regiment, became lost and eventually floundered
+into an English battalion. He reported to the officer commanding the
+trench and told his story. The officer had no idea where the Patricias
+lay and so ordered Scott to remain with them until such time as an
+inquiry might establish the whereabouts of his regiment.
+
+They were captured, but under less exciting circumstances than
+occurred in our own case. And the Germans had word that there was a
+Canadian amongst these English troops. It was one of the first things
+mentioned. They did not say how they had acquired their information,
+but shouted out a request for the man to stand forth. When no one
+complied, they questioned each man separately, asking him if he was a
+Canadian or knew aught of one in that trench.
+
+They all lied: "No." The Germans were so certain that they again went
+over each man in turn, examining him.
+
+Scott was at the end of the line. He began to cut the Canadian buttons
+off his coat and to remove his badges. Several men near by assisted
+and replaced them with such of their own as they could spare; each man
+perhaps contributing a button. They had no thread nor time to use it
+if they had, so tacked the buttons into place by all manner of
+makeshifts, such as broken ends of matches thrust through holes
+punched in the cloth; anything to hold the buttons in place and tide
+the hunted Scott over the inspection. He passed. The Germans were
+quite furious.
+
+Scott and his companions could only guess at the cause of this strange
+conduct, but presumed that the Canadian was wanted for special
+treatment of an unfavorable, if not of a final nature.
+
+To return to our own case:
+
+About the middle of the afternoon we were herded by our guards into a
+shallow depression a short distance in the rear of the trench and
+there told to lie down. The officer and his men returned to the
+trench. Until we were taken back to the trench at six we were
+continually sniped at by the Germans in the captured trench. We had no
+recourse but to make ourselves as small as possible, which we did. And
+whether owing to the fact that the hollow we were lying in prevented
+our being actually within the range of the enemy vision, or whether
+they were merely playing cat and mouse with us, I do not know, but
+none were hit. Young Cox suffered stoically. His mangled hand had
+become badly fouled with dirt and filth, and the ragged bones
+protruded through the broken flesh. So, in a quiet interval between
+the sniping periods we hurriedly sawed the shattered stump of his hand
+off with our clasp knives and bound it up as best we could. It was not
+a nice task, for him nor us, but he did not so much as grunt during
+the operation. The nearest he came to complaining was when he asked me
+to let him lay his hand across my body to ease it, at the same time
+remarking: "I guess when they get us to Germany they'll let us write,
+and I'll be able to write mother and then she'll not know I've lost my
+hand." He was a most valiant and faithful soldier.
+
+The perpetual rain and mist peculiar to that low-lying land added to
+our wretched condition and increased the pain of the wounds that most
+of us suffered from.
+
+At six o'clock our guards returned and curtly ordered us to our feet.
+We were taken back to the trench, where our officer friend had us
+searched again. Here for the first time my two corporal's stripes were
+noticed and a mild excitement ensued. "Korporal! Korporal!" they
+exclaimed and crowded up the better to inspect me and verify the
+report, and jabbering "_Ja! Ja!_" Apparently a captured corporal was a
+rarity. Strangely enough, they paid little or no attention to the
+sergeant of our party, although he had the three stripes of his rank
+up.
+
+As I happened to be in the lead of our party and the first to enter
+the trench, I was the first man searched and so had to await the
+examination of the others. Worn out by the events of the day and the
+wound I had received early in the morning from a shell fragment, I
+fell asleep against the wall of the trench where I sat.
+
+I was awakened by a poke in the ribs from Scarfe. "Time to shift,
+mate."
+
+I rose to my feet and, following the instructions of the officer, led
+the way along the trench. The Germans had already, with their usual
+industry, gotten the trench into some sort of shape again, with the
+parapet shifted over to the other side and facing Belle-waarde Wood.
+And everywhere along its length I noticed the bodies of our dead built
+into it to replace sandbags while others lay on the parados at the
+rear.
+
+It was not nice. The faces of men we had known and had called comrade
+looked at us now in ghastly disarray from odd sections of both walls.
+Already they were taking a brick-like shape from the weight of the
+filled bags on top of them. In places the legs and arms protruded,
+brushing us as we passed. However, this was war and quite ethical.
+
+Naturally we had to crowd by the other occupants of the trench. And
+each took a poke at us as we went by, some with their bayonets,
+saying: "Verdamnt Engländer" and: "Engländer Schwein,"--pigs of
+English. Also quite a number of them spoke English after a fashion.
+There was in these men none of the soldier's usual tolerance or
+good-natured pity for an enemy who had fought well and had then
+succumbed to the fortunes of war. Instead, a blind and vicious rage
+which took no account of our helpless condition.
+
+They cuffed us, they buffeted us, they pricked us cruelly with their
+saw bayonets and then laughed and sneered as we flinched and dodged
+awkwardly aside. Then they cursed us.
+
+Shortly, we were led into the presence of a man whom I shall remember
+if I live to be a hundred. He wore glasses and on his upper lip there
+bloomed such a dainty moustache as is affected by "Little Willie" as
+Tommy calls the German Crown Prince. He had the eye of a rat. It
+snapped so cruel a hate that one's blood stopped.
+
+He seized me by the right shoulder with his left hand: "You Corporal!
+You Corporal!" as though that fact of itself condemned me, and at the
+same time tugging at his holster until he found his revolver, which he
+placed against my temple. Then and there I fervently prayed that he
+would pull the trigger and end it all. I was fed up. The all-day
+bombardment, the last terrible slaughter of helpless men, the rain and
+cold, combining with the pain of the raw wound in my side, had gotten
+on my nerves. With the revolver still at my head I turned to Scarfe:
+"They're going to do us in, Charlie. I only hope they'll do it proper.
+None of that bayonet stuff. Bullets for me." Already the Prussians
+were crowding round us threateningly again, with their saw-edged
+bayonets ready, some fixed in the rifle, others clasped short, like
+daggers, for such a butchering as they had had earlier in the
+afternoon, when I had been so nearly axed.
+
+"Might as well kill us outright as scare us to death," complained
+Scarfe bitterly.
+
+Nevertheless our hearts leaped when a moment later our mysterious
+black officer friend hove in sight. Life is sweet.
+
+He asked them what they did with us. The tableau answered for itself
+before the words had left his lips. And then we had to listen to our
+fate discussed in language and gesture so eloquent and so fraught with
+terrible importance to us that our sensitized minds could miss no
+smallest point of each fine shade of cruel meaning.
+
+"Little Willie" thought it scarce worth their while to bother with so
+small a bag; that it would not be worth the trouble to send a
+miserable ten of _Verdamnt Engländer_ back to the Fatherland--Better
+to kill them like the swine they were.
+
+Our blood froze to hear the man and to see the poison of that rat soul
+of his exuding from his every pore, in every gesture and in each fresh
+inflection of his rasping voice. And all his men shouted their fierce
+approval and shook in our faces their bloody butcher's bayonets. It
+was a bitter draught. If they had killed us then it would have had to
+have been done in most cold blood, exceeding even the murder of Taylor
+in planned brutality. He at least had not known that it was coming and
+had not felt this insane fear which we now experienced and which made
+us wonder how they would do it. Would each have to watch the other's
+end? And would it be done by bullet or by bayonet? We greatly feared
+it would be the latter. We pictured ourselves held down as hogs
+are--our throats slit----!
+
+The dark officer thought otherwise and minced no words in the saying.
+Our hearts leapt out to him warmly, in gratitude.
+
+He sharply ordered them to desist, at which they slunk sullenly away,
+as hungry dogs do from a bone.
+
+I felt an uncomfortable physical sensation and ran my hand uneasily
+beneath my shirt. I was covered with a fine sweat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+PULLING THE LEG OF A GERMAN GENERAL
+
+  Polygon Wood and Picadilly Again--German Headquarters--Surprising
+  Kitchener--"Your Infantry's No Good"--The Germans Give Us News of
+  the Regiment.
+
+
+We were then escorted under heavy guard out over the fields in the
+rear, past the nearby farmhouse, which was simply filled with snipers.
+The latter, however, did not shoot at us, presumably because they
+might have hit some of our numerous guards. We seemed to be working
+right through the heart of the German Army. Everywhere the troops were
+massed. Along the road they lay in solid formation on both sides. If
+we had had artillery to play on them now they would have suffered
+tremendous losses. The whole countryside presented a living target.
+All the way they shouted "Schwein" and taunted us in both languages.
+Every shell-hole, farmhouse, hut, dugout and old trench on the
+three-mile stretch between the Front and Polygon Wood contributed its
+quota.
+
+The regiment had evacuated Polygon Wood on the night of the third.
+Across the old trail our fatigue parties had tramped new ones in the
+mud, up past Regent Street, Leicester Square and Picadilly. We passed
+them all.
+
+We were marched over to the little settlement of pine-bough huts which
+the regiment had previously taken over from the French. The men with
+me greeted them like old friends. Here was the Sniper's Hut, there the
+Commanding Officer's. This was the hut in which the brave Joe Waldron
+had "gone West," that on the site of one where fourteen of "ours" had
+stopped a shell while they slept. Memories submerged us and made us
+weak. Even the guiding rope that our men had used to hold themselves
+to the trail of nights still held its place for groping German hands.
+
+Beside it lay the fragments of the French signboards, jocular
+advertisements of mud baths for trench fever, the _hôtel_ this and the
+_maison_ that. One of my companions pointed to a larger hut which he
+said our fellows had called the Hotel Cecil. The board was missing
+now. And no German signboard took its place. Their wit did not run in
+so richly innocent a channel.
+
+The huts lay just off the race track in front of the ruined château,
+buried deep in the remnants of what had once been the beautiful park
+of a large country estate. These huts were now the German
+headquarters.
+
+There was as much English as German talked there that day. Everywhere
+there was cooking going on, mostly in portable camp kitchens.
+
+As we came to a halt one big fellow smoking a pipe observed
+nonchalantly: "You fellows are lucky. Our orders were to take no
+Canadian prisoners."
+
+The man was so casual, so utterly matter-of-fact and there was about
+his remark so simple an air of directness and of finality that there
+was no escaping his sincerity, unduly interested though we were.
+
+Another officer said "Engländer?"
+
+The big fellow said "Kanadien." The other raised his brows and
+shoulders: "Uhh!"
+
+A younger officer came up: "Never mind, boys: Your turn to-day. Might
+be mine to-morrow." Turning to the others, he too said:
+"Engländer?"
+
+    [Illustration: WOUNDED CANADIANS RECEIVING FIRST AID IN A
+    SUPPORT TRENCH AFTER AN ATTACK.]
+
+"No! Canadian."
+
+"Oh!" And he appeared to be pleasantly surprised. He asked me for a
+souvenir and pointed to the brass Canada shoulder straps and the red
+cloth "P. P. C. L. I.'s" on the shoulders of the others. But I had
+already shoved my few trinkets down my puttees while lying back of the
+trench that afternoon. Scarfe, however, gave up his "Canada" straps.
+
+The young officer gave him in return a carved nut with silver filigree
+work and gave another man a silver crucifix for the bronze maple
+leaves from the collar of his tunic. And, more important still, he
+gave us all a cigarette, while he had a sergeant give us coffee.
+
+That, the cigarette, was I think much the best of anything we received
+then or for some time to come. Since the bombardment and our wounding,
+our nerves had fairly ached for the sedative which, good, bad or
+indifferent, would steady the quivering harp strings of our nerves.
+And a cigarette did that.
+
+The headquarters staff appeared on the scene. They wanted information,
+just as ours would have done under similar circumstances, but these
+took a different method to acquire it. As before, in the trench, they
+selected me for the spokesman. The senior officer, a general
+apparently, addressed me: "How many troops are there in front of our
+attack?"
+
+I lied: "I don't know."
+
+He shook a threatening finger at me. "I'll tell you this, my man: We
+have a pretty good idea of how many troops lay behind you and if in
+any particular you endeavour to lead us astray it will go very hard
+with all of you. Now answer my question!" His English was good.
+
+I cogitated. It would not do to tell him the terrible truth. That was
+certain. So I took a chance. "Three divisions." He appeared to be
+satisfied. The fact was, there were none behind us. We were utterly
+without supporting troops.
+
+"And Kitchener's Army? How many of them are there here?"
+
+"Why, they haven't even come over yet, sir."
+
+"Don't tell me that: I know better. They've been out here for months."
+
+"But they haven't," I persisted. I told the truth this time.
+
+"Yes," he shouted angrily.
+
+"No," I flung back.
+
+"Well, how many of them are there?"
+
+The division yarn had gone down well. And perhaps I was slightly
+heated. My spirit ran ahead of my judgment. "Five and a half to seven
+million," I said.
+
+He exploded. And called me everything but a soldier. I could not help
+but reflect that I had overdone it a bit. And I certainly thought that
+I was "for it" then and there.
+
+To make matters worse he asked the others and they, profiting by my
+mistake and following the lead of the first man questioned, put
+Kitchener's army at four and a half million; which was only a trifle
+of four million out. So I determined to be reasonable. When he came to
+me again I confirmed the latter figure, explaining my earlier
+statement by my lack of exact knowledge. And so that particular storm
+blew over.
+
+The general came back to me again. "You Canadians thought this was
+going to be a picnic, didn't you?" He was very sarcastic.
+
+"No, we didn't, sir."
+
+"Well, you thought it was going to be a walk through to Berlin, didn't
+you?"
+
+"Why, no. We thought it was the other way about, sir," I ventured.
+
+He shifted: "Well, what do you think of us anyhow?"
+
+"Your artillery was all right but your infantry was no good." I began
+to feel shaky again. However, he took that calmly enough.
+
+"Oh! So our infantry was no good."
+
+"We could have held them all right, sir."
+
+He ruminated on that a moment, rumbled in his throat and abruptly
+changed the subject, in an unpleasant fashion, however.
+
+"You're the fellows we want to get hold of. You cut the throats of our
+wounded."
+
+I denied it and we argued back and forth over that for several
+minutes, and very heatedly. He referred to St. Julien and said that
+this thing had occurred there. I said and quite truthfully that we had
+not been at St. Julien, that we were in the Imperial and not the
+Canadian Army and had been spectators in near-by trenches of the St.
+Julien affair. I even went into some detail to explain that we were a
+special corps of old soldiers who, not being able to rejoin their old
+regiments, had at the outbreak of war formed one of their own and had
+been accepted as such and sent to France months ahead of the Canadian
+contingent. I added that I myself had just rejoined the regiment,
+having got my "Blighty" in March at St. Eloi and as proof of my other
+statements I further volunteered that I was one of the 2nd Gordons and
+after the South African War had gone to Canada where I had finished my
+reserve several years since.
+
+He listened but was plainly unconvinced. Another officer broke in: "I
+can explain it, sir. These men were in the 80th Brigade and the 27th
+Division. Colonel Farquhar was their Commanding Officer and Captain
+Buller took command when Colonel Farquhar was killed." We stared at
+one another in amazement, for it was all quite true.
+
+This finished that examination. We did not tell them that Colonel
+Buller had been blinded a few days before and had been succeeded by
+that Major Hamilton Gault who had been so largely instrumental in
+raising us.
+
+None of our wounds had received the slightest attention. Cox in
+particular suffered cruelly but refused to whimper. Royston's head was
+swollen to the size of a water bucket and he was in great pain. We
+left them here and never saw them again. Cox died two weeks later of a
+blood poisoning which was the combined result of our rough surgery and
+the wanton neglect of our captors. I do not think he was ever able to
+write his mother as he wished. At least she wrote me later for
+information. There was no need of his dying even though it might have
+been necessary to have amputated his arm higher up. Royston was
+exchanged to Switzerland and recovered from his wounds except for the
+loss of an eye.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE PRINCESS PATRICIA'S GERMAN UNCLE
+
+  Roulers--The Old Woman and the Gentle Uhlans--Billeted in a
+  Church--Quizzed by a Prince.
+
+
+We were marched to Roulers, which we reached well after dark. A
+considerable crowd of soldiers and civilians awaited our coming. The
+Belgian women and children congregated in front of the church while we
+waited to be let in, and threw us apples and cigarettes. The uhlans
+and infantrymen rushed them with the flat side of their swords and the
+butts of their muskets; and mistreated them. They knocked one old
+woman down quite close to where I stood. So we had to do without and
+were not even permitted to pick up the gifts that lay at our feet,
+much less the old woman.
+
+The church had been used as a stable quite recently and the
+stone-flagged floor was deep with the decayed straw and accumulated
+filth of men and horses. We lay down in it and got what rest we could
+for the remainder of the night. There were about one hundred and fifty
+prisoners in all--Shropshires, Cheshires, King's Royal Rifles and
+other British regiments--all from our division and mostly from our
+brigade. Other small parties continued to come in during the night,
+but there were no more P.P.'s. In the morning a large tub of water was
+carried in and each man was given a bit of black bread and a slice of
+raw fat bacon. The latter was salty and so thoroughly unappetizing
+that I cannot recall that any one ate his ration, for in spite of the
+fact that we had been twenty-four hours without food, we were so upset
+by the experiences we had undergone, so shattered by shell fire and
+lack of rest that we were perhaps inclined to be more critical of our
+food than normal men would have been.
+
+Shortly afterward a high German officer came in with his staff. He was
+a stout and well-built man of middle age or over, typically German in
+his general characteristics but not half bad looking. His uniform was
+covered with braid and medals. Every one paid him the utmost
+deference. He stopped in the middle of the room.
+
+"Are there any Canadians here?"
+
+I stepped forward. "Yes, sir."
+
+"I mean the Princess Patricia's Canadians."
+
+"Yes, sir. I am. And here's some more of them," and I pointed at the
+prostrate figures of my companions, where they sprawled on the
+flagstones.
+
+"Princess Patricia's Regiment?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, the Princess Patricia is my niece--awfully nice girl. I hope it
+won't be long before I see her again."
+
+I grinned: "Well, I hope it won't be long before I see her, too, sir."
+
+The other fellows joined us, the straw and the smell of it still
+sticking to their clothes as they formed a little knot about the
+Prince and his staff.
+
+The scene was incongruous, the smart uniforms of the immaculately kept
+staff officers contrasting strangely with our own unkempt foulness. We
+occupied the centre of the stage. Around us were grouped the men of
+our sister regiments, most of them lying on the floor in a dazed
+condition. There were few who came forward to listen. They were too
+tired, and to them at least, this was merely an incident--one of a
+thousand more important ones. Odd parts of clothes hung on the ornate
+images and decorations of the room. A German rifle hung by its sling
+from the patient neck of a life-sized Saviour, while further over, the
+vermin-infested shirt of a Britisher hung over the rounded breasts of
+a brooding Madonna, with the Infant in her lap.
+
+At the door a small group of guards stood stiffly to a painful
+attention and continued so to do whilst royalty touched them with the
+shadow of its wings.
+
+The Prince questioned us further and I told him that I had been on a
+guard of honor to the Princess when she had been a child and when her
+father, the Duke of Connaught had been the General Officer Commanding
+at Aldershot.
+
+He laughed back at us and was altogether very friendly. "You'll go to
+a good camp and you'll be all right if you behave yourselves."
+
+Scarfe shoved in his oar here, grousing in good British-soldier
+fashion: "I don't call it very good treatment when they steal the
+overcoats from wounded men."
+
+"Who did that?" He was all steel, and I saw a change come over the
+officers of the staff.
+
+"The chaps that took us prisoners," said Scarfe.
+
+"What regiment were they?" The Prince glanced at an aide, who hastily
+drew out a notebook and began to take down our replies.
+
+"The 21st Prussians, sir."
+
+"Do you know the men?"
+
+"Their faces but not their names."
+
+"Of what rank was the officer in charge?"
+
+We did not know, but thought him a company officer of the rank of
+captain perhaps. He asked for other particulars which we gave to the
+best of our knowledge.
+
+"I'll attend to that," he said. However, we heard no more of it. We
+refrained from complaining about the actual ill-treatment and
+indignities we had been subjected to, the murder of our unoffending
+comrades, or the lack of attention to our wounds, as we rightly judged
+that we should only have earned the enmity of our guards.
+
+"May I have your cap badge?" the Prince asked, decently enough.
+
+I lied brazenly: "Sorry, sir; I've lost mine."
+
+The fact was I had shoved it down under my puttees while lying back of
+the trench the previous afternoon.
+
+Scarfe said: "You can have mine, sir."
+
+He took it. "Thanks so much." He glanced at the aide again; rather
+sharply this time, I thought. The latter blushed and hastily extracted
+a wallet, from which he handed Scarfe a two-mark piece, equal to one
+and ten pence, or forty-four cents. He gave us his name before
+leaving, and my recollection is that it was something like Eitelbert.
+Evidently he was a brother of the Duchess of Connaught, whom we knew
+to have been a German princess whose brothers and other male relatives
+all enjoyed high commands among our foes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+HOW THE GERMAN RED CROSS TENDED THE CANADIAN WOUNDED
+
+  "Come Out Canadians!"--The Crucifixion--"Nix! Nix!"--Civilian
+  Hate--"Engländer Schwein!"
+
+
+We remained in the fouled church all of that day and night and until
+the following morning. No more food appeared. We were marched down to
+the railroad under heavy escort, crowded into freight cars and locked
+in. The guards were distributed in cars of their own, alternating with
+ours. Our wounds remained unattended to.
+
+At every station they thundered: "Come out, Canadians!" They lined us
+up in a row while a staff officer put the same questions to us in
+nearly every case. They were particularly interested in the quality of
+our rations and asked if it was not true that we were starving and if
+our pay had not been stopped. The guards invariably explained to the
+civilians that these were the Canadians who had cut the throats of the
+German wounded.
+
+We did not know how to explain the prevalence of this impression. On
+the contrary, we were aware of the story of the crucifixion of three
+of the Canadian Division during Ypres. The tale had come smoking hot
+to our men in the Polygon Wood trenches during the great battle. It
+gave in great detail all the salient facts which were that after
+recapturing certain lost positions, the men of a certain regiment had
+discovered the body of one of their sergeants, together with those of
+two privates, crucified on the doors of a cowshed and a barn. German
+bayonets had been driven through their hands and feet and their
+contorted faces gave every appearance of their having died in great
+agony. This story was and is generally believed throughout all ranks
+of the Canadian Army. For its truth I cannot vouch.
+
+We knew that our own men had never mistreated any prisoners and had in
+fact usually done quite the reverse. How far other regiments may have
+gone in retaliation for what was known as "The Crucifixion," it is
+impossible to say. That prisoners may have been killed is possible,
+for such things become an integral part of war once the enemy has so
+offended. But we could not believe that there had been any cutting of
+throats as that would imply a sheer cold-bloodedness that we could not
+stomach.
+
+The mob surged around and reviled us, while the guards, in high good
+humour, translated their remarks, unless, as was frequently the case,
+they were made to the officials in English for our benefit. The other
+British soldiers were left in their cars.
+
+Our wounded were getting very badly off by this time. It was
+impossible to avoid trampling on one another as the car was very dark
+at best and the one small window in the roof was closed as soon as we
+drew into a station. When taken out we were under heavy escort and
+were allowed no opportunity to clean up the accumulated filth of the
+car. We suffered terribly for food and water, and some of the wounds
+began to turn, so that what with exhaustion and all, we grew very
+weak.
+
+At one station the guards took us out and made us line up to watch
+them eat of a hearty repast which the Red Cross women had just brought
+them. And we were very hungry. When, we too, asked for food they said:
+"Nix! Nix!" The crowds met us at every station and included women of
+all classes, who called us _Engländer Schwein_ and who at no time gave
+us the slightest assistance, but, instead, devoted themselves to the
+guard.
+
+Other men told us later that Red Cross women had spat in their
+drinking water and in their food. There was no opportunity for this in
+our case as we did not receive any of either.
+
+We did not receive any food during this trip, which lasted from the
+morning of one day until the night of the next. We had gone since the
+day of our capture on the coffee received at headquarters in Polygon
+Wood and the single issue of bread, water and bacon received in the
+church, the latter of which we could not eat; a total of three days
+and nights on that one issue of rations.
+
+We pulled into Giessen at eleven, the night of May tenth. The citizens
+made a Roman holiday of the occasion and the entire population turned
+out to see the _Engländer Schwein_. There was a guard for every
+prisoner, and two lines of fixed bayonets. The mob surged around,
+heaping on us insults and blows; particularly the women. With hate in
+their eyes, they spat on us. We had to take that or the bayonet.
+These were the acts not only of the rabble, but also of the people of
+good appearance and address.
+
+One very well-dressed woman rushed up. Under other circumstances I
+should have judged her to have been a gentlewoman. She shrieked
+invectives at us as she forced her way through the crowd. "Schwein!"
+she screamed, and struck at the man next me. He snapped his shoulders
+back as a soldier does at attention. Then, drawing deep from the very
+bottom of her lungs, she spat the mass full in his face. The muscles
+of his face twitched painfully but he held his eyes to the front and
+stared past his tormentor, seeing other things.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE CURIOUS CONCOCTIONS OF THE CHEF AT GIESSEN
+
+  Oliver Twist at Giessen--Acorn Coffee and Shadow Soup--Chestnut
+  Soup--Fostering Racial Hatred.
+
+
+We had a mile-and-a-half march to the prison camp. Those who were past
+walking were put in street cars and sent to the laager, where upon our
+arrival we were shoved into huts for the night, supperless, of course.
+This was our introduction to the prison camp of Giessen.
+
+The next morning we each received three-quarters of a pint of acorn
+coffee, so called, horrible-tasting stuff; and a loaf of black
+bread--half potatoes and half rye--weighing two hundred and fifty
+grams, or a little more than half a pound, among five men. This
+allowed a piece about three by three by four inches to each man for
+the day's ration. The coffee consisted of acorns and four pounds of
+burned barley boiled in one hundred gallons of water. There was no
+sugar or milk. My curiosity led me later to get this and other recipes
+from the fat French cook.
+
+All that day and for several following, official and guards were busy
+numbering and renumbering us and assigning us to our companies. They
+were hopelessly German about it, and did it so many times and very
+thoroughly. There were twelve thousand men in the camp and eight
+hundred in the laager. The majority were Russian and French with a
+fairish sprinkling of Belgians. There were perhaps six hundred British
+in the entire camp. The various nationalities were mixed up and each
+section given a hut very similar to those American and British troops
+occupy in their own countries. A number of smaller camps in the
+neighbouring districts were governed from this central one.
+
+For dinner we had shadow soup, so named for obvious reasons. The
+recipe in my diary reads: "For eight hundred men, two hundred gallons
+of water, one small bag of potatoes and one packet of herbs."
+
+To make matters worse the vegetables issued at this camp were in a
+decayed condition and continued to come to us so.
+
+Another staple dinner ration was ham soup. This was the usual two
+hundred gallons of water boiled with ten pounds of ham rinds, ten
+pounds of cabbage and twenty pounds of potatoes. The ham rind had hair
+on it but we used to fish for it at that and considered ourselves
+lucky to get a piece. Oatmeal soup, another meal, consisted of two
+hundred gallons of water, two pounds of currants and fifty pounds of
+oatmeal; chestnut soup, two hundred gallons of water, one hundred
+pounds of whole chestnuts and ten pounds of potatoes. It was a
+horrible concoction and my diary has: "To be served hot and thrown
+out."
+
+Meat soup was two hundred gallons of water, ten pounds of meat, one
+small bag of potatoes and ten pounds of vegetables. This was the most
+nutritious of the lot. Unfortunately for us, the small portion of meat
+and most of the potatoes were given to the French, both because the
+cook and all his assistants were Frenchmen and because the authorities
+willed it so.
+
+This was usually managed without any apparent unfairness by serving
+the British first and the French last, with the result that the one
+received a tin full of hot water that was too weak to run out,
+while the Frenchmen's spoons stood to attention in the thicker mess
+they found in the bottom. This, with other things, contributed to make
+bad blood between the two races. A great show was made of stirring up
+the mess, but it was a pure farce.
+
+    [Illustration: RECIPES FROM CORPORAL EDWARD'S DIARY.]
+
+Rice soup consisted of two hundred gallons of water, fifty pounds of
+rice, twenty pounds of potatoes and one pound of currants; bean soup,
+two hundred gallons of water, fifty pounds of beans, and twenty pounds
+of potatoes; pork soup, two hundred gallons of water, ten pounds of
+pork and fifty pounds of potatoes. Porridge was made of two hundred
+gallons of water, fifteen pounds of oatmeal and two pounds of barley.
+The diary states: "To be served hot as a drink."
+
+Once in two months a ration of sausage was dished out. For breakfast
+once a week there was one pint of acorn coffee without sugar or milk
+and one and a half square inches of Limburger cheese. To quote from
+the diary: "Before serving, open all windows and doors. Then send for
+the Russians to take it away."
+
+The Germans discriminated against the British prisoners. When there
+was any disagreeable duty; the cry went up for "der Engländer." The
+much-sought-for cookhouse jobs all went to the French, who waxed fat
+in consequence. No Britisher was ever allowed near the cookhouse. The
+French had for the most part been there for some time, and, their
+country lying so close by; they were receiving parcels. We were not,
+and this made the food problem a very serious one for us. Their
+supplies were received through Switzerland which was the one anchor to
+windward for so many of us in this and other respects.
+
+At first the French used to give us a certain amount of their own
+food, but eventually ceased to do so. Most of them worked down in the
+town daily and could "square" the guard long enough to buy tobacco at
+twenty-five pfennigs--or two and a half pence--a package, which they
+sold to us later at eighty pfennigs--until we got on to their
+profiteering.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE WAY THEY HAVE AT GIESSEN
+
+  "Raus!"--The Strafe Barracks--The Appeal for Casement--Why
+  Parcels Should Be Sent--A Hell on Earth--That Brickyard
+  Fatigue--Gott Strafe England--Slow Starvation--Merciless
+  Discipline--Canadian Humor--The Debt We Owe--Inoculating for
+  Typhoid?--Joseph's Coat of Many Colors--The Russian Who Unwound
+  the Rag--The Monotony of the Wire--Teaching the Germans the
+  British Salute.
+
+
+Except for the starving, as I look back now, Giessen was not such a
+bad camp as such places go. At least it was the best that we were to
+know. The discipline, of course, was fairly severe, but on the other
+hand the Commandant did not trouble us a great deal. The petty
+annoyances were harder to endure. Frequently we would get the "Raus!"
+at half-hour intervals by day or night; "Raus out!" "Raus in!" and so
+on.
+
+We never knew what our tormentors wanted but supposed it to be a
+systematic attempt to break our spirit and our nerve by the simple
+expedient of habitually interfering with our sleep so that we would
+become like the Russians. They were mostly utterly broken in spirit
+and had the air of beaten dogs, so that they cringed and fawned to
+their masters.
+
+The least punishment meted out for the most trifling offense was three
+days' cells. Some got ten years for refusing to work in munition and
+steel factories, particularly British and Canadians.
+
+There are large numbers of both who are to-day serving out sentences
+of from eighteen months to ten years in the military fortresses of
+Germany under circumstances of the greatest cruelty.
+
+The so-called courts-martial were mockeries of trials. The culprit was
+simply marched up to the orderly room, received his sentence and
+marched away again. He was allowed no defence worthy of the name.
+
+Some of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry were "warned" for work
+in a munitions factory. When the time came around they were taken away
+but refused to work and so they were knocked about quite a bit. One
+was shot in the leg and another bayoneted through the hip, and all
+were sent back to camp, where they were awarded six weeks in the
+punishment camp, known as the strafe barracks.
+
+This was a long hut in which were two rows of stools a few paces
+apart. The _Raus_ blew for the culprits at five-thirty. At six they
+were marched to the hut and made to sit down in two rows facing one
+another, at attention--that is, body rigid, head thrown well back,
+chest out, hands held stiffly at the sides and eyes straight to the
+front--for two hours! Meanwhile the sentries marched up and down the
+lane, watching for any relaxation or levity. If so much as a face was
+pulled at a twinkling eye across the way, another day's strafing was
+added to the penalty. At the end of the two hours one hour's rest was
+allowed, during which the prisoners could walk about in the hut but
+could not lie down! This continued all day until "Lights out." For six
+weeks. No mail, parcels, writing or exercise was permitted the
+prisoners during that time, and the already scanty rations were cut.
+
+During good behavior we were allowed two post cards and two letters a
+month, with nine lines to the former and thirteen to the page of the
+latter. No more, no less. Each letter had four pages of the small,
+private-letter size. The name and address counted as a line. Mine was
+Kriegsgefingenenlaager, Kompagnie No. 6, Barackue No. A. The writing
+had to be big and easily read and, in the letters, on four sides of
+the paper. No complaint or discussion of the war was permitted. Fully
+one-half of those written were returned for infringements, or fancied
+ones, of these rules. Sometimes when the censor was irritated they
+were merely chucked into the fire. And as they had also to pass the
+English censor it is no wonder that many families wondered why their
+men did not write.
+
+We were there for three months before our parcels began to arrive. We
+considered ourselves lucky if we received six out of ten sent, and
+with half the contents of the six intact. In the larger camps the
+chances of receipt were better. The small camps were merely units
+attached to and governed by the larger ones, which handled the mail
+before giving it to the authorities at the smaller ones.
+
+Thus, a man who was "attached" to Giessen camp, although perhaps one
+hundred miles away from it, had to submit to the additional delay and
+chance of loss and theft included in the censoring of the parcel at
+Giessen as well as at the actual place of his confinement.
+
+This doubled the chances of fault-finding and of theft. Knowing this
+to be true, I most earnestly recommend the sending of parcels. True, a
+large proportion of them are not received, but those that are
+represent the one salvation of the prisoner-of-war in German hands. So
+terribly true is this that when we began to receive parcels at
+irregular intervals, we used regularly to acknowledge to our friends
+the receipt of parcels which we had never received. This was the low
+cunning developed by our treatment. If advised that a parcel of tea,
+sugar or other luxuries had been sent and it did not appear after
+weeks of patient waiting, we knew that we should never see that
+parcel. Nevertheless, we usually wrote and thanked the donor and
+acknowledged the receipt, fearful otherwise that he or she should say:
+"What's the use?" and send no more. And we were not allowed to tell
+the truth--that it had been stolen.
+
+The first three months of our stay at Giessen were probably the worst
+of all, including as they did the transition period to this life. It
+seemed then a hell on earth. The slow starvation was the worst. Once,
+in desperation, I gave a Frenchman my good boots for his old ones and
+two and a half marks, and then gave sixty pfennigs of this to the
+French cook for a bread ration. Again, in going down the hut one day,
+I espied a flat French loaf cut into four pieces, drying on the window
+sill. Seizing one piece, I tucked it under my tunic and passed on
+before the loss was discovered. Some of the British could be seen at
+times picking over the sour refuse in the barrels. This amused the
+Germans very much. We endeavoured to get cookhouse jobs for the
+pickings to be had, but could not do so. At a later date, when the
+Canadian Red Cross, Lady Farquhar, Mrs. Hamilton Gault and our
+families were sending us packages regularly, we made out all right.
+
+Some English societies were in the habit of sending books, music and
+games to the prisoners but none of these ever reached the group with
+whom I associated, even before our later actions put us quite beyond
+the German pale.
+
+The appeal for Casement and the Irish Brigade was made to us. A
+number of prisoners were taken apart and the matter broached privately
+to them. Pamphlets on the freeing of Ireland were also distributed. I
+did not see any one go over, and an Irishman who was detailed with
+another Canadian and myself on a brickyard fatigue said that they had
+recruited only forty in the camp. The whole thing turned out to be a
+failure.
+
+There were twelve of us all told on that brickyard job. Three or four
+shoveled clay into the mixing machine, two more filled the little car
+which two others pushed along the track of the narrow-gauge railroad.
+We were guarded by four civilian Germans of some home defense corps,
+all of whom labored with us. The two trammers used to start the car,
+hop on the brake behind and let it run of its own momentum down the
+incline to the edge of the bank where it would be checked for dumping.
+Sometimes we forgot to brake the car so that it would ricochet on in a
+flying leap off the end of the track, and so on over the dump. The
+guards would rage and swear but could prove nothing so long as our
+fellows did not get too raw and do this too frequently.
+
+One day we shovelers decided to add to the gaiety of nations. While
+one attracted the guards' attention elsewhere we slipped a chunk of
+steel into the mess. There was a grinding crash, and a large cogwheel
+tore its way through the roof. In a moment, the air was full of
+machinery and German words. It was a proper wreck. The guards ran
+around gesticulating angrily, tearing their hair and threatening us,
+while we endeavoured to look surprised. It is reasonable to suppose
+that we were unsuccessful, for we were hustled back to camp and drew
+five days' cells each from the Commandant. There was no trial. He
+merely sentenced us.
+
+United States Ambassador Gerard only came to Giessen once in my time
+there, and that was while I was off at one of the detached camps, so I
+had no opportunity of observing the result.
+
+We knew very little of what was going on in the outside world. The
+guards were not allowed to converse with us, and if one was known to
+speak English he was removed. However, they were more or less curious
+about us so that a certain amount of clandestine conversation
+occurred. Some were certain that they were going to win the war.
+Others said: "England has too much money. Germany will never win."
+They used frequently to gather the Russians, Belgians and French
+together and lecture them on England's sins. They said that England
+was letting them do all the fighting, bleeding them white of their men
+and treasure so as to come out at the end of the war with the balance
+of power necessary for her plan of retaining Constantinople and the
+Cinque Ports of France. Many were convinced, and this did not add to
+the pleasantness of our lot.
+
+The notorious _Continental Times_ was circulated amongst us freely in
+both French and English editions. It regularly gave us a most
+appalling list of German victories and it specialised in abuse of the
+English. We counted up in one month a total of two million prisoners
+captured by the Germans on all fronts.
+
+As I have said, Giessen was the best camp of all, barring the
+starvation. But the discipline there was merciless. The laager was
+inclosed by a high wire fence which we were forbidden to approach
+within four feet of. A Russian sergeant overstepped that mark one day
+to shout something to a friend in an adjoining laager. The sentry
+shouted at him. He either failed to hear or did not understand. The
+sentry killed him without hesitation.
+
+A Belgian started over one day with some leftover soup which he
+purposed giving to the Russians. The sentry would not let him pass. He
+went back and told his mate. The latter, a kindly little fellow,
+thinking that the sentry had not understood the nature of the mission,
+decided to try himself. The sentry stopped him. He attempted to argue.
+The sentry pushed him roughly back. He struck the German. The latter
+dropped him with a blow on the head, and while he lay unconscious
+shoved the bayonet into him. It was done quite coolly and
+methodically, without heat. He was promoted for it. We were told that
+he had done a good thing and that we should get the same if we did not
+behave.
+
+A Canadian who was forced to work in a munitions plant and whose task
+included the replacing of waste in the wheel boxes of cars enjoyed
+himself for a while, lifting the greasy waste out and replacing it
+with sand. He got ten years for that.
+
+The German in charge of our laager hated the _verdamnt Engländer_ and
+lost no opportunity of bulldozing and threatening us. One of the
+Canadians who had been in the American Navy was unusually truculent.
+The German purposely bunted him one day. "Don't do that again!" The
+German repeated the act. The sailor jolted him in the jaw so that he
+went to dreamland for fifteen minutes. The prisoner was taken to the
+guardroom and we never heard his ultimate fate, but at the ruling rate
+he was lucky if he got off with ten years.
+
+It is men like this to whom our Government and people owe such a debt
+as may be paid only in a small degree by our insistence after the war
+that they be given their liberty. A greater glory is theirs than that
+of the soldier. They wrought amongst a world of foes, knowing their
+certain punishment, but daring it rather than assist that foe's
+efforts against their country.
+
+One day we were told that we must be inoculated in the arm against
+typhoid. We thought nothing of that. But the next day men began to
+gather in groups so that the guards shouted roughly at them, bidding
+them not to mutter and whisper so.
+
+Where the word came from I know not. It may have emanated in the
+fears of some active imagination on the chance and truthful word of a
+guard, flung in derision at some desperate man, or in a kindlier mood
+and in warning. The word was that we were to be inoculated with the
+germs of consumption. I understand that it appeared also in the papers
+at home. It seemed horrible beyond words to us. The idea appeared
+crazy but was equally on a par with the events we witnessed daily.
+Myself, I planned to take no chances; if it were humanly possible.
+
+We were all ordered to parade for the inoculation. I hid myself with a
+few others and so escaped the operation. Nothing was said so I could
+only suppose that they failed to check us up as it was not in keeping
+with the German character as we had come to know it to miss any
+opportunity of corrective punishment even though the inoculation had
+been for our own good.
+
+It is true that some of the men so inoculated fell prey to
+consumption. On the other hand one of them had had a well defined case
+of it before, and it was almost certain that the living conditions
+prevailing amongst us would insure the appearance of the disease so
+that we had no proof that any man was so inoculated. Some of the men
+so affected were sent to Switzerland for the benefit of the mountain
+air through an arrangement made by the Red Cross with the Swiss
+authorities.
+
+    [Illustration: FELLOW PRISONERS AT GIESSEN. FROM LEFT TO RIGHT:
+    A CHESHIRE REGIMENT MAN, A SIBERIAN RUSSIAN, AN EAST YORKSHIRE
+    LIGHT INFANTRYMAN AND A GORDON HIGHLANDER.]
+
+    [Illustration: FELLOW PRISONERS AT GIESSEN. THREE HIGHLANDERS
+    AND A YORKSHIRE LIGHT INFANTRYMAN.]
+
+One of our guards was subject to fits and habitually ran amuck amongst
+us, abusing some of the prisoners in a painful fashion. We made
+complaint of this through the proper channels, for which crime the
+officer in charge stopped our fires and other privileges for the time
+being.
+
+Most of the men wore prison uniforms or in some cases, suits sent from
+England which were altered by the authorities to conform to their
+regulations. These required that if one was not in a distinctive and
+enemy uniform that broad stripes of bright colored cloth be set into
+the seam of the trousers; not sewed on, but into the goods. A large
+diamond shaped piece or else a square of such cloth was set into the
+breast and back of the tunic. I preferred my uniform, dilapidated
+though it was. We were permitted the choice, probably less out of
+kindness than because of the saving involved.
+
+There was a big simple giant of a Russian here who was badly sprung
+at the knees. He had been forced to work during the winter in an
+underground railway station near Berlin. He had had no shoes and had
+stood in the water for weeks, digging. He was very badly crippled in
+consequence.
+
+Some four hundred Russians came to us after the fall of Warsaw. They
+were mostly wounded and all rotten. On the three months' march to
+Giessen the wounded had received absolutely no attention other than
+their own. Here we had a crazy German doctor, a mediocre French one
+and Canadian orderlies. If an Englishman went to the hospital for
+treatment it was "Vick!"--Get out. These Russians were treated
+similarly. The French fared better. One big, fine-looking Russian,
+with a filthy mass of rags wound round his arm, reported for
+attention. They unwound the rag and his arm dropped off. He died, with
+five others, that afternoon, and God only knows how many more on the
+trip they had just finished.
+
+They were buried in a piano case, together. Usually they were placed
+in packing cases. We asked for a flag with which to cover them as
+soldiers should be. They asked what that was for and there it ended.
+
+Another Russian had a foul arm which leaked badly so that it was not
+only painful to him but offensive to the rest of us. Nothing was done
+for him.
+
+They were all thoroughly cowed, as are dogs that have been illtreated.
+And they jumped to it when a German spoke--excepting two of their
+officers, who refused to take down their epaulets when ordered to do
+so. We did not learn how they fared. These were the only captive
+officers of any nationality whom we saw.
+
+We became sick of the sight of one another as even the best of friends
+do under such abnormal conditions. For variety I often walked around
+the enclosure with a Russian. Neither of us had the faintest idea what
+the other said, but it was a change!
+
+The monotony of the wire was terrible--and just outside it in the lane
+formed by the encircling set of wire, the dogs, with their tongues
+out, walked back and forth, eyeing us.
+
+There was so little to talk about. We knew nothing and could only
+speculate on the outcome of the commonest events which came to us on
+the tongue of rumour or arose out of our own sad thoughts.
+
+The authorities were not satisfied with our recognition--or lack of
+it--of their officers and took us out to practice saluting drill--a
+thing always detested by soldiers, especially veterans. The idea was
+to make us salute visiting German officers properly, in the German
+fashion and not in our own. Theirs consisted of saluting with the
+right hand only, with the left held stiffly straight at the side,
+while our way was to salute with the hand farthest from the officer,
+giving "Eyes left" or "Eyes right" as the case might be, and with the
+free hand swinging loosely with the stride.
+
+So a school of us were led out to this. The very atmosphere was tense
+with sullen rebellion. The guards eyed us askance. The officer stood
+at the left awaiting us; beyond him and on the other side of the road,
+a post.
+
+An _unteroffizier_ ordered us to march by, one by one, to give the
+_Herr Offizier_ "Augen Links" in the German fashion, and to the post,
+which represented another officer, an "Augen Rechts" when we should
+come to it.
+
+"I'll see him in hell first," I muttered to the man next me. I was in
+the lead of the party. I shook with excitement and fear of I knew not
+what.
+
+As the command rang out I stepped out with a swing, and with the
+action, decision came to me. As I approached the officer he drew up
+slightly and looked at me expectantly.
+
+I gave him a stony stare, and passed on.
+
+A few more steps and I reached the post. I pulled back my shoulders
+with a smart jerk, got my arms to swinging freely, snapped my head
+round so that my eyes caught the post squarely and swung my left hand
+up in a clean-cut parabola to "Eyes right," in good old regimental
+order.
+
+A half dozen shocked sentries came up on the double. It was they who
+were excited now. I was master of myself and the situation. The
+_unteroffizier_ ordered me to repeat and salute. I did so--literally.
+The officer was, to all outward appearances, the only other person
+there who remained unmoved. My ardour had cooled by this time, and his
+very silence seemed worse than the threats of the guard. Nor was I
+exactly in love with my self-appointed task. Nevertheless, I saw my
+mates watching me and inwardly applauding. I was ashamed to quit. I
+did it again. That won me another five days' cells.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE ESCAPE
+
+  Picking a Pal for Switzerland--Cold Feet--The Talk in the
+  Wood--Nothing Succeeds Like Success and--!--Simmons and Brumley
+  Try Their Hand.
+
+
+Mervin Simmons of the 7th, and Frank Brumley of the 3rd Battalion,
+Canadian Expeditionary Force were planning to escape. Word of it
+leaked through to me. This added fuel to the fire of my own similar
+ambition. They, and I too, thought that it was not advisable for more
+than two to travel together. I began to look around for a partner. I
+"weighed up" all my comrades. It was unwise to broach the subject to
+too many of them. I bided my time until a certain man having dropped
+remarks which indicated certain sporting proclivities, I broached the
+subject to him. He was most enthusiastic. We decided on Switzerland as
+our objective and awaited only the opportunity to make a break.
+
+There were few if any preparations to make. We were not yet receiving
+parcels and our allowance of food was so scanty that it was impossible
+to lay any by. We had a crude map of our own drawing. And that was our
+all.
+
+In the interval we discussed ways and means of later travel and
+endeavoured to prepare our minds for all contingencies, even capture.
+We talked the matter over with Simmons and Brumley at every
+opportunity, so as to benefit also by their plans. This required
+caution so we were careful at all times that we should not be seen
+together; rather that we should even appear unfriendly. We developed
+the cunning of the oppressed. Once we even staged a wordy quarrel over
+some petty thing for the benefit of our guards and others of the
+prisoners whom we distrusted. At other times we foregathered in dim
+corners of our huts as though by chance. We conversed covertly from
+the corners of our mouths and without any movement of the lips, as
+convicts do. This avoidance of one another was made the easier because
+of the arrangement of the personnel of each hut. The various
+nationalities were pretty well split up in companies, presumably to
+prevent illicit co-operation and each company was separated from the
+others by the wire.
+
+Our chance came at last. We were "warned" for a working party on a
+railroad grade near by. As compliance would enable us to get on the
+other side of the wire, we made no protest. This work was a part of
+the authorities' scheme of farming prisoners out to private
+individuals and corporations who required labour. In this case it was
+a railroad contractor. As a rule the contractors fed us better than
+the authorities, if for no other reason than to keep our working
+strength up.
+
+We were marched out of the laager without any breakfast each morning
+to the work and there received a little sausage and a bit of bread for
+breakfast. At noon we received soup of a better quality than the camp
+stuff. It was cooked by a Russian Pole, a civilian; one of many who
+was living out in the town on parole. These had to report regularly to
+the authorities and had to remain in the local area.
+
+We were on the job a week before things seemed favourable. We had only
+what we stood in, excepting the rough map, which was drawn from
+hearsay and our scanty knowledge of the country. We planned to travel
+at night, lay our course by the stars and perhaps walk to Switzerland
+in six weeks.
+
+We worked all morning, grading on the railroad embankment. At noon we
+knocked off for soup and a rest. We were on the edge of a large wood.
+Some of the men flung themselves on the bank; others went to see if
+the soup was ready. A few went into the wood. The solitary guard was
+elsewhere. We said good-bye to the few who knew of our plans. They
+bade us God-speed and then we, too, faded into the recesses of the
+wood.
+
+We had no sooner set foot in it than I noticed a curious change come
+over my companion. He said that it was a bad time, a bad place, found
+fault with everything and said that we should not go that day.
+However, we continued, half-heartedly on his part, to shove our way on
+into the wood. Occasionally he glanced fearfully over his shoulder and
+voiced querulous protests. I did not answer him. A little further on
+and he stopped. A dog was barking.
+
+"There's too many dogs about, Edwards. And just look at all those
+houses." He pointed to where a village showed through the trees.
+
+"Sure thing, there'll be houses thick like that all the way. It's our
+job to keep clear of them."
+
+"Yes, but look at the people. There's bound to be lots of them where
+there's so many houses."
+
+"Of course there are," I replied: "Germany's full of houses and
+people. That's no news. Come on."
+
+"Oh! They'll see us sure, Edwards--and telegraph ahead all over the
+country. We haven't got any more show than a rabbit."
+
+With that I lost patience and gave him a piece of my mind. We stood
+there, arguing it back and forth.
+
+It was no use: He fell prey to his own fears; saw certain capture and
+a dreadful punishment. He conjured up all the dangers that an active
+imagination could envisage: Every bush was a German and every sound
+the occasion of a fresh alarm. He was like to ruin my own nerves with
+his petty panics.
+
+It was in vain that I pleaded with him: He could not face the dangers
+that he saw ahead. The laager seemed to him, by comparison, a haven
+of refuge. When all else failed, I appealed to his pride. He had none.
+I warned him that we should meet with nothing but scorn from our
+comrades, excepting laughter, which was worse. I begged and pleaded
+with him to go on with me. No use. All his courage was foam and had
+settled back into dregs.
+
+And so we returned. I was heart-broken. But there was no use in my
+going on alone. To travel by night we must sleep in the day time and
+that required that some one should always be on watch to avoid the
+chance travellers of the day--which was obviously impossible for any
+one who travelled alone.
+
+We had been gone only an hour and a half and the guard was just
+beginning to look around for us. Otherwise we had not been missed nor
+seen, for the wood was a large one and we had not yet gotten out of
+its confines. The guard was too relieved to find us, when we stepped
+out of the wood and picked up our shovels, to do more than betray a
+purely personal annoyance. He asked where we had been and why we had
+remained for so long a time. We gave the obvious excuse. He was too
+well pleased at his own narrow escape from responsibility to be
+critical, so that the affair ended in so far as he or his kind were
+concerned. Which made what followed the harder to bear.
+
+For it was not so with our own comrades. My prognostication had been a
+correct one. A few of them had known that we were going; some had bade
+us good-bye. They rested on their picks now and stared at us, lifting
+their eyebrows, with a knowing smile for one another and a half-sneer
+for us. My companion had already plumbed the depths of fear and so was
+now lost to all shame. Myself, I found it very hard. Soldiers have,
+outwardly at least, but little tenderness, except perhaps in bad
+times, and they showed none now. Nor mercy. The situation would have
+been ridiculous had it not been so utterly tragic--to have failed
+without trying! Edwards's escape became camp offal. We became the butt
+and the byword of the camp, so that I honestly regretted not having
+pushed on alone. I felt sure that the almost certain capture and more
+certain punishment would have been more bearable than this. There was
+nothing that I could say in my own defense except at the other man's
+expense--which would have been in questionable taste and would have
+been deemed the resort of a weakling. So I kept my counsel and
+brooded. The ignorance of the guards made the tragedy comic. It was
+very humiliating. I gritted my teeth and swore that I at any rate
+should go again in spite of their incredulous jeers. But it was all
+terribly discouraging and made me most despondent.
+
+And that finished that trip to Switzerland.
+
+A few days later Simmons and Brumley disappeared. There was no
+commotion. One day they were with us and the next--they were not. The
+guards said nothing and we feared to ask. I longed ardently to be with
+them.
+
+In a few days the camp was thrown into a mild turmoil. The poor
+fellows were escorted in under a heavy guard. And very dejected they
+looked too--in rags, very wet and evidently short of food, sleep and a
+shave. Nevertheless, I envied them.
+
+They disappeared for a long time. We were told they got two weeks'
+cells and six weeks of sitting on the stools in strafe barracks. I
+remembered the Yorkshiremen and my envy was tempered.
+
+I spent most of my time casting about for the means for a real
+escape. Quite aside from my natural desire for freedom I felt that my
+good name as a soldier was at stake. However, I waited for an
+opportunity to converse with Simmons and Brumley before doing anything
+as I felt that their experience might contain some useful hints for
+me.
+
+They appeared at the end of two months, quite undismayed. They told me
+of what had happened to them and Simmons approached me on the subject
+of making another try of it with them. I readily consented. They were
+now convinced that three or four could make the attempt with a better
+chance of success than two men. I would have agreed to go an army! All
+I wanted was an opportunity to prove my mettle and retrieve my lost
+reputation.
+
+They told me their story. It seems that they had been sent out as a
+working party to a near by farm. They were locked in the room as usual
+at nine o'clock that night after the day's work and then waited until
+they had heard the sentry pass by a couple of times on his rounds. The
+window was covered with barbed wire which they had no difficulty in
+removing. By morning they were well on the way to Switzerland. They
+figured that they, too, could do it in six weeks' of walking by
+night, laying their course by the stars. They had no money and were
+still in khaki.
+
+They were four days' out and lying close in a small clump of bushes
+adjoining a field in which women were digging potatoes when a small
+boy stumbled on them. They knew they had been seen the day before and
+chose this exposed spot rather than the near-by wood, thinking that it
+was there the hue and cry would run. But he was a crafty little brat
+and pretended that he had not seen them. They were not certain whether
+he had or not and hesitated to give their position away by running for
+it.
+
+The boy walked until he neared the women, when he broke into a run and
+soon all gathered in a little knot, looking and pointing toward the
+fugitives. Some of the women broke away and evidently told some
+Bavarian soldiers who had been searching. The latter had already been
+firing into the woods to flush them out so that if the boy had not
+seen them the soldiers would in all likelihood have passed on, after
+searching the main wood.
+
+It was just four o'clock with darkness still four hours off. Simmons
+and Brumley were unarmed. There was no use in running for it. So they
+surrendered with what grace they could. There was the usual
+_verdamning_, growling and prodding but no really bad treatment. For
+this they were sentenced to two weeks cells and six weeks of strafe
+barracks.
+
+They had been much bothered by the lack of a compass on their trip; so
+when they finished their strafing and were once more allowed the
+privileges of the mail, Simmons took a chance and wrote on the inside
+of an envelope addressed to his brother in Canada: "Send a compass."
+He was not called up so we hoped that it had gone through.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE TRAITOR AT VEHNMOOR
+
+  The Swamp at Cellelaager--Seven Hundred Men and Two Small
+  Stoves--Taking the Stripes Down--The Recreant Sergeant Major--"Go
+  Ahead an' Shoot--!"
+
+
+Giessen is in Hesse. Shortly after this we were all sent to
+Cellelaager in Hanover. This was the head camp of a series reserved
+for the punishment or the working of prisoners. Each unit retained the
+name of Cellelaager and received in addition a number, as Cellelaager
+1, Cellelaager 2 and so on. There were grounds here providing a lot
+for football, and a theatre run by the prisoners, for which there was
+an entrance fee, and other like amusements. These, however, were only
+for those prisoners who were on good behaviour and who were employed
+there. As such they were denied such desperadoes as ourselves.
+
+We remained there for two weeks and were then sent to the punishment
+camp known as Vehnmoor or Cellelaager 6. This was a good day's ride
+away and also in Hanover, fifteen kilometres from the big military
+town of Oldenburg. Here we were turned out to work on the moors with
+four hundred Russians, one hundred French and Belgians and two hundred
+British and Canadians. We were housed in one large hut built on a
+swamp and were continually wet. There were only two small stoves for
+the seven hundred men and we had only a few two pound syrup tins in
+which to cook. A poor quality of peat was our only fuel. As only five
+men could crowd round a stove at a time, one's chances were rather
+slim in the dense mob, every man-jack of whom was waiting to slip into
+the first vacant place that offered.
+
+We slept in a row along the wall, with our heads to it. Overhead a
+broad shelf supported a similar row of men. Above them were the
+windows. At our feet and in the centre of the room, there was a two
+foot passage way and then another row of men, with two shelves housing
+two more layers of sleepers above them. Then another two foot
+passageway, the row of men on the floor against the other wall and the
+usual shelf full above them. The vermin were bad and presented a
+problem until we arranged with the Russians to take one end to
+themselves, the French and Belgians the middle and we the other end.
+By this means we British were able to institute precautionary measures
+amongst ourselves so that after feasting on the Russians and finishing
+up upon the French, our annoying friends usually turned about and went
+home again.
+
+The swamp water was filthy, full of peat and only to be drunk in
+minute quantities at the bidding of an intolerable thirst. There was
+no other water to be had and we simply could not drink this. The
+Russians did, which meant another fatigue party to bury them. The only
+doctor was an old German, called so by courtesy; but he knew nothing
+of medicine. As a corporal, I was held responsible for twenty men.
+That implied mostly keeping track of the sick and I have seen nineteen
+of my twenty thus. But that made no difference. It was "Raus!" and out
+they came, sick or well.
+
+Every morning an officer stood at the gate as we marched out to the
+moor, to take "Eyes right" and a salute, for no useful purpose that we
+could see except to belittle a British soldier's pride. As corporal I
+was supposed to give that command to my squad but rather than do so I
+took my stripes down, although that ended my immunity as a "non-com"
+from the labour of cutting peat. Others, I am sorry to say, were glad
+to put the stripes up and at times went beyond the necessities of the
+situation in enforcing their rule on their comrades. It was one of
+these who was found to be trading in and selling his packages to his
+less fortunate comrades and who was ostracized in consequence.
+
+There were here at Vehnmoor, as there had been at Giessen, a certain
+few of our own men who traded on the misfortunes of their own
+comrades. This man was the worst of them all. He was a sergeant-major
+in a certain famous regiment of the line in the British Army. He was a
+fair sample of that worst type which the army system so often
+delegates authority to--and complains because that authority does not
+meet with the respect it should on the part of its victims.
+
+He excelled in all the arts of the sycophant: The pleasure of the
+guards was his delight, their displeasure, his poignant grief. He
+assumed the authority of his rank with us, he reported the slightest
+of misdemeanours amongst us to the guards and was instrumental in
+having many punished. These and other things gave him and others of
+his kidney the run of the main grounds so that they could stretch
+their legs and have some variety in their lives. Such liberty was
+there for any man who would do as they did.
+
+None of us were safe from these traitors. The sergeant major in
+particular, spied on us, reporting all criticisms of our guards and
+other things German. We raged. He had for his virtue a small room to
+himself in a corner of the hut. When parcels came from England,
+addressed to the senior non-commissioned officer of his regiment, for
+him to distribute; he called the guards in. Shortly they went out with
+their coats bulging suspiciously. We were then called to receive ours
+whilst he stood over, bullying us with all the abusive "chatter" which
+the British service so well teaches. And afterward we watched
+covertly, with all the cunning of the oppressed, and saw him receive
+other stealthy favours from the guards that were not within his
+arrangement with the Commandant.
+
+So one of his own men who had a certain legal learning took down all
+these facts as I have recited them and calling us together, bade us
+sign our names in evidence of so foul a treachery. Which we gladly
+did. And it was and is the prayer of all that when the gates of the
+prison camps roll back this document will get to the War Office and
+there receive the attention it deserves.
+
+My comrades in misfortune here told me of another such a man who had
+gone away just before my arrival at this camp. He, too, was a
+sergeant-major of a line regiment in the old army. I had known him in
+the old days in India. In his own regiment he was never known by his
+own name, but instead by this one: "The dirty bad man." No one ever
+called him anything else when referring to him. That was his former
+record and this is what he did here to keep the memory of it green.
+
+He was instrumental in having fixed on us one of the most terrible of
+army punishments. It appears that some time before one of our men had
+broken some petty rule of discipline and the Germans had asked the
+sergeant-major what the punishment was in our army for such a "crime,"
+as all offences are termed in the army.
+
+"Number One Field Punishment or Crucifixion," had been his lying
+reply. That meant being spread-eagled on the wheel of a gun limber,
+tied to the spokes at wrist and ankle, with the toes off the ground
+and the entire weight of the body on the outraged nerves and muscles
+of those members.
+
+Lacking a gun limber, the Germans used a post with a cross-bar for
+this man's case. After that, this was a recognized mode of punishment
+for many petty offences in this camp.
+
+It is true that this form of punishment is a part of the so-called
+discipline of our army. But it was not meted out for offences of the
+nature of this man's and if it had been, the obvious thing for the
+sergeant-major to have done would have been to have lied like a man;
+instead of which he piled horror on horror for his own countrymen. I
+have the facts and names of these cases.
+
+There will be many strange tales to come from these camps in the
+fulness of time. No doubt some will go against us, but the truth must
+be told at all costs, else the evil goes on and on.
+
+We were sent out one day to dig potato trenches on the moors in a
+terrible rain. We stuck our spades in the ground and refused. The
+guards had French rifles of the vintage of 1870 which carried
+cartridges with bullets that were really slugs of lead. They began to
+load. A little _unteroffizier_ tugged excitedly at his holster for the
+revolver.
+
+A big Canadian stepped up: "Wait a minute, mate." He reached down to
+the little man's waist and drew the gun.
+
+He offered it to its owner, butt forward, "Now go ahead and shoot, and
+we'll chop your damned heads off."
+
+The rest of us confirmed our leader's statement by gathering around
+threateningly and making gruesome and suggestive motions with our
+spades. There were two hundred of us and only forty guards. We meant
+business and they knew it. They took us back to the laager and locked
+us up.
+
+The following night, that of January 22nd, our guards were reinforced
+by thirty more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+AWAY AGAIN
+
+  Why the Prisoners Walked--Cold Feet Again--The Man Who Turned and
+  Fled--Brumley's Precious Legs--The Wait in the Wood--The Cunning
+  of the Hunted--Bad Days in the Swamps--Within Four Miles of
+  Freedom--The Kaiser's Birthday--Another Trip to Holland.
+
+
+Simmons and Brumley, together with my companion of the first escape,
+had determined to make a break for it with me. And although we were
+not quite ready at this time the addition to the guards forced our
+decision. We had a scanty supply of biscuits saved up and I had
+wheedled a file from a friendly Russian; Simmons got a bit of a map
+from a Frenchman; and we secured a watch from a Belgian. With this
+international outfit we were ready, except that we lacked a sufficient
+store of food. However, there was no help for that.
+
+The laager was a twelve-foot-high barbed wire enclosure, eighty feet
+wide by three hundred long, with the hut occupying the greater part of
+the central space. There was sufficient room below the bottom wire to
+permit the trained camp dogs to get in and out at us.
+
+They patrolled the four-foot lane that enclosed the laager and
+wandered up and down it, their tongues out, always on the alert. They
+were as well confined as we were, since the outer wall of wire was
+built down close to the ground. They were very savage and seemed
+instinctively to regard us as enemies; as all good German dogs should.
+
+The sworn evidence of prisoners exchanged since my escape mentions
+that in one case an imbecile Belgian was daily led out to the fields,
+wrapped up in several layers of clothes and then set upon by the dogs
+under the guidance of their guards; this was for the better
+instruction of the dogs.
+
+At each corner of the laager there hung an arc light. The sphere of
+light from those at the end did not quite meet and so left a small
+shadow in the center of the end fence.
+
+As soon as night came we arranged that six other men should walk to
+and fro from the end of the hut to the shadow at the wire, as though
+for exercise. Others, ourselves included, clustered round the end of
+the hut. I watched my chance, and when the moment seemed favorable,
+fell into step beside the promenaders.
+
+We swung boldly out, intent apparently, on nothing. Our arrival at the
+inner wire synchronized with that of one of the guards beyond the
+outer wire. We turned about without appearing to have seen him. Still
+walking briskly, we reached the hut and turned again. The guard's back
+was now turned; he was walking away. At his present rate of travel he
+should be twenty yards off when we next reached the wire. We dared not
+chance suspicion by slackening our gait. My heart stopped.
+
+As we reached the shadow I fell prone and lay motionless. No dogs were
+in sight. Niagara pounded in at my ears but no hostile sound indicated
+that I had been observed. I dragged myself carefully through and under
+the clearance left for the dogs, until my cap brushed the lower wires
+of the main and outer fence. My feet still projected beyond the inner
+wire into the main enclosure so that on their next trip one of my
+comrades inadvertently touched my foot, startling me.
+
+    [Illustration: RECORD OF SECOND ESCAPE AND RECAPTURE.]
+
+I held the strand in my left hand and fell to filing with my right so
+that at the snap there should be no noisy rebound of the spring-like
+wire. A post was at my right, and, the wire having been nailed to it,
+I was safe from this danger on that side.
+
+The sound of the tramp of those faithful feet receded but the sound of
+them came strongly back to me like a message of hope.
+
+By the time they were back once more I had cut through three strands
+and was crawling cautiously toward my objective, a pile of peat two
+hundred yards distant, which seemed to offer cover as a breathing spot
+and starting point. On the signal from the promenaders that I was
+through the wire, Simmons followed, and after him, Brumley. The other
+man lived up to the example he had previously set himself. He drew
+back in alarm and refused to make the attempt.
+
+With twenty-five guards all about and some only thirty feet away, the
+very impudence of the plan offered our only hope of success. I still
+lacked fifty yards of the peat heap when I heard three shots, next
+the dogs, and then the general outcry which followed the detection of
+Brumley.
+
+I rose to my feet and ran. We had already mapped out our course in
+advance by daylight, for just such a contingency; so I struck boldly
+out. I was still in the swamp to my knees, and under those conditions
+even the short start we had might prove sufficient, since our pursuers
+would also bog down. The swamp was intersected by a series of small
+ditches and scattered bushes, which added to the difficulty of the
+passage. I heard Brumley floundering and swearing behind and went back
+to pull him out of a bottomless ditch. Simmons joined us while I was
+still struggling with him. In another hour Brumley's legs played out.
+We could still make out the lights of the laager. It was vitally
+necessary to push on; so we encouraged him as best we could and
+managed, somehow, to reach the edge of the swamp by daylight. We put
+ourselves on the meagre rations our store allowed, one biscuit for
+breakfast and another for supper, with a bit of chocolate on the side.
+We had apparently outdistanced the pursuit. We prayed that our friends
+might not be too severely punished for their part in our escape.
+
+We lay in the heather all day, soaked to the skin with the brackish
+water of the swamp, the odor of which still hung to our clothes. It
+was January and very cold and sleep was impossible under such
+conditions. We nibbled our tiny rations and struck out as soon as
+darkness came. Our plan was to go straight across country, but Brumley
+could not navigate the rough going of the fields; although on the
+level roads he made out fairly well. So we chanced it on the latter.
+
+Brumley was struggling along manfully but his legs caused him great
+suffering. At about two o'clock in the morning we lay to in the shadow
+of a clump of trees at the roadside, thinking to ease him a bit. He
+flung himself down. Simmons massaged Brumley's legs whilst I watched.
+
+We had just said: "Come on," and they were rising to their feet, when
+another figure stepped off the road and in amongst our trees. It was
+so dark where we stood that he probably would not have seen us had not
+Brumley at that very moment been rising to his feet. He appeared as
+much surprised as we were and started back as though in amazement. And
+then without more ado, he turned and fled the way we had come whilst
+we made what haste we could in the opposite direction, all equally
+alarmed.
+
+Who he was or what he wanted, we could only surmise. If he was not
+also an escaped prisoner then he must have been badly wanted by the
+authorities to have been travelling in such a fashion at such an hour;
+and above all, to have been so alarmed by this chance meeting with
+fugitives. In any event we wished him luck and promptly forgot all
+about him.
+
+Later on in the night our road led us directly into a village. We
+hesitated as to what we should do. Brumley was for pushing through.
+The alternative was to go round and through the fields, lose valuable
+time and play out Brumley's precious legs. It was past midnight, so we
+decided on the village route, and started on.
+
+We passed through without being molested, but just as we were leaving
+the other side some civilians saw us and shouted "Halt!" and other
+words meaning "to shoot." We paid no attention. Espying a wood in the
+distance, we struck out for it. Brumley was in misery and threw up the
+sponge. We stopped to argue with him, at the same time dragging him
+along, and while doing so saw two more civilians rushing up and
+shouting as they came. Lights began to spring up all over the village.
+Brumley stopped dead and refused to go farther. We had previously
+agreed that if anything should happen to any one of us the others were
+to push on, every man for himself. No good could be gained by fighting
+when we were so hopelessly outnumbered, so Simmons and I rushed into
+the wood, swung around and out again and lay down on the edge of it,
+in time to see them take Brumley and come sweeping by us in hot
+pursuit. The main body stopped only a moment to inspect their capture,
+gathering around poor Brumley so that we could not at first see what
+had happened to him. Then several of them started back toward the
+village, with him limping along at their side. Ten yards away a knot
+of them gathered and assisted another up into a tree to watch for us.
+One handed him a rifle and the pursuit went on into the wood.
+Occasionally we heard the sentinel stirring.
+
+We scarcely breathed. It seemed impossible that he could not hear the
+pounding of our hearts. We grew quite stiff in our cramped positions,
+but feared to shift a limb and waited for three-quarters of an hour
+before we dared to worm our way cautiously in the other direction. The
+snap of a twig was like that of a rifle on the stillness of the night.
+
+Once we stopped, thinking that certainly he had heard us. It was only
+the beat of a night bird's wings. We dared take only an inch at a
+time, sliding forward on our bellies and then--waiting.
+
+We met another sentry farther up, but worked around him in safety and
+with more of ease, as we were by this time on our feet.
+
+Arriving at the end of the small wood, we walked boldly across the
+intervening fields to another one, large enough to afford cover for an
+army corps, and there felt comparatively safe.
+
+We were, however, very wet and cold and altogether miserable, buoyed
+up only by the liberty ahead. As it was only two o'clock, we pushed on
+for several hours before stopping to lie by for the day.
+
+For days we carried on thus without discovery. Each night was a
+repetition of the preceding one, an interminable fighting of our way
+through dark forests, into and out of sloppy ditches, over fields and
+through thorny hedges, dodging the lights of villages.
+
+We went solely by the stars, which Simmons understood after a fashion,
+and, aided by our map, we held fairly well to our general direction.
+We had no other sources of information than our own good sense. We
+watched the sky ahead at night for the glow which might indicate to us
+the size of the community ahead; and aided by a close observation of
+railroads, telegraph wires and the quality of the wagon roads and the
+quantity of travel on them, were able to form fairly accurate
+estimates of where we were and which places to avoid. Except on
+unfrequented byways we travelled by the fields, hugging the road from
+a distance. This made travel arduous but safer.
+
+At that, we were sometimes spoken to in neighborly greeting. We
+grunted indifferently in reply, as an unsociable man might. When, as
+sometimes happened, people rose up in front of us from gateways or
+hidden roads, it was very disconcerting. On such occasions only the
+darkness saved us, for we took no chances, wherever there were lights.
+
+It was really harder in the day time; when, try as we might, we could
+not count on avoiding for our hiding place the scene of some
+labourer's toil or perhaps the covert of some child's play. We slept
+by turns with one always on guard. It was difficult indeed for the
+guard not to neglect his duty, so utterly weary were we. The lying
+position we needs must retain all day long aided that tendency, and
+yet we were always so wet and cold that real sleep was difficult to
+secure.
+
+In this district the swamps were numerous and difficult to cross. The
+small ditches and canals that drained them or the almost equally
+swampy fields added to our grief. The feet slipped back at each muddy
+step: We fell into ditches: Dogs barked: And we almost wept.
+
+Once a dog helped us by his barking. It was night and we were crossing
+a very bad swamp, an old peat bog which was full of the ditches and
+holes that the peat had been taken from. These were full of black
+water which merged so naturally into the prevailing darkness that we
+repeatedly fell into them. We floundered out of one only to fall into
+another, uncertain where we were going and lost to all sense of
+direction. There was no vestige of track or road. It was then that
+the dog barked. We stopped to listen, conversing in low tones.
+Certainly, we thought, the dog must be near a house and that meant dry
+land and a footing. So we advanced in the direction of the sound,
+stopping to listen to each fresh outburst so as to make certain that
+we should not approach too closely. Apparently he had smelt us on the
+wind.
+
+Before we reached the dog we felt the solid ground under foot and were
+off once more at a tangent from the sound of his barking.
+
+The swamps were a great trouble to us, as were also some of the
+fields, so cut up by ditches and hedges were they, and yet, in order
+to avoid the roads and the wires, we frequently had to lay a
+circuitous route to avoid these obstacles or else chance the road,
+which we would not do. Often, when we could see our course lying
+straight ahead on the road, we put about and tacked off and away from
+it because a parallel course was impossible on account of the swampy
+nature of the ground. With these bad places passed we could perhaps
+pull back to our true course again, but only after double the travel
+that should have been necessary.
+
+However, we did not mind that so much. Nor did we greatly mind the
+short rations we were on. The other privations were too severe for us
+to notice these minor ones.
+
+The worst was the continual state of wetness and the resultant
+coldness of our bodies. It was not so bad at night when we were
+walking and so kept our blood circulating, but by day it was very bad.
+We used to pray for night and the end of our enforced rest. We were
+never dry or warm but were always very cold and miserable. The sun, on
+those rare occasions when it came forth, did not appear until ten or
+eleven in the morning. By mid-afternoon it was again a thing of the
+past. At best it was very weak and we had to hide in the bushes where
+it could not reach us. All we could do was to take off one garment at
+a time and thrust it cautiously out near the edge of our hiding-place
+to some spot on which the sun shone. Under these conditions we grew
+steadily weaker on our allowance of two biscuits a day; for the time
+of year precluded the possibility of there being any crops for us to
+fall back upon for food, and it was too risky a proceeding to attempt
+to steal from the householders.
+
+    [Illustration: GERMAN PRISONERS MARCHING THROUGH GOOD NATURED
+    ENGLISH CROWDS AT SOUTHAMPTON.]
+
+    [Illustration: HIGH EXPLOSIVES BURSTING OVER GERMAN TRENCHES.
+    BRITISH DEAD IN FOREGROUND.]
+
+On the eighth day we reached the River Ems. We had no difficulty in
+recognising it, as it was the only large one on our map that lay on
+the route we had chosen, and we had passed nothing even faintly
+resembling it, with the exception of some large canals, which were
+easily recognizable as such and which we had swum. We made out trees
+which appeared to be on the other shore.
+
+We regretfully decided that it was too late to attempt the crossing
+that night. The daylight proved the line of trees to be merely the
+tops of a flooded woodland. The shore was a good quarter of a mile
+away. It was January; the water was cold and full of floating ice, and
+very swift. Fording was out of the question. For two days and nights
+we wandered up and down the bank, vainly seeking a boat or raft with
+which to make the crossing. We finally discovered a large bridge,
+which was submerged except for its flood-time arches. There was no
+sign of life and it looked safe, so we proceeded to cross. We
+discovered, however, that we had not reached the bridge proper, but
+were merely on the approach to it. We dropped off onto the main steel
+portion. The wind beat the cold rain against us so that we could
+neither see nor hear. However, we went on and were nearly across when
+suddenly a light flashed on us and we heard a startled "Halt!"
+
+We could barely make out the mass of buildings that indicated the line
+of the shore. It seemed too bad to throw up the sponge so easily.
+
+I said under my breath to Simmons: "We'll push right on," and loudly:
+"Hollander!" thinking we might perhaps get far enough away to make a
+run for it. But there was no show: It was too far to the shore.
+
+There was a shouted command and the clatter of rifle-bolts striking
+home. It was no use. We stopped and shouted that we would not run, and
+then waited while they advanced toward us.
+
+The elderly Landsturmers guarding the bridge gathered us in and took
+us over to their guardroom at the hotel. We judged the incident to be
+an epoch in the monotony of their soldierly duties. They were very
+good to us. Two of them moved away from the fire to make room for our
+wet misery and they gave us a pot of boiling water, two bivouac cocoa
+tablets and a loaf of black bread. The news spread, and civilians
+dropped in to stare at and question us. In the morning the entire
+population came to see the _Engländer_ prisoners. We learned that we
+were only four miles from Holland, and cursed aloud. The town was
+Lathen and when, the next morning, we discovered that it was gayly
+bedecked with flags and bunting we decided that we were indeed
+personages of note if we could cause such a celebration. However, it
+was only the Kaiser's birthday.
+
+In the afternoon they took us by rail to Meppen and shoved us in the
+civilian jail, where we were allowed a daily ration of two ounces of
+black bread, one pint of gruel and three-quarters of a pint of coffee
+for two days, until, on January thirtieth, an escort came from
+Vehnmoor. They roped us together with a clothes-line, arm to arm, and
+marched us through the principal streets by a roundabout route to the
+station so that all might see.
+
+We were unwashed, unshaven and so altogether disreputable as to
+satisfy the most violent hatred--such for instance as we found here.
+It did not require our pride to keep our hearts up or to keep us from
+feeling the humiliation of so cruel an ordeal. We simply did not
+experience the painful sensations that such a proceeding would
+ordinarily arouse in the breast of any man; just as after heavy
+shell-fire no man feels either fear or courage; he is too dazed and
+stupid for either. Many spat at us and good old _Engländer Schwein_
+came to us from every side. It seemed like meeting an old friend,
+after our few days away from it. The faces of these people were
+different from those we had left at camp but their hearts were the
+same. They lined the streets and jeered at us. But we were too tired
+and hungry to care.
+
+And that ended that trip to Holland.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+PAYING THE PIPER
+
+  Sheer Starvation--Slipping It Over the Sentry--The Court
+  Martial--Thirty Days Cells--No Place for a Gourmand--In
+  Napoleon's Footsteps--Parniewinkel Camp--"Like Father, Like
+  Son"--The Last Kind German--Running Amuck--The Torture of the
+  Russians--The Continental Times--"K. of K. Is Gone!"
+
+
+Upon arrival at camp, we were put in cells for eleven days while
+awaiting our court-martial.
+
+During that period we suffered terribly from sheer starvation. The
+daily rations consisted of a poor soup and a small quantity of black
+bread. Hungry though I was, there was only one way by which I could
+eat it--hold my breath and swallow. I am aware that the Germans
+consider this food quite palatable but that may be because they are
+accustomed to it. It was to us the resort of starving men. The cells
+were quite dark--four-by-eight-foot wooden boxes. The confinement and
+short rations on top of our arduous journey, during which we had had
+nothing but the two biscuits a day, caused us to grow weaker daily.
+
+Our friends, however, contrived occasionally to get portions of their
+food to us. They maintained a sentry of their own, whose duty it was
+to watch for and report our trips to the latrine. It was unsafe for us
+to ask for this permission more than once a day with the same guard.
+As the latter was frequently changed, however, we were enabled to work
+the scheme to the limit.
+
+At the worst, this let us out of our cells for a few minutes; and, if
+we were lucky, enabled us to get a handful of broken food. Seeing us
+come out, the prisoner on watch would stroll into the hut and pass the
+word. Shortly, another would come out to us and in passing frequently
+manage to slip us something. On one long-to-be-remembered occasion, a
+man of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, managed to "square"
+the guard, a pleasant-faced young German, in some manner we could
+never fathom, so that the latter actually brought to us two spoons and
+a wash basin full of boiled barley, which we ate in the latrine. That
+was the most humane act experienced from German hands during my
+fifteen months' sojourn in Germany.
+
+On the eleventh day we were marched out to what would be the Germans'
+orderly room. A Canadian who had picked up a smattering of German
+acted as interpreter. He did what he could for us, which was little
+enough.
+
+Asked why we had tried to escape, we feared to tell the truth, that we
+had been forced to it by ill-treatment; so merely stated that we were
+tired of Germany and wanted to go home. The presiding officer said:
+"Well, you fellows have been a lot of trouble to us. I've been told to
+tell you that if you give us any more; we'll have a little shooting
+bee." We were sentenced to thirty days' dark cells. That was our
+court-martial.
+
+One lucky thing happened to us here: When they took our map away it
+fell in two, as a result of having been folded in our pockets. The
+officer crumpled one piece up, made a handful of it and tossed it
+away, at the same time shoving the other half at me, which I eagerly
+clutched. That piece showed the portion of Germany adjoining the
+Holland border.
+
+Our thirty days' dark cells were spent in the military prison at
+Oldenburg. As before, they were four-by-eight feet in size, but with a
+high ceiling which gave me room to stand on my hands for exercise.
+Each of us was confined alone. The walls and floor of the cells were
+of stone; the shutters, of steel which were always closed. There was
+no furniture other than the three boards which served as the mockery
+of a bed and which were chained up to the wall every morning. A small
+shelf which held the water pitcher was the only other furnishing. No
+ray of light was permitted to enter the place. The month was February
+but there were no blankets, and the place was unheated. The rations
+consisted of half a pound of black bread and a pitcher of water, which
+were thrust in to us every morning, so that except for the guard who
+unchained the boards at night we had no visitation in the twenty-four
+long, long hours.
+
+I cannot remember that I brooded much. Rather, I let my mind run out
+as a tired sleeper might, which was no doubt fortunate for me. My
+family were greatly in my thoughts. I wondered how my wife was making
+out and if she was receiving her separation allowance all right, for
+I had heard of many cases where the reverse had happened; and whether
+the boys were well and going to school. I hoped that all was well with
+them and that they did not worry too much over my lot.
+
+As I was not permitted either to send or receive letters during the
+period of my trial and incarceration, my wife was in fact in great
+distress of mind about me as she received no word for many weeks and
+imagined the worst. And when at last I could write it was only to say
+that although I had been well I had been unable to write, leaving her
+to draw her own conclusions.
+
+The cell door opened promptly at five o'clock every morning. We were
+allowed ten minutes in which to clean our cell, go to the lavatory and
+wash up, all under guard. These were the only occasions during which
+we had an opportunity of seeing one another or the other prisoners.
+These rites were all performed in silence, and communication of any
+description was forbidden and so keenly watched for as to be
+impossible. However, Simmons and I got what small comfort we could out
+of seeing one another frequently, and by this time there had grown up
+between us such a mutual respect as to make us value this highly. The
+other prisoners included Germans as well as our allies and there were
+some civilian German prisoners. The German soldier prisoners were
+mostly in for committing the various crimes of soldiering which in the
+British Army would have put them under the general head of defaulters.
+That classification, however, had been done away with in the German
+Army. The slightest infringement of discipline was punished with
+cells. Noncommissioned officers received the same punishment as the
+men, without, however, losing their rank, as would have been the case
+in our army.
+
+Upon finishing the ten minutes allotted to us we were forced to
+re-enter our cells and stand against the wall, at the back, so that we
+could neither see nor communicate with one another until the guard got
+around a few minutes later and looked in to see that all was as it
+should be before slamming the door.
+
+There was no use in trying to stretch the ration out for two meals. I
+tried to and gave it up. And after that I ate the bread, filled up on
+water and sat down on the cold stone floor for another twenty-four
+hours of waiting.
+
+My thoughts dwelt greatly on food. We were supposed to receive soup
+every fourth day, but we did not. The prisoners of other nationalities
+did, and in addition were exercised regularly. At least we could hear
+the rattle of their spoons against their bowls and the tramp of their
+feet. The slow starving was, to my mind, the worst. And after that the
+loss of sleep. If one did drop off, the cold soon caused a miserable
+awakening. I tried not to think, and did all the gymnastic drill I
+knew, even to standing on my hands in the darkness of the cell. I knew
+that if I gave up it would be all off, for I could daily feel myself
+getting wabbly as the confinement and starvation, added to my already
+enfeebled and starved condition when I entered, began to tell on me.
+It must be borne in mind that I had already served eleven days'
+solitary confinement on insufficient food, after several days of jail
+on ditto, and eight days while escaping, during which I had been
+continually wet and without food, other than the two biscuits daily,
+before beginning to serve this sentence. Simmons, of course, was in
+the same plight.
+
+The last day, that of February 22nd, rolled around finally. We were
+taken from our cells at nine o'clock and marched out for an unknown
+destination which we knew only as a stronger punishment camp than the
+others we had been in. Ahead of us we saw poor Brumley; but were
+unable to communicate with him, and I do not know whether he saw us or
+not. That was all we ever learned directly of his fate. His wife, in
+Toronto, has since informed me that he is still in Germany and has
+only lately been recaptured after another attempt at escape.
+
+At eleven that night we arrived at our destination. This was the
+strong punishment camp of Parniewinkel, in Hanover, on the road over
+which Napoleon had marched to his doom at Moscow. We wondered if we,
+too, were going to ours.
+
+We had had no food that day, nor did we get any that night, but were
+shoved into a hut full of Russians, who did not know what to make of
+us. We were so long of hair and beard, so ragged, so emaciated and so
+altogether filthy that they must have thought us anything but British
+soldiers.
+
+Later we found that there were, in all, between four and five hundred
+Russian, eighty French and Belgian, and, including ourselves, eleven
+British prisoners, of whom Simmons and I were the only Canadians, all
+shoved into two huts in the middle of the usual barbed-wire laager.
+
+As Giessen was the best camp, so this one was the worst of all those
+we were to know. It was not so wet as the swamp at Vehnmoor, but the
+drinking water was even worse than the brackish, peat-laden water
+there. The general sanitary arrangements were terrible and the food
+was worse than at Giessen, the camp in which that lack had been the
+worst feature among many bad ones. And on top of it all the treatment
+was very bad, much worse than any we had previously known.
+
+A soup, made from a handful of pickled fish roe and a few potatoes,
+was a stock dish, and terrible to taste. On one night a week we
+received a raw herring fresh from the brine barrel, which we were
+supposed to eat raw and uncleaned, but could not. On one day in seven
+there was a weak cabbage soup and of course, a small daily ration of
+potato-and-rye bread. Fortunately, our parcels were beginning to
+arrive by this time, so that, in fact, we fared better than at any of
+the better camps, in the matter of food. With the Russians it was
+different, and we used to give our soup to them in exchange for their
+share of boiling water, which we used in conjunction with the contents
+of our parcels and which they had no use for anyway, especially for
+washing purposes.
+
+It was difficult to get an opportunity to boil water for the making of
+tea or cocoa, even when parcels furnished the essentials, as there
+were so many men and so few stoves that it was a constant struggle to
+get near the latter.
+
+However, as we had refused to work, we did not require very much food.
+We used also to give our black bread to the Russians, for which they
+insisted on doing our washing, though it was little enough of that
+they did for themselves. They were very good and simple men.
+
+Ours was a good bunch of fellows and gave freely to one another and to
+the unfortunate Russians, who rarely received parcels. There was no
+selling or trading on misfortune here, as in some of the other camps
+we had been in. The Germans themselves were short of necessities here.
+They hated to come to the _Engländers_ to buy, so used to send the
+Russians to beg for soap which they would not use in any event, and in
+this case simply sold to the guards. Discovering this, we shut down on
+indiscriminate giving. Soap or any other fatty substance was by that
+time very scarce in Germany, amongst the lower classes at least. I was
+the only "non-com" in our lot, and so put up the stripes I had taken
+down to avoid giving _Augen Rechts_ at Vehnmoor. I used that authority
+now to persuade my fellow Britishers to give to the unfortunate
+Russians rather than to the French, who, like ourselves, were
+receiving parcels.
+
+A boy of five years or thereabouts used to come regularly to the wire,
+upon which he would climb and hang like some foul spider on its web.
+Grasping it in both small hands and kicking vainly at it and us, he
+would scream: "Engländer Schwein," and I know not what other names,
+spitting venom like a little wildcat. This was not the riffraff of the
+camp. The boy was the son of the camp Commandant, and the apple of his
+father's eye and the thing was often done under that eye and amid the
+vicious applause of the young father and his terrible crew.
+
+The Commandant was a young chap, a lieutenant. What he lacked in years
+he made up in hate. He was known as an England hater. We were poison
+to him. The latrine, a mere shallow pit, was just outside the door of
+our hut and the Commandant saw to it that the latrine fatigue was
+always wished off on to the British. We were made to bail it out daily
+with buckets, which we then carried to the surrounding fields, on
+which we spread the contents while the Commandant and guards laughed.
+The _unteroffizier_ in immediate charge of us, if left alone would not
+make us do this. He was the last kind German I remember, and I have
+mentioned all whom I can recall as having performed the slightest act
+of kindness to us, even of the most negative quality. He used to say
+that it was a pity to treat us so; that such a job was good enough for
+the Russians, who were no soldiers, anyhow, and who smelled bad and
+would not wash; but for us who were soldiers it was a great shame.
+
+The vermin were so bad here that we chanced further trouble by writing
+on post cards as though to friends in England, and complained. We knew
+that they would be intercepted and go to the Commandant. They did. We
+were marched to Cellelaager to go through the fumigating machine. We
+went into a large hut, stripped, tied our clothes in a bundle and
+shoved them into the large oven to bake for five hours while we sat
+round with nothing on but a smile. In the interval we were made to
+run the clippers closely over our heads and bodies. There were sores
+on some of the Russians as big as a hand, eaten deep into by the
+vermin and the bones threatened to break through the skin of some as
+we sat about naked, shivering. Uncleanly at best and denied soap here,
+the lower class of them neglected all the rules of cleanliness. Their
+"non-coms" were the reverse, being almost without exception men of
+some education and general attainments.
+
+Upon our return to this camp we were told by a friendly Russian in the
+orderly room that the post cards were being held there as evidence
+against us. We begged him to give them to us. He did so, and we had
+barely finished destroying them when a German officer, accompanied by
+a file of men, entered and demanded them. We explained that they had
+been destroyed. He would not believe us. We pointed to the charred
+ashes. He searched our bodies, our beds and the scanty furnishing of
+the hut, naturally without avail. The Russian orderly was severely
+admonished and our fire was cut off as punishment.
+
+The treatment at this camp was uniformly bad. The next morning the
+_Raus_ blew at four-thirty instead of five, as was customary. While we
+were still engaged in dressing the guards rushed in, some with fixed
+bayonets, others with them gripped short, as with daggers. The leader
+wore a button, the insignia of non-commissioned rank. He gave a
+berserker roar of rage and charged furiously at an inoffensive Russian
+and stabbed the poor fellow in the neck; while his victim lay back in
+pleading terror, with outstretched arms. And then, still roaring, he
+slashed a Frenchman who was walking past, on the back of the head.
+Going down the hut, he espied Harckum, of the East Lancashire
+Regiment, tying his shoes. Without warning he plunged at him, and,
+striking, laid open the entire side of the man's face, splitting the
+ear so that it hung in two pieces. This was all quite in order because
+we were slow in dressing.
+
+The Russians, with the exception of a lucky few who received some from
+a Russian society in England, got no parcels, and suffered
+accordingly. They were more amenable to discipline than we were, and
+perhaps because of their hunger used to go out daily to work on the
+moors from daylight until dark. They were a cheerful lot, considering
+everything, little given to thinking of their situation and not
+blessed by any great love of country nor perhaps the pleasantest
+recollections of it; and to that extent at least appeared to be
+comparatively satisfied, even under ill treatment. Ill fed as they
+were, they used frequently to fall out at their work from sheer
+exhaustion, which the Germans said was only laziness and malingering
+and for which they would be returned to a point near the laager, where
+we were, for their punishment. By the Commandant's orders this
+consisted of forcing them to run the gauntlet of two lines of soldiers
+who jabbed them with bayonets if they fell into a walk--until the
+victims could run no more and dropped in their tracks. The Germans
+would then roll their eyelids back for signs of shamming, and if any
+such indications were shown, they were jabbed again--and usually were,
+anyhow--until their failure to respond proved that they were really
+unconscious.
+
+This happened with alarming frequency on a regular schedule, forenoon
+and afternoon, to all Russians who refused to work. On one occasion we
+saw six or eight of them laid out unconscious at one time in this
+manner. We wished to do something for them, but were refused
+permission, and one man who was thought to be a ring leader was
+selected to make an example of; he was awarded seven days' cells.
+
+We had previously agreed that if we were awarded this punishment; we
+should refuse to run the gauntlet and should let them do their worst.
+There was no more heard of all this, but after that the Russians were
+punished on the other side of a belt of trees just outside the laager,
+where we could not see them, though their piteous cries could plainly
+be distinguished.
+
+Three of the Russians broke away from this camp, and finding
+themselves near the stores, crawled in the window and stole a half of
+a pig. They were recaptured, and, after doing thirty days' cells, were
+forced to work out the price of the pig at the rate of thirty
+pfennigs--or six cents--a day, which ordinarily would have been
+credited to them for the buying of necessities. And pork came high in
+Germany.
+
+There was one kind of pill for all ailments. That however, may have
+been only stupidity. At least the practice is not confined to the
+prison camps nor the army of Germany, as all British soldiers know.
+But even these were not for the British.
+
+On another occasion a party of Russians arrived from another camp
+twelve miles away.
+
+They said that some Englishmen there who had refused to work had been
+shot at until all were wounded in the legs.
+
+We continued to receive our old friend, the _Continental Times_, here,
+and through it first learned of the Skager-Rack or Jutland battle, in
+which, the paper claimed, over thirty major British ships had been
+sunk, in addition to a larger number of smaller ones. The _Times_ said
+it was a great victory for the Germans. The last we doubted and the
+first we knew to be untrue, since some of the ships they claimed to
+have sunk had been destroyed previous to our capture, nine months
+before. It was in the _Times_, too, that we first heard of Kitchener's
+end. We could not believe it, and for a month laughed at the guard's
+insistence on the story, until one day a post card arrived from
+England, saying: "K. of K. is gone." That was a terrible blow to us,
+for to the British soldier; Kitchener was the tangible expression of
+the might of his Empire.
+
+Some of our party of eleven British had been prisoners since Mons and
+they were in a very bad way. The poor food, the lack of the
+fundamental necessities of the human frame, the terrible monotony of
+the continual barbed wire, the same faces round them, mostly
+unfriendly, all combined to have a most depressing effect, not only
+upon their bodies, but upon their minds. Many of them will never be of
+any use again. Compared to Ladysmith, when that place was besieged in
+the South African War, the latter, terrible though it was, was far and
+away better than this, even if we did live on horse meat at the last
+in Ladysmith.
+
+There was a certain amount of vice here, induced by the life. A kilted
+Highlander was accused of having fathered a child in a German family,
+where he had been employed. We did not learn the facts of the case;
+but such, at least, was camp gossip and it served to detract
+materially from the habitual despondency of our lot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE THIRD ESCAPE
+
+  Saving Up for the Day--A Special Brand--Watchful Waiting--Off
+  Again--Why the Man in the Moon Laughed--A German Idyll--The
+  Narrow Escapes.
+
+
+Simmons and I had been planning on another escape ever since our
+recapture. So we kept on our good behaviour, while we saved up food
+for _Der Tag_. We had hitherto refused to work, as had the remaining
+Britishers, but in order to keep ourselves fit; we finally volunteered
+to carry the noon ration of soup out to the Russians who worked on the
+moor. Our job consisted of carrying an immense can of soup, swung high
+on a pole from our shoulders, out to the workers, under guard of
+course. Starting at eleven each day and, by permission of the guard,
+occasionally resting, we were usually back by one o'clock. Each day we
+saved a portion of our food. We wanted twenty days' rations each,
+estimating that it would take us that long to walk to Holland. We
+specialised on concentrated foods from our parcels--biscuits, tinned
+meats, and so on. We had our cache in a hole, dug under cover of
+night, under the flooring of the hut. It was unsafe to keep food on
+our bodies or near our beds, as the guards were in the habit of
+calling the _Raus_ at all hours, and sometimes, several times during
+the night. It might be at twelve, two or four, although it was never
+alike on any two nights in succession, except that they always
+searched us. We could see no reason for this; other than to break our
+rest and perhaps our spirits, as at Giessen Camp. Certainly, no one
+would carry any forbidden thing on his person, under such
+surveillance, and they well knew we could hide anything we wished in
+other places; as we did.
+
+Each Saturday morning, Simmons and I paraded for paint. We stood,
+while a big Russian, with a brush and bucket, painted large red and
+green circles on our breasts, backs and knees. Thin stripes were also
+painted down the seams of our trousers and sleeves and around the
+stiff crowns of our caps. This was to mark us as dangerous characters.
+As such we received more of the unwelcome _Raus_ attentions than the
+others and were the more wary in consequence.
+
+We were busy opening our mail on one of those rare occasions, when
+Simmons gave a startled exclamation. I looked up and saw him gazing
+curiously at a small cheese which he turned slowly around in his hand.
+As I stepped to his side, a guard came in. He hastily shoved the cause
+of the strange behaviour into his pocket. When the guard had gone; he
+passed me a letter to read. It was from his brother in Canada. "I
+received your letter all right and am sending you a special brand of
+cheese," I read--and understood.
+
+We waited on tiptoe until night, to open the cheese. It was one of the
+cream cheeses, so popular in Canada, no bigger than my closed hand. We
+gingerly unwrapped the tin foil and broke it open. To our great joy,
+in the hollow heart of it there was tucked away the tiny compass
+Simmons had written for from Vehnmoor just before our second escape.
+With it were four American quarters.
+
+Not anticipating this good luck, we had exercised our ingenuity to
+construct a rude compass of our own out of a safety-razor blade and an
+eyelet from my boot. It was within fifteen to twenty degrees of the
+true north. In addition we had a safety lamp, which one of the guards
+had long been looking for under the impression that he had lost it.
+
+We now had our twenty days' rations saved up and so took turns sitting
+up at night, awaiting our chance. We spent two months in this watchful
+waiting, watching the wire and the sentries. But no opportunity
+offered. We took turn about, one man on watch all night long, every
+night. He could not seem to watch but must lie in his place, observing
+all movement in the hut and listening carefully for any indicative
+noises outside. Occasionally, he might step outside and ostentatiously
+walk about as though sleepless, and, if spoken to, say that he was not
+well.
+
+But always there were the shining eyes of the watching dogs, growling,
+if one came too near, and outside the stodgy sentries; and above all,
+much light.
+
+So we determined to volunteer for work, figuring that they were so
+short of men that they would not lightly refuse us. It so happened
+that ten men were asked for that Saturday to hoe turnips on a near-by
+farm. The pay was thirty pfennigs--or six cents--a day. We
+volunteered and were accepted without cavil. They thought our spirit
+gone and that we had accepted the inevitable. We reasoned that if we
+worked hard while we studied the lie of the land we might be asked for
+again, could go prepared, and make a break for it.
+
+And so it fell out. We worked hard all that day, at the same time
+impressing the topography of the country upon our minds. At the close
+of the day we were taken to the farm for our supper of potatoes and
+buttermilk and then marched off to the laager, four miles distant. On
+the following Monday we were ordered to go out to the same place.
+Unfortunately we could not take our store of food as its bulk would
+have meant our detection. In addition to the equipment already
+mentioned I carried two packages of tobacco, a shaving brush and a box
+of matches. Simmons had a terrible razor which would not shave, four
+boxes of matches and a small piece of soap. These were all our worldly
+possessions. It will be seen that, true to our British tradition, the
+shaving outfit constituted the most formidable part of our
+impedimenta.
+
+We worked all day. And so did the rain. We knocked off for supper at
+eight o'clock. The three guards escorted us to the farmhouse, but
+after locking the front door, went into an adjoining room with the
+farmer for their own meal. The back door was forgotten. We were
+famished, so fell to on the supper of buttermilk and potatoes. I
+finished first and strolled lazily over to the door. Besides Simmons,
+there were seven Frenchmen and an Englishman, all of whom were still
+at table and none of them aware of our plans. I carelessly opened the
+door and stood on the sill a moment. Still pouring. "Come here,
+Simmons, and see this. We're going to get wet before we get back."
+Simmons shoved his chair back and joined me. We both stepped outside
+and gently shut the door.
+
+Once more we were on our way! We found ourselves at the edge of the
+village in which the farmers hereabouts had their homes. We worked our
+way carefully round the outskirts and made for a bit of a wood a mile
+and a half away. We were only half way to our objective when the
+village bells began to ring. Once more the hue and cry was on!
+
+When the deep baying of the dogs joined in we said "Ataboy!" cast
+aside all concealment and began to run for it. We reached the wood
+safely enough, but it turned out to be only a thin fringe of trees,
+offering no concealment whatever. We dashed through them. On the other
+side a village opened up. Back to the wedge of wood we went. A
+good-sized ditch with a foot or so of water in it ran along the edge
+of the wood. Its sides were covered with heather, which drooped far
+down into the water. We flung ourselves into it, after first shoving
+the tin box containing our precious matches into the heather above.
+Pitch darkness would not come until ten o'clock. During the
+intervening two hours we lay on our backs in the water with only the
+smallest possible portion of our faces projecting. Once the guard
+jumped over the ditch less than four yards away. We suffered
+intensely, for, although it was late August, the water was very cold.
+
+When things had become quiet and daylight had passed we withdrew
+ourselves from the muck, and after rubbing our numbed bodies to
+restore the circulation, struck out across the country, intent on
+shoving as much distance as possible between ourselves and the camp
+before another day rolled round. We knew that the alarm would be out
+and the whole country roused, with every man's hand against us. We
+were getting used to that. I, for one, had determined not to be taken
+alive this time. But I certainly did not want to be put to the test.
+So we plowed our way through oat and rye fields and over and through
+ditches--many of them. Once we stripped our soggy clothes off to swim
+a river that faced us. In no place did the water come above our knees;
+but what it lacked in depth, it made up for in coldness. We saw none
+of the humour in that, so we cursed it and stumbled on, two very tired
+men. We pulled handfuls of oats and chewed dryly on them as we plunged
+up to our waists through the crops. We reckoned that we had made
+thirty miles by morning and apparently had outdistanced our pursuers.
+
+One night early in our pilgrimage, we espied some cows in a field.
+Simmons had been a farmer in Canada and so was our agricultural and
+stock authority here. He plunged through the hedge to see if he could
+not capture a hat full of milk whilst I stood guard outside. I stepped
+into the shadow of some trees, and occasionally I could hear a
+guarded "Soo--Cow!" footsteps--and then as like as not, a muffled
+curse. I smiled.
+
+Two figures came hurriedly down the road. I pressed back against the
+hole of the tree, holding my breath. It was fairly light on the road
+and to my amazement I saw two men who wore French uniforms. Also they
+had heavy packs on their back. That last meant but one thing--food.
+
+I rose to my feet: "Kamerad!"
+
+One of them stopped short. The other pressed on. He muttered something
+under his breath and the other broke into a trot to catch up.
+
+I edged along, trying desperately to be friendly. That made them the
+more timid. They would have none of me. No further word was exchanged
+just then except for a repetition of my "Kamerad."
+
+I whistled softly to Simmons. That alarmed them the more. They
+lengthened their stride. So did I mine.
+
+One said something I could not catch. They half halted and made a
+brave attempt to pose as Germans, to judge by their guttural talk and
+brassy front.
+
+I could not explain, although I tried in the half light to show my
+friendliness, and Simmons, now a few rods away, did likewise. I
+endeavoured to address them in French--and could not. I tried German.
+That was worse and the final result--chaos.
+
+All I could think of was "Kamerad." I kept on like a parrot, foolishly
+repeating it.
+
+All this took but a moment and then they were gone and we after them.
+
+So there were they, walking hurriedly, fearful of us for Germans no
+doubt and casting uneasy glances back. I followed slowly, at a loss to
+know what to do, my eyes glued on the inviting squareness of their
+heavy packs. Simmons jogged behind, endeavouring to catch up. The moon
+laughed at all four of us.
+
+"Come on," I said. "They're Frenchmen. We'll follow them. They have
+two packs on their backs! Grub! And maybe we can bum them for a bit."
+
+Simmons needed no second invitation but set out as eagerly as I in
+cautious pursuit; so fearful were we of alarming our quarry. Our eyes
+were glued on their packs.
+
+Just then the road opened up into a broad expanse of heather. And
+there we lost them. We beat about in the heather for a long time, and
+called loudly, but without avail. They were no doubt lying down,
+hiding.
+
+We found some potatoes in a field that night, dug them up with our
+bare hands and ate them raw. We were very sad when we thought of those
+packs.
+
+It was, I remember, on the day following that we saw some of the
+lighter side of German life. The woods thereabouts were cut up into
+big blocks, as city streets are. We were laying to in one of them,
+thankful for the thickness of our shelter when we heard laughing
+voices and then a gust of laughter as a flying group of girls and boys
+romped past. They played about for half an hour, causing us great
+alarm by their youthful fondness for sudden excursions into unlikely
+spots, after nothing in particular. The oldest of the group, a sizable
+boy of seventeen or thereabouts and a pretty girl of near that age,
+hung back long after the younger children had passed on. We had little
+to fear from them. They were quite evidently engrossed in one another.
+He argued earnestly, while she listened with a half-smile. Once, he
+made as if to take her hand but she drew back and stiffened. He
+ignored the rebuff. A moment afterward he said something that pleased
+her so well that the last we saw of them his arm was about her waist
+as they went down the path together.
+
+Parniewinkel lay forty to fifty miles northeast of Bremen, which in
+turn was one hundred and fifty miles from the Holland border. We
+reckoned on having to walk double that in covering the stretch, and
+figured on twenty-one days for the trip.
+
+My diary for that day, August 22, 1916, reads: "Still raining. Soaked
+and cold. Breakfast, dinner and supper: turnips and oats." The night
+was a repetition of the preceding one, and made worse by the number of
+small swamps we had to struggle through. The next day's diary reads:
+"Rain stopped and not so cold. Fair cover; still soaked but
+confident."
+
+We had our first narrow escape that day. We were lying in the corner
+of a hedge. It was so misty as to give almost the effect of night, but
+so long past day as to make travelling unduly dangerous. When the mist
+lifted we found ourselves within fifty yards of a thickly populated
+village with just a narrow strip of field between. We could hear
+all the early morning bustle of any village, the world over. This was
+about three o'clock. An old man followed by a dog made straight for
+us. I had just come off the watch, which we took turn about. Simmons
+whistled cautiously to me, the very sound a warning to be quiet.
+
+    [Illustration: SALIENT DETAILS OF THE THIRD ESCAPE.]
+
+I looked up. The old man wandered along the hedge and stood over him
+for several minutes.
+
+It was very trying but he lay motionless, for fear of the dog. A blow
+would have sufficed for the old man. The latter remained so for a
+couple of minutes, standing over him, busy.
+
+The meals for that day were peas and oats. It was a slow way of making
+a meal. We liked the oats the best and pulled some whenever we came to
+them, if our pockets were not already full, so that they should always
+be so. We ate them as we went, from the cupped hand, spilling some and
+spitting out the husks of the others which sometimes stuck in our
+throats, making them very raw.
+
+For August twenty-fourth the diary reads: "Very hard night. Crossed
+about five kilometres of swamps and numerous canals. Bad accident.
+Clothes went to the bottom, but recovered. We are soaked, as usual,
+and only made about eleven kilometres. Are outside town of Bremen.
+Cover very poor. Meals for the day: Nix. Still confident." The cover
+ranked before the food as an item of interest to us. Knowing the
+general direction of Bremen from the camp, and that it was much the
+largest town in the vicinity, we experienced no difficulty in locating
+it by the reflection of its lights against the sky.
+
+"August twenty-fifth: More rain and cold. Hiding on the bank of the
+Weser. Better going last night. Going to look for boat to-night. River
+two hundred yards broad. Socks played out. Made pair out of a shirt.
+Met a cow. Meals for day: turnips, carrots and milk."
+
+"August 26th: More rain. Found boat and crossed river. Hedges grown so
+close and so many of them, we have to go around them. Takes a lot of
+time. Otherwise going good. Meals for the day: turnip, peas and oats.
+Met another cow. Frisked her. Cover none too good. Trying to dry our
+clothes in sun. More confident." We always became more confident at
+the slightest semblance of warmth.
+
+The socks we made out of a shirt which came from the clothes-line of
+some _haus-frau_. We made "dutch" socks in Western fashion by cutting
+out large diamond shaped pieces of the cloth, which when the foot was
+placed on it, folded up nicely into a sock of a kind.
+
+The cow, or rather, her milk, was the greatest treat of all.
+
+It required some searching before we found a boat. We finally
+discovered a boat house which we broke into and by great good luck
+found inside it a boat which answered our purpose. Our chief concern
+was lest the owners might raise a hue and cry against the theft.
+However, when we reached the further shore we gave the boat a good
+push out into the stream so that if they attempted to follow our trail
+they might find the boat a long ways down stream.
+
+"August twenty-seventh: Rain left off. Trying to dry ourselves in sun.
+Had a hard night keeping clear of town. Good cover in a wood. Meals:
+turnips and another obliging cow. Feet pretty sore. No socks. Still in
+the best otherwise."
+
+The town in question was the second one we passed after leaving
+Bremen. We saw the reflection of its lights in the sky and thought
+that we should easily miss it. But suddenly from some high ground we
+found ourselves working directly down on the streets so close below us
+that we could discern people going to and fro. We turned and fled.
+
+Swinging well round to the south we thought at last to clear the town
+easily, instead of which we again came up against it, in the outskirts
+this time. And we repeated that disheartening performance a couple of
+times before we cleared the obstacle and once more swung on our way.
+
+It was such occurrences as this that disheartened us more than
+anything else, even the great hardships. To labor and travail, to do
+the seemingly impossible, night after night and then in the snap of a
+finger to find all our pains, all our agony gone for nothing, reacted
+on us terribly at times.
+
+On the following morning we met with our second narrow escape, under
+much the same circumstances as the first. We had crawled into a hedge
+toward the heel of the night, and rather earlier than usual on account
+of a thick mist which prevented us from holding to our course. When it
+lifted we made out the slope of a house roof shoving itself out of
+the grey fog directly in front of us. Our hedge divided two fields,
+in both of which labourers were already cutting the crops. In this
+hedge, on each side of us, were gateways so close together that when,
+as occasionally happened, people passed through one, we were forced to
+crawl up to the other to avoid detection. We had done so again when,
+without warning, a drover came plodding up behind his sheep. We had no
+time in which to go back up the hedge. The sheep crowded from the rear
+and overflowed at the narrow gateway into the hedge where we lay and
+so ran over our bodies. We remained quiet, thinking he would pass on;
+but what with the frightened actions of his sheep and the yelping of
+the dog his attention was inevitably attracted to the spot where we
+lay. He came over, looked down at us, but said nothing and stalked on.
+We were uncertain as to whether he had seen us or not. Numerous
+incidents of a similar nature had made us overconfident. We had
+previously escaped detection in some very tight corners by simply
+lying quiet. Casual travelers had all but walked on us upon several
+occasions, and at night we ourselves passed many people and thought
+nothing of it.
+
+A moment later the shepherd walked off directly toward the labourers,
+glancing back over his shoulder at us as he did so. We struck out at
+once, before the crowd could gather. We had, at the beginning of this,
+our third escape, agreed not to be taken alive to go through a
+repetition of the torture of mind and body which we had already
+undergone, and, perhaps for this time, worse. And it was understood
+that if one played out the other should carry on. Each of us had a
+stout club and could have made a tidy fight.
+
+Concealment was useless and, furthermore, impossible. We passed close
+by a group of the harvesters and headed for a wood that lay on the
+other side of them. They could not mistake either the vermilion
+circles on our khaki tunics, faded though they were, nor our wild and
+dilapidated appearance, which was not made more reassuring by the
+clubs we carried. Glancing back, we saw them gathering hurriedly in
+little knots.
+
+We reached the wood, flung ourselves down and watched them until dark,
+during which time they made no attempt to follow us. Nor did we see
+any sign of other pursuers, though we kept on the _qui vive_ all
+night, as we trudged through the interminable fields, forcing our way
+through tight hedges and plunging waist deep into the water of small
+canals.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+WHAT HAPPENED IN THE WOOD
+
+  Weather Bad but Hopes High--Primitive Dressmaking--The Woman at
+  the Farm--The Zeppelin--The Fight in the Wood.
+
+
+The only roads we habitually used were side ones, and especially did
+we avoid any with telegraph wires which might be used against us. It
+was a flat and swampy country, full of mist, and the nights were few
+in which it did not rain. And we were always very wet and very cold.
+The latter was worse than the lack of food. Sometimes we struggled for
+hours at a time, knee-deep in desolate stretches of mist-covered
+morasses which gave no promise of firm footing but which often dropped
+us in to the waist instead. In addition, the country was cut up by
+numerous small ditches, six to eight feet wide, which along toward
+morning presented so much of an effort in the jumping that we usually
+plunged into the water by preference. Our feet were adding to our
+misery by this time. On one occasion, as we dragged ourselves out of
+the water, two dogs came rushing at us and then followed, yelping. It
+was nearly daylight and a woman came down to see what was going on. We
+remained motionless near a hedge. She failed to see us, which was
+perhaps good luck for both her and us.
+
+The diary for that period reads: "August 28th: Rain worse than ever.
+Not a piece of our clothes dry and too much water to lie down. Good
+going last night. Cover in a wood outside village. Good. Meals: Nix.
+Ought to reach the Hustre river to-night. In good spirits."
+
+"August 29th: Rain stopped and a bit of sun came out. Feeling much
+more cheerful. Just had a shave and clean-up. Going last night very
+bad. Swamps and canals. Had to leave our course. Feet feeling better.
+Meals for the day: turnips, peas and green apples. Did not reach the
+river. All's well. No complaints." That shave was a terrible torture.
+
+"August thirtieth: Rain, thunder and lightning most of last night. Got
+a bit of shelter in a cowshed in a field. We are wet and cold as
+usual, with no sun to dry. Fair cover in a small wood. Going good
+last night. Haven't struck the Hustre yet. Meals: green apples and
+brambles. Feet pretty sore. Made a needle out of wood and did a bit of
+sewing. Best of health."
+
+We had been ploughing through the mist, confused by it and the
+numerous hedges, when at the side of a small field we had run into
+this cowshed, a tumbledown affair of sods, caved in at the sides and
+partly covered by a thatched roof. We built up the side from which the
+wind came the worst, hung a rotting canvas we found at the other end
+and then snuggled up together to exchange warmth.
+
+The mist had scarcely lifted when we heard a slight noise. We looked
+up. A woman was at the entrance to our hovel, looking down full at us.
+She turned and walked away. We rose, still dazed with sleep, and found
+that we were quite close to a farmhouse which owing to the mist we had
+failed to observe before, and from which our visitor had evidently
+observed the result of our building operations. "She saw us," I said,
+and we regretted not having seized her. She appeared to be signalling.
+
+A good-sized wood lay well up ahead. "Come on," I said. "Let's beat
+it. We can handle a few of 'em better than the whole mob." We could
+see the farm labourers gathering in a knot. The rain came on just then
+and perhaps assisted in dampening their ardour. At any rate they did
+not follow us into the wood. We spent rather an uneasy time though,
+when, late that day, some men approached our hiding place in a clump
+of bushes and for half an hour shot their fowling pieces off all
+around where we lay.
+
+They did not seem to be after us; more likely they were hunters. The
+same thing had happened in a lesser degree several times before. None
+the less it was very uncomfortable to have the buckshot rattling all
+around us in the bushes where we lay and we felt much better when they
+had gone.
+
+As for the wooden needle: That was of course the result of our
+necessity. It was a long thorn--first, a punch in the cloth and like
+as not a stab in the finger in the bargain, then a withdrawal of the
+crude needle and a careful threading of the hole with our coarse
+string, after the fashion of a clumsy shoemaker. Some sewing! Some
+needlewoman!
+
+The green apples and the berries which we got here proved a most
+welcome change in our diet.
+
+"August thirty-first: Not much rain but very cold. Too dark to travel
+last night. No stars out to go by. Crossed the river this morning, at
+last. Good cover in bushes. Feet are badly peeled. Hope for better
+luck to-night. Meals: apples and turnips. Cold and rain are putting us
+in bad state. But still confident." We were daily growing weaker and
+prayed only that our strength would last to put us over the border.
+
+"September first: No rain and a little sun. Feeling much better. Going
+last night much the best we have had. Good cover in a thicket. Will
+soon be going over the same country we did last time we escaped.
+Meals: peas and beans. Still in good health."
+
+"September second: No rain, but cold out of the sun. Pretty fair going
+last night. Feet still sore. Cover on straw stack in middle of field.
+Warmer than the woods. Zeppelin just passed overhead going north.
+Meals: turnips, carrots, apples and peas."
+
+"September third: Fine weather. Good going last night. Feet still
+pretty bad. Had to cut my boots. Fine cover in the wood. Meals: baked
+potatoes. Feel fuller." This was our first cooked meal and the
+pleasure it gave us was beyond all words. We lit it under cover of
+night so that by the time day had come there was nothing but glowing
+coals in which the potatoes roasted while we slept.
+
+My feet were badly swollen by this time so that I was faint with the
+pain of them.
+
+The Zeppelin, strange though it was under the circumstances, was only
+a small incident in many others of vaster importance which were
+happening daily to us but it was flying so low that we deemed it best
+not to move until it had passed. We wondered if it were going to
+England, and envied it.
+
+"September fourth: More rain. Hard going half the night. Crossed large
+peat bog and wet to the waist. Very cold. Cover in wood. None too
+good. Got scared out of our first cover. Meals: Milk, apples and peas.
+Feet not so sore. Still raining and cold. We should soon be at the
+River Ems."
+
+On the evening of this day we walked out to the edge of the wood we
+were in and stood there sizing up the near-by village. It was about
+seven o'clock and wanted about an hour to darkness and our usual time
+for hitting the trail. Without any warning, a burly farmer confronted
+us. He was as badly startled as we were. Our remnants of painted
+uniforms and our ragged, soaked and generally filthy condition no
+doubt added to our terrible appearance. We had long since lost our
+caps and our hair was matted like a dog's. The German was armed with a
+double-barreled shotgun, and at his heels a powerful-looking dog
+showed his teeth to us, so that I marked the red of his tongue. If he
+raised the alarm we were done for. We still had our cudgels.
+
+I do not know whose was the offensive. But I do know that the three of
+us came together with one accord in a wild and terrible medley of
+oaths in two languages and of murderous blows that beat like flails at
+the threshing. Simmons and I struggled for the gun which he tried so
+hard to turn on us, the dog meanwhile sinking its teeth deep in our
+unprotected legs and leaping vainly at our throats; while we felt with
+clutching fingers for his master's, intent only that he should not
+shout.
+
+In those mad moments there sped through our brains the reel of that
+whole horrid film of fifteen months' torture of mind and body; the
+pale, blood-covered faces of our murdered comrades of the regiment,
+the cries of the patient Russians behind the trees, and our own slow
+and deadly starvation and planned mistreatment. All these, and God
+only knows what else, should be ours again if we should be recaptured.
+
+We were near to Holland. In fancy and by contrast we saw the fair
+English fields and the rolling beauty that is Ontario's; we heard the
+good English tongue and beheld the dear faces of our own folk. We bore
+that farmer no ill will. And his dog was to the last a very faithful
+animal, as our clothes and limbs bore true witness. We had no ropes.
+And we were two very desperate men, badly put upon.
+
+We dropped his gun in the bushes, together with the body of his dog;
+and passed on. It had not been fired and we had no desire to have the
+charge of carrying firearms added to the others against us if, in
+spite of all, we should be so unfortunate as to be recaptured.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE LAST LAP
+
+  Crossing the River--The Terrible Swamp--Valuable Apples--Safe
+  Across the Border--Real Walking at Last--Barbarous Barbering.
+
+
+"September fifth: Stopped raining and a little warmer. Got our clothes
+dry once more. Cover in a wood outside a small town. Going last night
+good, after we had crossed another peat bog. Meals: milk, baked
+potatoes and apples. Hope to reach the river to-night. Bad feet. Best
+of health otherwise."
+
+"September sixth: No rain and warmer. Heavy dew. Fairly good going.
+Best of cover. Had a fire. Pretty comfortable. Milk, potatoes,
+apples."
+
+"September seventh: Still fine weather. Very poor cover in a hedge.
+Good road to go on. Made pretty good time last night. Feet feeling
+better. Running out of tobacco. Otherwise in the best and still hope
+the same. Meals: potatoes and beets."
+
+We spent a great deal of time discussing ways and means of adding to
+our stock of tobacco. Any smoker knows what it is to want the weed.
+Consider then our half famished, wet and utterly weary condition. It
+was a real necessity to us. We discussed waiting at the roadside until
+a man with a pipe appeared; when we should rob him. We dismissed that
+as too hazardous. It would be necessary to kill him and that seemed a
+bit thick for a pipe of tobacco. So we did the only thing that was
+left to do--cut down our already scanty rations of tobacco and took
+scrupulous care to smoke to a clean ash every vestige of each heel of
+old pipe, but in spite of that our supply became exhausted.
+
+"September eighth: Lovely weather to-day. Good going last night in
+small swamp. Good cover in a forest on the banks of the Ems. We will
+try to cross to-night. Meals: potatoes and mangels. Our final try for
+liberty. Feel good for it."
+
+We had arrived at the river at two o'clock that morning, too played
+out to attempt the crossing then. We retraced our steps to a potato
+field, dug some of the tubers and, when daylight came, lit a fire and
+roasted them. We were in a dense forest of young trees, so that by
+lighting the fire before the mist lifted, the latter hid our smoke.
+We remained unperceived, though we could hear voices and footsteps on
+every side.
+
+"September ninth: Swam the river and two canals. Crossed a large
+swamp. No rain but very cold. Think we are over the border. Very poor
+cover in a hedge. Wet to the skin. Clothes got soaked but in best of
+spirits and confident."
+
+We went down to survey the river shortly before dusk and found it both
+broad and swift. We went back again and tore a gate from its hinges,
+carried it the five hundred yards down to the river and then stripped
+for the crossing. The gate was not big enough to carry us but answered
+for our clothes. Simmons swam ahead, guiding it, while I shoved from
+behind. We made the crossing without mishap but straightway fell into
+one of the worst experiences of the entire trip. We plunged into a
+swamp which took us five hours to get through. There were moments when
+we all but gave up and thought we should never get out. At times we
+sank in it up to our waists, particularly after leaping at the
+numerous tufts of grass which seemed to promise a footing that they
+never realised and which sometimes sent us in it to the armpits, so
+that we were sure we were doomed to be sucked down for good in the
+filthy mess.
+
+The fearful odour that our plunging around stirred up, naturally aided
+our nervous imaginings and it was undoubtedly the worst trial we had
+yet met with on the journey. I cannot convey the black despair which
+took possession of our hearts at the seeming hopelessness of all our
+efforts to find firm footing or a break in the landscape which might
+indicate a change in the nature of the country, a light, a voice,
+anything that would help to lift from our hearts the feeling of utter
+isolation from all human assistance and the seeming certainty that a
+few bubbles would be the only indication that we had struggled there.
+The darkness of the night intensified these thoughts. The rain did not
+matter. In fact it helped; for we were covered with the worse than
+water of the morass.
+
+We looked at one another. We dared not speak. Anyhow, to do so was not
+our custom at such times as these. But each knew. A dull anger took
+possession of us at the thought of so inglorious an end after all that
+we had suffered to attain our freedom. With a prayer in our hearts we
+cast ourselves forward and somehow, sometime, found at last that we
+were safe and so flung ourselves down in our stinking clothes to lie
+like dogs in a drunken stupour that recked not of time or of our
+enemies.
+
+We discovered an apple orchard here, in which the fruit was ripe. All
+the apples we had had up to date had been of the small and green
+variety. And even they, with the occasional milk, represented our all
+of luxury, so that these seemed indeed the food of the gods. We
+proceeded to fill up and after eating all that we thought we could,
+filled our pockets until they bulged, and started off, each carrying
+an armful of the fruit. At every step we dropped some. We stopped
+again and ate our surplus to make room. We refused to lose any of
+them. We came to a river, stripped, tied our clothes up in a bundle
+and proceeded to swim across, shoving the clothes ahead. I lost
+control of mine and they sank. I dived repeatedly in the darkness
+before I found them. The cargo of apples in the pockets made a bad
+matter worse. I should rather have drowned than have lost my apples.
+The possible loss of the clothes worried us very little. We had
+already decided in that event to waylay some German Michel rather
+than to go naked into Holland. However, by alternately dragging the
+bundle behind and swimming on our backs with it held high on the chest
+with one hand, we made the crossing, apples and all.
+
+We were sitting in the shadow preparing to dress and wondering whether
+we were really over the border and if we could safely walk abroad,
+when we heard men walking toward us. We knew them to be Germans by the
+clank of the hobnailed boots which all our guards had worn. We had not
+a stitch on and our hearts were in our mouths. The patrol of six men
+stopped within five yards of us and then passed on within five feet
+and did not see us. We dressed quickly and went on, only to find a
+canal, for which we had to strip again.
+
+Arriving at the other side; we dressed in the shadow of the bank,
+crawled to the top and plunged through the heather on to a road which
+we had almost crossed, when there came a cry of "Halt!" The patrol
+must have been standing in the trees where we had broken out from the
+heather, and very quietly, too, for we had lain for five minutes to
+make certain that all was safe. Evidently we were on or near the
+border if the number of patrols was any indication. We were not
+certain whether these were Hollanders or Germans. We made one big buck
+jump. "Fire, Gridley, when ready!" I left the entire knee of one
+trouser leg on a clutching thorn. But the patrol did not fire.
+
+And then another canal. "I'm fed up with swimming to-night."
+
+"So am I," agreed Simmons. "There are houses over there. There must be
+a bridge."
+
+We slunk along the bank and to our joy found a small bridge. We dashed
+across it and debouched safely into a tiny village. Here we saw a
+difference, especially in the houses and the roadway. It was in the
+very atmosphere, a result no doubt of instincts made keen by the
+hunted lives we had led. On either side the fields stretched out,
+criss-crossed by a perfect network of small canals and ditches, which
+also served as fences.
+
+We knew we were in Holland.
+
+We deemed it unwise to show ourselves as yet, distrusting the
+sympathies of the Hollanders and fearful that they might give us up;
+and continued this policy until the next day. However, we took a
+chance and stuck to the road, a treat, indeed, to feel a firm footing
+after our weeks of travelling across country fields. This enabled us
+to shove thirty miles between us and Germany by morning.
+
+    [Illustration: PRIVATE MERWIN C. SIMMONS OF THE 7TH BATTALION,
+    1ST DIVISION, CANADIAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE.]
+
+It was not quite daylight when we espied a cow in a field at the
+roadside and gave chase. There was no other food in sight, so when our
+quarry threw up its tail and bounced off; we set out grimly to run our
+breakfast down. It was half an hour later that we corralled it in a
+corner between two broad ditches and were already licking our chops in
+anticipation; when we discovered that our cow was only a big heifer.
+Twenty-four hours earlier it would have been a tragedy. As it was, we
+only laughed. Such is liberty.
+
+At this distance from the border we felt that we were safe from the
+Germans but were very much afraid that we might be interned. So we
+holed up in a farmhouse which had been partly burned down and built a
+roaring fire out of the remains of the charred furniture, placed some
+of the potatoes that were lying about in the fire, made a rough bed
+and went to sleep. Awakening later in the day, we raked the blackened
+potatoes out of the ashes and filled up on them. We were a fearful
+team; absolutely filthy, uncombed, unwashed, unshaven, and with the
+Russian's paint still thick upon us. Afterward we went down to the
+canal and endeavoured to knock the worst of it off. All danger was
+past now. We seemed to walk on air. We were once again British
+soldiers. And so fell to abuse of one another, finding fault and
+grousing; as all good British soldiers do when they are well off. I
+made out to shave Simmons. The terrible razor had never been sharp and
+lately had rusted from its travels. Simmons swore lustily and
+threatened me, ordering me at the same time and in no uncertain terms;
+to desist from the torture.
+
+"Well, we want to go into Holland lookin' respectable. What'll they
+think of British soldiers if they see us? Have a heart!" I
+expostulated.
+
+"Don't give a damn! I've had enough for being a Canadian; but I won't
+stand for this." I left him with his beard still on in patches and the
+bare spots bleeding angrily. As I had already committed myself, I had
+to bear in silence his purposely clumsy handling of that hack-saw. It
+was terrible, and Simmons, the scoundrel, laughed like a demon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+HOLLAND AT LAST
+
+  "No Intern"--Real Bread--Tipperary--A Real Time--The Splendid
+  Hollanders--The Hague.
+
+
+The diary summarizes the later events of that day:
+
+"September tenth: Fine weather and in Holland. All our troubles are
+over. We struck a small town called Alboom where the people did
+everything they could for us. Plenty of food. Slept in a house!"
+
+A man smoking a big pipe and wearing baggy breeches and wooden shoes
+came up and surveyed us with kindly amusement, as Simmons scraped at
+me with infinite gusto. He was a Hollander; not a "Dutchman." We soon
+learned that the latter was a term of contempt applied by the former
+to the Germans.
+
+I asked him for some tobacco, which he readily gave to us from a
+capacious pouch. He waved his pipe at us in friendly fashion and said
+something which we took to be a question as to our identity.
+
+"English," we said, and in desperation turned to our scanty stock of
+French: "_Soldats; prisoniers._"
+
+"Engelsch!" he boomed. We nodded. He simply threw his arms round first
+one and then the other, so that I wiped the ashes from his pipe out of
+my eyes. He lumbered off and shortly returned with a counterpart of
+himself. He talked rapidly to his companion and waved his pipe. We
+made out the words "Duitsch," "Engelsch," and enough of others to know
+that he was telling our tale as he imagined it.
+
+Our fears coming uppermost, we gave voice to them: "Intern?"
+
+"No intern. Engelsch." The other took up the cry: "Engelsch goot!
+Frient." However our suspicions would not down.
+
+The first man pointed out to the canal where a barge lay and made us
+understand that it was his. He wanted us to work our passage on it
+down the canal with him. They invited us by signs to go on board the
+barge for breakfast, an invitation which we joyfully accepted. We
+rowed out to the barge and sat down in the tiny cabin. The meal was
+plain. On the centre of the table was a loaf of brown bread, quite
+good enough it was true, but so reminiscent of the perennial black
+ration of the Germans that my gorge rose at the sight. Out of the
+corner of my eye I saw a white loaf on the shelf, the first in fifteen
+months. I caught Simmons eyeing it. We exchanged guilty looks but were
+ashamed to ask for it. They offered us the brown loaf and delicious
+coffee. I thought perhaps that if we exhausted the brown loaf the
+other might be forthcoming. I kicked Simmons on the shins and fell to
+on it, and, as opportunity offered, thrust pieces in the pockets of my
+tunic until, to our relief, they brought out the white bread, which we
+devoured to the last crumb. It was very good.
+
+We filled our pipes in high contentment and went ashore, where a
+procession of enthusiastic villagers waited to escort us to the
+village. Men, women and children, wooden shoes and all, there were
+four hundred of them. The men all shook hands and pressed money on us.
+The women cried and one white-haired old lady kissed us both. The
+quaint little roly-poly children ran at our sides, a half dozen of
+them struggling to hold our fingers in their chubby fists.
+
+The procession started off, the burgomaster leading, the two sailors
+and ourselves coming next. Some one behind dragged out a mouth organ
+and struck up Tipperary, and men, women and children all joined in. It
+was glorious. We sang, too, in English, and they in their tongue. The
+result was so ridiculous a medley that I smiled myself; but it made no
+difference. The spirit was there; we were happy.
+
+Arriving at the village the burgomaster took us to his home and sat us
+down to a steaming breakfast, while a few of the chosen were invited
+in to watch us polish it off. The crowd remained outside, choking the
+road. Some of the bolder of the children crept slyly in the door,
+others peered shyly at us from the crack of it. And one little chap,
+braver than his comrades, clumped sturdily up to my knee, where he
+stood clutching it in round-eyed wonder and saying never a word for
+the rest of the meal, envied of his mates.
+
+Not until we had leaned back, not contented, but ashamed to ask for
+more, did our hosts give vent to the curiosity that was eating into
+their vitals. An interpreter was found and they led us out to the
+road so that all might hear. The crowd flocked around while the
+officials questioned us. Many were the smothered interjections that
+went up from the men and exclamations of pity from the women as our
+tale unfolded. And the warm sympathy of their honest faces warmed our
+hearts like a good fire.
+
+We started off on our triumphal course again. We were repeatedly
+invited into houses for something to eat. We accepted seven such
+breakfast invitations during the next two and a half hours and stopped
+only out of shame. We were still hungry. Every one gave us cigars,
+immense things, which projected from every pocket and which we carried
+in bundles under our arms. There was no refusing them. They were the
+insignia of the entente. And the coffee! The good, honest, Holland
+coffee with no acorns in it! I doubt if our starving bodies could have
+carried us many days more on the uncooked roots we had been living on.
+The motherly housewives, in their Grecian-like helmets of metal and
+glass that fit closely over their smoothed hair like skull-caps,
+bustled merrily about, intent only on replenishing our plates and
+cups, full of a tearful sympathy which was as welcome as their food.
+
+Later in the day the officials took us to the police station at ----.
+We became very much alarmed again. They read our thoughts and a
+subdued murmur of: "No intern, no intern," swelled up. The local
+burgomaster came to us. His first words, and in good English, too,
+were: "Have something to eat." We did. And then more cigars. The
+police were a splendid lot of men. They loaded us down with gifts and
+asked perfunctory questions for their records. One of them, H. Letema,
+of ----, took us to his home, where his comely wife and daughter
+loaded the table with good things; while he brought out more cigars.
+He showed us to a bed-room before we understood where he was taking
+us. We refused, for reasons of a purely personal nature. "Nix," we
+said, and when he would not accept our refusal we tried it in
+Niederländer. "No, no." Still he persisted, and his good wife too. So
+we led him firmly aside and showed him the indescribably verminous
+condition we were in. That convinced him. They appreciated that little
+touch and gave us a deep pile of blankets, flung down on three feet of
+sweet-smelling straw in an outhouse, where we slept as we had not
+slept for many months.
+
+In the morning Letema escorted us down to Aaschen, which was the
+nearest large town. A Belgian and a Holland lady, hearing of the
+escaped English prisoners, met us within twenty minutes of our
+arrival, took us in hand and loaded us down with kindnesses. We ate
+only five full sized meals that day, not counting the extras we
+absorbed between them. And there were more cigars. The raw oats and
+potatoes seemed a long way off.
+
+Our day at Aaschen was a repetition of the previous one at Alboom and
+Borger, but on a grander scale. The ladies took us down to Rotterdam
+and did not leave us until they had turned us over to the British
+consul there, whose name I have forgotten but who, with the vice
+consul, Mr. Mueller, was very kind indeed; in fact, all whom we met,
+irrespective of their nationality, age or sex placed us under eternal
+obligations to them. In particular Mr. Neilson, the rector of the
+English church and in charge of the Sailors' Institute there, seemed
+to live only for us.
+
+Mr. Henken at the American consulate was equally kind. They lodged us
+at the Seaman's Rest, took our painted rags away and clothed us in
+blue "civvie" suits which seemed to us the height of sinful luxury.
+We were shaved, clean and could eat everything in sight, at any time
+of the day or night. And did so. The meals we used to shift! We were
+very glad to get rid of our waterproof suits--for that is what they
+had become, from the paint.
+
+Mr. Neilson took us sight seeing every day. Once we went out to Mr.
+Carnegie's Peace Palace which had been closed on account of the war
+but which we were permitted to inspect. I had not thought such
+buildings were done, except in dreams. It made our own bitter past
+seem unreal. The Italian room, in particular, seemed like a delicate
+canvas in marble and done in a fashion the memory of which gripped me
+for days and still haunts me. We spent days thus; supremely happy.
+
+We were joined here by Jerry Burke of the 8th Battalion of Winnipeg.
+He was a nephew of Sir Sam Hughes, the then Canadian Minister of
+Militia and had just made his escape from some other camp.
+
+We were to have left on the fifth with a fleet of boats which sailed
+then. By the time we had got on board, however, the sailors from the
+first boat were returning. They had been torpedoed. And that stopped
+us.
+
+We got away on the S.S. _Grenadier_ on the sixteenth, and after
+hugging the length of the English Coast, arrived safely at
+Newcastle-upon-Tyne on the eighteenth.
+
+Here our troubles began!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+"IT'S A WAY THEY HAVE IN THE ARMY"
+
+  Red Tape in the Army--A Disgruntled Soldier--"Old Soldier, Old
+  Fox"--A Touch for Twenty Quid--_Augen Rechts_ at Seaford--Canada!
+
+
+My family in Canada have since remarked that although my letters had
+invariably been cheerful throughout my imprisonment, from the time I
+set foot on English soil they reflected the deepest despondency. That
+could be explained in part by the fact that uncheerful letters could
+not pass the German but could pass the British censor. But more
+particularly it was due to the fact that I became entangled in the
+interminable red tape of the army system, and, instead of meeting with
+the warm sympathy that an exile longs for, met, on the part of the
+army, with cold suspicion; however kind some individuals were to me.
+
+Simmons and I were not permitted to leave the boat until the military
+came for us. So far so good. We were taken to the headquarters of the
+General Officer Commanding that district. He briefly examined us and
+good-naturedly gave us some money out of his own pocket and tickets to
+London, where we were ordered to report at the War Office.
+
+Arriving in "The Smoke," as the army has named that city, we proceeded
+the next morning to 14 Downing Street and sent our names in to the
+official we had been directed to by the general. He was in mufti,
+whoever he was, and received us kindly enough. We were closely
+questioned about our experiences, particularly in relation to our
+guards, food, treatment, and so on. He also asked us as to the amount
+of sickness among the prisoners, the condition of the country, and so
+on.
+
+Dismissed, we made a dash down past Big Ben and the Parliament
+Buildings for the Canadian Pay and Record Office, where at Millbank it
+overlooked the Thames. A sergeant took our names and after a time took
+us, too, in to the paymaster. Simmons drew his money without
+difficulty but I found that I was fifteen months dead and was told
+that I could get no money until my identity was reëstablished. I
+protested; so much so in fact that I fully expected to land in the
+"clink." No use. I was sent out on the street talking to myself.
+
+We next called on Lady Rivers-Bulkeley and Lady Drummond to thank them
+for the very great kindness of themselves and the Canadian Red Cross
+in sending us our parcels regularly, and without which we would
+assuredly have been too weak to have made our escape. Lady Farquhar,
+the wife of our late commanding officer, was out of town, so we did
+not see her, much as we desired to thank her for similar kindnesses.
+
+Simmons was single. He was sent to Canada at once and was promptly
+discharged. I had a wife and family awaiting me there and I wanted
+badly to go to them by the next boat. My wife had been receiving
+letters from me during my fifteen months' imprisonment; she had
+regularly received her separation allowance; the Canadian Red Cross
+and many kind friends in London had been sending me prisoner-of-war
+parcels for a year; the authorities admitted my identity and my former
+comrades recognised me; I had fifteen months' pay at $1.20 a day,
+besides a subsistence allowance of sixty-five cents a day, coming to
+me; but could not draw a cent of it. I was dead. And continued so
+for three months. There is no explanation. "It's a way they have in
+the Army"; or so the army says.
+
+    [Illustration: THE CEMETERY AT CELLE LAAGER Z 1 CAMP.]
+
+    [Illustration: CORPORAL EDWARDS (SECOND FROM LEFT) AFTER HIS
+    ESCAPE. THE TWO GOLD BARS ON HIS LEFT COAT SLEEVE INDICATE THAT
+    HE HAS BEEN TWICE WOUNDED.]
+
+In the end it was only through the active intervention of Sir George
+Perley, the Canadian High Commissioner in London that my case was
+righted. He, I believe, cabled the Ottawa authorities, who in turn got
+in touch with my wife, who produced the necessary documentary evidence
+to prove that I had been alive and a prisoner all this time.
+
+I went to the depot at Seaford. I borrowed from my old friends. I hung
+round the pay office. The paymaster said I was not on the strength of
+the regiment. I was old soldier enough to profit by that calamity at
+least. The bitter injustice of such miscarriage of justice blinded me,
+as I think it eventually does most soldiers, to the accepted code of
+civil life. I refused to attend roll call or do drills, fatigues, or
+any other part of my regimental duties other than certain interesting
+and thrice-daily rites not unconnected with the kitchen.
+
+It is the commonness, the constant repetition of such stupidity and
+such lack of action that so much injures the reputation for
+intelligence of the army in the minds of those who have served in it;
+so that those who know it best, like it least--and put up with it only
+because it is the poor instrument of a good cause.
+
+The paymaster fell sick. A young subaltern was acting for him. My
+sergeant pal tipped me off. As I have said, I was an old soldier with
+all that that implies. He marched me up to the officer, already more
+or less at sea about his new duties. I asked for money. He was aware
+of my history but not of the tangle I was in:
+
+"How much?"
+
+I wondered how much the traffic would bear.
+
+"Twenty quid, sir," I ventured. He went up in the air.
+
+"Impossible! I'll give you ten."
+
+I O. K'd that while the words were yet warm on his lips. Fifty dollars
+is a great deal of money to a soldier. He gave it to me with a pass
+for Scotland--where I had relatives--to which I had long been entitled
+but which had been useless to me as long as I had no money.
+
+I quickly gathered my cronies together and we packed into the canteen
+to celebrate the occasion fittingly, in the only fashion a good
+soldier knows, in army beer so thick and strong that the hops floated
+on the tops of the mess-tins. While searching for the bottom of one of
+these I heard the orderly shouting: "Corporal Edwards! Corporal
+Edwards!" The other men gathered round me in the corner, drinking,
+while I scrunched down so that the orderly passed on and out still
+shouting my name.
+
+I fled to the tent and was hastily getting my things together when a
+corporal came hot-foot saying that the officer wanted me at once. I
+went in, gave him my very best regimental salute and stood at
+attention.
+
+"I find that you are not on the strength, corporal, and are not
+entitled to any money, so I'll trouble you to return that money I gave
+you."
+
+"I'm sorry, sir," I said sadly, "but it's gone."
+
+"Gone? How?"
+
+"Debts, sir," I said firmly. "My mates have been keeping me going."
+
+"Well, you must get it back from them at once and return it to me.
+It's most irregular. Push on now and see that you're back here in an
+hour's time with that money before those fellows spend it all in the
+canteen."
+
+"Very good, sir." I gave him a smashing good _Augen Rechts_ to cheer
+him up against the time he should discover that I was well on my way
+to Scotland.
+
+And I remained there until I received notice that my regimental bones
+had been officially exhumed; after which I had no difficulty in
+getting my back pay and three months' furlough for Canada and home!
+
+
+    AUTHOR'S NOTE.--An amusing and at the same time gratifying
+    sequel to this story developed immediately upon the heels of its
+    publication in a considerably smaller form in the _Saturday
+    Evening Post_. Sergeant Edwards, who had not previously been
+    consulted by the authorities, was at once offered his choice
+    between doing "duty" in Canada or taking a discharge from the
+    army, instead of going overseas again. He chose the discharge.
+
+    An interesting fact in connection with Brumley, the man who was
+    the first to be recaptured on the second attempt to escape, is
+    that according to a post card received from him by his wife, he
+    has since made two other unsuccessful attempts at escape.
+    Scarfe, who was exchanged to Switzerland, reports that he has
+    married a Swiss girl there. Stamper, another Patricia who was
+    captured at the same time as Edwards, has recently been
+    exchanged and is now in England. Scott, who was captured with
+    the men of an English regiment, was exchanged to Switzerland
+    and recently returned to Toronto and has been in hospital, in a
+    serious condition, ever since. The fate of the others is
+    unknown.
+
+
+
+
+THE EVIDENCE IN THE CASE
+
+
+In order to remove any vestige of doubt in the reader's mind as to the
+authenticity of Corporal Edwards' tale, it has been deemed advisable
+to present reproductions of certain newspaper articles and
+correspondence which bear directly on some of the points touched upon
+in the story.
+
+It will be noticed that quite aside from the major fact of the escape
+itself having been brought out here, there is the equally important
+one of the bringing out of a great number of lesser points which tally
+to a hair with such references to them as are made in the story, such
+for instance as the references to the delay in England, the references
+in their post cards of those fellow-prisoners who remain in Germany
+and other facts of a similar nature.
+
+The following are exact reproductions in every case, except for the
+explanatory note which prefaces each item.
+
+
+_Extract from Toronto Daily Star, May 30, 1915._
+
+WAS BACK ONLY THREE WEEKS
+
+    CORP. EDWARDS, REPORTED MISSING, WAS WOUNDED SHORT TIME AGO.
+
+    Lance-Corp. Edward Edwards of the Princess Pats who is reported
+    missing to-day, has only been back at the trenches for three
+    weeks, after having been wounded and in England for a month with
+    a bullet in his foot. He lived at 70 Standish Avenue, Rosedale,
+    where his wife and three young sons now live. He is 38 years of
+    age and has been in Canada ten years. Previous service in Africa
+    and India with the Gordon Highlanders is to his credit.
+
+
+_Letter from Corporal Edwards to His Wife in Toronto._
+
+
+    Mon Adress exacte:
+  GIESSEN (Allemagne)
+Compagnie No. 6 Baraque No. A.
+Nom et Prénom: E. Edwards. Oct. 2nd, 1915.
+
+    MY DEAREST EM: A few more lines, hoping they find all in the
+    best of health and everything going on all right. I received
+    your parcels all right. They were a treat and came in good
+    condition. How are the boys getting along? Awfully sorry about
+    Hector but hope he is all right again, poor chap's been having a
+    hard time of it. How are Gordon and Frank. Tell them I was
+    asking for them. I guess the Beastie has grown quite a big chap.
+    Thanks for J. Birnies' address. I will drop him a card some time
+    but you see I can only send two letters a month. Jack wanted me
+    to write to the lodge but I can't see how I can manage it. Em,
+    lass, don't send me any clothing as I will manage all right.
+    Col. Farquhar's wife is going to send me out some and Major
+    Gault is sending tobacco and cigarettes so I will be all right.
+    I had a parcel from Bob with a shirt and some eatables; also one
+    from Jean at Blacktop and one from home. We are always on the
+    lookout for them. Have you had any word from Mina? I've had
+    letters from them all. We are having rather cool weather. I sent
+    a post card to G. Nelson; I don't know if he ever got it but you
+    can ask him when he comes up. Em, what are you doing about the
+    house? Are you getting it fixed up or are you coming over home?
+    It would be rather late this year to come over but please
+    yourself; only let me know what you are doing. Is George still
+    in Canada? Jean was expecting him to drop in any time. He has
+    been very good to me ever since I landed first in England. I
+    will never be able to pay her back. I can't give you any news
+    as I don't know it myself. Don't wait on a letter from me before
+    you write but write often and tell me all about yourself and the
+    boys. Tell Jack to write and I will drop him a card when I can.
+    Keep your heart up and look after yourself. Tell Miss Holmes I
+    was asking for her; also Mrs. Arlow. Tell her I got her letter;
+    also tell all my friends I was asking for them. If Mr. Skerrow
+    comes up again tell him I am doing fine but would sooner be
+    working up in N. Toronto--but am making the best of it. I think
+    I will stop Em; I have really nothing to tell you, only write
+    soon and often. Give the boys a tight one for me. Best love to
+    you all. Good bye.
+
+                                  Your Affect. Ed.
+
+  149 Corpl. E. Edwards,
+    Barrack A.,
+      Company 6,
+        Prisoner of War.
+          Giessen, Germany.
+
+    P.S. Just received your letter Sept. 3rd. Tell Mrs. Bownie not
+    to bother sending anything. I have got all I want. Can't send a
+    long letter. This is all we are allowed. Ed.
+
+
+_Extract from Montreal Gazette, Sept. 21, 1916._
+
+    EDWARD EDWARDS ESCAPES FROM FOE
+
+    TORONTO SOLDIER WITH TWO OTHERS MAKE GET-AWAY. WANDER FOR THREE
+    WEEKS.
+
+    BRASS BAND ESCORTS THEM TO MAYOR OF TOWN IN HOLLAND.
+
+    London, Sept. 21.--Registered as dead by the Canadian Pay and
+    Record office, which was about to authorise distribution of
+    their effects, Lance-Corp. Edward Edwards of the Princess
+    Patricias, 70 Standish Avenue; Pte. James Jerry Burke (1216)
+    Eighth Battalion, Winnipeg and Pte. M.C. Simmons (23445) of
+    Seventh Battalion, Port Arthur, have arrived in London after
+    having escaped from a German prison camp. They experienced some
+    strenuous adventures. For three weeks they were at large; slowly
+    and cautiously wending their way to the Holland frontier, they
+    covered the distance of 150 miles. In Holland the fugitives to
+    their surprise, found a warm welcome. In fact, a local band
+    headed them in procession to the Mayor, who in turn communicated
+    with the British Consul, with the result that they were shipped
+    to England.
+
+
+_Extract from Toronto Daily Star, Sept. 22, 1916._
+
+    MRS. EDWARDS IS REJOICING
+
+    CAN HARDLY BELIEVE THAT HUSBAND ESCAPED FROM GERMAN PRISON.
+
+    HEARD SO MANY DIFFERENT TALES.
+
+    COMRADES WHO HAVE RETURNED ASSURED HER HE WOULD GET AWAY.
+
+    "I cannot believe it until I hear from him. But I do hope it is
+    true. I am glad I never kept him back, and never told him not to
+    go. He is a soldier to the backbone."
+
+    Mrs. Edward Edwards, 70 Standish Avenue, Rosedale, was
+    discussing the report that her husband, Lance-Corp. Edward
+    Edwards of the Princess Patricias, had escaped from a prison
+    camp in Germany and after travelling over 150 miles of country
+    arrived with two others on Dutch territory whence they were
+    shipped to England after being fêted by some of the people in
+    Holland.
+
+    "I have heard so many different stories. At first I was told he
+    was killed, but later he sent me a letter from Germany telling
+    me he was in a prison camp there. Only last Saturday I had a
+    letter from him in which he asked me to send him on a box of
+    soap to wash his clothes. He said in that letter that he had
+    enough tobacco, cocoa and coffee to last him for some time but
+    he needed soap."
+
+    Lance-Corporal Edwards, who was connected with the Royal
+    Grenadiers, in Toronto, was formerly a member of the Gordon
+    Highlanders, and fought with the 2nd Battalion of that regiment
+    throughout the South African War. Stationed in India at the
+    outbreak of that war the regiment was sent to South Africa and
+    was shut up in Ladysmith. He is the possessor of three medals
+    and five clasps. He took part in the great Delhi Durbar.
+
+    "Over a year ago my husband was shot in the foot," said Mrs.
+    Edwards. "He returned to the trenches and was just three weeks
+    back when he was posted as missing. That was a year ago last
+    May. For a long time I had no word of what had happened to him
+    until I had a letter from him."
+
+
+    VISITS FROM COMRADES.
+
+    "Many of the returned Princess Patricias come to see me. Only
+    last Sunday one of them said to me when talking of my husband:
+    'He will be escaping from the Germans some of these days.' And
+    it is just like him to do that. But he and the two with him must
+    have suffered terribly in the time they were hiding through 150
+    miles of the enemy's country. I wish I had him home now."
+
+    "I heard from him regularly every six weeks by letter.
+    Occasionally he would send me a postcard between the letters. He
+    never discussed the war, except in the phrase that it could not
+    last for ever. He always wrote bright and cheerful letters."
+
+    At No. 68 Standish Avenue lives the widow of Private Percy
+    Edwards, brother of Lance-Corporal Edwards. Private Edwards was
+    a reservist of the Gordon Highlanders and at the outbreak of the
+    war was called home to join his regiment. He was killed in the
+    first action in which the Gordons were engaged. His widow and
+    three young sons live next door to Mrs. Edwards, who also has
+    three young sons. Both of the Edwards brothers and their wives
+    are natives of Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
+
+
+_Postal Card to Mrs. E. Edwards, 70 Standish Ave., N. Rosedale,
+Toronto, Ont., Canada._
+
+    12th Sept. 1916. Assen, Holland. Dear Em: I guess you will get
+    my letter along with this card explaining things. You will know
+    that I have escaped from Germany and am on my way to England but
+    will write you every chance I get. Give my love to the boys and
+    I hope all is well at home. I am feeling pretty good. This is
+    where I am just now. Yours ever, Ed.
+
+
+_Postal to Mrs. E. Edwards, 70 Standish Ave., N. Rosedale, Toronto,
+Canada._
+
+    Sept. 8th, Newcastle-on-Tyne, England.
+
+    Dear Em: Hope you have received all my letters that I have
+    written you from Holland. They will tell you all about my
+    escape. I leave here for London to-night. Will write you from
+    there. Love to the boys. Write me Bulter address. Ed.
+
+
+_Postal Card to Mrs. E. Edwards, 70 Standish Ave., N. Rosedale,
+Toronto, Canada._
+
+    Sept. 22nd, 1916. Folkestone, England. Dear Em: Hope you got the
+    cable all right, also some of the letters and cards I sent you.
+    What do you think of my escape? Not so bad, eh? Write me at
+    Bulter. How are the boys? Give them my love. Am back at
+    Shornecliffe with the regiment. Will be going on leave. Trying
+    to get over to see you. Will write you to-morrow. Write as soon
+    as you can. Ed.
+
+
+    [Illustration: HOMEWARD BOUND. CORPORAL EDWARDS IN CENTER.]
+
+
+_Post Card to Cpl. E. Edwards, 7 St. Mary's Place, Cuttor,
+Aberdeenshire, Scotland, from Cpl. E. Hardy, a fellow prisoner._
+
+
+Mon Adress Exacte:
+Nom et Prénom: Cpl. E. Hardy
+No. matricule: 1906
+No. de la Compagnie: 8
+Lettre de la baraque: "E"
+  GIESSEN (Allemagne)
+
+                            Giessen, le 25-9-1916.
+
+    Dear Ted: I received your P.C. quite safe. I did a little dance
+    on my own. Charlie Walker is away somewhere. How are Dennie and
+    Nobler going on. You may be sure I was pleased to hear of you
+    getting in port safe. Sorry to hear you got wrecked on your
+    first trip but you have no worry now. Good Luck. Ted.
+
+
+_Post Card to Cpl. E. Edwards, Number One Company P. P. C. L. I., St.
+Martins Plains, Shornecliffe, England. Via Holland, from Hookie
+Walker, a fellow prisoner._
+
+
+Mon addresse exacte:
+Nom et prénom: C. Walker,
+No. matricule:
+No. de la compagnie: 6, Baraque: B.
+No. du detachement: 1
+    Giessen (Allemagne) Oct. 1st, 1916.
+
+    Dear Old Ted: I received your P.C. God Bless you and good Luck
+    be with you always. I have been on the water and got wrecked
+    also but I have not given up by any means. I am in the best of
+    health. Remember me to all and God be with you. Hookie.
+
+
+_Undated Post Card to Mr. E. Edwards Jun, 7 St. Mary's Place, Cutter,
+Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Via Holland, from Cpl. Hardy._
+
+
+        Mon Adresse exacte:
+Nom et prénom: Cpl. E. Hardy
+No. matricule: 1906
+No. de la compagnie: 8, Baraque "E"
+No. du detachement:
+
+                               Giessen (Allemagne)
+
+    Dear Ted: I am very glad everything went on A1. I am sorry I was
+    not with you. I am not wanting anything, thanks. I hope you have
+    a good time when you go to Canada. I have not seen anything of
+    Hookie for about 12 months, nor Stamper. I have still got a few
+    things safe for you when I come home. I will close with best
+    respects, Ted.
+
+
+_Undated Card to Mrs. Edwards, Rotterdam, Holland._
+
+    Dear Em. Hope you are getting my letters all right and that all
+    is well at home. I am still feeling and getting treated pretty
+    good and will be in England in two or three days. Since it all
+    goes well write me c/o of Bulter address and I will be sure to
+    get them. How are the boys? Is the wee chap still holding my
+    place? Tell Gordon when I get to England I will help him get a
+    bicycle so that he can be the same as Hector. This is where I am
+    just now but will be on my way in a few hours. I have sent you
+    Tinnie's photo. How will she do? It might be all we can get. Ed.
+
+
+_Postal to Mrs. Edwards, 70 Standish Ave., N. Rosedale, Toronto,
+Canada._
+
+
+26-10-16.      From Folkestone.
+
+    Dear Em: Arrived back in Folkestone all right. Called on Mrs.
+    Cawthra. Had a long talk with her. Can't get any word of when I
+    am to get over to Canada but will let you know as soon as
+    possible. Might be some time yet. Got the letter with Hector's
+    and will bring the things with me when I come home. How are the
+    boys getting along? Wish I was there. Good-bye. Ed.
+
+
+_Extract from Toronto Daily Star, December, 1916._
+
+    HOME ON LEAVE AFTER ESCAPE FROM THE HUNS
+
+    SGT. EDWARD EDWARDS TELLS GRAPHIC STORY OF 100 MILE FLIGHT.
+
+    WIFE HAD TO PROVE HUSBAND WAS ALIVE.
+
+    SENT HIS PHOTO AND LETTERS BEFORE WAR OFFICE WOULD BELIEVE IT.
+
+    No bands played and no Reception Committee extended the welcome
+    hand to Sergt. Edward Edwards when he stepped off the train at
+    the Union Station and walked to the home of his wife and family
+    one day last week, after two years and seven months' absence at
+    the front with a storehouse of thrilling experiences that rival
+    even the exploits of the Three Musketeers. That he was one of
+    only 49 left of the crack Princess Patricias who were mown down
+    at the Ypres Salient on May 8, 1915, was wounded twice, missing
+    and officially declared dead and escaped twice from German
+    prison camps in company with two companions are only incidents
+    in a long chapter of events which surpass in thrilling interest
+    Dumas' most daring fiction. Tom Brumley, another member of a
+    Toronto regiment, and Mervin Simmons, a Canadian from Trail,
+    B.C., were the two friends of the modern D'Artagan, but
+    unfortunately Brumley was recaptured by the Huns during the
+    first escape and Sergt. Edwards has not heard from him since.
+
+    Sergt. Edwards is now on ten weeks' furlough and is due to
+    report in England on May 10, when he expects to go into the
+    fighting again. "We went to the Ypres salient in May. I was one
+    of ten in my company to get through," said he.
+
+
+    TRIBUTE TO COL. BULLER
+
+    Here Sergt. Edwards paid a tribute to his late commanding
+    officer, Col. Buller, who was killed on the 2nd of June of this
+    year. "It was the Germans, too, who told us of our old Colonel's
+    death. They knew everything, it seemed, about our commanders and
+    could tell the regiment and division that we belonged to."
+
+    We were taken to Roulers, Belgium. After a brief stay there we
+    were taken to Giessen. There were 1,200 prisoners, mostly
+    Russian and French. The food we got was awful.
+
+
+    REFUSED TO WORK
+
+    "After a stay here of about six months I was sent with my two
+    friends, Brumley and Simmons, to a punishment camp for refusing
+    to work in a steel factory to make munitions. Three hundred
+    British and Canadians also refused in spite of threats, and
+    ill-treatment, and all were sent on to Celle Laager, the main
+    punishment camp. We were there two weeks and then we were split
+    into small parties and I was slated with my two friends for a
+    place called Oldenburg. Here they wanted us to go into a moor
+    and drain the place to grow potatoes. It was from this place
+    that we made our first serious attempt to escape.
+
+    We made a dash for the shelter of the moor. In a few minutes we
+    heard the baying of a vicious pack of dogs they had sent in
+    pursuit, but we managed to elude them and struck out for the
+    Dutch border more than 100 miles distant. We came to the River
+    Ems four miles from the border of Holland. We could not find a
+    boat or raft and were recaptured."
+
+
+    MADE FINAL ESCAPE
+
+    After undergoing this sentence, Sergt. Edwards and Simmons were
+    taken to another punishment camp at Salsengen and it was from
+    here that they made their successful escape on August 21.
+
+    The British Consul at Rotterdam arranged the wanderers' passage
+    to England, where they arrived on the 18th of September. When he
+    reported in London, Sergt. Edwards had to prove he was alive,
+    because the records of the War Office had him marked up as dead.
+    A lot of red tape had to be untangled before the gallant soldier
+    could be officially brought back from the dead, but at that time
+    he was still writing to his wife, so that, when she saw her
+    husband's name in the casualty list, she at once contradicted
+    the officials by sending her husband's letters and his pictures.
+
+
+_Postal card to No. 39 Cpl. E. Edwards, P. P. C. L. I. Depot, South
+Camp, Seaford, Sussex, England, from Charles Scarfe, who was also
+captured on May 8th._
+
+    Manor Farm, Interlaken, Switzerland, Jan. 3rd, 1917.
+
+    Dear Old Pal Teddy:
+
+    Just a card hoping to find you well as it leaves me A-1. Hope
+    you had a good Christmas. Had a fairly good one myself but hope
+    we are in Canada next one. Have had enough of being a prisoner
+    of war. Remember me to all the boys and write soon. From your
+    old pal, Charlie.
+
+
+_Postal card to 39 Cpl. E. Edwards, P. P. C. L. I. Depot, South Camp,
+Seaford, Sussex, England, from his comrade in the escape._
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Typographical errors corrected in text:                   |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Page  xi: Geissen replaced by Giessen                     |
+    | Page  63: Piccadily replaced with Picadilly               |
+    | Page  99: GEISSEN replaced by GIESSEN (captions)          |
+    | Page 161: Simonds replaced by Simmons                     |
+    | Page 184: liks replaced by like                           |
+    | Page 221: prenom replaced with prénom                     |
+    |                                                           |
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Escape of a Princess Pat, by George Pearson
+
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's The Escape of a Princess Pat, by George Pearson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Escape of a Princess Pat
+       Being the full account of the capture and fifteen months'
+              imprisonment of Corporal Edwards, of the Princess Patricia's
+              Canadian Light Infantry, and his final escape from Germany
+              into Holland
+
+Author: George Pearson
+
+Release Date: June 3, 2008 [EBook #25683]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sigal Alon, Jeannie Howse and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<div class="tr">
+<p class="cen" style="font-weight: bold;">Transcriber's Note:</p>
+<br />
+<p class="noin">Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has been preserved.</p>
+<p class="noin" style="text-align: left;">Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
+For a complete list, please see the <span style="white-space: nowrap;"><a href="#TN">end of this document</a>.</span></p>
+<p class="noin">Click on the images to see a larger version.</p>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h2>THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT</h2>
+
+<h3>GEORGE PEARSON</h3>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<div class="img"><a name="frontis" id="frontis"></a>
+<a href="images/frontis.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/frontis.jpg" width="43%" alt="Corporal (now Sergeant) Edward Edwards" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 80%; margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 25%;">CORPORAL
+(NOW SERGEANT) EDWARD EDWARDS, PRINCESS PATRICIA'S CANADIAN LIGHT
+INFANTRY.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<h1>THE ESCAPE OF A<br />
+PRINCESS PAT</h1>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4><i>Being the full account of the capture and fifteen months'<br />
+imprisonment of Corporal Edwards, of the Princess<br />
+Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, and his<br />
+final escape from Germany into Holland</i></h4>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4>BY</h4>
+<h3>GEORGE PEARSON</h3>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h5>McCLELLAND, GOODCHILD &amp; STEWART</h5>
+<h5>PUBLISHERS  ::  ::  ::   TORONTO</h5>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+
+<h4>COPYRIGHT, 1918,<br />
+BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</h4>
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<h4>PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</h4>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h4>TO THE MEMORY OF</h4>
+<h3>OUR COMRADES WHO FELL</h3>
+<h4>THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED</h4>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>PREFACE</h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>In order to remove all question of doubt in the mind of the reader it
+might perhaps be well to state here that the facts as given are the
+bona fide experiences of Corporal Edwards, Number 39, Number One
+Company, P. P. C. L. I., and as such were subjected to the closest
+scrutiny both by the author and others before it was deemed advisable
+to give the account to the public. In particular great pains were
+taken to do full justice to all enemy individuals who figure in the
+story.</p>
+
+<p>Recognizing the seriousness of the charges implied by the recital, all
+those concerned with it are extremely anxious that the correctness of
+the account should constitute its chief value: In short the intention
+has been to make of the story a readable history.</p>
+
+<p>The main facts&mdash;having to do with the destruction of the regiment on
+the eighth of May, 1915, the identity and activities of the
+individuals mentioned and the more important of the later happenings,
+including the final escape into Holland&mdash;are <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span>matters of official
+record and as such have frequently been mentioned in the official
+dispatches. The more personal details are based on the recollections
+of Corporal Edwards' retentive mind, aided by his very unusual powers
+of observation and the rough diary which he managed to retain
+possession of during his later adventures.</p>
+
+<p>For the events preceding the capture of Corporal Edwards on the eighth
+of May the author has relied upon his own recollections; as he too had
+the honor of having been "an original Patricia."</p>
+
+<p class="right">G.P.</p>
+
+<p class="noin">Sept. 1, 1917.<br />
+Toronto, Canada.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="toc" id="toc"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CONTENTS</h3>
+<br />
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="80%" summary="Table of Contents">
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr" width="10%" style="font-size: 80%;">CHAPTER</td>
+  <td class="tdl" width="80%">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdr" width="10%" style="font-size: 80%;">PAGE</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">I</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">Polygon Wood</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">14</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">II</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">The Fourth of May</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">20</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">III</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">Corporal Edwards Takes up the Tale</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">23</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">IV</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">Major Gault Comes Back</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">28</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">V</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">The Eighth of May and the Last Stand of the Princess Pats</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">33</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">VI</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">Prisoners</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">45</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">VII</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">Pulling the Leg of a German General</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">61</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">VIII</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">The Princess Patricia's German Uncle</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">70</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">IX</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">How the German Red Cross Tended the Canadian Wounded</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">76</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">X</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">The Curious Concoctions of the Chef at Giessen</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">81</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XI</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">The Way They Have at Giessen</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">86</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XII</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">The Escape</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">104</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XIII</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">The Traitor at Vehnmoor</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">115</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XIV</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">Away Again</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">123</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XV</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">Paying the Piper</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">140<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XVI</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">The Third Escape</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">158</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XVII</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">What Happened in the Wood</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">177</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XVIII</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">The Last Lap</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">185</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XIX</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">Holland at Last</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">194</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">XX</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">"It's a Way They Have in the Army"</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">203</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdr">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#THE_EVIDENCE_IN_THE_CASE">The Evidence in the Case</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">210</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="toi" id="toi"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>ILLUSTRATIONS</h3>
+<br />
+
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="80%" summary="Illustrations">
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl" width="80%"><a href="#frontis">Corporal (Now Sergeant) Edward Edwards, Princess
+  Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr" width="20%"><i>Frontispiece</i></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl">&nbsp;</td>
+  <td class="tdr" style="font-size: 80%;">PAGE</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep026a">British wounded waiting for transportation to a dressing
+  station</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">26</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep026b">The Princess Patricias in billets at Westoutre, Belgium</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">26</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep042">German prisoners bringing wounded men down a communication
+  trench</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">42</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep064">Wounded Canadians receiving first aid after an attack</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">64</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep084">Recipes from Corporal Edward's Diary</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">84</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep098a">Fellow prisoners at Giessen</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">98</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep098b">Fellow prisoners at Giessen</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">98</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep126">Record of second escape and recapture</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">126</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep136a">German prisoners at Southampton</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">136</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep136b">High explosives bursting over German trenches</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">136</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span><a href="#imagep170">Salient details of the third escape</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">170</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep192">Private Mervin C. Simmons, C.E.F.</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">192</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep206a">The cemetery at Celle Laager Z 1 Camp</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">206</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep206b">Corporal Edwards after his escape</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">206</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+  <td class="tdl"><a href="#imagep220">Homeward bound</a></td>
+  <td class="tdr">220</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h2>THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT</h2>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span><br />
+
+<h1>THE ESCAPE OF <br />A PRINCESS PAT</h1>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER I</h3>
+
+<h4 class="sc">Polygon Wood</h4>
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="noin">Ypres and Hill 60&mdash;Preparing for the Gas&mdash;Why the Patricias
+Cheered&mdash;The Retirement&mdash;The Thin Red Line.</p></div>
+<br />
+
+<p>The Princess Patricias had lain in Polygon Wood since the twentieth of
+April, mid-way between the sanguinary struggles of St. Julien and Hill
+60, spectators of both. Although subjected to constant alarm we had
+had a comparatively quiet time of it, with casualties that had only
+varied from five to fifty-odd each day.</p>
+
+<p>By day and night the gun-fire of both battles had beat back upon us in
+great waves of sound. There were times when we had donned our water
+soaked handkerchiefs for the gas that always threatened but never
+came, so that the expectation might have shaken less steady troops.
+Quick on the heels of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>first news of the gas the women of Britain,
+their tears scalding their needles, with one accord had laboured, sans
+rest, sans sleep, sans everything, so that shortly there had poured in
+to us here a steady stream of gauze pads for mouth and nostril. For
+the protection of our lungs against the poison of the gas they were at
+least better than the filthy rags we called handkerchiefs. We wore
+their gifts and in spirit bowed to the donors, as I think all still
+do. We soaked them with the foul water of the near-by graves and kept
+them always at our side, ready to tie on at each fresh alarm.</p>
+
+<p>Once there had come word in a special army order of the day: "Our
+Belgian agent reports that all enemy troops on this front have been
+directed to enter their trenches to-night with fixed bayonets. All
+units are enjoined to exercise the closest watch on their front; the
+troops will stand to from the first appearance of darkness, with each
+man at his post prepared for all eventualities. Sleep will not be
+permitted under any circumstances."</p>
+
+<p>The consequence had been that that night had been one of nervous
+expectation of an attack which did not materialise. We always carried
+fixed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>bayonets in the trenches but the Germans were better equipped
+with loopholes, as they were with most other things, and were forced
+to leave their bayonets off their rifles in order to avoid any danger
+of the latter sticking in their metal shields when needed in a hurry,
+to say nothing of the added attention they would draw in their exposed
+and stationary position at the mouth of a loophole. The "Stand-to" had
+come as a distinct relief that morning.</p>
+
+<p>And always there had been the glowering fires of a score of villages.
+The greater mass of burning Ypres stood up amongst them like the
+warning finger of God. Occasionally the roaring burst of an ammunition
+dump flared up into a volcano of fiery sound. The earth under our feet
+trembled in convulsive shudders from a cannonade so vast that no one
+sound could be picked out of it and the walls of dug-outs slid in,
+burying sleeping men. But like the promise of God there came to us in
+every interval of quietness, as always, the full-throated song of many
+birds.</p>
+
+<p>Our forces consisted of the French who held the left corner of the
+Ypres salient, then the Canadian division in the centre, next the 28th
+Division of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>the regular British Army and then our own, the 27th, with
+Hill 60 on our right flank. The enemy attacked both at Hill 60 and at
+the line of the Canadian Division and the French, and we held on to
+the horse-shoe shaped line until the last possible moment when one
+more shake of the tree would have thrown us like ripe fruit into the
+German lap.</p>
+
+<p>So near had the converging German forces approached to one another
+that the weakened battery behind our own trenches had been at the
+last, turned around the other way and fired in the opposite direction
+without a shift in its own position. For our own protection we had
+nothing. And later still these and all other guns left us to seek new
+positions in the rear so that only we of the infantry remained.</p>
+
+<p>Daily there had come orders to "Stand-to" in full marching order, to
+evacuate; at which all ranks expostulated angrily. And then perhaps
+another order&mdash;to stick it another day; at which we cheered and
+slapped one another boisterously on the back so that the stolid
+Germans over yonder must have wondered, knowing what they did of our
+desperate situation.</p>
+
+<p>But the dreaded order came at last and was confirmed, so that under
+protest and like the beaten <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>men that we knew we were not, we slunk
+away under cover of darkness on the night of the third of May to
+trenches three miles in the rear, and with us went the troops on ten
+more miles of British front.</p>
+
+<p>The movement as executed was in reality a feat of no mean importance
+on the part of the higher command. Faced by an overwhelmingly superior
+force, our badly depleted three divisions had barely escaped being
+bagged in the net of which the enemy had all but drawn the noose in a
+strategetic surrounding movement.</p>
+
+<p>In detail, the movement had consisted of withdrawing under cover of
+darkness with all that we could carry of our trench material, both to
+prevent it falling into hostile hands and equally to strengthen our
+new position. A small rearguard of fifteen men to the regiment had
+held our front for the few hours necessary for us to "shake down" in
+the new position. Their task was to remain behind and to give a
+continuous rapid-fire from as many different spots as possible in a
+given time, thereby keeping up the illusion of a heavily manned
+trench. Then, they too had faded quietly away, following us.</p>
+
+<p>Our new trenches were three miles behind those <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>we had just evacuated
+in Polygon Wood. Zillebeke lay just to the left and beyond that,
+Hooge. We were in the open, with Belle-waarde Wood and Lake behind us.</p>
+
+<p>We continued to face vastly superior forces. To make matters worse the
+trenches were assuredly a mockery of their kind and there was even
+less of adequate support than before. And at that the drafts arrived
+each day&mdash;if they were lucky enough to break through the curtains of
+fire with which the enemy covered our rear for that very purpose, as
+well as for the further one of curtailing the arrival of all necessary
+supplies of food and ammunition.</p>
+
+<p>Every camp and hospital from Ypres to Rouen and the sea and from
+Land's End to John O' Groat was combed and scraped for every eligible
+casualty, every overconfident office holder of a "cushy" job, and in
+short, for all those who could by hook or crook hold a rifle to help
+stem this threatening tide. And in our own lot, even those wasteful
+luxuries, the petted officers' servants were amongst us, doing
+fighting duty for the first time, so that we almost welcomed the
+desperate occasion which furnished so rare and sweet a sight.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4 class="sc">The Fourth of May</h4>
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="noin">The Unofficial Armistice&mdash;The Clash of the Scouts&mdash;"Sticking It"
+on the Fourth.</p></div>
+<br />
+
+<p>We suffered cruelly on the Fourth. The dawn had discovered two long
+lines of men, madly digging in plain sight of one another. There was
+no firing except that one little storm when the stronger light had
+shown our rear guard ridiculously tangled up with a screen of German
+scouts so that some of each were nearer to foe than to friend and so
+had foes on either side. They shot at one another. Some of us in our
+excitement shot at both, scarce able to distinguish one from the
+other. Others amongst us strove to knock their rifles up. And the
+Germans in their trenches shot too. Both of us of the main bodies
+continued to respect the tacit truce imposed by the conditions under
+which we found ourselves, insofar as we ourselves were concerned, and
+fired only at the poor fellows in between.</p>
+
+<p>As for them, I fear the absurd nature of their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>tragic plight excited
+more of wonder than of concern. They merged into hedges and ditches
+swallowed them. Their case was only one incident of many, and what
+became of them I have never heard, except that Lieutenant Lane who
+commanded our rear guard was with us on the Eighth, so I presume that
+some must have crawled up to us that night and so saved themselves for
+the moment. Anything else would have been a great pity for so brave a
+squad.</p>
+
+<p>The digging continued until the better equipped Germans had finished
+their task; when they sought their holes with one accord, an example
+which we as quickly followed.</p>
+
+<p>This was at nine o'clock on the morning of the fourth of May. From
+then on until dusk the intensity of a furious all-day bombardment by
+every known variety of projectile had been broken only at intervals to
+allow of the nearer approach of the enemy's attacking infantry. The
+worst was the enfilade fire of two batteries on our right which with
+six-inch high explosive shells tore our front line to fragments so
+that we were glad indeed to see the night come. Only once had ours
+replied, one gun only. That was early in the morning. It barked
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>feebly, twice, but drew so fierce a German fire that it was forever
+silenced.</p>
+
+<p>Some infantry attacks followed but were beaten off. Only a weak half
+of the battalion was in the front line trench. The remainder were in
+Belle-waarde Wood, the outer fringe of which was a bare one hundred
+yards behind the front line. They were fairly comfortable in pine
+bough huts which were, however, with some of their occupants, badly
+smashed by shell fire that day.</p>
+
+<p>The outcome was that although all attacks were beaten off, our losses
+were well on to two hundred men, most of whom were accounted for in
+the more exposed front line.</p>
+
+<p>The order had been that we were to hold this front for several days
+more although the regiment had been in the trenches since April the
+20th, and, except for a march back to Ypres from Polygon Wood, since
+early April. But after such a smashing blow on men who were already
+thoroughly exhausted, the plan was changed and our line was taken over
+by the King's Shropshire Light Infantry, the "Shrops" we called them,
+a sister regiment in our brigade, the 80th.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4 class="sc">Corporal Edwards Takes up the Tale</h4>
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="noin">Amongst the Wounded&mdash;Trench Nerves&mdash;Resting in Coffins.</p></div>
+<br />
+
+<p>It was on this day that I rejoined the regiment. I had been wounded in
+the foot at St. Eloi in February and had come up in a draft fresh from
+hospital and had lain in the supports at the huts all of the Fourth.</p>
+
+<p>The survivors of the front line fire joined those at the huts shortly
+after nightfall. They were stupid from shell fire, too dazed to talk.
+I saw one man wandering in half circles, talking to himself&mdash;and with
+a heavy pack on. There were others in worse plight; so there was no
+help for him.</p>
+
+<p>Myself, I was too much engrossed in a search for my comrade Woods to
+bother with other men less dear, however much I might sympathise with
+them.</p>
+
+<p>He and I had been "mates" since Toronto days, had made good cheer
+together in the hot August days of mobilisation at Ottawa and had
+rubbed mess <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>tins together under the starry sky at Levis before the
+great Armada had taken us to English camps and other scenes.</p>
+
+<p>It was he who had fetched me out of danger at St. Eloi. And now it was
+my turn. They told me he was somewhere on a stretcher.</p>
+
+<p>I searched them all. I struck matches&mdash;and was met by querulous
+curses; I knelt by the side of the dying; I inquired of those wounded
+who still could walk, but find him I could not. It appears that a new
+and heavy moustache had helped to hide him from me. I was in great
+distress, but in the fullness of time and when our small circles had
+run their route, I discovered him in Toronto.</p>
+
+<p>The word was that we were to go to Vlamertinghe, where the Zeppelins
+had bombed us in our huts. It lay well below threatened Ypres.</p>
+
+<p>We of Number One Company passed Belle-waarde Lake, with its old
+dug-outs and its smells, and struck off across the fields, the better
+to avoid the heavy barrage fire which made all movement of troops
+difficult beyond words. We reached the railroad up and down which in
+quieter times the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>battalion had been wont to march to and fro to the
+Polygon Wood trenches.</p>
+
+<p>The fire became heavier here and the going was rough so that what with
+the burden of packs which seemed to weigh a ton and all other things;
+we moved in a mass, as sheep do. When slung rifles jostled packs, good
+friends cursed one another both loud and long. This was trench nerves.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly, we ran into a solid wall of barrage fire. The officer
+commanding the company halted us. We were for pushing on to that rest
+each aching bone and muscle, each tight-stretched and shell-dazed
+nerve fairly screamed aloud for. But he was adamant. We cursed him. He
+pretended not to hear. This also was trench nerves.</p>
+
+<p>It was growing late. The star shells became fewer. The search-lights
+ceased altogether. In half an hour those keen eyes in distant trees
+and steeples would have marked us down&mdash;and what good then the agony
+of this all-night march? Better to have been killed back there in
+Belle-waarde. We were still a good two miles from Ypres town.</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep026a" id="imagep026a"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep026a.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep026a.jpg" width="85%" alt="British Wounded" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 80%; margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 25%;">BRITISH WOUNDED WAITING FOR TRANSPORTATION TO A DRESSING STATION.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep026b" id="imagep026b"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep026b.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep026b.jpg" width="85%" alt="The Princess Patricias in Billets at Westoutre, Belgium" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 80%; margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 25%;">THE PRINCESS
+PATRICIAS IN BILLETS AT WESTOUTRE, BELGIUM. ON TOP OF WAGON IN FOREGROUND IS "KNIFE-REST"
+TYPE OF WIRE ENTANGLEMENTS.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The officer literally drove us back over the way we had come. His
+orders had anticipated this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>eventuality so that rather than force
+the passage of the barrage fire, merely for a rest, we should rest
+here where no rest was to be had. Undoubtedly, if we had been "going
+up" it would have been different. We should have gone on&mdash;no fire
+would have stopped us.</p>
+
+<p>The half hour limit brought us to a murky daylight and an old and
+sloppy support trench which bordered the track and into which we flung
+ourselves, to lay in the water in a dull stupor that was neither sleep
+nor honest waking.</p>
+
+<p>Later, when the rations had been "dished out" we bestirred ourselves
+and so found or dug queer coffin-shaped shelves in either wall. Out of
+courtesy we called them dug-outs.</p>
+
+<p>I do not remember that any one spoke much of the dead.</p>
+
+<p>The rain stopped and for a time the unaccustomed sun came out. We
+drove stakes in the walls above our coffins, hunted sand-bags and hung
+them and spare equipment over the open face and then crawled back into
+the water which, as usual, was already forming in the hollows that our
+hips made where we lay. Until noon there was little heard <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>but the
+thick breathing of weary men. Occasionally one tossed and shouted
+blasphemous warnings anent imaginary and bursting shells; whereat
+those within hearing whined in a tired and hopeless anger, and, if
+close by, kicked him. Trench nerves.</p>
+
+<p>All day the fire of many guns sprayed us. Near by, the well defined
+emplacement of one of our own batteries inevitably drew to the entire
+vicinity a heavy fire so that one shell broke fair amongst our
+sleeping men.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4 class="sc">Major Gault Comes Back</h4>
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="noin">"The King Is Dead": "Long Live the King"&mdash;Back to
+Belle-waarde&mdash;The Seventh of May.</p></div>
+<br />
+
+<p>That was on the fifth. In the afternoon young Park came to us. He was
+the Commanding Officer's orderly. There was down on his face but he
+was full of all that strange wisdom of a trenchman who had experienced
+the bitter hardships and the heartbreaking losses of a winter in the
+cursed salient of St. Eloi, by Shelley Farm and The Mound of Death.
+But just now this infant of the trenches had the round eyes of a
+startled child, which in him meant mad excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"The C.O.'s hit."</p>
+
+<p>The word slid up the trench: "The C.O.'s hit."</p>
+
+<p>"Strike me! Cawn't this bleedin' regiment keep a bleedin' Colonel&mdash;&mdash;?
+That makes two of them!"</p>
+
+<p>"How did it happen?"</p>
+
+<p>"What the devil are we goin' to do?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>"Who says so?"</p>
+
+<p>"The second in six weeks!"</p>
+
+<p>"Parkie."</p>
+
+<p>"By&mdash;&mdash;! This mob's in a Hell of a fix, Bo'."</p>
+
+<p>Park was leaning on his rifle, trench fashion. "Oh, dry up. You give
+me a pain."</p>
+
+<p>And then he launched his thunderbolt, "Gault's back."</p>
+
+<p>The chorus of despair became one of wild delight.</p>
+
+<p>"We're jake!" "He'll see us through." "Where is he?" "How's his arm?"
+"The son-of-a-gun! Couldn't keep him away, could they?"</p>
+
+<p>"No fear. Not 'im. Bloody well wanted to be wiv 'is bleedin' boys, 'e
+did. 'E ain't bloody well goin' to do 'is bloody solderin' in a
+'cushy' job in Blighty&mdash;like some of 'em. Not after rysin' us. Do it
+wiv 'is bloody self like a man; an' that's wot 'e is."</p>
+
+<p>The speaker glared accusingly; but his declaration agreed too well
+with what all thought for any one to take exception to it.</p>
+
+<p>The new Commanding Officer had been wounded at St. Eloi on March 1st
+and this was our first intimation of his return.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>Park took up his tale. "He's over there with the C.O. now," and
+switching: "Shell splinter got him in the eye. Guess it's gone and
+maybe the other one too."</p>
+
+<p>"By&mdash;&mdash;!" he burst out passionately: "I hope it don't. He's been damn
+good to me&mdash;and to you fellows too," he added fiercely, while his
+lower lip quivered.</p>
+
+<p>I think all stared anywhere but at Park, in a curious embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>"Got it goin' from one trench to another to see about the rations
+comin' up instead of stayin' in like a 'dug-out wallah.' Got out on
+top of the ground, walked across an' stopped one," he added bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>A considerable draft of "old boys," ruddy of face and fresh from
+hospital, together with some more new men reached us that night. We
+"went up" again with the dusk of the following night and "took over"
+our previous trenches in front of Belle-waarde Wood.</p>
+
+<p>We were told that the Shropshires had been rather badly cut up in the
+interval of their occupation by a further course of intense
+bombardment and some <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>fierce infantry fighting. Nevertheless, the
+trenches had been put into much better shape since our earlier
+occupancy of them, so that what with our work that night they were by
+the morning of the seventh in fairly good shape.</p>
+
+<p>The night was not unusual in any way. There was the regular amount of
+shelling, of star shells, of machine gun and rifle fire, and of
+course, casualties. Those we always had, be it ever so quiet.</p>
+
+<p>Even the morning "Stand-to" with that mysterious dread of unknown
+dangers that it invariably brought gave us nothing worse than an hour
+of chilly waiting&mdash;and later, the smoke of the Germans' cooking fires.</p>
+
+<p>There were none for us. It was as simple as algebra. Smoke attracted
+undue artillery attention&mdash;the Germans had artillery; we had not. They
+had fires; we had not.</p>
+
+<p>The day rolled by smoothly enough. Except for the fresh graves and a
+certain number of unburied dead the small-pox appearance of the
+shell-pitted ground about might have been thought to have been of
+ancient origin; so filled with water were the shell holes and so large
+had they grown as a result <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>of the constant sloughing in of their
+sodden banks.</p>
+
+<p>During all these days the German fire on the salient at large had
+continued as fiercely as before but had spared us its severest trials.</p>
+
+<p>The night of the seventh passed to all outward appearance pretty much
+in the same manner as the preceding one.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER V<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4 class="sc">The Eighth of May and the Last Stand of the Princess Pats</h4>
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="noin">Morning in the Trenches&mdash;The Artillery Preparation for the
+Infantry Attack&mdash;The P.P's Chosen to Stem the Tide&mdash;The Trust of
+a Lady&mdash;Chaos&mdash;Corporal Dover&mdash;The Manner in Which Some Men Kill
+and Others Die.</p></div>
+<br />
+
+<p>It seemed as though I had just stepped off my whack of sentry go for
+my group when a kick in the ribs apprised me that it was "Stand-to." I
+rubbed my eyes, swore and rose to my feet. Such was the narrowness of
+the trench that the movement put me at my post at the parapet, where
+in common with my mates, I fell to scanning the top for the first
+signs of day and the Germans.</p>
+
+<p>The latter lay on the other side of the ravine from us as they had
+since the Fourth, except for such times as they had assaulted our
+position. The smoke of Ypres and all the close-packed villages of a
+thickly populated countryside rose sullenly on every hand.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>Over everything there hung the pallor of the mist-ridden Flemish
+morning, deadly quiet, as was usual at that time of the trench day
+when the tenseness of the all-night vigil was just merging into the
+relieving daylight.</p>
+
+<p>At half past six that stillness was punctuated by a single shell,
+which broke barely in our rear. And then the ball commenced&mdash;the most
+intense bombardment we had yet experienced. Most of the fire came from
+the batteries in concealed positions on our right, whence, as on the
+fourth, they poured in a very destructive enfilade fire which swept up
+and down the length of the trench like the stream of a hose, making it
+a shambles. Each burst of high-explosive shells, each terrible
+pulsation of the atmosphere, if it missed the body, seemed to rend the
+very brain, or else stupefied it.</p>
+
+<p>The general result was beyond any poor words of mine. All spoken
+language is totally inadequate to describe the shocks and horrors of
+an intense bombardment. It is not that man himself lacks the
+imaginative gift of words but that he has not the word tools with
+which to work. They do not exist. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>Each attempt to describe becomes
+near effrontery and demands its own separate apology.</p>
+
+<p>In addition, kind Nature draws a veil for him over so much of all the
+worst of it that many details are spared his later recollection. He
+remembers only the indescribable confusion and the bursting claps of
+near-by flame, as foul in color and as ill of smell as an addled egg.
+He knows only that the acid of the high-explosive gas eats into the
+tissue of his brain and lungs, destroying with other things, most
+memories of the shelling.</p>
+
+<p>Overhead an aeroplane buzzed. We could even descry the figures of the
+pilot and his observer, the latter signaling. No gun of ours answered.
+The dead and dying lay all about and none could attend them: A rifle
+was a rifle.</p>
+
+<p>This continued for an hour, at the end of which time we poked our
+heads up and saw their infantry coming on in columns of mobs, and some
+of them also very prettily in the open order we had ourselves been
+taught. Every field and hedge spewed them up. We stood, head and
+shoulders exposed above the ragged parapet, giving them "Rapid-fire."
+They <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>had no stomach for that and retired to their holes, leaving many
+dead and grievously wounded.</p>
+
+<p>It was at this time that we saw the troops on our flanks falling back
+in orderly fashion. I called that fact to the attention of Lieutenant
+Lane, who was the only officer left in our vicinity. He said that the
+last word he had received was to hang on.</p>
+
+<p>This we proceeded to do, and so, we are told, did the others. We
+learned later that the battalion roll call that night showed a
+strength of one hundred and fifty men out of the six hundred and
+thirty-five who had answered "Present" twenty-four hours earlier. And
+the official records of the Canadian Eye Witness, Lord Beaverbrook,
+then Sir Max Aitken, as given in "Canada in Flanders," state that
+"Those who survive and the friends of those who have died may draw
+solace from the thought that never in the history of arms have
+soldiers more valiantly sustained the gift and trust of a Lady,"
+referring to the Color which had been worked for and presented to us
+by the Princess Patricia, daughter of His Royal Highness the Duke of
+Connaught, then Governor-General of Canada.</p>
+
+<p>We were on the apex of the line and were now <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>unsupported on either
+side. It was about this time, I believe, that a small detachment of
+the King's Shropshire Light Infantry, a sister regiment in our
+brigade, fetched to the companies in our rear twenty boxes of badly
+needed ammunition and re&euml;nforced the Princess Patricias.</p>
+
+<p>Following the beating off of their infantry attack the Germans gave us
+a short breathing spell until their machine guns had been trained on
+our parapet and a school of light field guns dragged up into place.
+The aeroplane came out again, dropping to within three hundred feet of
+our trench, and with tiny jets of vari-colored smoke bombs, directed
+the terribly accurate fire of the enemy guns, already so close to, but
+so well insured against any harm from us that they attempted no
+concealment. And the big guns on the right completed the devastation.</p>
+
+<p>This continued for another half hour, at the end of which time there
+remained intact only one small traverse in the trench, which owed its
+existence to the fragment of chicken wire that held its sides up. The
+remainder was absolutely wiped out. This time there was no rapid fire,
+nor even any looking over the top to see if the enemy were coming on.
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>Instead, the Germans fairly combed the parapet with their machine
+guns. Each indication of curiosity from us drew forth from them such a
+stream of fire that the top of the parapet spat forth a steady shower
+of flying mud, and, which made it impossible for us to defend
+ourselves properly, even had there been enough of us left to do so.</p>
+
+<p>The rest was chaos, a bit of pure hell. Men struggling, buried alive
+and looking at us for the aid they would not ask for. Soldiers all.
+And the Germans now pouring in in waves from all sides, and especially
+from our unprotected flanks and rear, hindered only by the desultory
+rifle fire of our two weakened companies in the support trenches. We
+were receiving rifle fire from four directions and bayonet thrusts
+from the Germans on the parapet. Mowed down like sheep. And as they
+came on they trampled our dead and bayoneted our wounded.</p>
+
+<p>The machine-gun crew had gone under to a man, doing their best to the
+last. I think Sergeant Whitehead went with them, too; at least he was
+near there a short time before, and I never saw him or any of the gun
+crew again. The only living soul near that spot was Royston, dragging
+himself out from under <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>a pile of d&eacute;bris and covered with mud and
+blood, his face horribly swollen to twice its normal size, blinded for
+the moment.</p>
+
+<p>To quote "Canada in Flanders" again:</p>
+
+<p>"At this time the bombardment recommenced with great intensity. The
+German bombardment had been so heavy since May 4th that a wood which
+the Regiment had used in part for cover was completely demolished. The
+range of our machine-guns was taken with extreme precision. All,
+without exception, were buried. Those who served them behaved with the
+most admirable coolness and gallantry. Two were dug out, mounted and
+used again. One was actually disinterred three times and kept in
+action till a shell annihilated the whole section. Corporal Dover
+stuck to his gun throughout and, although wounded, continued to
+discharge his duties with as much coolness as if on parade. In the
+explosion that ended his ill-fated gun, he lost a leg and an arm, and
+was completely buried in the d&eacute;bris. Conscious or unconscious, he lay
+there in that condition until dusk, when he crawled out of all that
+was left of the obliterated trench and moaned for help. Two of his
+comrades sprang from the support <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>trench&mdash;by this time the fire
+trench&mdash;and succeeded in carrying in his mangled and bleeding body.
+But as all that remained of this brave soldier was being lowered into
+the trench a bullet put an end to his sufferings. No bullet could put
+an end to his glory."</p>
+
+<p>George Easton was firing with me at the gray mass of the oncoming
+horde. "My rifle's jammed!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Take mine." And I stooped to get one from a casualty underfoot. But a
+moment later, as I fired from the parapet, my bayonet was broken off
+by a German bullet. I shouted wildly to Cosh to toss me one from near
+by.</p>
+
+<p>Just then the main body of the Germans swarmed into the end of the
+trench.</p>
+
+<p>Of this Lord Beaverbrook says: "At this moment the Germans made their
+third and last attack. It was arrested by rifle fire, although some
+individuals penetrated into the fire trench on the right. At this
+point all the Princess Patricias had been killed, so that this part of
+the trench was actually tenantless. Those who established a footing
+were few in number, and they were gradually dislodged; and so the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>third and last attack was routed as successfully as those which had
+preceded it."</p>
+
+<p>His conclusion that we had all been killed was justifiable even
+though, fortunately for me, it was an erroneous one. So I am glad for
+other motives than those of mere courtesy to be able here to set him
+right.</p>
+
+<p>Bugler Lee shouted to me: "I'm shot through the leg." A couple of us
+seized him, planning to go down to where the communication trench had
+once been. But he stopped us, saying: "It's no good, boys. It's a dead
+end! They're killing us."</p>
+
+<p>Cosh swore. "Don't give up, kid! We'll beat the &mdash;&mdash; yet!" A German
+standing a few yards away raised his rifle and blew his head off.
+Young Brown broke down at this&mdash;they had just done in his wounded pal:
+"Oh, look! Look what they've done to Davie," and fell to weeping. And
+with that another put the muzzle of his rifle against the boy's head
+and pulled the trigger.</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep042" id="imagep042"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep042.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep042.jpg" width="45%" alt="German Prisoners after a Successful Canadian Attack" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 80%; margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 25%;">GERMAN PRISONERS AFTER A SUCCESSFUL CANADIAN ATTACK,
+BRINGING WOUNDED MEN DOWN A COMMUNICATION TRENCH.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Young Cox from Winnipeg put his hands above his head at the order. His
+captor placed the muzzle of his rifle squarely against the palm and
+blew it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>off. There remained only a bloody and broken mass dangling
+from the wrist.</p>
+
+<p>I saw a man who had come up in the draft with me on the 4th, rolling
+around in the death agony, tossing his head loosely about in the wild
+pain of it, his pallid face a white mark in the muck underfoot. A
+burly German reached the spot and without hesitation plunged his
+saw-edged bayonet through the throat.</p>
+
+<p>Close by another wounded man was struggling feebly under a pile of
+earth, his legs projecting so that only the convulsive heaving of the
+loose earth indicated that a man was dying underneath. Another German
+observed that too, and shoved his bayonet through the mud and held it
+savagely there until all was quiet.</p>
+
+<p>This I did not see, but another did and told me of it afterward.
+Sergeant Phillpots had been shot through the jaw so that he went to
+his knees as a bullock does at the slaughtering. He supported himself
+waveringly by his hands. The blood poured from him so that he was all
+but fainting with the loss of it.</p>
+
+<p>A big German stood over him.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>Phillpots looked up: "Play the game! Play the game!" he muttered
+weakly.</p>
+
+<p>The German coolly put a round through his head.</p>
+
+<p>I was still without a bayonet, and seeing these things, said to
+Easton: "We'd better beat it."</p>
+
+<p>He swore again. "Yes, they're murdering us. No use stopping here. Come
+on!"</p>
+
+<p>And just then he, too, dropped. I thought him dead. There was no use
+in my stopping to share his fate or worse. It was now every man for
+himself. At a later date we met in England.</p>
+
+<p>The other half of the regiment lay in support two hundred yards away
+in Belle-waarde Wood and in front of the ch&acirc;teau and lake of that
+name, where my draft had lain on the fourth. I made a dash for it.
+What with the mud and the many shell holes, the going was bad. I was
+indistinctly aware of a great deal of promiscuous shooting at me, but
+most distinctly of one German who shot at me about ten times in as
+many yards and from quite close range. I saw I could not make it. I
+flung myself into a Johnson hole, and as soon as I had caught my
+breath, scrambled out again and raced for the trench I had just left.
+I was by this time unarmed, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>having flung my rifle away to further my
+flight, notwithstanding which another German shot at me as I went
+toward him.</p>
+
+<p>As I landed in the trench an angry voice shouted something I could not
+understand. And I scrambled to my feet in time to see a German
+sullenly lower his rifle from the level of my body at the command of a
+big black-bearded officer.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4 class="sc">Prisoners</h4>
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="noin">A German Version of a Soldier's Death!&mdash;The Courage of
+Cox&mdash;Robbing the Helpless&mdash;Water on the End of a Bayonet&mdash;The
+Curious Case of Scott&mdash;Prussian Bullies&mdash;Why I Was Covered with
+a Fine Sweat.</p></div>
+<br />
+
+<p>The Germans were by this time in full possession of this slice of
+trench, and for the next few minutes the officer was kept busy pulling
+his men off their victims. Like slavering dogs they were.</p>
+
+<p>He did not have his lambs any too well in hand, however. O.B. Taylor,
+a lovable character in Number One Company, came to his end here. The
+Germans ordered him and Hookie Walker to go back down the trench. He
+had no sooner turned to do so than a German shot him from behind and
+from quite close, so that it blew the groin completely out, making a
+terrible hole. We could not tie up so bad a wound and he bled to
+death. Hookie Walker remained with him to the last, five hours later,
+when <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>he said: "I'm going to sleep boys," and did so. Fortunately, he
+did not suffer. And all the others except young Cox were equally
+fortunate, since they were murdered outright.</p>
+
+<p>Taylor's was the most calculated of all the murders we had witnessed
+and outdid even those of the wounded because the excitement of the
+fight was two hours old and he was doing the bidding of his captors at
+the time. The killing of those who resisted was of course quite in
+order. Why he was killed while Walker was left unharmed and at his
+side to the last we did not know and could only credit to a whimsy of
+our captors. No punishment was visited upon his murderer or upon any
+of them so far as we were able to learn.</p>
+
+<p>Upon my later return to Canada I found that Taylor's sister there had
+received a letter from a German officer enclosing a letter addressed
+to her which had been found on her brother's body, together with three
+war medals and a Masonic ring. The latter was the key to the incident
+since the officer also claimed to have been a Mason. In his letter
+this officer said that her brother had met a soldier's death!</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>Some said that our friendly officer was not a German but an Irishman.
+I doubted that but it may have been so, for it was true that his
+speech contained no trace of the accent which is usually associated
+with a German's English speech. His was that of an English gentleman.
+And to him we undoubtedly owed our wretched lives that day.</p>
+
+<p>I in particular have good cause to be grateful. A German, all of six
+foot four, who swung a tremendously broad headsman's axe with a curved
+blade, tried several times to get at me. Each time the officer stopped
+him. Still he persisted. He apparently saw no one else and kept his
+eye fastened on me with deadly intention in it. He pushed aside the
+others, Prussians and prisoners alike; he whirled the shining blade
+high above a face lit up with savage exultation, terrible to see, and
+which reflected the sensual revelling of his heated brain in the
+bloody orgy ahead. As I followed the incredibly rapid motions of the
+blade, my blood turned to water. My limbs refused to act and my mind
+travelled back over the years to a little Scottish village where I had
+been used to sit in the dark corners of the shoemaker's shop,
+listening to him and others of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>old 2nd Gordons recount their
+terrible tales of the hill men on the march to Kandahar with "Bobs."
+And now I felt that same tremendous sensation of fear which used to
+send me trembling to my childish pallet in the croft, peering
+fearfully through the darkness for the oiled body of a naked Pathan
+with his corkscrew kris. Terror swept over me like a springtime flood.
+He saw no one else. His eye fastened on me in crudest hate. But as he
+stood over me with feet spread wide and the circle of his axe's swing
+broadening for the finale, the thread of rabbit-like mesmerism broke
+and I sprang nimbly aside as the blade buried itself deep in the mud
+wall I had been cowering against. I endeavoured to dodge him by
+putting some of my fellow prisoners between us. No use. He followed
+me, shoving and cursing his way among them, swinging his axe. My hair
+stood on end and I felt rather critical of their much-vaunted Prussian
+discipline. Another endeavoured to bayonet Charlie Scarfe. The officer
+at last stopped them both.</p>
+
+<p>Our captors belonged to the Twenty-first Prussian Regiment and were,
+so far as we knew, the first of their kind we had been up against,
+all <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>previous comers on our front having been Bavarians and latterly
+of the army group of Prince Ruprecht of Bavaria&mdash;"Rupie," we called
+him. They wore the baggy grey clothes and clumsy looking leather top
+boots of the German infantryman. The spiked <i>pickelhauben</i> was
+conspicuous by its absence and was, we well knew, a thing only of
+billets and of "swank" parades. In its place was the soft pancake
+trench cap with its small colored button in the front.</p>
+
+<p>The enemy were armed for the most part with pioneers' bayonets, as
+well adapted by reason of their saw edges for sticking flesh and blood
+as for sawing wood; and, if for the former, an unnecessarily cruel
+weapon, since it was bound to stick in the body and badly lacerate it
+internally in the withdrawal; especially if given a twist.</p>
+
+<p>The trench front had been about-faced since its change of ownership
+and the Germans were already casting our dead out of the shattered
+trench, both in front and behind, and in many cases using them to stop
+the gaps in the parapet; so that they now received the bullets of
+their erstwhile comrades.</p>
+
+<p>We were ordered up and out at the back of the parapet and then made to
+lie there. The German <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>artillery had ceased. We had none. Odd shots
+from the remnant of our fellows still hanging on in the supports
+continued to come over, but none of us were hit. In all probability,
+they withheld their fire when they saw what was afoot. Some German
+snipers in a farmhouse at the rear were less considerate, but
+fortunately failed to hit us.</p>
+
+<p>Later we were ordered to take our equipment off and those who had
+coats, to shed them. We did not see the latter again and missed them
+horribly in the rain of that day. Two of the Prussians "frisked" us
+for our tobacco, cigarettes, knives and other valuables.</p>
+
+<p>This was in bitter contrast to our own treatment of prisoners under
+similar conditions. True, we had always searched them but had
+invariably returned those little trinkets and comforts which to a
+soldier are so important. And I think our men had always showered them
+with food and tobacco.</p>
+
+<p>We were then marched to the rear, with the exception of one, who, by
+permission of the officer, remained with the dying Taylor.</p>
+
+<p>There were ten of us all told. I have only heard of a few others who
+were captured that day. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>Roberts is still in Germany and Todeschi has
+been exchanged and is now in Toronto. The latter lay with a boy of the
+machine-gun crew for a couple of days in a dug-out, both badly
+wounded. A German stumbled on to them. They pleaded for water. The
+German said, "I'll give you water" and bayoneted the boy as he lay. He
+raised his weapon so that the blood of his comrade dripped on
+Todeschi's face.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," Todeschi cried in German, "kill me too, but first give me
+water, you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The German lowered his rifle in amazement: "What, you schwein, you
+speak the good German? Where did you learn it?"</p>
+
+<p>"In your schools. For Christ's sake&mdash;give me water&mdash;and kill me."</p>
+
+<p>"What! You live with us and then do this? Schwein!"</p>
+
+<p>"All right, I will give you water and I will not kill you; just to
+show you how well we can treat a prisoner."</p>
+
+<p>Todeschi was then taken to the field dressing station where according
+to his own account his mangled leg was amputated without the use of
+any <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>anesthetic. But that may have been because in such a time of
+stress they had none. Later he was exchanged.</p>
+
+<p>I met Scott in the prison camp a few days later and he told his tale.
+It appears that in the confusion of the earlier fighting he had become
+separated from the regiment, became lost and eventually floundered
+into an English battalion. He reported to the officer commanding the
+trench and told his story. The officer had no idea where the Patricias
+lay and so ordered Scott to remain with them until such time as an
+inquiry might establish the whereabouts of his regiment.</p>
+
+<p>They were captured, but under less exciting circumstances than
+occurred in our own case. And the Germans had word that there was a
+Canadian amongst these English troops. It was one of the first things
+mentioned. They did not say how they had acquired their information,
+but shouted out a request for the man to stand forth. When no one
+complied, they questioned each man separately, asking him if he was a
+Canadian or knew aught of one in that trench.</p>
+
+<p>They all lied: "No." The Germans were so <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>certain that they again went
+over each man in turn, examining him.</p>
+
+<p>Scott was at the end of the line. He began to cut the Canadian buttons
+off his coat and to remove his badges. Several men near by assisted
+and replaced them with such of their own as they could spare; each man
+perhaps contributing a button. They had no thread nor time to use it
+if they had, so tacked the buttons into place by all manner of
+makeshifts, such as broken ends of matches thrust through holes
+punched in the cloth; anything to hold the buttons in place and tide
+the hunted Scott over the inspection. He passed. The Germans were
+quite furious.</p>
+
+<p>Scott and his companions could only guess at the cause of this strange
+conduct, but presumed that the Canadian was wanted for special
+treatment of an unfavorable, if not of a final nature.</p>
+
+<p>To return to our own case:</p>
+
+<p>About the middle of the afternoon we were herded by our guards into a
+shallow depression a short distance in the rear of the trench and
+there told to lie down. The officer and his men returned to the
+trench. Until we were taken back to the trench at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>six we were
+continually sniped at by the Germans in the captured trench. We had no
+recourse but to make ourselves as small as possible, which we did. And
+whether owing to the fact that the hollow we were lying in prevented
+our being actually within the range of the enemy vision, or whether
+they were merely playing cat and mouse with us, I do not know, but
+none were hit. Young Cox suffered stoically. His mangled hand had
+become badly fouled with dirt and filth, and the ragged bones
+protruded through the broken flesh. So, in a quiet interval between
+the sniping periods we hurriedly sawed the shattered stump of his hand
+off with our clasp knives and bound it up as best we could. It was not
+a nice task, for him nor us, but he did not so much as grunt during
+the operation. The nearest he came to complaining was when he asked me
+to let him lay his hand across my body to ease it, at the same time
+remarking: "I guess when they get us to Germany they'll let us write,
+and I'll be able to write mother and then she'll not know I've lost my
+hand." He was a most valiant and faithful soldier.</p>
+
+<p>The perpetual rain and mist peculiar to that low-lying land added to
+our wretched condition and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>increased the pain of the wounds that most
+of us suffered from.</p>
+
+<p>At six o'clock our guards returned and curtly ordered us to our feet.
+We were taken back to the trench, where our officer friend had us
+searched again. Here for the first time my two corporal's stripes were
+noticed and a mild excitement ensued. "Korporal! Korporal!" they
+exclaimed and crowded up the better to inspect me and verify the
+report, and jabbering "<i>Ja! Ja!</i>" Apparently a captured corporal was a
+rarity. Strangely enough, they paid little or no attention to the
+sergeant of our party, although he had the three stripes of his rank
+up.</p>
+
+<p>As I happened to be in the lead of our party and the first to enter
+the trench, I was the first man searched and so had to await the
+examination of the others. Worn out by the events of the day and the
+wound I had received early in the morning from a shell fragment, I
+fell asleep against the wall of the trench where I sat.</p>
+
+<p>I was awakened by a poke in the ribs from Scarfe. "Time to shift,
+mate."</p>
+
+<p>I rose to my feet and, following the instructions of the officer, led
+the way along the trench. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>Germans had already, with their usual
+industry, gotten the trench into some sort of shape again, with the
+parapet shifted over to the other side and facing Belle-waarde Wood.
+And everywhere along its length I noticed the bodies of our dead built
+into it to replace sandbags while others lay on the parados at the
+rear.</p>
+
+<p>It was not nice. The faces of men we had known and had called comrade
+looked at us now in ghastly disarray from odd sections of both walls.
+Already they were taking a brick-like shape from the weight of the
+filled bags on top of them. In places the legs and arms protruded,
+brushing us as we passed. However, this was war and quite ethical.</p>
+
+<p>Naturally we had to crowd by the other occupants of the trench. And
+each took a poke at us as we went by, some with their bayonets,
+saying: "Verdamnt Engl&auml;nder" and: "Engl&auml;nder Schwein,"&mdash;pigs of
+English. Also quite a number of them spoke English after a fashion.
+There was in these men none of the soldier's usual tolerance or
+good-natured pity for an enemy who had fought well and had then
+succumbed to the fortunes of war. Instead, a blind <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>and vicious rage
+which took no account of our helpless condition.</p>
+
+<p>They cuffed us, they buffeted us, they pricked us cruelly with their
+saw bayonets and then laughed and sneered as we flinched and dodged
+awkwardly aside. Then they cursed us.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly, we were led into the presence of a man whom I shall remember
+if I live to be a hundred. He wore glasses and on his upper lip there
+bloomed such a dainty moustache as is affected by "Little Willie" as
+Tommy calls the German Crown Prince. He had the eye of a rat. It
+snapped so cruel a hate that one's blood stopped.</p>
+
+<p>He seized me by the right shoulder with his left hand: "You Corporal!
+You Corporal!" as though that fact of itself condemned me, and at the
+same time tugging at his holster until he found his revolver, which he
+placed against my temple. Then and there I fervently prayed that he
+would pull the trigger and end it all. I was fed up. The all-day
+bombardment, the last terrible slaughter of helpless men, the rain and
+cold, combining with the pain of the raw wound in my side, had gotten
+on my nerves. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>With the revolver still at my head I turned to Scarfe:
+"They're going to do us in, Charlie. I only hope they'll do it proper.
+None of that bayonet stuff. Bullets for me." Already the Prussians
+were crowding round us threateningly again, with their saw-edged
+bayonets ready, some fixed in the rifle, others clasped short, like
+daggers, for such a butchering as they had had earlier in the
+afternoon, when I had been so nearly axed.</p>
+
+<p>"Might as well kill us outright as scare us to death," complained
+Scarfe bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless our hearts leaped when a moment later our mysterious
+black officer friend hove in sight. Life is sweet.</p>
+
+<p>He asked them what they did with us. The tableau answered for itself
+before the words had left his lips. And then we had to listen to our
+fate discussed in language and gesture so eloquent and so fraught with
+terrible importance to us that our sensitized minds could miss no
+smallest point of each fine shade of cruel meaning.</p>
+
+<p>"Little Willie" thought it scarce worth their while to bother with so
+small a bag; that it would not be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>worth the trouble to send a
+miserable ten of <i>Verdamnt Engl&auml;nder</i> back to the Fatherland&mdash;Better
+to kill them like the swine they were.</p>
+
+<p>Our blood froze to hear the man and to see the poison of that rat soul
+of his exuding from his every pore, in every gesture and in each fresh
+inflection of his rasping voice. And all his men shouted their fierce
+approval and shook in our faces their bloody butcher's bayonets. It
+was a bitter draught. If they had killed us then it would have had to
+have been done in most cold blood, exceeding even the murder of Taylor
+in planned brutality. He at least had not known that it was coming and
+had not felt this insane fear which we now experienced and which made
+us wonder how they would do it. Would each have to watch the other's
+end? And would it be done by bullet or by bayonet? We greatly feared
+it would be the latter. We pictured ourselves held down as hogs
+are&mdash;our throats slit&mdash;&mdash;!</p>
+
+<p>The dark officer thought otherwise and minced no words in the saying.
+Our hearts leapt out to him warmly, in gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>He sharply ordered them to desist, at which they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>slunk sullenly away,
+as hungry dogs do from a bone.</p>
+
+<p>I felt an uncomfortable physical sensation and ran my hand uneasily
+beneath my shirt. I was covered with a fine sweat.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4 class="sc">Pulling the Leg of a German General</h4>
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="noin">Polygon Wood and Picadilly Again&mdash;German
+Headquarters&mdash;Surprising Kitchener&mdash;"Your Infantry's No
+Good"&mdash;The Germans Give Us News of the Regiment.</p></div>
+<br />
+
+<p>We were then escorted under heavy guard out over the fields in the
+rear, past the nearby farmhouse, which was simply filled with snipers.
+The latter, however, did not shoot at us, presumably because they
+might have hit some of our numerous guards. We seemed to be working
+right through the heart of the German Army. Everywhere the troops were
+massed. Along the road they lay in solid formation on both sides. If
+we had had artillery to play on them now they would have suffered
+tremendous losses. The whole countryside presented a living target.
+All the way they shouted "Schwein" and taunted us in both languages.
+Every shell-hole, farmhouse, hut, dugout and old trench on the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>three-mile stretch between the Front and Polygon Wood contributed its
+quota.</p>
+
+<p>The regiment had evacuated Polygon Wood on the night of the third.
+Across the old trail our fatigue parties had tramped new ones in the
+mud, up past Regent Street, Leicester Square and Picadilly. We passed
+them all.</p>
+
+<p>We were marched over to the little settlement of pine-bough huts which
+the regiment had previously taken over from the French. The men with
+me greeted them like old friends. Here was the Sniper's Hut, there the
+Commanding Officer's. This was the hut in which the brave Joe Waldron
+had "gone West," that on the site of one where fourteen of "ours" had
+stopped a shell while they slept. Memories submerged us and made us
+weak. Even the guiding rope that our men had used to hold themselves
+to the trail of nights still held its place for groping German hands.</p>
+
+<p>Beside it lay the fragments of the French signboards, jocular
+advertisements of mud baths for trench fever, the <i>h&ocirc;tel</i> this and the
+<i>maison</i> that. One of my companions pointed to a larger hut which he
+said our fellows had called the Hotel Cecil. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span>board was missing
+now. And no German signboard took its place. Their wit did not run in
+so richly innocent a channel.</p>
+
+<p>The huts lay just off the race track in front of the ruined ch&acirc;teau,
+buried deep in the remnants of what had once been the beautiful park
+of a large country estate. These huts were now the German
+headquarters.</p>
+
+<p>There was as much English as German talked there that day. Everywhere
+there was cooking going on, mostly in portable camp kitchens.</p>
+
+<p>As we came to a halt one big fellow smoking a pipe observed
+nonchalantly: "You fellows are lucky. Our orders were to take no
+Canadian prisoners."</p>
+
+<p>The man was so casual, so utterly matter-of-fact and there was about
+his remark so simple an air of directness and of finality that there
+was no escaping his sincerity, unduly interested though we were.</p>
+
+<p>Another officer said "Engl&auml;nder?"</p>
+
+<p>The big fellow said "Kanadien." The other raised his brows and
+shoulders: "Uhh!"</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep064" id="imagep064"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep064.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep064.jpg" width="45%" alt="Wounded Canadians Receiving First Aid" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 80%; margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 25%;">WOUNDED CANADIANS RECEIVING FIRST AID IN A
+SUPPORT TRENCH AFTER AN ATTACK.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>A younger officer came up: "Never mind, boys: Your turn to-day. Might
+be mine to-morrow." <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>Turning to the others, he too said:
+"Engl&auml;nder?"</p>
+
+<p>"No! Canadian."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" And he appeared to be pleasantly surprised. He asked me for a
+souvenir and pointed to the brass Canada shoulder straps and the red
+cloth "P. P. C. L. I.'s" on the shoulders of the others. But I had
+already shoved my few trinkets down my puttees while lying back of the
+trench that afternoon. Scarfe, however, gave up his "Canada" straps.</p>
+
+<p>The young officer gave him in return a carved nut with silver filigree
+work and gave another man a silver crucifix for the bronze maple
+leaves from the collar of his tunic. And, more important still, he
+gave us all a cigarette, while he had a sergeant give us coffee.</p>
+
+<p>That, the cigarette, was I think much the best of anything we received
+then or for some time to come. Since the bombardment and our wounding,
+our nerves had fairly ached for the sedative which, good, bad or
+indifferent, would steady the quivering harp strings of our nerves.
+And a cigarette did that.</p>
+
+<p>The headquarters staff appeared on the scene. They wanted information,
+just as ours would have done under similar circumstances, but these
+took a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>different method to acquire it. As before, in the trench, they
+selected me for the spokesman. The senior officer, a general
+apparently, addressed me: "How many troops are there in front of our
+attack?"</p>
+
+<p>I lied: "I don't know."</p>
+
+<p>He shook a threatening finger at me. "I'll tell you this, my man: We
+have a pretty good idea of how many troops lay behind you and if in
+any particular you endeavour to lead us astray it will go very hard
+with all of you. Now answer my question!" His English was good.</p>
+
+<p>I cogitated. It would not do to tell him the terrible truth. That was
+certain. So I took a chance. "Three divisions." He appeared to be
+satisfied. The fact was, there were none behind us. We were utterly
+without supporting troops.</p>
+
+<p>"And Kitchener's Army? How many of them are there here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, they haven't even come over yet, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't tell me that: I know better. They've been out here for months."</p>
+
+<p>"But they haven't," I persisted. I told the truth this time.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he shouted angrily.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>"No," I flung back.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, how many of them are there?"</p>
+
+<p>The division yarn had gone down well. And perhaps I was slightly
+heated. My spirit ran ahead of my judgment. "Five and a half to seven
+million," I said.</p>
+
+<p>He exploded. And called me everything but a soldier. I could not help
+but reflect that I had overdone it a bit. And I certainly thought that
+I was "for it" then and there.</p>
+
+<p>To make matters worse he asked the others and they, profiting by my
+mistake and following the lead of the first man questioned, put
+Kitchener's army at four and a half million; which was only a trifle
+of four million out. So I determined to be reasonable. When he came to
+me again I confirmed the latter figure, explaining my earlier
+statement by my lack of exact knowledge. And so that particular storm
+blew over.</p>
+
+<p>The general came back to me again. "You Canadians thought this was
+going to be a picnic, didn't you?" He was very sarcastic.</p>
+
+<p>"No, we didn't, sir."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>"Well, you thought it was going to be a walk through to Berlin, didn't
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, no. We thought it was the other way about, sir," I ventured.</p>
+
+<p>He shifted: "Well, what do you think of us anyhow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your artillery was all right but your infantry was no good." I began
+to feel shaky again. However, he took that calmly enough.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! So our infantry was no good."</p>
+
+<p>"We could have held them all right, sir."</p>
+
+<p>He ruminated on that a moment, rumbled in his throat and abruptly
+changed the subject, in an unpleasant fashion, however.</p>
+
+<p>"You're the fellows we want to get hold of. You cut the throats of our
+wounded."</p>
+
+<p>I denied it and we argued back and forth over that for several
+minutes, and very heatedly. He referred to St. Julien and said that
+this thing had occurred there. I said and quite truthfully that we had
+not been at St. Julien, that we were in the Imperial and not the
+Canadian Army and had been spectators in near-by trenches of the St.
+Julien affair. I even went into some detail to explain that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>we were a
+special corps of old soldiers who, not being able to rejoin their old
+regiments, had at the outbreak of war formed one of their own and had
+been accepted as such and sent to France months ahead of the Canadian
+contingent. I added that I myself had just rejoined the regiment,
+having got my "Blighty" in March at St. Eloi and as proof of my other
+statements I further volunteered that I was one of the 2nd Gordons and
+after the South African War had gone to Canada where I had finished my
+reserve several years since.</p>
+
+<p>He listened but was plainly unconvinced. Another officer broke in: "I
+can explain it, sir. These men were in the 80th Brigade and the 27th
+Division. Colonel Farquhar was their Commanding Officer and Captain
+Buller took command when Colonel Farquhar was killed." We stared at
+one another in amazement, for it was all quite true.</p>
+
+<p>This finished that examination. We did not tell them that Colonel
+Buller had been blinded a few days before and had been succeeded by
+that Major Hamilton Gault who had been so largely instrumental in
+raising us.</p>
+
+<p>None of our wounds had received the slightest <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>attention. Cox in
+particular suffered cruelly but refused to whimper. Royston's head was
+swollen to the size of a water bucket and he was in great pain. We
+left them here and never saw them again. Cox died two weeks later of a
+blood poisoning which was the combined result of our rough surgery and
+the wanton neglect of our captors. I do not think he was ever able to
+write his mother as he wished. At least she wrote me later for
+information. There was no need of his dying even though it might have
+been necessary to have amputated his arm higher up. Royston was
+exchanged to Switzerland and recovered from his wounds except for the
+loss of an eye.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4 class="sc">The Princess Patricia's German Uncle</h4>
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="noin">Roulers&mdash;The Old Woman and the Gentle Uhlans&mdash;Billeted in a
+Church&mdash;Quizzed by a Prince.</p></div>
+<br />
+
+<p>We were marched to Roulers, which we reached well after dark. A
+considerable crowd of soldiers and civilians awaited our coming. The
+Belgian women and children congregated in front of the church while we
+waited to be let in, and threw us apples and cigarettes. The uhlans
+and infantrymen rushed them with the flat side of their swords and the
+butts of their muskets; and mistreated them. They knocked one old
+woman down quite close to where I stood. So we had to do without and
+were not even permitted to pick up the gifts that lay at our feet,
+much less the old woman.</p>
+
+<p>The church had been used as a stable quite recently and the
+stone-flagged floor was deep with the decayed straw and accumulated
+filth of men and horses. We lay down in it and got what rest we <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>could
+for the remainder of the night. There were about one hundred and fifty
+prisoners in all&mdash;Shropshires, Cheshires, King's Royal Rifles and
+other British regiments&mdash;all from our division and mostly from our
+brigade. Other small parties continued to come in during the night,
+but there were no more P.P.'s. In the morning a large tub of water was
+carried in and each man was given a bit of black bread and a slice of
+raw fat bacon. The latter was salty and so thoroughly unappetizing
+that I cannot recall that any one ate his ration, for in spite of the
+fact that we had been twenty-four hours without food, we were so upset
+by the experiences we had undergone, so shattered by shell fire and
+lack of rest that we were perhaps inclined to be more critical of our
+food than normal men would have been.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly afterward a high German officer came in with his staff. He was
+a stout and well-built man of middle age or over, typically German in
+his general characteristics but not half bad looking. His uniform was
+covered with braid and medals. Every one paid him the utmost
+deference. He stopped in the middle of the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Are there any Canadians here?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>I stepped forward. "Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"I mean the Princess Patricia's Canadians."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. I am. And here's some more of them," and I pointed at the
+prostrate figures of my companions, where they sprawled on the
+flagstones.</p>
+
+<p>"Princess Patricia's Regiment?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the Princess Patricia is my niece&mdash;awfully nice girl. I hope it
+won't be long before I see her again."</p>
+
+<p>I grinned: "Well, I hope it won't be long before I see her, too, sir."</p>
+
+<p>The other fellows joined us, the straw and the smell of it still
+sticking to their clothes as they formed a little knot about the
+Prince and his staff.</p>
+
+<p>The scene was incongruous, the smart uniforms of the immaculately kept
+staff officers contrasting strangely with our own unkempt foulness. We
+occupied the centre of the stage. Around us were grouped the men of
+our sister regiments, most of them lying on the floor in a dazed
+condition. There were few who came forward to listen. They were too
+tired, and to them at least, this was merely an incident&mdash;one of a
+thousand more important ones. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>Odd parts of clothes hung on the ornate
+images and decorations of the room. A German rifle hung by its sling
+from the patient neck of a life-sized Saviour, while further over, the
+vermin-infested shirt of a Britisher hung over the rounded breasts of
+a brooding Madonna, with the Infant in her lap.</p>
+
+<p>At the door a small group of guards stood stiffly to a painful
+attention and continued so to do whilst royalty touched them with the
+shadow of its wings.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince questioned us further and I told him that I had been on a
+guard of honor to the Princess when she had been a child and when her
+father, the Duke of Connaught had been the General Officer Commanding
+at Aldershot.</p>
+
+<p>He laughed back at us and was altogether very friendly. "You'll go to
+a good camp and you'll be all right if you behave yourselves."</p>
+
+<p>Scarfe shoved in his oar here, grousing in good British-soldier
+fashion: "I don't call it very good treatment when they steal the
+overcoats from wounded men."</p>
+
+<p>"Who did that?" He was all steel, and I saw a change come over the
+officers of the staff.</p>
+
+<p>"The chaps that took us prisoners," said Scarfe.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>"What regiment were they?" The Prince glanced at an aide, who hastily
+drew out a notebook and began to take down our replies.</p>
+
+<p>"The 21st Prussians, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know the men?"</p>
+
+<p>"Their faces but not their names."</p>
+
+<p>"Of what rank was the officer in charge?"</p>
+
+<p>We did not know, but thought him a company officer of the rank of
+captain perhaps. He asked for other particulars which we gave to the
+best of our knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll attend to that," he said. However, we heard no more of it. We
+refrained from complaining about the actual ill-treatment and
+indignities we had been subjected to, the murder of our unoffending
+comrades, or the lack of attention to our wounds, as we rightly judged
+that we should only have earned the enmity of our guards.</p>
+
+<p>"May I have your cap badge?" the Prince asked, decently enough.</p>
+
+<p>I lied brazenly: "Sorry, sir; I've lost mine."</p>
+
+<p>The fact was I had shoved it down under my puttees while lying back of
+the trench the previous afternoon.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>Scarfe said: "You can have mine, sir."</p>
+
+<p>He took it. "Thanks so much." He glanced at the aide again; rather
+sharply this time, I thought. The latter blushed and hastily extracted
+a wallet, from which he handed Scarfe a two-mark piece, equal to one
+and ten pence, or forty-four cents. He gave us his name before
+leaving, and my recollection is that it was something like Eitelbert.
+Evidently he was a brother of the Duchess of Connaught, whom we knew
+to have been a German princess whose brothers and other male relatives
+all enjoyed high commands among our foes.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IX<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4 class="sc">How the German Red Cross Tended the Canadian Wounded</h4>
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="noin">"Come Out Canadians!"&mdash;The Crucifixion&mdash;"Nix! Nix!"&mdash;Civilian
+Hate&mdash;"Engl&auml;nder Schwein!"</p></div>
+<br />
+
+<p>We remained in the fouled church all of that day and night and until
+the following morning. No more food appeared. We were marched down to
+the railroad under heavy escort, crowded into freight cars and locked
+in. The guards were distributed in cars of their own, alternating with
+ours. Our wounds remained unattended to.</p>
+
+<p>At every station they thundered: "Come out, Canadians!" They lined us
+up in a row while a staff officer put the same questions to us in
+nearly every case. They were particularly interested in the quality of
+our rations and asked if it was not true that we were starving and if
+our pay had not been stopped. The guards invariably explained to the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>civilians that these were the Canadians who had cut the throats of the
+German wounded.</p>
+
+<p>We did not know how to explain the prevalence of this impression. On
+the contrary, we were aware of the story of the crucifixion of three
+of the Canadian Division during Ypres. The tale had come smoking hot
+to our men in the Polygon Wood trenches during the great battle. It
+gave in great detail all the salient facts which were that after
+recapturing certain lost positions, the men of a certain regiment had
+discovered the body of one of their sergeants, together with those of
+two privates, crucified on the doors of a cowshed and a barn. German
+bayonets had been driven through their hands and feet and their
+contorted faces gave every appearance of their having died in great
+agony. This story was and is generally believed throughout all ranks
+of the Canadian Army. For its truth I cannot vouch.</p>
+
+<p>We knew that our own men had never mistreated any prisoners and had in
+fact usually done quite the reverse. How far other regiments may have
+gone in retaliation for what was known as "The Crucifixion," it is
+impossible to say. That prisoners may have been killed is possible,
+for such things become <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>an integral part of war once the enemy has so
+offended. But we could not believe that there had been any cutting of
+throats as that would imply a sheer cold-bloodedness that we could not
+stomach.</p>
+
+<p>The mob surged around and reviled us, while the guards, in high good
+humour, translated their remarks, unless, as was frequently the case,
+they were made to the officials in English for our benefit. The other
+British soldiers were left in their cars.</p>
+
+<p>Our wounded were getting very badly off by this time. It was
+impossible to avoid trampling on one another as the car was very dark
+at best and the one small window in the roof was closed as soon as we
+drew into a station. When taken out we were under heavy escort and
+were allowed no opportunity to clean up the accumulated filth of the
+car. We suffered terribly for food and water, and some of the wounds
+began to turn, so that what with exhaustion and all, we grew very
+weak.</p>
+
+<p>At one station the guards took us out and made us line up to watch
+them eat of a hearty repast which the Red Cross women had just brought
+them. And we were very hungry. When, we too, asked for food they said:
+"Nix! Nix!" The crowds met us at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>every station and included women of
+all classes, who called us <i>Engl&auml;nder Schwein</i> and who at no time gave
+us the slightest assistance, but, instead, devoted themselves to the
+guard.</p>
+
+<p>Other men told us later that Red Cross women had spat in their
+drinking water and in their food. There was no opportunity for this in
+our case as we did not receive any of either.</p>
+
+<p>We did not receive any food during this trip, which lasted from the
+morning of one day until the night of the next. We had gone since the
+day of our capture on the coffee received at headquarters in Polygon
+Wood and the single issue of bread, water and bacon received in the
+church, the latter of which we could not eat; a total of three days
+and nights on that one issue of rations.</p>
+
+<p>We pulled into Giessen at eleven, the night of May tenth. The citizens
+made a Roman holiday of the occasion and the entire population turned
+out to see the <i>Engl&auml;nder Schwein</i>. There was a guard for every
+prisoner, and two lines of fixed bayonets. The mob surged around,
+heaping on us insults and blows; particularly the women. With hate in
+their eyes, they spat on us. We had to take that or the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>bayonet.
+These were the acts not only of the rabble, but also of the people of
+good appearance and address.</p>
+
+<p>One very well-dressed woman rushed up. Under other circumstances I
+should have judged her to have been a gentlewoman. She shrieked
+invectives at us as she forced her way through the crowd. "Schwein!"
+she screamed, and struck at the man next me. He snapped his shoulders
+back as a soldier does at attention. Then, drawing deep from the very
+bottom of her lungs, she spat the mass full in his face. The muscles
+of his face twitched painfully but he held his eyes to the front and
+stared past his tormentor, seeing other things.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER X<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4 class="sc">The Curious Concoctions of the Chef at Giessen</h4>
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="noin">Oliver Twist at Giessen&mdash;Acorn Coffee and Shadow Soup&mdash;Chestnut
+Soup&mdash;Fostering Racial Hatred.</p></div>
+<br />
+
+<p>We had a mile-and-a-half march to the prison camp. Those who were past
+walking were put in street cars and sent to the laager, where upon our
+arrival we were shoved into huts for the night, supperless, of course.
+This was our introduction to the prison camp of Giessen.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning we each received three-quarters of a pint of acorn
+coffee, so called, horrible-tasting stuff; and a loaf of black
+bread&mdash;half potatoes and half rye&mdash;weighing two hundred and fifty
+grams, or a little more than half a pound, among five men. This
+allowed a piece about three by three by four inches to each man for
+the day's ration. The coffee consisted of acorns and four pounds of
+burned barley boiled in one hundred gallons of water. There <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span>was no
+sugar or milk. My curiosity led me later to get this and other recipes
+from the fat French cook.</p>
+
+<p>All that day and for several following, official and guards were busy
+numbering and renumbering us and assigning us to our companies. They
+were hopelessly German about it, and did it so many times and very
+thoroughly. There were twelve thousand men in the camp and eight
+hundred in the laager. The majority were Russian and French with a
+fairish sprinkling of Belgians. There were perhaps six hundred British
+in the entire camp. The various nationalities were mixed up and each
+section given a hut very similar to those American and British troops
+occupy in their own countries. A number of smaller camps in the
+neighbouring districts were governed from this central one.</p>
+
+<p>For dinner we had shadow soup, so named for obvious reasons. The
+recipe in my diary reads: "For eight hundred men, two hundred gallons
+of water, one small bag of potatoes and one packet of herbs."</p>
+
+<p>To make matters worse the vegetables issued at this camp were in a
+decayed condition and continued to come to us so.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>Another staple dinner ration was ham soup. This was the usual two
+hundred gallons of water boiled with ten pounds of ham rinds, ten
+pounds of cabbage and twenty pounds of potatoes. The ham rind had hair
+on it but we used to fish for it at that and considered ourselves
+lucky to get a piece. Oatmeal soup, another meal, consisted of two
+hundred gallons of water, two pounds of currants and fifty pounds of
+oatmeal; chestnut soup, two hundred gallons of water, one hundred
+pounds of whole chestnuts and ten pounds of potatoes. It was a
+horrible concoction and my diary has: "To be served hot and thrown
+out."</p>
+
+<p>Meat soup was two hundred gallons of water, ten pounds of meat, one
+small bag of potatoes and ten pounds of vegetables. This was the most
+nutritious of the lot. Unfortunately for us, the small portion of meat
+and most of the potatoes were given to the French, both because the
+cook and all his assistants were Frenchmen and because the authorities
+willed it so.</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep084" id="imagep084"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep084.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep084.jpg" width="42%" alt="Recipes from Corporal Edward's Diary" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 80%; margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 25%;">RECIPES FROM CORPORAL EDWARD'S
+DIARY.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>This was usually managed without any apparent unfairness by serving
+the British first and the French last, with the result that the one
+received a tin full <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>of hot water that was too weak to run out,
+while the Frenchmen's spoons stood to attention in the thicker mess
+they found in the bottom. This, with other things, contributed to make
+bad blood between the two races. A great show was made of stirring up
+the mess, but it was a pure farce.</p>
+
+<p>Rice soup consisted of two hundred gallons of water, fifty pounds of
+rice, twenty pounds of potatoes and one pound of currants; bean soup,
+two hundred gallons of water, fifty pounds of beans, and twenty pounds
+of potatoes; pork soup, two hundred gallons of water, ten pounds of
+pork and fifty pounds of potatoes. Porridge was made of two hundred
+gallons of water, fifteen pounds of oatmeal and two pounds of barley.
+The diary states: "To be served hot as a drink."</p>
+
+<p>Once in two months a ration of sausage was dished out. For breakfast
+once a week there was one pint of acorn coffee without sugar or milk
+and one and a half square inches of Limburger cheese. To quote from
+the diary: "Before serving, open all windows and doors. Then send for
+the Russians to take it away."</p>
+
+<p>The Germans discriminated against the British <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>prisoners. When there
+was any disagreeable duty; the cry went up for "der Engl&auml;nder." The
+much-sought-for cookhouse jobs all went to the French, who waxed fat
+in consequence. No Britisher was ever allowed near the cookhouse. The
+French had for the most part been there for some time, and, their
+country lying so close by; they were receiving parcels. We were not,
+and this made the food problem a very serious one for us. Their
+supplies were received through Switzerland which was the one anchor to
+windward for so many of us in this and other respects.</p>
+
+<p>At first the French used to give us a certain amount of their own
+food, but eventually ceased to do so. Most of them worked down in the
+town daily and could "square" the guard long enough to buy tobacco at
+twenty-five pfennigs&mdash;or two and a half pence&mdash;a package, which they
+sold to us later at eighty pfennigs&mdash;until we got on to their
+profiteering.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4 class="sc">The Way They Have at Giessen</h4>
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="noin">"Raus!"&mdash;The Strafe Barracks&mdash;The Appeal for Casement&mdash;Why
+Parcels Should Be Sent&mdash;A Hell on Earth&mdash;That Brickyard
+Fatigue&mdash;Gott Strafe England&mdash;Slow Starvation&mdash;Merciless
+Discipline&mdash;Canadian Humor&mdash;The Debt We Owe&mdash;Inoculating for
+Typhoid?&mdash;Joseph's Coat of Many Colors&mdash;The Russian Who Unwound
+the Rag&mdash;The Monotony of the Wire&mdash;Teaching the Germans the
+British Salute.</p></div>
+<br />
+
+<p>Except for the starving, as I look back now, Giessen was not such a
+bad camp as such places go. At least it was the best that we were to
+know. The discipline, of course, was fairly severe, but on the other
+hand the Commandant did not trouble us a great deal. The petty
+annoyances were harder to endure. Frequently we would get the "Raus!"
+at half-hour intervals by day or night; "Raus out!" "Raus in!" and so
+on.</p>
+
+<p>We never knew what our tormentors wanted but supposed it to be a
+systematic attempt to break <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>our spirit and our nerve by the simple
+expedient of habitually interfering with our sleep so that we would
+become like the Russians. They were mostly utterly broken in spirit
+and had the air of beaten dogs, so that they cringed and fawned to
+their masters.</p>
+
+<p>The least punishment meted out for the most trifling offense was three
+days' cells. Some got ten years for refusing to work in munition and
+steel factories, particularly British and Canadians.</p>
+
+<p>There are large numbers of both who are to-day serving out sentences
+of from eighteen months to ten years in the military fortresses of
+Germany under circumstances of the greatest cruelty.</p>
+
+<p>The so-called courts-martial were mockeries of trials. The culprit was
+simply marched up to the orderly room, received his sentence and
+marched away again. He was allowed no defence worthy of the name.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry were "warned" for work
+in a munitions factory. When the time came around they were taken away
+but refused to work and so they were knocked about quite a bit. One
+was shot in the leg and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>another bayoneted through the hip, and all
+were sent back to camp, where they were awarded six weeks in the
+punishment camp, known as the strafe barracks.</p>
+
+<p>This was a long hut in which were two rows of stools a few paces
+apart. The <i>Raus</i> blew for the culprits at five-thirty. At six they
+were marched to the hut and made to sit down in two rows facing one
+another, at attention&mdash;that is, body rigid, head thrown well back,
+chest out, hands held stiffly at the sides and eyes straight to the
+front&mdash;for two hours! Meanwhile the sentries marched up and down the
+lane, watching for any relaxation or levity. If so much as a face was
+pulled at a twinkling eye across the way, another day's strafing was
+added to the penalty. At the end of the two hours one hour's rest was
+allowed, during which the prisoners could walk about in the hut but
+could not lie down! This continued all day until "Lights out." For six
+weeks. No mail, parcels, writing or exercise was permitted the
+prisoners during that time, and the already scanty rations were cut.</p>
+
+<p>During good behavior we were allowed two post cards and two letters a
+month, with nine lines to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>the former and thirteen to the page of the
+latter. No more, no less. Each letter had four pages of the small,
+private-letter size. The name and address counted as a line. Mine was
+Kriegsgefingenenlaager, Kompagnie No. 6, Barackue No. A. The writing
+had to be big and easily read and, in the letters, on four sides of
+the paper. No complaint or discussion of the war was permitted. Fully
+one-half of those written were returned for infringements, or fancied
+ones, of these rules. Sometimes when the censor was irritated they
+were merely chucked into the fire. And as they had also to pass the
+English censor it is no wonder that many families wondered why their
+men did not write.</p>
+
+<p>We were there for three months before our parcels began to arrive. We
+considered ourselves lucky if we received six out of ten sent, and
+with half the contents of the six intact. In the larger camps the
+chances of receipt were better. The small camps were merely units
+attached to and governed by the larger ones, which handled the mail
+before giving it to the authorities at the smaller ones.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, a man who was "attached" to Giessen camp, although perhaps one
+hundred miles away from it, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>had to submit to the additional delay and
+chance of loss and theft included in the censoring of the parcel at
+Giessen as well as at the actual place of his confinement.</p>
+
+<p>This doubled the chances of fault-finding and of theft. Knowing this
+to be true, I most earnestly recommend the sending of parcels. True, a
+large proportion of them are not received, but those that are
+represent the one salvation of the prisoner-of-war in German hands. So
+terribly true is this that when we began to receive parcels at
+irregular intervals, we used regularly to acknowledge to our friends
+the receipt of parcels which we had never received. This was the low
+cunning developed by our treatment. If advised that a parcel of tea,
+sugar or other luxuries had been sent and it did not appear after
+weeks of patient waiting, we knew that we should never see that
+parcel. Nevertheless, we usually wrote and thanked the donor and
+acknowledged the receipt, fearful otherwise that he or she should say:
+"What's the use?" and send no more. And we were not allowed to tell
+the truth&mdash;that it had been stolen.</p>
+
+<p>The first three months of our stay at Giessen were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>probably the worst
+of all, including as they did the transition period to this life. It
+seemed then a hell on earth. The slow starvation was the worst. Once,
+in desperation, I gave a Frenchman my good boots for his old ones and
+two and a half marks, and then gave sixty pfennigs of this to the
+French cook for a bread ration. Again, in going down the hut one day,
+I espied a flat French loaf cut into four pieces, drying on the window
+sill. Seizing one piece, I tucked it under my tunic and passed on
+before the loss was discovered. Some of the British could be seen at
+times picking over the sour refuse in the barrels. This amused the
+Germans very much. We endeavoured to get cookhouse jobs for the
+pickings to be had, but could not do so. At a later date, when the
+Canadian Red Cross, Lady Farquhar, Mrs. Hamilton Gault and our
+families were sending us packages regularly, we made out all right.</p>
+
+<p>Some English societies were in the habit of sending books, music and
+games to the prisoners but none of these ever reached the group with
+whom I associated, even before our later actions put us quite beyond
+the German pale.</p>
+
+<p>The appeal for Casement and the Irish Brigade <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>was made to us. A
+number of prisoners were taken apart and the matter broached privately
+to them. Pamphlets on the freeing of Ireland were also distributed. I
+did not see any one go over, and an Irishman who was detailed with
+another Canadian and myself on a brickyard fatigue said that they had
+recruited only forty in the camp. The whole thing turned out to be a
+failure.</p>
+
+<p>There were twelve of us all told on that brickyard job. Three or four
+shoveled clay into the mixing machine, two more filled the little car
+which two others pushed along the track of the narrow-gauge railroad.
+We were guarded by four civilian Germans of some home defense corps,
+all of whom labored with us. The two trammers used to start the car,
+hop on the brake behind and let it run of its own momentum down the
+incline to the edge of the bank where it would be checked for dumping.
+Sometimes we forgot to brake the car so that it would ricochet on in a
+flying leap off the end of the track, and so on over the dump. The
+guards would rage and swear but could prove nothing so long as our
+fellows did not get too raw and do this too frequently.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>One day we shovelers decided to add to the gaiety of nations. While
+one attracted the guards' attention elsewhere we slipped a chunk of
+steel into the mess. There was a grinding crash, and a large cogwheel
+tore its way through the roof. In a moment, the air was full of
+machinery and German words. It was a proper wreck. The guards ran
+around gesticulating angrily, tearing their hair and threatening us,
+while we endeavoured to look surprised. It is reasonable to suppose
+that we were unsuccessful, for we were hustled back to camp and drew
+five days' cells each from the Commandant. There was no trial. He
+merely sentenced us.</p>
+
+<p>United States Ambassador Gerard only came to Giessen once in my time
+there, and that was while I was off at one of the detached camps, so I
+had no opportunity of observing the result.</p>
+
+<p>We knew very little of what was going on in the outside world. The
+guards were not allowed to converse with us, and if one was known to
+speak English he was removed. However, they were more or less curious
+about us so that a certain amount of clandestine conversation
+occurred. Some were certain that they were going to win the war.
+Others <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>said: "England has too much money. Germany will never win."
+They used frequently to gather the Russians, Belgians and French
+together and lecture them on England's sins. They said that England
+was letting them do all the fighting, bleeding them white of their men
+and treasure so as to come out at the end of the war with the balance
+of power necessary for her plan of retaining Constantinople and the
+Cinque Ports of France. Many were convinced, and this did not add to
+the pleasantness of our lot.</p>
+
+<p>The notorious <i>Continental Times</i> was circulated amongst us freely in
+both French and English editions. It regularly gave us a most
+appalling list of German victories and it specialised in abuse of the
+English. We counted up in one month a total of two million prisoners
+captured by the Germans on all fronts.</p>
+
+<p>As I have said, Giessen was the best camp of all, barring the
+starvation. But the discipline there was merciless. The laager was
+inclosed by a high wire fence which we were forbidden to approach
+within four feet of. A Russian sergeant overstepped that mark one day
+to shout something to a friend in an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>adjoining laager. The sentry
+shouted at him. He either failed to hear or did not understand. The
+sentry killed him without hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>A Belgian started over one day with some leftover soup which he
+purposed giving to the Russians. The sentry would not let him pass. He
+went back and told his mate. The latter, a kindly little fellow,
+thinking that the sentry had not understood the nature of the mission,
+decided to try himself. The sentry stopped him. He attempted to argue.
+The sentry pushed him roughly back. He struck the German. The latter
+dropped him with a blow on the head, and while he lay unconscious
+shoved the bayonet into him. It was done quite coolly and
+methodically, without heat. He was promoted for it. We were told that
+he had done a good thing and that we should get the same if we did not
+behave.</p>
+
+<p>A Canadian who was forced to work in a munitions plant and whose task
+included the replacing of waste in the wheel boxes of cars enjoyed
+himself for a while, lifting the greasy waste out and replacing it
+with sand. He got ten years for that.</p>
+
+<p>The German in charge of our laager hated the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span><i>verdamnt Engl&auml;nder</i> and
+lost no opportunity of bulldozing and threatening us. One of the
+Canadians who had been in the American Navy was unusually truculent.
+The German purposely bunted him one day. "Don't do that again!" The
+German repeated the act. The sailor jolted him in the jaw so that he
+went to dreamland for fifteen minutes. The prisoner was taken to the
+guardroom and we never heard his ultimate fate, but at the ruling rate
+he was lucky if he got off with ten years.</p>
+
+<p>It is men like this to whom our Government and people owe such a debt
+as may be paid only in a small degree by our insistence after the war
+that they be given their liberty. A greater glory is theirs than that
+of the soldier. They wrought amongst a world of foes, knowing their
+certain punishment, but daring it rather than assist that foe's
+efforts against their country.</p>
+
+<p>One day we were told that we must be inoculated in the arm against
+typhoid. We thought nothing of that. But the next day men began to
+gather in groups so that the guards shouted roughly at them, bidding
+them not to mutter and whisper so.</p>
+
+<p>Where the word came from I know not. It may <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>have emanated in the
+fears of some active imagination on the chance and truthful word of a
+guard, flung in derision at some desperate man, or in a kindlier mood
+and in warning. The word was that we were to be inoculated with the
+germs of consumption. I understand that it appeared also in the papers
+at home. It seemed horrible beyond words to us. The idea appeared
+crazy but was equally on a par with the events we witnessed daily.
+Myself, I planned to take no chances; if it were humanly possible.</p>
+
+<p>We were all ordered to parade for the inoculation. I hid myself with a
+few others and so escaped the operation. Nothing was said so I could
+only suppose that they failed to check us up as it was not in keeping
+with the German character as we had come to know it to miss any
+opportunity of corrective punishment even though the inoculation had
+been for our own good.</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep098a" id="imagep098a"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep098a.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep098a.jpg" width="85%" alt="Fellow Prisoners at Giessen" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 80%; margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 25%;">FELLOW PRISONERS AT GIESSEN. FROM LEFT TO RIGHT:
+A CHESHIRE REGIMENT MAN, A SIBERIAN RUSSIAN, AN EAST YORKSHIRE LIGHT INFANTRYMAN
+AND A GORDON HIGHLANDER.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep098b" id="imagep098b"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep098b.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep098b.jpg" width="85%" alt="Fellow Prisoners at Giessen" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 80%; margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 25%;">FELLOW PRISONERS AT GIESSEN.
+THREE HIGHLANDERS AND A YORKSHIRE LIGHT INFANTRYMAN.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is true that some of the men so inoculated fell prey to
+consumption. On the other hand one of them had had a well defined case
+of it before, and it was almost certain that the living conditions
+prevailing amongst us would insure the appearance of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>the disease so
+that we had no proof that any man was so inoculated. Some of the men
+so affected were sent to Switzerland for the benefit of the mountain
+air through an arrangement made by the Red Cross with the Swiss
+authorities.</p>
+
+<p>One of our guards was subject to fits and habitually ran amuck amongst
+us, abusing some of the prisoners in a painful fashion. We made
+complaint of this through the proper channels, for which crime the
+officer in charge stopped our fires and other privileges for the time
+being.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the men wore prison uniforms or in some cases, suits sent from
+England which were altered by the authorities to conform to their
+regulations. These required that if one was not in a distinctive and
+enemy uniform that broad stripes of bright colored cloth be set into
+the seam of the trousers; not sewed on, but into the goods. A large
+diamond shaped piece or else a square of such cloth was set into the
+breast and back of the tunic. I preferred my uniform, dilapidated
+though it was. We were permitted the choice, probably less out of
+kindness than because of the saving involved.</p>
+
+<p>There was a big simple giant of a Russian here <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>who was badly sprung
+at the knees. He had been forced to work during the winter in an
+underground railway station near Berlin. He had had no shoes and had
+stood in the water for weeks, digging. He was very badly crippled in
+consequence.</p>
+
+<p>Some four hundred Russians came to us after the fall of Warsaw. They
+were mostly wounded and all rotten. On the three months' march to
+Giessen the wounded had received absolutely no attention other than
+their own. Here we had a crazy German doctor, a mediocre French one
+and Canadian orderlies. If an Englishman went to the hospital for
+treatment it was "Vick!"&mdash;Get out. These Russians were treated
+similarly. The French fared better. One big, fine-looking Russian,
+with a filthy mass of rags wound round his arm, reported for
+attention. They unwound the rag and his arm dropped off. He died, with
+five others, that afternoon, and God only knows how many more on the
+trip they had just finished.</p>
+
+<p>They were buried in a piano case, together. Usually they were placed
+in packing cases. We asked for a flag with which to cover them as
+soldiers should <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>be. They asked what that was for and there it ended.</p>
+
+<p>Another Russian had a foul arm which leaked badly so that it was not
+only painful to him but offensive to the rest of us. Nothing was done
+for him.</p>
+
+<p>They were all thoroughly cowed, as are dogs that have been illtreated.
+And they jumped to it when a German spoke&mdash;excepting two of their
+officers, who refused to take down their epaulets when ordered to do
+so. We did not learn how they fared. These were the only captive
+officers of any nationality whom we saw.</p>
+
+<p>We became sick of the sight of one another as even the best of friends
+do under such abnormal conditions. For variety I often walked around
+the enclosure with a Russian. Neither of us had the faintest idea what
+the other said, but it was a change!</p>
+
+<p>The monotony of the wire was terrible&mdash;and just outside it in the lane
+formed by the encircling set of wire, the dogs, with their tongues
+out, walked back and forth, eyeing us.</p>
+
+<p>There was so little to talk about. We knew <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>nothing and could only
+speculate on the outcome of the commonest events which came to us on
+the tongue of rumour or arose out of our own sad thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>The authorities were not satisfied with our recognition&mdash;or lack of
+it&mdash;of their officers and took us out to practice saluting drill&mdash;a
+thing always detested by soldiers, especially veterans. The idea was
+to make us salute visiting German officers properly, in the German
+fashion and not in our own. Theirs consisted of saluting with the
+right hand only, with the left held stiffly straight at the side,
+while our way was to salute with the hand farthest from the officer,
+giving "Eyes left" or "Eyes right" as the case might be, and with the
+free hand swinging loosely with the stride.</p>
+
+<p>So a school of us were led out to this. The very atmosphere was tense
+with sullen rebellion. The guards eyed us askance. The officer stood
+at the left awaiting us; beyond him and on the other side of the road,
+a post.</p>
+
+<p>An <i>unteroffizier</i> ordered us to march by, one by one, to give the
+<i>Herr Offizier</i> "Augen Links" in the German fashion, and to the post,
+which represented <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>another officer, an "Augen Rechts" when we should
+come to it.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll see him in hell first," I muttered to the man next me. I was in
+the lead of the party. I shook with excitement and fear of I knew not
+what.</p>
+
+<p>As the command rang out I stepped out with a swing, and with the
+action, decision came to me. As I approached the officer he drew up
+slightly and looked at me expectantly.</p>
+
+<p>I gave him a stony stare, and passed on.</p>
+
+<p>A few more steps and I reached the post. I pulled back my shoulders
+with a smart jerk, got my arms to swinging freely, snapped my head
+round so that my eyes caught the post squarely and swung my left hand
+up in a clean-cut parabola to "Eyes right," in good old regimental
+order.</p>
+
+<p>A half dozen shocked sentries came up on the double. It was they who
+were excited now. I was master of myself and the situation. The
+<i>unteroffizier</i> ordered me to repeat and salute. I did so&mdash;literally.
+The officer was, to all outward appearances, the only other person
+there who remained unmoved. My ardour had cooled by this time, and his
+very silence seemed worse than the threats of the guard. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>Nor was I
+exactly in love with my self-appointed task. Nevertheless, I saw my
+mates watching me and inwardly applauding. I was ashamed to quit. I
+did it again. That won me another five days' cells.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4 class="sc">The Escape</h4>
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="noin">Picking a Pal for Switzerland&mdash;Cold Feet&mdash;The Talk in the
+Wood&mdash;Nothing Succeeds Like Success and&mdash;!&mdash;Simmons and Brumley
+Try Their Hand.</p></div>
+<br />
+
+<p>Mervin Simmons of the 7th, and Frank Brumley of the 3rd Battalion,
+Canadian Expeditionary Force were planning to escape. Word of it
+leaked through to me. This added fuel to the fire of my own similar
+ambition. They, and I too, thought that it was not advisable for more
+than two to travel together. I began to look around for a partner. I
+"weighed up" all my comrades. It was unwise to broach the subject to
+too many of them. I bided my time until a certain man having dropped
+remarks which indicated certain sporting proclivities, I broached the
+subject to him. He was most enthusiastic. We decided on Switzerland as
+our objective and awaited only the opportunity to make a break.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>There were few if any preparations to make. We were not yet receiving
+parcels and our allowance of food was so scanty that it was impossible
+to lay any by. We had a crude map of our own drawing. And that was our
+all.</p>
+
+<p>In the interval we discussed ways and means of later travel and
+endeavoured to prepare our minds for all contingencies, even capture.
+We talked the matter over with Simmons and Brumley at every
+opportunity, so as to benefit also by their plans. This required
+caution so we were careful at all times that we should not be seen
+together; rather that we should even appear unfriendly. We developed
+the cunning of the oppressed. Once we even staged a wordy quarrel over
+some petty thing for the benefit of our guards and others of the
+prisoners whom we distrusted. At other times we foregathered in dim
+corners of our huts as though by chance. We conversed covertly from
+the corners of our mouths and without any movement of the lips, as
+convicts do. This avoidance of one another was made the easier because
+of the arrangement of the personnel of each hut. The various
+nationalities were pretty well split up in companies, presumably to
+prevent illicit <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>co-operation and each company was separated from the
+others by the wire.</p>
+
+<p>Our chance came at last. We were "warned" for a working party on a
+railroad grade near by. As compliance would enable us to get on the
+other side of the wire, we made no protest. This work was a part of
+the authorities' scheme of farming prisoners out to private
+individuals and corporations who required labour. In this case it was
+a railroad contractor. As a rule the contractors fed us better than
+the authorities, if for no other reason than to keep our working
+strength up.</p>
+
+<p>We were marched out of the laager without any breakfast each morning
+to the work and there received a little sausage and a bit of bread for
+breakfast. At noon we received soup of a better quality than the camp
+stuff. It was cooked by a Russian Pole, a civilian; one of many who
+was living out in the town on parole. These had to report regularly to
+the authorities and had to remain in the local area.</p>
+
+<p>We were on the job a week before things seemed favourable. We had only
+what we stood in, excepting the rough map, which was drawn from
+hearsay <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>and our scanty knowledge of the country. We planned to travel
+at night, lay our course by the stars and perhaps walk to Switzerland
+in six weeks.</p>
+
+<p>We worked all morning, grading on the railroad embankment. At noon we
+knocked off for soup and a rest. We were on the edge of a large wood.
+Some of the men flung themselves on the bank; others went to see if
+the soup was ready. A few went into the wood. The solitary guard was
+elsewhere. We said good-bye to the few who knew of our plans. They
+bade us God-speed and then we, too, faded into the recesses of the
+wood.</p>
+
+<p>We had no sooner set foot in it than I noticed a curious change come
+over my companion. He said that it was a bad time, a bad place, found
+fault with everything and said that we should not go that day.
+However, we continued, half-heartedly on his part, to shove our way on
+into the wood. Occasionally he glanced fearfully over his shoulder and
+voiced querulous protests. I did not answer him. A little further on
+and he stopped. A dog was barking.</p>
+
+<p>"There's too many dogs about, Edwards. And <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>just look at all those
+houses." He pointed to where a village showed through the trees.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure thing, there'll be houses thick like that all the way. It's our
+job to keep clear of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but look at the people. There's bound to be lots of them where
+there's so many houses."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course there are," I replied: "Germany's full of houses and
+people. That's no news. Come on."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! They'll see us sure, Edwards&mdash;and telegraph ahead all over the
+country. We haven't got any more show than a rabbit."</p>
+
+<p>With that I lost patience and gave him a piece of my mind. We stood
+there, arguing it back and forth.</p>
+
+<p>It was no use: He fell prey to his own fears; saw certain capture and
+a dreadful punishment. He conjured up all the dangers that an active
+imagination could envisage: Every bush was a German and every sound
+the occasion of a fresh alarm. He was like to ruin my own nerves with
+his petty panics.</p>
+
+<p>It was in vain that I pleaded with him: He could not face the dangers
+that he saw ahead. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>laager seemed to him, by comparison, a haven
+of refuge. When all else failed, I appealed to his pride. He had none.
+I warned him that we should meet with nothing but scorn from our
+comrades, excepting laughter, which was worse. I begged and pleaded
+with him to go on with me. No use. All his courage was foam and had
+settled back into dregs.</p>
+
+<p>And so we returned. I was heart-broken. But there was no use in my
+going on alone. To travel by night we must sleep in the day time and
+that required that some one should always be on watch to avoid the
+chance travellers of the day&mdash;which was obviously impossible for any
+one who travelled alone.</p>
+
+<p>We had been gone only an hour and a half and the guard was just
+beginning to look around for us. Otherwise we had not been missed nor
+seen, for the wood was a large one and we had not yet gotten out of
+its confines. The guard was too relieved to find us, when we stepped
+out of the wood and picked up our shovels, to do more than betray a
+purely personal annoyance. He asked where we had been and why we had
+remained for so long a time. We gave the obvious excuse. He was too
+well pleased at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>his own narrow escape from responsibility to be
+critical, so that the affair ended in so far as he or his kind were
+concerned. Which made what followed the harder to bear.</p>
+
+<p>For it was not so with our own comrades. My prognostication had been a
+correct one. A few of them had known that we were going; some had bade
+us good-bye. They rested on their picks now and stared at us, lifting
+their eyebrows, with a knowing smile for one another and a half-sneer
+for us. My companion had already plumbed the depths of fear and so was
+now lost to all shame. Myself, I found it very hard. Soldiers have,
+outwardly at least, but little tenderness, except perhaps in bad
+times, and they showed none now. Nor mercy. The situation would have
+been ridiculous had it not been so utterly tragic&mdash;to have failed
+without trying! Edwards's escape became camp offal. We became the butt
+and the byword of the camp, so that I honestly regretted not having
+pushed on alone. I felt sure that the almost certain capture and more
+certain punishment would have been more bearable than this. There was
+nothing that I could say in my own defense except at the other man's
+expense&mdash;which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>would have been in questionable taste and would have
+been deemed the resort of a weakling. So I kept my counsel and
+brooded. The ignorance of the guards made the tragedy comic. It was
+very humiliating. I gritted my teeth and swore that I at any rate
+should go again in spite of their incredulous jeers. But it was all
+terribly discouraging and made me most despondent.</p>
+
+<p>And that finished that trip to Switzerland.</p>
+
+<p>A few days later Simmons and Brumley disappeared. There was no
+commotion. One day they were with us and the next&mdash;they were not. The
+guards said nothing and we feared to ask. I longed ardently to be with
+them.</p>
+
+<p>In a few days the camp was thrown into a mild turmoil. The poor
+fellows were escorted in under a heavy guard. And very dejected they
+looked too&mdash;in rags, very wet and evidently short of food, sleep and a
+shave. Nevertheless, I envied them.</p>
+
+<p>They disappeared for a long time. We were told they got two weeks'
+cells and six weeks of sitting on the stools in strafe barracks. I
+remembered the Yorkshiremen and my envy was tempered.</p>
+
+<p>I spent most of my time casting about for the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>means for a real
+escape. Quite aside from my natural desire for freedom I felt that my
+good name as a soldier was at stake. However, I waited for an
+opportunity to converse with Simmons and Brumley before doing anything
+as I felt that their experience might contain some useful hints for
+me.</p>
+
+<p>They appeared at the end of two months, quite undismayed. They told me
+of what had happened to them and Simmons approached me on the subject
+of making another try of it with them. I readily consented. They were
+now convinced that three or four could make the attempt with a better
+chance of success than two men. I would have agreed to go an army! All
+I wanted was an opportunity to prove my mettle and retrieve my lost
+reputation.</p>
+
+<p>They told me their story. It seems that they had been sent out as a
+working party to a near by farm. They were locked in the room as usual
+at nine o'clock that night after the day's work and then waited until
+they had heard the sentry pass by a couple of times on his rounds. The
+window was covered with barbed wire which they had no difficulty in
+removing. By morning they were well on the way to Switzerland. They
+figured that they, too, could <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>do it in six weeks' of walking by
+night, laying their course by the stars. They had no money and were
+still in khaki.</p>
+
+<p>They were four days' out and lying close in a small clump of bushes
+adjoining a field in which women were digging potatoes when a small
+boy stumbled on them. They knew they had been seen the day before and
+chose this exposed spot rather than the near-by wood, thinking that it
+was there the hue and cry would run. But he was a crafty little brat
+and pretended that he had not seen them. They were not certain whether
+he had or not and hesitated to give their position away by running for
+it.</p>
+
+<p>The boy walked until he neared the women, when he broke into a run and
+soon all gathered in a little knot, looking and pointing toward the
+fugitives. Some of the women broke away and evidently told some
+Bavarian soldiers who had been searching. The latter had already been
+firing into the woods to flush them out so that if the boy had not
+seen them the soldiers would in all likelihood have passed on, after
+searching the main wood.</p>
+
+<p>It was just four o'clock with darkness still four <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>hours off. Simmons
+and Brumley were unarmed. There was no use in running for it. So they
+surrendered with what grace they could. There was the usual
+<i>verdamning</i>, growling and prodding but no really bad treatment. For
+this they were sentenced to two weeks cells and six weeks of strafe
+barracks.</p>
+
+<p>They had been much bothered by the lack of a compass on their trip; so
+when they finished their strafing and were once more allowed the
+privileges of the mail, Simmons took a chance and wrote on the inside
+of an envelope addressed to his brother in Canada: "Send a compass."
+He was not called up so we hoped that it had gone through.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4 class="sc">The Traitor at Vehnmoor</h4>
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="noin">The Swamp at Cellelaager&mdash;Seven Hundred Men and Two Small
+Stoves&mdash;Taking the Stripes Down&mdash;The Recreant Sergeant
+Major&mdash;"Go Ahead an' Shoot&mdash;!"</p></div>
+<br />
+
+<p>Giessen is in Hesse. Shortly after this we were all sent to
+Cellelaager in Hanover. This was the head camp of a series reserved
+for the punishment or the working of prisoners. Each unit retained the
+name of Cellelaager and received in addition a number, as Cellelaager
+1, Cellelaager 2 and so on. There were grounds here providing a lot
+for football, and a theatre run by the prisoners, for which there was
+an entrance fee, and other like amusements. These, however, were only
+for those prisoners who were on good behaviour and who were employed
+there. As such they were denied such desperadoes as ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>We remained there for two weeks and were then sent to the punishment
+camp known as Vehnmoor <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>or Cellelaager 6. This was a good day's ride
+away and also in Hanover, fifteen kilometres from the big military
+town of Oldenburg. Here we were turned out to work on the moors with
+four hundred Russians, one hundred French and Belgians and two hundred
+British and Canadians. We were housed in one large hut built on a
+swamp and were continually wet. There were only two small stoves for
+the seven hundred men and we had only a few two pound syrup tins in
+which to cook. A poor quality of peat was our only fuel. As only five
+men could crowd round a stove at a time, one's chances were rather
+slim in the dense mob, every man-jack of whom was waiting to slip into
+the first vacant place that offered.</p>
+
+<p>We slept in a row along the wall, with our heads to it. Overhead a
+broad shelf supported a similar row of men. Above them were the
+windows. At our feet and in the centre of the room, there was a two
+foot passage way and then another row of men, with two shelves housing
+two more layers of sleepers above them. Then another two foot
+passageway, the row of men on the floor against the other wall and the
+usual shelf full above them. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>vermin were bad and presented a
+problem until we arranged with the Russians to take one end to
+themselves, the French and Belgians the middle and we the other end.
+By this means we British were able to institute precautionary measures
+amongst ourselves so that after feasting on the Russians and finishing
+up upon the French, our annoying friends usually turned about and went
+home again.</p>
+
+<p>The swamp water was filthy, full of peat and only to be drunk in
+minute quantities at the bidding of an intolerable thirst. There was
+no other water to be had and we simply could not drink this. The
+Russians did, which meant another fatigue party to bury them. The only
+doctor was an old German, called so by courtesy; but he knew nothing
+of medicine. As a corporal, I was held responsible for twenty men.
+That implied mostly keeping track of the sick and I have seen nineteen
+of my twenty thus. But that made no difference. It was "Raus!" and out
+they came, sick or well.</p>
+
+<p>Every morning an officer stood at the gate as we marched out to the
+moor, to take "Eyes right" and a salute, for no useful purpose that we
+could see except to belittle a British soldier's pride. As <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>corporal I
+was supposed to give that command to my squad but rather than do so I
+took my stripes down, although that ended my immunity as a "non-com"
+from the labour of cutting peat. Others, I am sorry to say, were glad
+to put the stripes up and at times went beyond the necessities of the
+situation in enforcing their rule on their comrades. It was one of
+these who was found to be trading in and selling his packages to his
+less fortunate comrades and who was ostracized in consequence.</p>
+
+<p>There were here at Vehnmoor, as there had been at Giessen, a certain
+few of our own men who traded on the misfortunes of their own
+comrades. This man was the worst of them all. He was a sergeant-major
+in a certain famous regiment of the line in the British Army. He was a
+fair sample of that worst type which the army system so often
+delegates authority to&mdash;and complains because that authority does not
+meet with the respect it should on the part of its victims.</p>
+
+<p>He excelled in all the arts of the sycophant: The pleasure of the
+guards was his delight, their displeasure, his poignant grief. He
+assumed the authority of his rank with us, he reported the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span>slightest
+of misdemeanours amongst us to the guards and was instrumental in
+having many punished. These and other things gave him and others of
+his kidney the run of the main grounds so that they could stretch
+their legs and have some variety in their lives. Such liberty was
+there for any man who would do as they did.</p>
+
+<p>None of us were safe from these traitors. The sergeant major in
+particular, spied on us, reporting all criticisms of our guards and
+other things German. We raged. He had for his virtue a small room to
+himself in a corner of the hut. When parcels came from England,
+addressed to the senior non-commissioned officer of his regiment, for
+him to distribute; he called the guards in. Shortly they went out with
+their coats bulging suspiciously. We were then called to receive ours
+whilst he stood over, bullying us with all the abusive "chatter" which
+the British service so well teaches. And afterward we watched
+covertly, with all the cunning of the oppressed, and saw him receive
+other stealthy favours from the guards that were not within his
+arrangement with the Commandant.</p>
+
+<p>So one of his own men who had a certain legal <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>learning took down all
+these facts as I have recited them and calling us together, bade us
+sign our names in evidence of so foul a treachery. Which we gladly
+did. And it was and is the prayer of all that when the gates of the
+prison camps roll back this document will get to the War Office and
+there receive the attention it deserves.</p>
+
+<p>My comrades in misfortune here told me of another such a man who had
+gone away just before my arrival at this camp. He, too, was a
+sergeant-major of a line regiment in the old army. I had known him in
+the old days in India. In his own regiment he was never known by his
+own name, but instead by this one: "The dirty bad man." No one ever
+called him anything else when referring to him. That was his former
+record and this is what he did here to keep the memory of it green.</p>
+
+<p>He was instrumental in having fixed on us one of the most terrible of
+army punishments. It appears that some time before one of our men had
+broken some petty rule of discipline and the Germans had asked the
+sergeant-major what the punishment was in our army for such a "crime,"
+as all offences are termed in the army.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>"Number One Field Punishment or Crucifixion," had been his lying
+reply. That meant being spread-eagled on the wheel of a gun limber,
+tied to the spokes at wrist and ankle, with the toes off the ground
+and the entire weight of the body on the outraged nerves and muscles
+of those members.</p>
+
+<p>Lacking a gun limber, the Germans used a post with a cross-bar for
+this man's case. After that, this was a recognized mode of punishment
+for many petty offences in this camp.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that this form of punishment is a part of the so-called
+discipline of our army. But it was not meted out for offences of the
+nature of this man's and if it had been, the obvious thing for the
+sergeant-major to have done would have been to have lied like a man;
+instead of which he piled horror on horror for his own countrymen. I
+have the facts and names of these cases.</p>
+
+<p>There will be many strange tales to come from these camps in the
+fulness of time. No doubt some will go against us, but the truth must
+be told at all costs, else the evil goes on and on.</p>
+
+<p>We were sent out one day to dig potato trenches on the moors in a
+terrible rain. We stuck our spades <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>in the ground and refused. The
+guards had French rifles of the vintage of 1870 which carried
+cartridges with bullets that were really slugs of lead. They began to
+load. A little <i>unteroffizier</i> tugged excitedly at his holster for the
+revolver.</p>
+
+<p>A big Canadian stepped up: "Wait a minute, mate." He reached down to
+the little man's waist and drew the gun.</p>
+
+<p>He offered it to its owner, butt forward, "Now go ahead and shoot, and
+we'll chop your damned heads off."</p>
+
+<p>The rest of us confirmed our leader's statement by gathering around
+threateningly and making gruesome and suggestive motions with our
+spades. There were two hundred of us and only forty guards. We meant
+business and they knew it. They took us back to the laager and locked
+us up.</p>
+
+<p>The following night, that of January 22nd, our guards were reinforced
+by thirty more.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4 class="sc">Away Again</h4>
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="noin">Why the Prisoners Walked&mdash;Cold Feet Again&mdash;The Man Who Turned
+and Fled&mdash;Brumley's Precious Legs&mdash;The Wait in the Wood&mdash;The
+Cunning of the Hunted&mdash;Bad Days in the Swamps&mdash;Within Four Miles
+of Freedom&mdash;The Kaiser's Birthday&mdash;Another Trip to Holland.</p></div>
+<br />
+
+<p>Simmons and Brumley, together with my companion of the first escape,
+had determined to make a break for it with me. And although we were
+not quite ready at this time the addition to the guards forced our
+decision. We had a scanty supply of biscuits saved up and I had
+wheedled a file from a friendly Russian; Simmons got a bit of a map
+from a Frenchman; and we secured a watch from a Belgian. With this
+international outfit we were ready, except that we lacked a sufficient
+store of food. However, there was no help for that.</p>
+
+<p>The laager was a twelve-foot-high barbed wire <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>enclosure, eighty feet
+wide by three hundred long, with the hut occupying the greater part of
+the central space. There was sufficient room below the bottom wire to
+permit the trained camp dogs to get in and out at us.</p>
+
+<p>They patrolled the four-foot lane that enclosed the laager and
+wandered up and down it, their tongues out, always on the alert. They
+were as well confined as we were, since the outer wall of wire was
+built down close to the ground. They were very savage and seemed
+instinctively to regard us as enemies; as all good German dogs should.</p>
+
+<p>The sworn evidence of prisoners exchanged since my escape mentions
+that in one case an imbecile Belgian was daily led out to the fields,
+wrapped up in several layers of clothes and then set upon by the dogs
+under the guidance of their guards; this was for the better
+instruction of the dogs.</p>
+
+<p>At each corner of the laager there hung an arc light. The sphere of
+light from those at the end did not quite meet and so left a small
+shadow in the center of the end fence.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as night came we arranged that six other men should walk to
+and fro from the end of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>hut to the shadow at the wire, as though
+for exercise. Others, ourselves included, clustered round the end of
+the hut. I watched my chance, and when the moment seemed favorable,
+fell into step beside the promenaders.</p>
+
+<p>We swung boldly out, intent apparently, on nothing. Our arrival at the
+inner wire synchronized with that of one of the guards beyond the
+outer wire. We turned about without appearing to have seen him. Still
+walking briskly, we reached the hut and turned again. The guard's back
+was now turned; he was walking away. At his present rate of travel he
+should be twenty yards off when we next reached the wire. We dared not
+chance suspicion by slackening our gait. My heart stopped.</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep126" id="imagep126"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep126.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep126.jpg" width="45%" alt="Record of Second Escape and Recapture" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 80%; margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 25%;">RECORD OF SECOND ESCAPE AND RECAPTURE.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>As we reached the shadow I fell prone and lay motionless. No dogs were
+in sight. Niagara pounded in at my ears but no hostile sound indicated
+that I had been observed. I dragged myself carefully through and under
+the clearance left for the dogs, until my cap brushed the lower wires
+of the main and outer fence. My feet still projected beyond the inner
+wire into the main enclosure so that on their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>next trip one of my
+comrades inadvertently touched my foot, startling me.</p>
+
+<p>I held the strand in my left hand and fell to filing with my right so
+that at the snap there should be no noisy rebound of the spring-like
+wire. A post was at my right, and, the wire having been nailed to it,
+I was safe from this danger on that side.</p>
+
+<p>The sound of the tramp of those faithful feet receded but the sound of
+them came strongly back to me like a message of hope.</p>
+
+<p>By the time they were back once more I had cut through three strands
+and was crawling cautiously toward my objective, a pile of peat two
+hundred yards distant, which seemed to offer cover as a breathing spot
+and starting point. On the signal from the promenaders that I was
+through the wire, Simmons followed, and after him, Brumley. The other
+man lived up to the example he had previously set himself. He drew
+back in alarm and refused to make the attempt.</p>
+
+<p>With twenty-five guards all about and some only thirty feet away, the
+very impudence of the plan offered our only hope of success. I still
+lacked fifty yards of the peat heap when I heard three shots, next
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>the dogs, and then the general outcry which followed the detection of
+Brumley.</p>
+
+<p>I rose to my feet and ran. We had already mapped out our course in
+advance by daylight, for just such a contingency; so I struck boldly
+out. I was still in the swamp to my knees, and under those conditions
+even the short start we had might prove sufficient, since our pursuers
+would also bog down. The swamp was intersected by a series of small
+ditches and scattered bushes, which added to the difficulty of the
+passage. I heard Brumley floundering and swearing behind and went back
+to pull him out of a bottomless ditch. Simmons joined us while I was
+still struggling with him. In another hour Brumley's legs played out.
+We could still make out the lights of the laager. It was vitally
+necessary to push on; so we encouraged him as best we could and
+managed, somehow, to reach the edge of the swamp by daylight. We put
+ourselves on the meagre rations our store allowed, one biscuit for
+breakfast and another for supper, with a bit of chocolate on the side.
+We had apparently outdistanced the pursuit. We prayed that our friends
+might not be too severely punished for their part in our escape.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>We lay in the heather all day, soaked to the skin with the brackish
+water of the swamp, the odor of which still hung to our clothes. It
+was January and very cold and sleep was impossible under such
+conditions. We nibbled our tiny rations and struck out as soon as
+darkness came. Our plan was to go straight across country, but Brumley
+could not navigate the rough going of the fields; although on the
+level roads he made out fairly well. So we chanced it on the latter.</p>
+
+<p>Brumley was struggling along manfully but his legs caused him great
+suffering. At about two o'clock in the morning we lay to in the shadow
+of a clump of trees at the roadside, thinking to ease him a bit. He
+flung himself down. Simmons massaged Brumley's legs whilst I watched.</p>
+
+<p>We had just said: "Come on," and they were rising to their feet, when
+another figure stepped off the road and in amongst our trees. It was
+so dark where we stood that he probably would not have seen us had not
+Brumley at that very moment been rising to his feet. He appeared as
+much surprised as we were and started back as though in amazement. And
+then without more ado, he turned and fled the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>way we had come whilst
+we made what haste we could in the opposite direction, all equally
+alarmed.</p>
+
+<p>Who he was or what he wanted, we could only surmise. If he was not
+also an escaped prisoner then he must have been badly wanted by the
+authorities to have been travelling in such a fashion at such an hour;
+and above all, to have been so alarmed by this chance meeting with
+fugitives. In any event we wished him luck and promptly forgot all
+about him.</p>
+
+<p>Later on in the night our road led us directly into a village. We
+hesitated as to what we should do. Brumley was for pushing through.
+The alternative was to go round and through the fields, lose valuable
+time and play out Brumley's precious legs. It was past midnight, so we
+decided on the village route, and started on.</p>
+
+<p>We passed through without being molested, but just as we were leaving
+the other side some civilians saw us and shouted "Halt!" and other
+words meaning "to shoot." We paid no attention. Espying a wood in the
+distance, we struck out for it. Brumley was in misery and threw up the
+sponge. We stopped to argue with him, at the same time dragging him
+along, and while doing so saw two more <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>civilians rushing up and
+shouting as they came. Lights began to spring up all over the village.
+Brumley stopped dead and refused to go farther. We had previously
+agreed that if anything should happen to any one of us the others were
+to push on, every man for himself. No good could be gained by fighting
+when we were so hopelessly outnumbered, so Simmons and I rushed into
+the wood, swung around and out again and lay down on the edge of it,
+in time to see them take Brumley and come sweeping by us in hot
+pursuit. The main body stopped only a moment to inspect their capture,
+gathering around poor Brumley so that we could not at first see what
+had happened to him. Then several of them started back toward the
+village, with him limping along at their side. Ten yards away a knot
+of them gathered and assisted another up into a tree to watch for us.
+One handed him a rifle and the pursuit went on into the wood.
+Occasionally we heard the sentinel stirring.</p>
+
+<p>We scarcely breathed. It seemed impossible that he could not hear the
+pounding of our hearts. We grew quite stiff in our cramped positions,
+but feared to shift a limb and waited for three-quarters of an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>hour
+before we dared to worm our way cautiously in the other direction. The
+snap of a twig was like that of a rifle on the stillness of the night.</p>
+
+<p>Once we stopped, thinking that certainly he had heard us. It was only
+the beat of a night bird's wings. We dared take only an inch at a
+time, sliding forward on our bellies and then&mdash;waiting.</p>
+
+<p>We met another sentry farther up, but worked around him in safety and
+with more of ease, as we were by this time on our feet.</p>
+
+<p>Arriving at the end of the small wood, we walked boldly across the
+intervening fields to another one, large enough to afford cover for an
+army corps, and there felt comparatively safe.</p>
+
+<p>We were, however, very wet and cold and altogether miserable, buoyed
+up only by the liberty ahead. As it was only two o'clock, we pushed on
+for several hours before stopping to lie by for the day.</p>
+
+<p>For days we carried on thus without discovery. Each night was a
+repetition of the preceding one, an interminable fighting of our way
+through dark forests, into and out of sloppy ditches, over fields and
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>through thorny hedges, dodging the lights of villages.</p>
+
+<p>We went solely by the stars, which Simmons understood after a fashion,
+and, aided by our map, we held fairly well to our general direction.
+We had no other sources of information than our own good sense. We
+watched the sky ahead at night for the glow which might indicate to us
+the size of the community ahead; and aided by a close observation of
+railroads, telegraph wires and the quality of the wagon roads and the
+quantity of travel on them, were able to form fairly accurate
+estimates of where we were and which places to avoid. Except on
+unfrequented byways we travelled by the fields, hugging the road from
+a distance. This made travel arduous but safer.</p>
+
+<p>At that, we were sometimes spoken to in neighborly greeting. We
+grunted indifferently in reply, as an unsociable man might. When, as
+sometimes happened, people rose up in front of us from gateways or
+hidden roads, it was very disconcerting. On such occasions only the
+darkness saved us, for we took no chances, wherever there were lights.</p>
+
+<p>It was really harder in the day time; when, try as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>we might, we could
+not count on avoiding for our hiding place the scene of some
+labourer's toil or perhaps the covert of some child's play. We slept
+by turns with one always on guard. It was difficult indeed for the
+guard not to neglect his duty, so utterly weary were we. The lying
+position we needs must retain all day long aided that tendency, and
+yet we were always so wet and cold that real sleep was difficult to
+secure.</p>
+
+<p>In this district the swamps were numerous and difficult to cross. The
+small ditches and canals that drained them or the almost equally
+swampy fields added to our grief. The feet slipped back at each muddy
+step: We fell into ditches: Dogs barked: And we almost wept.</p>
+
+<p>Once a dog helped us by his barking. It was night and we were crossing
+a very bad swamp, an old peat bog which was full of the ditches and
+holes that the peat had been taken from. These were full of black
+water which merged so naturally into the prevailing darkness that we
+repeatedly fell into them. We floundered out of one only to fall into
+another, uncertain where we were going and lost to all sense of
+direction. There was no vestige of track or road. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>It was then that
+the dog barked. We stopped to listen, conversing in low tones.
+Certainly, we thought, the dog must be near a house and that meant dry
+land and a footing. So we advanced in the direction of the sound,
+stopping to listen to each fresh outburst so as to make certain that
+we should not approach too closely. Apparently he had smelt us on the
+wind.</p>
+
+<p>Before we reached the dog we felt the solid ground under foot and were
+off once more at a tangent from the sound of his barking.</p>
+
+<p>The swamps were a great trouble to us, as were also some of the
+fields, so cut up by ditches and hedges were they, and yet, in order
+to avoid the roads and the wires, we frequently had to lay a
+circuitous route to avoid these obstacles or else chance the road,
+which we would not do. Often, when we could see our course lying
+straight ahead on the road, we put about and tacked off and away from
+it because a parallel course was impossible on account of the swampy
+nature of the ground. With these bad places passed we could perhaps
+pull back to our true course again, but only after double the travel
+that should have been necessary.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>However, we did not mind that so much. Nor did we greatly mind the
+short rations we were on. The other privations were too severe for us
+to notice these minor ones.</p>
+
+<p>The worst was the continual state of wetness and the resultant
+coldness of our bodies. It was not so bad at night when we were
+walking and so kept our blood circulating, but by day it was very bad.
+We used to pray for night and the end of our enforced rest. We were
+never dry or warm but were always very cold and miserable. The sun, on
+those rare occasions when it came forth, did not appear until ten or
+eleven in the morning. By mid-afternoon it was again a thing of the
+past. At best it was very weak and we had to hide in the bushes where
+it could not reach us. All we could do was to take off one garment at
+a time and thrust it cautiously out near the edge of our hiding-place
+to some spot on which the sun shone. Under these conditions we grew
+steadily weaker on our allowance of two biscuits a day; for the time
+of year precluded the possibility of there being any crops for us to
+fall back upon for food, and it was too risky a proceeding to attempt
+to steal from the householders.</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep136a" id="imagep136a"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep136a.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep136a.jpg" width="85%" alt="German Prisoners" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 80%; margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 25%;">GERMAN PRISONERS MARCHING THROUGH GOOD
+NATURED ENGLISH CROWDS AT SOUTHAMPTON.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep136b" id="imagep136b"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep136b.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep136b.jpg" width="85%" alt="High Explosives Bursting over German Trenches" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 80%; margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 25%;">HIGH EXPLOSIVES BURSTING OVER GERMAN TRENCHES.
+BRITISH DEAD IN FOREGROUND.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>On the eighth day we reached the River Ems. We had no difficulty in
+recognising it, as it was the only large one on our map that lay on
+the route we had chosen, and we had passed nothing even faintly
+resembling it, with the exception of some large canals, which were
+easily recognizable as such and which we had swum. We made out trees
+which appeared to be on the other shore.</p>
+
+<p>We regretfully decided that it was too late to attempt the crossing
+that night. The daylight proved the line of trees to be merely the
+tops of a flooded woodland. The shore was a good quarter of a mile
+away. It was January; the water was cold and full of floating ice, and
+very swift. Fording was out of the question. For two days and nights
+we wandered up and down the bank, vainly seeking a boat or raft with
+which to make the crossing. We finally discovered a large bridge,
+which was submerged except for its flood-time arches. There was no
+sign of life and it looked safe, so we proceeded to cross. We
+discovered, however, that we had not reached the bridge proper, but
+were merely on the approach to it. We dropped off onto the main steel
+portion. The wind beat the cold rain against us so <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>that we could
+neither see nor hear. However, we went on and were nearly across when
+suddenly a light flashed on us and we heard a startled "Halt!"</p>
+
+<p>We could barely make out the mass of buildings that indicated the line
+of the shore. It seemed too bad to throw up the sponge so easily.</p>
+
+<p>I said under my breath to Simmons: "We'll push right on," and loudly:
+"Hollander!" thinking we might perhaps get far enough away to make a
+run for it. But there was no show: It was too far to the shore.</p>
+
+<p>There was a shouted command and the clatter of rifle-bolts striking
+home. It was no use. We stopped and shouted that we would not run, and
+then waited while they advanced toward us.</p>
+
+<p>The elderly Landsturmers guarding the bridge gathered us in and took
+us over to their guardroom at the hotel. We judged the incident to be
+an epoch in the monotony of their soldierly duties. They were very
+good to us. Two of them moved away from the fire to make room for our
+wet misery and they gave us a pot of boiling water, two bivouac cocoa
+tablets and a loaf of black bread. The news spread, and civilians
+dropped in to stare at and question us. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>In the morning the entire
+population came to see the <i>Engl&auml;nder</i> prisoners. We learned that we
+were only four miles from Holland, and cursed aloud. The town was
+Lathen and when, the next morning, we discovered that it was gayly
+bedecked with flags and bunting we decided that we were indeed
+personages of note if we could cause such a celebration. However, it
+was only the Kaiser's birthday.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon they took us by rail to Meppen and shoved us in the
+civilian jail, where we were allowed a daily ration of two ounces of
+black bread, one pint of gruel and three-quarters of a pint of coffee
+for two days, until, on January thirtieth, an escort came from
+Vehnmoor. They roped us together with a clothes-line, arm to arm, and
+marched us through the principal streets by a roundabout route to the
+station so that all might see.</p>
+
+<p>We were unwashed, unshaven and so altogether disreputable as to
+satisfy the most violent hatred&mdash;such for instance as we found here.
+It did not require our pride to keep our hearts up or to keep us from
+feeling the humiliation of so cruel an ordeal. We simply did not
+experience the painful sensations that such a proceeding would
+ordinarily arouse in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>the breast of any man; just as after heavy
+shell-fire no man feels either fear or courage; he is too dazed and
+stupid for either. Many spat at us and good old <i>Engl&auml;nder Schwein</i>
+came to us from every side. It seemed like meeting an old friend,
+after our few days away from it. The faces of these people were
+different from those we had left at camp but their hearts were the
+same. They lined the streets and jeered at us. But we were too tired
+and hungry to care.</p>
+
+<p>And that ended that trip to Holland.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4 class="sc">Paying the Piper</h4>
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="noin">Sheer Starvation&mdash;Slipping It Over the Sentry&mdash;The Court
+Martial&mdash;Thirty Days Cells&mdash;No Place for a Gourmand&mdash;In
+Napoleon's Footsteps&mdash;Parniewinkel Camp&mdash;"Like Father, Like
+Son"&mdash;The Last Kind German&mdash;Running Amuck&mdash;The Torture of the
+Russians&mdash;The Continental Times&mdash;"K. of K. Is Gone!"</p></div>
+<br />
+
+<p>Upon arrival at camp, we were put in cells for eleven days while
+awaiting our court-martial.</p>
+
+<p>During that period we suffered terribly from sheer starvation. The
+daily rations consisted of a poor soup and a small quantity of black
+bread. Hungry though I was, there was only one way by which I could
+eat it&mdash;hold my breath and swallow. I am aware that the Germans
+consider this food quite palatable but that may be because they are
+accustomed to it. It was to us the resort of starving men. The cells
+were quite dark&mdash;four-by-eight-foot wooden boxes. The confinement and
+short <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>rations on top of our arduous journey, during which we had had
+nothing but the two biscuits a day, caused us to grow weaker daily.</p>
+
+<p>Our friends, however, contrived occasionally to get portions of their
+food to us. They maintained a sentry of their own, whose duty it was
+to watch for and report our trips to the latrine. It was unsafe for us
+to ask for this permission more than once a day with the same guard.
+As the latter was frequently changed, however, we were enabled to work
+the scheme to the limit.</p>
+
+<p>At the worst, this let us out of our cells for a few minutes; and, if
+we were lucky, enabled us to get a handful of broken food. Seeing us
+come out, the prisoner on watch would stroll into the hut and pass the
+word. Shortly, another would come out to us and in passing frequently
+manage to slip us something. On one long-to-be-remembered occasion, a
+man of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, managed to "square"
+the guard, a pleasant-faced young German, in some manner we could
+never fathom, so that the latter actually brought to us two spoons and
+a wash basin full of boiled barley, which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>we ate in the latrine. That
+was the most humane act experienced from German hands during my
+fifteen months' sojourn in Germany.</p>
+
+<p>On the eleventh day we were marched out to what would be the Germans'
+orderly room. A Canadian who had picked up a smattering of German
+acted as interpreter. He did what he could for us, which was little
+enough.</p>
+
+<p>Asked why we had tried to escape, we feared to tell the truth, that we
+had been forced to it by ill-treatment; so merely stated that we were
+tired of Germany and wanted to go home. The presiding officer said:
+"Well, you fellows have been a lot of trouble to us. I've been told to
+tell you that if you give us any more; we'll have a little shooting
+bee." We were sentenced to thirty days' dark cells. That was our
+court-martial.</p>
+
+<p>One lucky thing happened to us here: When they took our map away it
+fell in two, as a result of having been folded in our pockets. The
+officer crumpled one piece up, made a handful of it and tossed it
+away, at the same time shoving the other half at me, which I eagerly
+clutched. That piece showed the portion of Germany adjoining the
+Holland border.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>Our thirty days' dark cells were spent in the military prison at
+Oldenburg. As before, they were four-by-eight feet in size, but with a
+high ceiling which gave me room to stand on my hands for exercise.
+Each of us was confined alone. The walls and floor of the cells were
+of stone; the shutters, of steel which were always closed. There was
+no furniture other than the three boards which served as the mockery
+of a bed and which were chained up to the wall every morning. A small
+shelf which held the water pitcher was the only other furnishing. No
+ray of light was permitted to enter the place. The month was February
+but there were no blankets, and the place was unheated. The rations
+consisted of half a pound of black bread and a pitcher of water, which
+were thrust in to us every morning, so that except for the guard who
+unchained the boards at night we had no visitation in the twenty-four
+long, long hours.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot remember that I brooded much. Rather, I let my mind run out
+as a tired sleeper might, which was no doubt fortunate for me. My
+family were greatly in my thoughts. I wondered how my wife was making
+out and if she was receiving her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>separation allowance all right, for
+I had heard of many cases where the reverse had happened; and whether
+the boys were well and going to school. I hoped that all was well with
+them and that they did not worry too much over my lot.</p>
+
+<p>As I was not permitted either to send or receive letters during the
+period of my trial and incarceration, my wife was in fact in great
+distress of mind about me as she received no word for many weeks and
+imagined the worst. And when at last I could write it was only to say
+that although I had been well I had been unable to write, leaving her
+to draw her own conclusions.</p>
+
+<p>The cell door opened promptly at five o'clock every morning. We were
+allowed ten minutes in which to clean our cell, go to the lavatory and
+wash up, all under guard. These were the only occasions during which
+we had an opportunity of seeing one another or the other prisoners.
+These rites were all performed in silence, and communication of any
+description was forbidden and so keenly watched for as to be
+impossible. However, Simmons and I got what small comfort we could out
+of seeing one another frequently, and by this time there had grown <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>up
+between us such a mutual respect as to make us value this highly. The
+other prisoners included Germans as well as our allies and there were
+some civilian German prisoners. The German soldier prisoners were
+mostly in for committing the various crimes of soldiering which in the
+British Army would have put them under the general head of defaulters.
+That classification, however, had been done away with in the German
+Army. The slightest infringement of discipline was punished with
+cells. Noncommissioned officers received the same punishment as the
+men, without, however, losing their rank, as would have been the case
+in our army.</p>
+
+<p>Upon finishing the ten minutes allotted to us we were forced to
+re-enter our cells and stand against the wall, at the back, so that we
+could neither see nor communicate with one another until the guard got
+around a few minutes later and looked in to see that all was as it
+should be before slamming the door.</p>
+
+<p>There was no use in trying to stretch the ration out for two meals. I
+tried to and gave it up. And after that I ate the bread, filled up on
+water and sat down on the cold stone floor for another twenty-four
+hours of waiting.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>My thoughts dwelt greatly on food. We were supposed to receive soup
+every fourth day, but we did not. The prisoners of other nationalities
+did, and in addition were exercised regularly. At least we could hear
+the rattle of their spoons against their bowls and the tramp of their
+feet. The slow starving was, to my mind, the worst. And after that the
+loss of sleep. If one did drop off, the cold soon caused a miserable
+awakening. I tried not to think, and did all the gymnastic drill I
+knew, even to standing on my hands in the darkness of the cell. I knew
+that if I gave up it would be all off, for I could daily feel myself
+getting wabbly as the confinement and starvation, added to my already
+enfeebled and starved condition when I entered, began to tell on me.
+It must be borne in mind that I had already served eleven days'
+solitary confinement on insufficient food, after several days of jail
+on ditto, and eight days while escaping, during which I had been
+continually wet and without food, other than the two biscuits daily,
+before beginning to serve this sentence. Simmons, of course, was in
+the same plight.</p>
+
+<p>The last day, that of February 22nd, rolled around finally. We were
+taken from our cells at nine <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>o'clock and marched out for an unknown
+destination which we knew only as a stronger punishment camp than the
+others we had been in. Ahead of us we saw poor Brumley; but were
+unable to communicate with him, and I do not know whether he saw us or
+not. That was all we ever learned directly of his fate. His wife, in
+Toronto, has since informed me that he is still in Germany and has
+only lately been recaptured after another attempt at escape.</p>
+
+<p>At eleven that night we arrived at our destination. This was the
+strong punishment camp of Parniewinkel, in Hanover, on the road over
+which Napoleon had marched to his doom at Moscow. We wondered if we,
+too, were going to ours.</p>
+
+<p>We had had no food that day, nor did we get any that night, but were
+shoved into a hut full of Russians, who did not know what to make of
+us. We were so long of hair and beard, so ragged, so emaciated and so
+altogether filthy that they must have thought us anything but British
+soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>Later we found that there were, in all, between four and five hundred
+Russian, eighty French and Belgian, and, including ourselves, eleven
+British prisoners, of whom Simmons and I were the only <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>Canadians, all
+shoved into two huts in the middle of the usual barbed-wire laager.</p>
+
+<p>As Giessen was the best camp, so this one was the worst of all those
+we were to know. It was not so wet as the swamp at Vehnmoor, but the
+drinking water was even worse than the brackish, peat-laden water
+there. The general sanitary arrangements were terrible and the food
+was worse than at Giessen, the camp in which that lack had been the
+worst feature among many bad ones. And on top of it all the treatment
+was very bad, much worse than any we had previously known.</p>
+
+<p>A soup, made from a handful of pickled fish roe and a few potatoes,
+was a stock dish, and terrible to taste. On one night a week we
+received a raw herring fresh from the brine barrel, which we were
+supposed to eat raw and uncleaned, but could not. On one day in seven
+there was a weak cabbage soup and of course, a small daily ration of
+potato-and-rye bread. Fortunately, our parcels were beginning to
+arrive by this time, so that, in fact, we fared better than at any of
+the better camps, in the matter of food. With the Russians it was
+different, and we used to give our soup to them in exchange for their
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>share of boiling water, which we used in conjunction with the contents
+of our parcels and which they had no use for anyway, especially for
+washing purposes.</p>
+
+<p>It was difficult to get an opportunity to boil water for the making of
+tea or cocoa, even when parcels furnished the essentials, as there
+were so many men and so few stoves that it was a constant struggle to
+get near the latter.</p>
+
+<p>However, as we had refused to work, we did not require very much food.
+We used also to give our black bread to the Russians, for which they
+insisted on doing our washing, though it was little enough of that
+they did for themselves. They were very good and simple men.</p>
+
+<p>Ours was a good bunch of fellows and gave freely to one another and to
+the unfortunate Russians, who rarely received parcels. There was no
+selling or trading on misfortune here, as in some of the other camps
+we had been in. The Germans themselves were short of necessities here.
+They hated to come to the <i>Engl&auml;nders</i> to buy, so used to send the
+Russians to beg for soap which they would not use in any event, and in
+this case simply sold to the guards. Discovering this, we shut down on
+indiscriminate <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>giving. Soap or any other fatty substance was by that
+time very scarce in Germany, amongst the lower classes at least. I was
+the only "non-com" in our lot, and so put up the stripes I had taken
+down to avoid giving <i>Augen Rechts</i> at Vehnmoor. I used that authority
+now to persuade my fellow Britishers to give to the unfortunate
+Russians rather than to the French, who, like ourselves, were
+receiving parcels.</p>
+
+<p>A boy of five years or thereabouts used to come regularly to the wire,
+upon which he would climb and hang like some foul spider on its web.
+Grasping it in both small hands and kicking vainly at it and us, he
+would scream: "Engl&auml;nder Schwein," and I know not what other names,
+spitting venom like a little wildcat. This was not the riffraff of the
+camp. The boy was the son of the camp Commandant, and the apple of his
+father's eye and the thing was often done under that eye and amid the
+vicious applause of the young father and his terrible crew.</p>
+
+<p>The Commandant was a young chap, a lieutenant. What he lacked in years
+he made up in hate. He was known as an England hater. We were poison
+to him. The latrine, a mere shallow pit, was just outside the door of
+our hut and the Commandant <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>saw to it that the latrine fatigue was
+always wished off on to the British. We were made to bail it out daily
+with buckets, which we then carried to the surrounding fields, on
+which we spread the contents while the Commandant and guards laughed.
+The <i>unteroffizier</i> in immediate charge of us, if left alone would not
+make us do this. He was the last kind German I remember, and I have
+mentioned all whom I can recall as having performed the slightest act
+of kindness to us, even of the most negative quality. He used to say
+that it was a pity to treat us so; that such a job was good enough for
+the Russians, who were no soldiers, anyhow, and who smelled bad and
+would not wash; but for us who were soldiers it was a great shame.</p>
+
+<p>The vermin were so bad here that we chanced further trouble by writing
+on post cards as though to friends in England, and complained. We knew
+that they would be intercepted and go to the Commandant. They did. We
+were marched to Cellelaager to go through the fumigating machine. We
+went into a large hut, stripped, tied our clothes in a bundle and
+shoved them into the large oven to bake for five hours while we sat
+round with nothing on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>but a smile. In the interval we were made to
+run the clippers closely over our heads and bodies. There were sores
+on some of the Russians as big as a hand, eaten deep into by the
+vermin and the bones threatened to break through the skin of some as
+we sat about naked, shivering. Uncleanly at best and denied soap here,
+the lower class of them neglected all the rules of cleanliness. Their
+"non-coms" were the reverse, being almost without exception men of
+some education and general attainments.</p>
+
+<p>Upon our return to this camp we were told by a friendly Russian in the
+orderly room that the post cards were being held there as evidence
+against us. We begged him to give them to us. He did so, and we had
+barely finished destroying them when a German officer, accompanied by
+a file of men, entered and demanded them. We explained that they had
+been destroyed. He would not believe us. We pointed to the charred
+ashes. He searched our bodies, our beds and the scanty furnishing of
+the hut, naturally without avail. The Russian orderly was severely
+admonished and our fire was cut off as punishment.</p>
+
+<p>The treatment at this camp was uniformly bad. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>The next morning the
+<i>Raus</i> blew at four-thirty instead of five, as was customary. While we
+were still engaged in dressing the guards rushed in, some with fixed
+bayonets, others with them gripped short, as with daggers. The leader
+wore a button, the insignia of non-commissioned rank. He gave a
+berserker roar of rage and charged furiously at an inoffensive Russian
+and stabbed the poor fellow in the neck; while his victim lay back in
+pleading terror, with outstretched arms. And then, still roaring, he
+slashed a Frenchman who was walking past, on the back of the head.
+Going down the hut, he espied Harckum, of the East Lancashire
+Regiment, tying his shoes. Without warning he plunged at him, and,
+striking, laid open the entire side of the man's face, splitting the
+ear so that it hung in two pieces. This was all quite in order because
+we were slow in dressing.</p>
+
+<p>The Russians, with the exception of a lucky few who received some from
+a Russian society in England, got no parcels, and suffered
+accordingly. They were more amenable to discipline than we were, and
+perhaps because of their hunger used to go out daily to work on the
+moors from daylight until dark. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>They were a cheerful lot, considering
+everything, little given to thinking of their situation and not
+blessed by any great love of country nor perhaps the pleasantest
+recollections of it; and to that extent at least appeared to be
+comparatively satisfied, even under ill treatment. Ill fed as they
+were, they used frequently to fall out at their work from sheer
+exhaustion, which the Germans said was only laziness and malingering
+and for which they would be returned to a point near the laager, where
+we were, for their punishment. By the Commandant's orders this
+consisted of forcing them to run the gauntlet of two lines of soldiers
+who jabbed them with bayonets if they fell into a walk&mdash;until the
+victims could run no more and dropped in their tracks. The Germans
+would then roll their eyelids back for signs of shamming, and if any
+such indications were shown, they were jabbed again&mdash;and usually were,
+anyhow&mdash;until their failure to respond proved that they were really
+unconscious.</p>
+
+<p>This happened with alarming frequency on a regular schedule, forenoon
+and afternoon, to all Russians who refused to work. On one occasion we
+saw six or eight of them laid out unconscious at one time <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>in this
+manner. We wished to do something for them, but were refused
+permission, and one man who was thought to be a ring leader was
+selected to make an example of; he was awarded seven days' cells.</p>
+
+<p>We had previously agreed that if we were awarded this punishment; we
+should refuse to run the gauntlet and should let them do their worst.
+There was no more heard of all this, but after that the Russians were
+punished on the other side of a belt of trees just outside the laager,
+where we could not see them, though their piteous cries could plainly
+be distinguished.</p>
+
+<p>Three of the Russians broke away from this camp, and finding
+themselves near the stores, crawled in the window and stole a half of
+a pig. They were recaptured, and, after doing thirty days' cells, were
+forced to work out the price of the pig at the rate of thirty
+pfennigs&mdash;or six cents&mdash;a day, which ordinarily would have been
+credited to them for the buying of necessities. And pork came high in
+Germany.</p>
+
+<p>There was one kind of pill for all ailments. That however, may have
+been only stupidity. At least <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>the practice is not confined to the
+prison camps nor the army of Germany, as all British soldiers know.
+But even these were not for the British.</p>
+
+<p>On another occasion a party of Russians arrived from another camp
+twelve miles away.</p>
+
+<p>They said that some Englishmen there who had refused to work had been
+shot at until all were wounded in the legs.</p>
+
+<p>We continued to receive our old friend, the <i>Continental Times</i>, here,
+and through it first learned of the Skager-Rack or Jutland battle, in
+which, the paper claimed, over thirty major British ships had been
+sunk, in addition to a larger number of smaller ones. The <i>Times</i> said
+it was a great victory for the Germans. The last we doubted and the
+first we knew to be untrue, since some of the ships they claimed to
+have sunk had been destroyed previous to our capture, nine months
+before. It was in the <i>Times</i>, too, that we first heard of Kitchener's
+end. We could not believe it, and for a month laughed at the guard's
+insistence on the story, until one day a post card arrived from
+England, saying: "K. of K. is gone." That was a terrible blow to us,
+for to the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>British soldier; Kitchener was the tangible expression of
+the might of his Empire.</p>
+
+<p>Some of our party of eleven British had been prisoners since Mons and
+they were in a very bad way. The poor food, the lack of the
+fundamental necessities of the human frame, the terrible monotony of
+the continual barbed wire, the same faces round them, mostly
+unfriendly, all combined to have a most depressing effect, not only
+upon their bodies, but upon their minds. Many of them will never be of
+any use again. Compared to Ladysmith, when that place was besieged in
+the South African War, the latter, terrible though it was, was far and
+away better than this, even if we did live on horse meat at the last
+in Ladysmith.</p>
+
+<p>There was a certain amount of vice here, induced by the life. A kilted
+Highlander was accused of having fathered a child in a German family,
+where he had been employed. We did not learn the facts of the case;
+but such, at least, was camp gossip and it served to detract
+materially from the habitual despondency of our lot.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XVI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4 class="sc">The Third Escape</h4>
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="noin">Saving Up for the Day&mdash;A Special Brand&mdash;Watchful Waiting&mdash;Off
+Again&mdash;Why the Man in the Moon Laughed&mdash;A German Idyll&mdash;The
+Narrow Escapes.</p></div>
+<br />
+
+<p>Simmons and I had been planning on another escape ever since our
+recapture. So we kept on our good behaviour, while we saved up food
+for <i>Der Tag</i>. We had hitherto refused to work, as had the remaining
+Britishers, but in order to keep ourselves fit; we finally volunteered
+to carry the noon ration of soup out to the Russians who worked on the
+moor. Our job consisted of carrying an immense can of soup, swung high
+on a pole from our shoulders, out to the workers, under guard of
+course. Starting at eleven each day and, by permission of the guard,
+occasionally resting, we were usually back by one o'clock. Each day we
+saved a portion of our food. We wanted twenty days' rations each,
+estimating that it would take us that long to walk to Holland. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>We
+specialised on concentrated foods from our parcels&mdash;biscuits, tinned
+meats, and so on. We had our cache in a hole, dug under cover of
+night, under the flooring of the hut. It was unsafe to keep food on
+our bodies or near our beds, as the guards were in the habit of
+calling the <i>Raus</i> at all hours, and sometimes, several times during
+the night. It might be at twelve, two or four, although it was never
+alike on any two nights in succession, except that they always
+searched us. We could see no reason for this; other than to break our
+rest and perhaps our spirits, as at Giessen Camp. Certainly, no one
+would carry any forbidden thing on his person, under such
+surveillance, and they well knew we could hide anything we wished in
+other places; as we did.</p>
+
+<p>Each Saturday morning, Simmons and I paraded for paint. We stood,
+while a big Russian, with a brush and bucket, painted large red and
+green circles on our breasts, backs and knees. Thin stripes were also
+painted down the seams of our trousers and sleeves and around the
+stiff crowns of our caps. This was to mark us as dangerous characters.
+As such we received more of the unwelcome <i>Raus</i> attentions <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>than the
+others and were the more wary in consequence.</p>
+
+<p>We were busy opening our mail on one of those rare occasions, when
+Simmons gave a startled exclamation. I looked up and saw him gazing
+curiously at a small cheese which he turned slowly around in his hand.
+As I stepped to his side, a guard came in. He hastily shoved the cause
+of the strange behaviour into his pocket. When the guard had gone; he
+passed me a letter to read. It was from his brother in Canada. "I
+received your letter all right and am sending you a special brand of
+cheese," I read&mdash;and understood.</p>
+
+<p>We waited on tiptoe until night, to open the cheese. It was one of the
+cream cheeses, so popular in Canada, no bigger than my closed hand. We
+gingerly unwrapped the tin foil and broke it open. To our great joy,
+in the hollow heart of it there was tucked away the tiny compass
+Simmons had written for from Vehnmoor just before our second escape.
+With it were four American quarters.</p>
+
+<p>Not anticipating this good luck, we had exercised our ingenuity to
+construct a rude compass of our own out of a safety-razor blade and an
+eyelet from my <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>boot. It was within fifteen to twenty degrees of the
+true north. In addition we had a safety lamp, which one of the guards
+had long been looking for under the impression that he had lost it.</p>
+
+<p>We now had our twenty days' rations saved up and so took turns sitting
+up at night, awaiting our chance. We spent two months in this watchful
+waiting, watching the wire and the sentries. But no opportunity
+offered. We took turn about, one man on watch all night long, every
+night. He could not seem to watch but must lie in his place, observing
+all movement in the hut and listening carefully for any indicative
+noises outside. Occasionally, he might step outside and ostentatiously
+walk about as though sleepless, and, if spoken to, say that he was not
+well.</p>
+
+<p>But always there were the shining eyes of the watching dogs, growling,
+if one came too near, and outside the stodgy sentries; and above all,
+much light.</p>
+
+<p>So we determined to volunteer for work, figuring that they were so
+short of men that they would not lightly refuse us. It so happened
+that ten men were asked for that Saturday to hoe turnips on a near-by
+farm. The pay was thirty pfennigs&mdash;or six <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>cents&mdash;a day. We
+volunteered and were accepted without cavil. They thought our spirit
+gone and that we had accepted the inevitable. We reasoned that if we
+worked hard while we studied the lie of the land we might be asked for
+again, could go prepared, and make a break for it.</p>
+
+<p>And so it fell out. We worked hard all that day, at the same time
+impressing the topography of the country upon our minds. At the close
+of the day we were taken to the farm for our supper of potatoes and
+buttermilk and then marched off to the laager, four miles distant. On
+the following Monday we were ordered to go out to the same place.
+Unfortunately we could not take our store of food as its bulk would
+have meant our detection. In addition to the equipment already
+mentioned I carried two packages of tobacco, a shaving brush and a box
+of matches. Simmons had a terrible razor which would not shave, four
+boxes of matches and a small piece of soap. These were all our worldly
+possessions. It will be seen that, true to our British tradition, the
+shaving outfit constituted the most formidable part of our
+impedimenta.</p>
+
+<p>We worked all day. And so did the rain. We <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>knocked off for supper at
+eight o'clock. The three guards escorted us to the farmhouse, but
+after locking the front door, went into an adjoining room with the
+farmer for their own meal. The back door was forgotten. We were
+famished, so fell to on the supper of buttermilk and potatoes. I
+finished first and strolled lazily over to the door. Besides Simmons,
+there were seven Frenchmen and an Englishman, all of whom were still
+at table and none of them aware of our plans. I carelessly opened the
+door and stood on the sill a moment. Still pouring. "Come here,
+Simmons, and see this. We're going to get wet before we get back."
+Simmons shoved his chair back and joined me. We both stepped outside
+and gently shut the door.</p>
+
+<p>Once more we were on our way! We found ourselves at the edge of the
+village in which the farmers hereabouts had their homes. We worked our
+way carefully round the outskirts and made for a bit of a wood a mile
+and a half away. We were only half way to our objective when the
+village bells began to ring. Once more the hue and cry was on!</p>
+
+<p>When the deep baying of the dogs joined in we said "Ataboy!" cast
+aside all concealment and began <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>to run for it. We reached the wood
+safely enough, but it turned out to be only a thin fringe of trees,
+offering no concealment whatever. We dashed through them. On the other
+side a village opened up. Back to the wedge of wood we went. A
+good-sized ditch with a foot or so of water in it ran along the edge
+of the wood. Its sides were covered with heather, which drooped far
+down into the water. We flung ourselves into it, after first shoving
+the tin box containing our precious matches into the heather above.
+Pitch darkness would not come until ten o'clock. During the
+intervening two hours we lay on our backs in the water with only the
+smallest possible portion of our faces projecting. Once the guard
+jumped over the ditch less than four yards away. We suffered
+intensely, for, although it was late August, the water was very cold.</p>
+
+<p>When things had become quiet and daylight had passed we withdrew
+ourselves from the muck, and after rubbing our numbed bodies to
+restore the circulation, struck out across the country, intent on
+shoving as much distance as possible between ourselves and the camp
+before another day rolled round. We knew that the alarm would be out
+and the whole <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>country roused, with every man's hand against us. We
+were getting used to that. I, for one, had determined not to be taken
+alive this time. But I certainly did not want to be put to the test.
+So we plowed our way through oat and rye fields and over and through
+ditches&mdash;many of them. Once we stripped our soggy clothes off to swim
+a river that faced us. In no place did the water come above our knees;
+but what it lacked in depth, it made up for in coldness. We saw none
+of the humour in that, so we cursed it and stumbled on, two very tired
+men. We pulled handfuls of oats and chewed dryly on them as we plunged
+up to our waists through the crops. We reckoned that we had made
+thirty miles by morning and apparently had outdistanced our pursuers.</p>
+
+<p>One night early in our pilgrimage, we espied some cows in a field.
+Simmons had been a farmer in Canada and so was our agricultural and
+stock authority here. He plunged through the hedge to see if he could
+not capture a hat full of milk whilst I stood guard outside. I stepped
+into the shadow of some trees, and occasionally I could hear a
+guarded <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>"Soo&mdash;Cow!" footsteps&mdash;and then as like as not, a muffled
+curse. I smiled.</p>
+
+<p>Two figures came hurriedly down the road. I pressed back against the
+hole of the tree, holding my breath. It was fairly light on the road
+and to my amazement I saw two men who wore French uniforms. Also they
+had heavy packs on their back. That last meant but one thing&mdash;food.</p>
+
+<p>I rose to my feet: "Kamerad!"</p>
+
+<p>One of them stopped short. The other pressed on. He muttered something
+under his breath and the other broke into a trot to catch up.</p>
+
+<p>I edged along, trying desperately to be friendly. That made them the
+more timid. They would have none of me. No further word was exchanged
+just then except for a repetition of my "Kamerad."</p>
+
+<p>I whistled softly to Simmons. That alarmed them the more. They
+lengthened their stride. So did I mine.</p>
+
+<p>One said something I could not catch. They half halted and made a
+brave attempt to pose as Germans, to judge by their guttural talk and
+brassy front.</p>
+
+<p>I could not explain, although I tried in the half <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>light to show my
+friendliness, and Simmons, now a few rods away, did likewise. I
+endeavoured to address them in French&mdash;and could not. I tried German.
+That was worse and the final result&mdash;chaos.</p>
+
+<p>All I could think of was "Kamerad." I kept on like a parrot, foolishly
+repeating it.</p>
+
+<p>All this took but a moment and then they were gone and we after them.</p>
+
+<p>So there were they, walking hurriedly, fearful of us for Germans no
+doubt and casting uneasy glances back. I followed slowly, at a loss to
+know what to do, my eyes glued on the inviting squareness of their
+heavy packs. Simmons jogged behind, endeavouring to catch up. The moon
+laughed at all four of us.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on," I said. "They're Frenchmen. We'll follow them. They have
+two packs on their backs! Grub! And maybe we can bum them for a bit."</p>
+
+<p>Simmons needed no second invitation but set out as eagerly as I in
+cautious pursuit; so fearful were we of alarming our quarry. Our eyes
+were glued on their packs.</p>
+
+<p>Just then the road opened up into a broad <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>expanse of heather. And
+there we lost them. We beat about in the heather for a long time, and
+called loudly, but without avail. They were no doubt lying down,
+hiding.</p>
+
+<p>We found some potatoes in a field that night, dug them up with our
+bare hands and ate them raw. We were very sad when we thought of those
+packs.</p>
+
+<p>It was, I remember, on the day following that we saw some of the
+lighter side of German life. The woods thereabouts were cut up into
+big blocks, as city streets are. We were laying to in one of them,
+thankful for the thickness of our shelter when we heard laughing
+voices and then a gust of laughter as a flying group of girls and boys
+romped past. They played about for half an hour, causing us great
+alarm by their youthful fondness for sudden excursions into unlikely
+spots, after nothing in particular. The oldest of the group, a sizable
+boy of seventeen or thereabouts and a pretty girl of near that age,
+hung back long after the younger children had passed on. We had little
+to fear from them. They were quite evidently engrossed in one another.
+He argued earnestly, while she listened with a half-smile. Once, he
+made as if to take her hand but she <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>drew back and stiffened. He
+ignored the rebuff. A moment afterward he said something that pleased
+her so well that the last we saw of them his arm was about her waist
+as they went down the path together.</p>
+
+<p>Parniewinkel lay forty to fifty miles northeast of Bremen, which in
+turn was one hundred and fifty miles from the Holland border. We
+reckoned on having to walk double that in covering the stretch, and
+figured on twenty-one days for the trip.</p>
+
+<p>My diary for that day, August 22, 1916, reads: "Still raining. Soaked
+and cold. Breakfast, dinner and supper: turnips and oats." The night
+was a repetition of the preceding one, and made worse by the number of
+small swamps we had to struggle through. The next day's diary reads:
+"Rain stopped and not so cold. Fair cover; still soaked but
+confident."</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep170" id="imagep170"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep170.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep170.jpg" width="45%" alt="SALIENT DETAILS OF THE THIRD ESCAPE." /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 80%; margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 25%;">SALIENT DETAILS OF THE THIRD
+ESCAPE.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>We had our first narrow escape that day. We were lying in the corner
+of a hedge. It was so misty as to give almost the effect of night, but
+so long past day as to make travelling unduly dangerous. When the mist
+lifted we found ourselves within fifty yards of a thickly populated
+village with just <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>a narrow strip of field between. We could hear
+all the early morning bustle of any village, the world over. This was
+about three o'clock. An old man followed by a dog made straight for
+us. I had just come off the watch, which we took turn about. Simmons
+whistled cautiously to me, the very sound a warning to be quiet.</p>
+
+<p>I looked up. The old man wandered along the hedge and stood over him
+for several minutes.</p>
+
+<p>It was very trying but he lay motionless, for fear of the dog. A blow
+would have sufficed for the old man. The latter remained so for a
+couple of minutes, standing over him, busy.</p>
+
+<p>The meals for that day were peas and oats. It was a slow way of making
+a meal. We liked the oats the best and pulled some whenever we came to
+them, if our pockets were not already full, so that they should always
+be so. We ate them as we went, from the cupped hand, spilling some and
+spitting out the husks of the others which sometimes stuck in our
+throats, making them very raw.</p>
+
+<p>For August twenty-fourth the diary reads: "Very hard night. Crossed
+about five kilometres of swamps and numerous canals. Bad accident.
+Clothes went <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>to the bottom, but recovered. We are soaked, as usual,
+and only made about eleven kilometres. Are outside town of Bremen.
+Cover very poor. Meals for the day: Nix. Still confident." The cover
+ranked before the food as an item of interest to us. Knowing the
+general direction of Bremen from the camp, and that it was much the
+largest town in the vicinity, we experienced no difficulty in locating
+it by the reflection of its lights against the sky.</p>
+
+<p>"August twenty-fifth: More rain and cold. Hiding on the bank of the
+Weser. Better going last night. Going to look for boat to-night. River
+two hundred yards broad. Socks played out. Made pair out of a shirt.
+Met a cow. Meals for day: turnips, carrots and milk."</p>
+
+<p>"August 26th: More rain. Found boat and crossed river. Hedges grown so
+close and so many of them, we have to go around them. Takes a lot of
+time. Otherwise going good. Meals for the day: turnip, peas and oats.
+Met another cow. Frisked her. Cover none too good. Trying to dry our
+clothes in sun. More confident." We always became more confident at
+the slightest semblance of warmth.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>The socks we made out of a shirt which came from the clothes-line of
+some <i>haus-frau</i>. We made "dutch" socks in Western fashion by cutting
+out large diamond shaped pieces of the cloth, which when the foot was
+placed on it, folded up nicely into a sock of a kind.</p>
+
+<p>The cow, or rather, her milk, was the greatest treat of all.</p>
+
+<p>It required some searching before we found a boat. We finally
+discovered a boat house which we broke into and by great good luck
+found inside it a boat which answered our purpose. Our chief concern
+was lest the owners might raise a hue and cry against the theft.
+However, when we reached the further shore we gave the boat a good
+push out into the stream so that if they attempted to follow our trail
+they might find the boat a long ways down stream.</p>
+
+<p>"August twenty-seventh: Rain left off. Trying to dry ourselves in sun.
+Had a hard night keeping clear of town. Good cover in a wood. Meals:
+turnips and another obliging cow. Feet pretty sore. No socks. Still in
+the best otherwise."</p>
+
+<p>The town in question was the second one we passed after leaving
+Bremen. We saw the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>reflection of its lights in the sky and thought
+that we should easily miss it. But suddenly from some high ground we
+found ourselves working directly down on the streets so close below us
+that we could discern people going to and fro. We turned and fled.</p>
+
+<p>Swinging well round to the south we thought at last to clear the town
+easily, instead of which we again came up against it, in the outskirts
+this time. And we repeated that disheartening performance a couple of
+times before we cleared the obstacle and once more swung on our way.</p>
+
+<p>It was such occurrences as this that disheartened us more than
+anything else, even the great hardships. To labor and travail, to do
+the seemingly impossible, night after night and then in the snap of a
+finger to find all our pains, all our agony gone for nothing, reacted
+on us terribly at times.</p>
+
+<p>On the following morning we met with our second narrow escape, under
+much the same circumstances as the first. We had crawled into a hedge
+toward the heel of the night, and rather earlier than usual on account
+of a thick mist which prevented us from holding to our course. When it
+lifted we made out the slope of a house roof shoving itself out of
+the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>grey fog directly in front of us. Our hedge divided two fields,
+in both of which labourers were already cutting the crops. In this
+hedge, on each side of us, were gateways so close together that when,
+as occasionally happened, people passed through one, we were forced to
+crawl up to the other to avoid detection. We had done so again when,
+without warning, a drover came plodding up behind his sheep. We had no
+time in which to go back up the hedge. The sheep crowded from the rear
+and overflowed at the narrow gateway into the hedge where we lay and
+so ran over our bodies. We remained quiet, thinking he would pass on;
+but what with the frightened actions of his sheep and the yelping of
+the dog his attention was inevitably attracted to the spot where we
+lay. He came over, looked down at us, but said nothing and stalked on.
+We were uncertain as to whether he had seen us or not. Numerous
+incidents of a similar nature had made us overconfident. We had
+previously escaped detection in some very tight corners by simply
+lying quiet. Casual travelers had all but walked on us upon several
+occasions, and at night we ourselves passed many people and thought
+nothing of it.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>A moment later the shepherd walked off directly toward the labourers,
+glancing back over his shoulder at us as he did so. We struck out at
+once, before the crowd could gather. We had, at the beginning of this,
+our third escape, agreed not to be taken alive to go through a
+repetition of the torture of mind and body which we had already
+undergone, and, perhaps for this time, worse. And it was understood
+that if one played out the other should carry on. Each of us had a
+stout club and could have made a tidy fight.</p>
+
+<p>Concealment was useless and, furthermore, impossible. We passed close
+by a group of the harvesters and headed for a wood that lay on the
+other side of them. They could not mistake either the vermilion
+circles on our khaki tunics, faded though they were, nor our wild and
+dilapidated appearance, which was not made more reassuring by the
+clubs we carried. Glancing back, we saw them gathering hurriedly in
+little knots.</p>
+
+<p>We reached the wood, flung ourselves down and watched them until dark,
+during which time they made no attempt to follow us. Nor did we see
+any <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>sign of other pursuers, though we kept on the <i>qui vive</i> all
+night, as we trudged through the interminable fields, forcing our way
+through tight hedges and plunging waist deep into the water of small
+canals.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XVII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4 class="sc">What Happened in the Wood</h4>
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="noin">Weather Bad but Hopes High&mdash;Primitive Dressmaking&mdash;The Woman at
+the Farm&mdash;The Zeppelin&mdash;The Fight in the Wood.</p></div>
+<br />
+
+<p>The only roads we habitually used were side ones, and especially did
+we avoid any with telegraph wires which might be used against us. It
+was a flat and swampy country, full of mist, and the nights were few
+in which it did not rain. And we were always very wet and very cold.
+The latter was worse than the lack of food. Sometimes we struggled for
+hours at a time, knee-deep in desolate stretches of mist-covered
+morasses which gave no promise of firm footing but which often dropped
+us in to the waist instead. In addition, the country was cut up by
+numerous small ditches, six to eight feet wide, which along toward
+morning presented so much of an effort in the jumping that we usually
+plunged into the water by preference. Our feet were adding <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>to our
+misery by this time. On one occasion, as we dragged ourselves out of
+the water, two dogs came rushing at us and then followed, yelping. It
+was nearly daylight and a woman came down to see what was going on. We
+remained motionless near a hedge. She failed to see us, which was
+perhaps good luck for both her and us.</p>
+
+<p>The diary for that period reads: "August 28th: Rain worse than ever.
+Not a piece of our clothes dry and too much water to lie down. Good
+going last night. Cover in a wood outside village. Good. Meals: Nix.
+Ought to reach the Hustre river to-night. In good spirits."</p>
+
+<p>"August 29th: Rain stopped and a bit of sun came out. Feeling much
+more cheerful. Just had a shave and clean-up. Going last night very
+bad. Swamps and canals. Had to leave our course. Feet feeling better.
+Meals for the day: turnips, peas and green apples. Did not reach the
+river. All's well. No complaints." That shave was a terrible torture.</p>
+
+<p>"August thirtieth: Rain, thunder and lightning most of last night. Got
+a bit of shelter in a cowshed in a field. We are wet and cold as
+usual, with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>no sun to dry. Fair cover in a small wood. Going good
+last night. Haven't struck the Hustre yet. Meals: green apples and
+brambles. Feet pretty sore. Made a needle out of wood and did a bit of
+sewing. Best of health."</p>
+
+<p>We had been ploughing through the mist, confused by it and the
+numerous hedges, when at the side of a small field we had run into
+this cowshed, a tumbledown affair of sods, caved in at the sides and
+partly covered by a thatched roof. We built up the side from which the
+wind came the worst, hung a rotting canvas we found at the other end
+and then snuggled up together to exchange warmth.</p>
+
+<p>The mist had scarcely lifted when we heard a slight noise. We looked
+up. A woman was at the entrance to our hovel, looking down full at us.
+She turned and walked away. We rose, still dazed with sleep, and found
+that we were quite close to a farmhouse which owing to the mist we had
+failed to observe before, and from which our visitor had evidently
+observed the result of our building operations. "She saw us," I said,
+and we regretted not having seized her. She appeared to be signalling.</p>
+
+<p>A good-sized wood lay well up ahead. "Come <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>on," I said. "Let's beat
+it. We can handle a few of 'em better than the whole mob." We could
+see the farm labourers gathering in a knot. The rain came on just then
+and perhaps assisted in dampening their ardour. At any rate they did
+not follow us into the wood. We spent rather an uneasy time though,
+when, late that day, some men approached our hiding place in a clump
+of bushes and for half an hour shot their fowling pieces off all
+around where we lay.</p>
+
+<p>They did not seem to be after us; more likely they were hunters. The
+same thing had happened in a lesser degree several times before. None
+the less it was very uncomfortable to have the buckshot rattling all
+around us in the bushes where we lay and we felt much better when they
+had gone.</p>
+
+<p>As for the wooden needle: That was of course the result of our
+necessity. It was a long thorn&mdash;first, a punch in the cloth and like
+as not a stab in the finger in the bargain, then a withdrawal of the
+crude needle and a careful threading of the hole with our coarse
+string, after the fashion of a clumsy shoemaker. Some sewing! Some
+needlewoman!</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>The green apples and the berries which we got here proved a most
+welcome change in our diet.</p>
+
+<p>"August thirty-first: Not much rain but very cold. Too dark to travel
+last night. No stars out to go by. Crossed the river this morning, at
+last. Good cover in bushes. Feet are badly peeled. Hope for better
+luck to-night. Meals: apples and turnips. Cold and rain are putting us
+in bad state. But still confident." We were daily growing weaker and
+prayed only that our strength would last to put us over the border.</p>
+
+<p>"September first: No rain and a little sun. Feeling much better. Going
+last night much the best we have had. Good cover in a thicket. Will
+soon be going over the same country we did last time we escaped.
+Meals: peas and beans. Still in good health."</p>
+
+<p>"September second: No rain, but cold out of the sun. Pretty fair going
+last night. Feet still sore. Cover on straw stack in middle of field.
+Warmer than the woods. Zeppelin just passed overhead going north.
+Meals: turnips, carrots, apples and peas."</p>
+
+<p>"September third: Fine weather. Good going <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>last night. Feet still
+pretty bad. Had to cut my boots. Fine cover in the wood. Meals: baked
+potatoes. Feel fuller." This was our first cooked meal and the
+pleasure it gave us was beyond all words. We lit it under cover of
+night so that by the time day had come there was nothing but glowing
+coals in which the potatoes roasted while we slept.</p>
+
+<p>My feet were badly swollen by this time so that I was faint with the
+pain of them.</p>
+
+<p>The Zeppelin, strange though it was under the circumstances, was only
+a small incident in many others of vaster importance which were
+happening daily to us but it was flying so low that we deemed it best
+not to move until it had passed. We wondered if it were going to
+England, and envied it.</p>
+
+<p>"September fourth: More rain. Hard going half the night. Crossed large
+peat bog and wet to the waist. Very cold. Cover in wood. None too
+good. Got scared out of our first cover. Meals: Milk, apples and peas.
+Feet not so sore. Still raining and cold. We should soon be at the
+River Ems."</p>
+
+<p>On the evening of this day we walked out to the edge of the wood we
+were in and stood there sizing up the near-by village. It was about
+seven o'clock <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>and wanted about an hour to darkness and our usual time
+for hitting the trail. Without any warning, a burly farmer confronted
+us. He was as badly startled as we were. Our remnants of painted
+uniforms and our ragged, soaked and generally filthy condition no
+doubt added to our terrible appearance. We had long since lost our
+caps and our hair was matted like a dog's. The German was armed with a
+double-barreled shotgun, and at his heels a powerful-looking dog
+showed his teeth to us, so that I marked the red of his tongue. If he
+raised the alarm we were done for. We still had our cudgels.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know whose was the offensive. But I do know that the three of
+us came together with one accord in a wild and terrible medley of
+oaths in two languages and of murderous blows that beat like flails at
+the threshing. Simmons and I struggled for the gun which he tried so
+hard to turn on us, the dog meanwhile sinking its teeth deep in our
+unprotected legs and leaping vainly at our throats; while we felt with
+clutching fingers for his master's, intent only that he should not
+shout.</p>
+
+<p>In those mad moments there sped through our brains the reel of that
+whole horrid film of fifteen <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>months' torture of mind and body; the
+pale, blood-covered faces of our murdered comrades of the regiment,
+the cries of the patient Russians behind the trees, and our own slow
+and deadly starvation and planned mistreatment. All these, and God
+only knows what else, should be ours again if we should be recaptured.</p>
+
+<p>We were near to Holland. In fancy and by contrast we saw the fair
+English fields and the rolling beauty that is Ontario's; we heard the
+good English tongue and beheld the dear faces of our own folk. We bore
+that farmer no ill will. And his dog was to the last a very faithful
+animal, as our clothes and limbs bore true witness. We had no ropes.
+And we were two very desperate men, badly put upon.</p>
+
+<p>We dropped his gun in the bushes, together with the body of his dog;
+and passed on. It had not been fired and we had no desire to have the
+charge of carrying firearms added to the others against us if, in
+spite of all, we should be so unfortunate as to be recaptured.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XVIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4 class="sc">The Last Lap</h4>
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="noin">Crossing the River&mdash;The Terrible Swamp&mdash;Valuable Apples&mdash;Safe
+Across the Border&mdash;Real Walking at Last&mdash;Barbarous Barbering.</p></div>
+<br />
+
+<p>"September fifth: Stopped raining and a little warmer. Got our clothes
+dry once more. Cover in a wood outside a small town. Going last night
+good, after we had crossed another peat bog. Meals: milk, baked
+potatoes and apples. Hope to reach the river to-night. Bad feet. Best
+of health otherwise."</p>
+
+<p>"September sixth: No rain and warmer. Heavy dew. Fairly good going.
+Best of cover. Had a fire. Pretty comfortable. Milk, potatoes,
+apples."</p>
+
+<p>"September seventh: Still fine weather. Very poor cover in a hedge.
+Good road to go on. Made pretty good time last night. Feet feeling
+better. Running out of tobacco. Otherwise in the best and still hope
+the same. Meals: potatoes and beets."</p>
+
+<p>We spent a great deal of time discussing ways <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>and means of adding to
+our stock of tobacco. Any smoker knows what it is to want the weed.
+Consider then our half famished, wet and utterly weary condition. It
+was a real necessity to us. We discussed waiting at the roadside until
+a man with a pipe appeared; when we should rob him. We dismissed that
+as too hazardous. It would be necessary to kill him and that seemed a
+bit thick for a pipe of tobacco. So we did the only thing that was
+left to do&mdash;cut down our already scanty rations of tobacco and took
+scrupulous care to smoke to a clean ash every vestige of each heel of
+old pipe, but in spite of that our supply became exhausted.</p>
+
+<p>"September eighth: Lovely weather to-day. Good going last night in
+small swamp. Good cover in a forest on the banks of the Ems. We will
+try to cross to-night. Meals: potatoes and mangels. Our final try for
+liberty. Feel good for it."</p>
+
+<p>We had arrived at the river at two o'clock that morning, too played
+out to attempt the crossing then. We retraced our steps to a potato
+field, dug some of the tubers and, when daylight came, lit a fire and
+roasted them. We were in a dense forest of young trees, so that by
+lighting the fire before the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>mist lifted, the latter hid our smoke.
+We remained unperceived, though we could hear voices and footsteps on
+every side.</p>
+
+<p>"September ninth: Swam the river and two canals. Crossed a large
+swamp. No rain but very cold. Think we are over the border. Very poor
+cover in a hedge. Wet to the skin. Clothes got soaked but in best of
+spirits and confident."</p>
+
+<p>We went down to survey the river shortly before dusk and found it both
+broad and swift. We went back again and tore a gate from its hinges,
+carried it the five hundred yards down to the river and then stripped
+for the crossing. The gate was not big enough to carry us but answered
+for our clothes. Simmons swam ahead, guiding it, while I shoved from
+behind. We made the crossing without mishap but straightway fell into
+one of the worst experiences of the entire trip. We plunged into a
+swamp which took us five hours to get through. There were moments when
+we all but gave up and thought we should never get out. At times we
+sank in it up to our waists, particularly after leaping at the
+numerous tufts of grass which seemed to promise a footing that they
+never realised and which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>sometimes sent us in it to the armpits, so
+that we were sure we were doomed to be sucked down for good in the
+filthy mess.</p>
+
+<p>The fearful odour that our plunging around stirred up, naturally aided
+our nervous imaginings and it was undoubtedly the worst trial we had
+yet met with on the journey. I cannot convey the black despair which
+took possession of our hearts at the seeming hopelessness of all our
+efforts to find firm footing or a break in the landscape which might
+indicate a change in the nature of the country, a light, a voice,
+anything that would help to lift from our hearts the feeling of utter
+isolation from all human assistance and the seeming certainty that a
+few bubbles would be the only indication that we had struggled there.
+The darkness of the night intensified these thoughts. The rain did not
+matter. In fact it helped; for we were covered with the worse than
+water of the morass.</p>
+
+<p>We looked at one another. We dared not speak. Anyhow, to do so was not
+our custom at such times as these. But each knew. A dull anger took
+possession of us at the thought of so inglorious an end after all that
+we had suffered to attain our freedom. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>With a prayer in our hearts we
+cast ourselves forward and somehow, sometime, found at last that we
+were safe and so flung ourselves down in our stinking clothes to lie
+like dogs in a drunken stupour that recked not of time or of our
+enemies.</p>
+
+<p>We discovered an apple orchard here, in which the fruit was ripe. All
+the apples we had had up to date had been of the small and green
+variety. And even they, with the occasional milk, represented our all
+of luxury, so that these seemed indeed the food of the gods. We
+proceeded to fill up and after eating all that we thought we could,
+filled our pockets until they bulged, and started off, each carrying
+an armful of the fruit. At every step we dropped some. We stopped
+again and ate our surplus to make room. We refused to lose any of
+them. We came to a river, stripped, tied our clothes up in a bundle
+and proceeded to swim across, shoving the clothes ahead. I lost
+control of mine and they sank. I dived repeatedly in the darkness
+before I found them. The cargo of apples in the pockets made a bad
+matter worse. I should rather have drowned than have lost my apples.
+The possible loss of the clothes worried us very little. We had
+already <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>decided in that event to waylay some German Michel rather
+than to go naked into Holland. However, by alternately dragging the
+bundle behind and swimming on our backs with it held high on the chest
+with one hand, we made the crossing, apples and all.</p>
+
+<p>We were sitting in the shadow preparing to dress and wondering whether
+we were really over the border and if we could safely walk abroad,
+when we heard men walking toward us. We knew them to be Germans by the
+clank of the hobnailed boots which all our guards had worn. We had not
+a stitch on and our hearts were in our mouths. The patrol of six men
+stopped within five yards of us and then passed on within five feet
+and did not see us. We dressed quickly and went on, only to find a
+canal, for which we had to strip again.</p>
+
+<p>Arriving at the other side; we dressed in the shadow of the bank,
+crawled to the top and plunged through the heather on to a road which
+we had almost crossed, when there came a cry of "Halt!" The patrol
+must have been standing in the trees where we had broken out from the
+heather, and very quietly, too, for we had lain for five minutes to
+make certain that all was safe. Evidently we <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>were on or near the
+border if the number of patrols was any indication. We were not
+certain whether these were Hollanders or Germans. We made one big buck
+jump. "Fire, Gridley, when ready!" I left the entire knee of one
+trouser leg on a clutching thorn. But the patrol did not fire.</p>
+
+<p>And then another canal. "I'm fed up with swimming to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"So am I," agreed Simmons. "There are houses over there. There must be
+a bridge."</p>
+
+<p>We slunk along the bank and to our joy found a small bridge. We dashed
+across it and debouched safely into a tiny village. Here we saw a
+difference, especially in the houses and the roadway. It was in the
+very atmosphere, a result no doubt of instincts made keen by the
+hunted lives we had led. On either side the fields stretched out,
+criss-crossed by a perfect network of small canals and ditches, which
+also served as fences.</p>
+
+<p>We knew we were in Holland.</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep192" id="imagep192"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep192.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep192.jpg" width="50%" alt="Private Merwin C. Simmons" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 80%; margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 25%;">PRIVATE MERWIN C. SIMMONS OF THE 7TH BATTALION,
+1ST DIVISION, CANADIAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>We deemed it unwise to show ourselves as yet, distrusting the
+sympathies of the Hollanders and fearful that they might give us up;
+and continued this policy until the next day. However, we took <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>a
+chance and stuck to the road, a treat, indeed, to feel a firm footing
+after our weeks of travelling across country fields. This enabled us
+to shove thirty miles between us and Germany by morning.</p>
+
+<p>It was not quite daylight when we espied a cow in a field at the
+roadside and gave chase. There was no other food in sight, so when our
+quarry threw up its tail and bounced off; we set out grimly to run our
+breakfast down. It was half an hour later that we corralled it in a
+corner between two broad ditches and were already licking our chops in
+anticipation; when we discovered that our cow was only a big heifer.
+Twenty-four hours earlier it would have been a tragedy. As it was, we
+only laughed. Such is liberty.</p>
+
+<p>At this distance from the border we felt that we were safe from the
+Germans but were very much afraid that we might be interned. So we
+holed up in a farmhouse which had been partly burned down and built a
+roaring fire out of the remains of the charred furniture, placed some
+of the potatoes that were lying about in the fire, made a rough bed
+and went to sleep. Awakening later in the day, we raked the blackened
+potatoes out of the ashes and filled up <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>on them. We were a fearful
+team; absolutely filthy, uncombed, unwashed, unshaven, and with the
+Russian's paint still thick upon us. Afterward we went down to the
+canal and endeavoured to knock the worst of it off. All danger was
+past now. We seemed to walk on air. We were once again British
+soldiers. And so fell to abuse of one another, finding fault and
+grousing; as all good British soldiers do when they are well off. I
+made out to shave Simmons. The terrible razor had never been sharp and
+lately had rusted from its travels. Simmons swore lustily and
+threatened me, ordering me at the same time and in no uncertain terms;
+to desist from the torture.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we want to go into Holland lookin' respectable. What'll they
+think of British soldiers if they see us? Have a heart!" I
+expostulated.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't give a damn! I've had enough for being a Canadian; but I won't
+stand for this." I left him with his beard still on in patches and the
+bare spots bleeding angrily. As I had already committed myself, I had
+to bear in silence his purposely clumsy handling of that hack-saw. It
+was terrible, and Simmons, the scoundrel, laughed like a demon.</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIX<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4 class="sc">Holland at Last</h4>
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="noin">"No Intern"&mdash;Real Bread&mdash;Tipperary&mdash;A Real Time&mdash;The Splendid
+Hollanders&mdash;The Hague.</p></div>
+<br />
+
+<p>The diary summarizes the later events of that day:</p>
+
+<p>"September tenth: Fine weather and in Holland. All our troubles are
+over. We struck a small town called Alboom where the people did
+everything they could for us. Plenty of food. Slept in a house!"</p>
+
+<p>A man smoking a big pipe and wearing baggy breeches and wooden shoes
+came up and surveyed us with kindly amusement, as Simmons scraped at
+me with infinite gusto. He was a Hollander; not a "Dutchman." We soon
+learned that the latter was a term of contempt applied by the former
+to the Germans.</p>
+
+<p>I asked him for some tobacco, which he readily gave to us from a
+capacious pouch. He waved his pipe at us in friendly fashion and said
+something <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>which we took to be a question as to our identity.</p>
+
+<p>"English," we said, and in desperation turned to our scanty stock of
+French: "<i>Soldats; prisoniers.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Engelsch!" he boomed. We nodded. He simply threw his arms round first
+one and then the other, so that I wiped the ashes from his pipe out of
+my eyes. He lumbered off and shortly returned with a counterpart of
+himself. He talked rapidly to his companion and waved his pipe. We
+made out the words "Duitsch," "Engelsch," and enough of others to know
+that he was telling our tale as he imagined it.</p>
+
+<p>Our fears coming uppermost, we gave voice to them: "Intern?"</p>
+
+<p>"No intern. Engelsch." The other took up the cry: "Engelsch goot!
+Frient." However our suspicions would not down.</p>
+
+<p>The first man pointed out to the canal where a barge lay and made us
+understand that it was his. He wanted us to work our passage on it
+down the canal with him. They invited us by signs to go on board the
+barge for breakfast, an invitation which we joyfully accepted. We
+rowed out to the barge and sat down in the tiny cabin. The meal was
+plain. On the centre of the table was a loaf of brown bread, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>quite
+good enough it was true, but so reminiscent of the perennial black
+ration of the Germans that my gorge rose at the sight. Out of the
+corner of my eye I saw a white loaf on the shelf, the first in fifteen
+months. I caught Simmons eyeing it. We exchanged guilty looks but were
+ashamed to ask for it. They offered us the brown loaf and delicious
+coffee. I thought perhaps that if we exhausted the brown loaf the
+other might be forthcoming. I kicked Simmons on the shins and fell to
+on it, and, as opportunity offered, thrust pieces in the pockets of my
+tunic until, to our relief, they brought out the white bread, which we
+devoured to the last crumb. It was very good.</p>
+
+<p>We filled our pipes in high contentment and went ashore, where a
+procession of enthusiastic villagers waited to escort us to the
+village. Men, women and children, wooden shoes and all, there were
+four hundred of them. The men all shook hands and pressed money on us.
+The women cried and one white-haired old lady kissed us both. The
+quaint little roly-poly children ran at our sides, a half dozen of
+them struggling to hold our fingers in their chubby fists.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>The procession started off, the burgomaster leading, the two sailors
+and ourselves coming next. Some one behind dragged out a mouth organ
+and struck up Tipperary, and men, women and children all joined in. It
+was glorious. We sang, too, in English, and they in their tongue. The
+result was so ridiculous a medley that I smiled myself; but it made no
+difference. The spirit was there; we were happy.</p>
+
+<p>Arriving at the village the burgomaster took us to his home and sat us
+down to a steaming breakfast, while a few of the chosen were invited
+in to watch us polish it off. The crowd remained outside, choking the
+road. Some of the bolder of the children crept slyly in the door,
+others peered shyly at us from the crack of it. And one little chap,
+braver than his comrades, clumped sturdily up to my knee, where he
+stood clutching it in round-eyed wonder and saying never a word for
+the rest of the meal, envied of his mates.</p>
+
+<p>Not until we had leaned back, not contented, but ashamed to ask for
+more, did our hosts give vent to the curiosity that was eating into
+their vitals. An interpreter was found and they led us out to the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>road so that all might hear. The crowd flocked around while the
+officials questioned us. Many were the smothered interjections that
+went up from the men and exclamations of pity from the women as our
+tale unfolded. And the warm sympathy of their honest faces warmed our
+hearts like a good fire.</p>
+
+<p>We started off on our triumphal course again. We were repeatedly
+invited into houses for something to eat. We accepted seven such
+breakfast invitations during the next two and a half hours and stopped
+only out of shame. We were still hungry. Every one gave us cigars,
+immense things, which projected from every pocket and which we carried
+in bundles under our arms. There was no refusing them. They were the
+insignia of the entente. And the coffee! The good, honest, Holland
+coffee with no acorns in it! I doubt if our starving bodies could have
+carried us many days more on the uncooked roots we had been living on.
+The motherly housewives, in their Grecian-like helmets of metal and
+glass that fit closely over their smoothed hair like skull-caps,
+bustled merrily about, intent only on replenishing our plates and
+cups, full of a tearful sympathy which was as welcome as their food.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>Later in the day the officials took us to the police station at &mdash;&mdash;.
+We became very much alarmed again. They read our thoughts and a
+subdued murmur of: "No intern, no intern," swelled up. The local
+burgomaster came to us. His first words, and in good English, too,
+were: "Have something to eat." We did. And then more cigars. The
+police were a splendid lot of men. They loaded us down with gifts and
+asked perfunctory questions for their records. One of them, H. Letema,
+of &mdash;&mdash;, took us to his home, where his comely wife and daughter
+loaded the table with good things; while he brought out more cigars.
+He showed us to a bed-room before we understood where he was taking
+us. We refused, for reasons of a purely personal nature. "Nix," we
+said, and when he would not accept our refusal we tried it in
+Niederl&auml;nder. "No, no." Still he persisted, and his good wife too. So
+we led him firmly aside and showed him the indescribably verminous
+condition we were in. That convinced him. They appreciated that little
+touch and gave us a deep pile of blankets, flung down on three feet of
+sweet-smelling straw in an outhouse, where we slept as we had not
+slept for many months.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>In the morning Letema escorted us down to Aaschen, which was the
+nearest large town. A Belgian and a Holland lady, hearing of the
+escaped English prisoners, met us within twenty minutes of our
+arrival, took us in hand and loaded us down with kindnesses. We ate
+only five full sized meals that day, not counting the extras we
+absorbed between them. And there were more cigars. The raw oats and
+potatoes seemed a long way off.</p>
+
+<p>Our day at Aaschen was a repetition of the previous one at Alboom and
+Borger, but on a grander scale. The ladies took us down to Rotterdam
+and did not leave us until they had turned us over to the British
+consul there, whose name I have forgotten but who, with the vice
+consul, Mr. Mueller, was very kind indeed; in fact, all whom we met,
+irrespective of their nationality, age or sex placed us under eternal
+obligations to them. In particular Mr. Neilson, the rector of the
+English church and in charge of the Sailors' Institute there, seemed
+to live only for us.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Henken at the American consulate was equally kind. They lodged us
+at the Seaman's Rest, took our painted rags away and clothed us in
+blue <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>"civvie" suits which seemed to us the height of sinful luxury.
+We were shaved, clean and could eat everything in sight, at any time
+of the day or night. And did so. The meals we used to shift! We were
+very glad to get rid of our waterproof suits&mdash;for that is what they
+had become, from the paint.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Neilson took us sight seeing every day. Once we went out to Mr.
+Carnegie's Peace Palace which had been closed on account of the war
+but which we were permitted to inspect. I had not thought such
+buildings were done, except in dreams. It made our own bitter past
+seem unreal. The Italian room, in particular, seemed like a delicate
+canvas in marble and done in a fashion the memory of which gripped me
+for days and still haunts me. We spent days thus; supremely happy.</p>
+
+<p>We were joined here by Jerry Burke of the 8th Battalion of Winnipeg.
+He was a nephew of Sir Sam Hughes, the then Canadian Minister of
+Militia and had just made his escape from some other camp.</p>
+
+<p>We were to have left on the fifth with a fleet of boats which sailed
+then. By the time we had got on board, however, the sailors from the
+first boat were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>returning. They had been torpedoed. And that stopped
+us.</p>
+
+<p>We got away on the S.S. <i>Grenadier</i> on the sixteenth, and after
+hugging the length of the English Coast, arrived safely at
+Newcastle-upon-Tyne on the eighteenth.</p>
+
+<p>Here our troubles began!</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XX<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+
+<h4 class="sc">"It's a Way They Have in the Army"</h4>
+
+<div class="block2"><p class="noin">Red Tape in the Army&mdash;A Disgruntled Soldier&mdash;"Old Soldier, Old
+Fox"&mdash;A Touch for Twenty Quid&mdash;<i>Augen Rechts</i> at
+Seaford&mdash;Canada!</p></div>
+<br />
+
+<p>My family in Canada have since remarked that although my letters had
+invariably been cheerful throughout my imprisonment, from the time I
+set foot on English soil they reflected the deepest despondency. That
+could be explained in part by the fact that uncheerful letters could
+not pass the German but could pass the British censor. But more
+particularly it was due to the fact that I became entangled in the
+interminable red tape of the army system, and, instead of meeting with
+the warm sympathy that an exile longs for, met, on the part of the
+army, with cold suspicion; however kind some individuals were to me.</p>
+
+<p>Simmons and I were not permitted to leave the boat until the military
+came for us. So far so good. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>We were taken to the headquarters of the
+General Officer Commanding that district. He briefly examined us and
+good-naturedly gave us some money out of his own pocket and tickets to
+London, where we were ordered to report at the War Office.</p>
+
+<p>Arriving in "The Smoke," as the army has named that city, we proceeded
+the next morning to 14 Downing Street and sent our names in to the
+official we had been directed to by the general. He was in mufti,
+whoever he was, and received us kindly enough. We were closely
+questioned about our experiences, particularly in relation to our
+guards, food, treatment, and so on. He also asked us as to the amount
+of sickness among the prisoners, the condition of the country, and so
+on.</p>
+
+<p>Dismissed, we made a dash down past Big Ben and the Parliament
+Buildings for the Canadian Pay and Record Office, where at Millbank it
+overlooked the Thames. A sergeant took our names and after a time took
+us, too, in to the paymaster. Simmons drew his money without
+difficulty but I found that I was fifteen months dead and was told
+that I could get no money until my identity was re&euml;stablished. I
+protested; so much so in fact that I fully <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>expected to land in the
+"clink." No use. I was sent out on the street talking to myself.</p>
+
+<p>We next called on Lady Rivers-Bulkeley and Lady Drummond to thank them
+for the very great kindness of themselves and the Canadian Red Cross
+in sending us our parcels regularly, and without which we would
+assuredly have been too weak to have made our escape. Lady Farquhar,
+the wife of our late commanding officer, was out of town, so we did
+not see her, much as we desired to thank her for similar kindnesses.</p>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep206a" id="imagep206a"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep206a.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep206a.jpg" width="85%" alt="The Cemetery at Celle Laager Z 1 Camp" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 80%; margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 25%;">THE CEMETERY AT CELLE LAAGER Z 1 CAMP.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep206b" id="imagep206b"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep206b.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep206b.jpg" width="85%" alt="Corporal Edwards (second from left) after his Escape" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 80%; margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 25%;">CORPORAL EDWARDS (SECOND FROM LEFT) AFTER HIS ESCAPE.
+THE TWO GOLD BARS ON HIS LEFT COAT SLEEVE INDICATE THAT HE HAS BEEN TWICE
+WOUNDED.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Simmons was single. He was sent to Canada at once and was promptly
+discharged. I had a wife and family awaiting me there and I wanted
+badly to go to them by the next boat. My wife had been receiving
+letters from me during my fifteen months' imprisonment; she had
+regularly received her separation allowance; the Canadian Red Cross
+and many kind friends in London had been sending me prisoner-of-war
+parcels for a year; the authorities admitted my identity and my former
+comrades recognised me; I had fifteen months' pay at $1.20 a day,
+besides a subsistence allowance of sixty-five cents a day, coming to
+me; but could not draw a cent of it. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>I was dead. And continued so
+for three months. There is no explanation. "It's a way they have in
+the Army"; or so the army says.</p>
+
+<p>In the end it was only through the active intervention of Sir George
+Perley, the Canadian High Commissioner in London that my case was
+righted. He, I believe, cabled the Ottawa authorities, who in turn got
+in touch with my wife, who produced the necessary documentary evidence
+to prove that I had been alive and a prisoner all this time.</p>
+
+<p>I went to the depot at Seaford. I borrowed from my old friends. I hung
+round the pay office. The paymaster said I was not on the strength of
+the regiment. I was old soldier enough to profit by that calamity at
+least. The bitter injustice of such miscarriage of justice blinded me,
+as I think it eventually does most soldiers, to the accepted code of
+civil life. I refused to attend roll call or do drills, fatigues, or
+any other part of my regimental duties other than certain interesting
+and thrice-daily rites not unconnected with the kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>It is the commonness, the constant repetition of such stupidity and
+such lack of action that so much injures the reputation for
+intelligence of the army in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>the minds of those who have served in it;
+so that those who know it best, like it least&mdash;and put up with it only
+because it is the poor instrument of a good cause.</p>
+
+<p>The paymaster fell sick. A young subaltern was acting for him. My
+sergeant pal tipped me off. As I have said, I was an old soldier with
+all that that implies. He marched me up to the officer, already more
+or less at sea about his new duties. I asked for money. He was aware
+of my history but not of the tangle I was in:</p>
+
+<p>"How much?"</p>
+
+<p>I wondered how much the traffic would bear.</p>
+
+<p>"Twenty quid, sir," I ventured. He went up in the air.</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible! I'll give you ten."</p>
+
+<p>I O. K'd that while the words were yet warm on his lips. Fifty dollars
+is a great deal of money to a soldier. He gave it to me with a pass
+for Scotland&mdash;where I had relatives&mdash;to which I had long been entitled
+but which had been useless to me as long as I had no money.</p>
+
+<p>I quickly gathered my cronies together and we packed into the canteen
+to celebrate the occasion <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>fittingly, in the only fashion a good
+soldier knows, in army beer so thick and strong that the hops floated
+on the tops of the mess-tins. While searching for the bottom of one of
+these I heard the orderly shouting: "Corporal Edwards! Corporal
+Edwards!" The other men gathered round me in the corner, drinking,
+while I scrunched down so that the orderly passed on and out still
+shouting my name.</p>
+
+<p>I fled to the tent and was hastily getting my things together when a
+corporal came hot-foot saying that the officer wanted me at once. I
+went in, gave him my very best regimental salute and stood at
+attention.</p>
+
+<p>"I find that you are not on the strength, corporal, and are not
+entitled to any money, so I'll trouble you to return that money I gave
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry, sir," I said sadly, "but it's gone."</p>
+
+<p>"Gone? How?"</p>
+
+<p>"Debts, sir," I said firmly. "My mates have been keeping me going."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you must get it back from them at once and return it to me.
+It's most irregular. Push on now and see that you're back here in an
+hour's time <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>with that money before those fellows spend it all in the
+canteen."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good, sir." I gave him a smashing good <i>Augen Rechts</i> to cheer
+him up against the time he should discover that I was well on my way
+to Scotland.</p>
+
+<p>And I remained there until I received notice that my regimental bones
+had been officially exhumed; after which I had no difficulty in
+getting my back pay and three months' furlough for Canada and home!</p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+
+<div class="block"><p><span class="sc">Author's Note.</span>&mdash;An amusing and at the same time
+gratifying sequel to this story developed immediately upon the
+heels of its publication in a considerably smaller form in the
+<i>Saturday Evening Post</i>. Sergeant Edwards, who had not
+previously been consulted by the authorities, was at once
+offered his choice between doing "duty" in Canada or taking a
+discharge from the army, instead of going overseas again. He
+chose the discharge.</p>
+
+<p>An interesting fact in connection with Brumley, the man who was
+the first to be recaptured on the second attempt to escape, is
+that according to a post card received from him by his wife, he
+has since made two other unsuccessful attempts at escape.
+Scarfe, who was exchanged to Switzerland, reports that he has
+married a Swiss girl there. Stamper, another Patricia who was
+captured at the same time as Edwards, has recently been
+exchanged and is now in England. Scott, who was captured with
+the men of an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>English regiment, was exchanged to Switzerland
+and recently returned to Toronto and has been in hospital, in a
+serious condition, ever since. The fate of the others is
+unknown.</p></div>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<a name="THE_EVIDENCE_IN_THE_CASE" id="THE_EVIDENCE_IN_THE_CASE"></a><hr />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span><br />
+
+<h3>THE EVIDENCE IN THE CASE<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3>
+<br />
+
+<p>In order to remove any vestige of doubt in the reader's mind as to the
+authenticity of Corporal Edwards' tale, it has been deemed advisable
+to present reproductions of certain newspaper articles and
+correspondence which bear directly on some of the points touched upon
+in the story.</p>
+
+<p>It will be noticed that quite aside from the major fact of the escape
+itself having been brought out here, there is the equally important
+one of the bringing out of a great number of lesser points which tally
+to a hair with such references to them as are made in the story, such
+for instance as the references to the delay in England, the references
+in their post cards of those fellow-prisoners who remain in Germany
+and other facts of a similar nature.</p>
+
+<p>The following are exact reproductions in every case, except for the
+explanatory note which prefaces each item.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="noin"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span><i>Extract from Toronto Daily Star, May 30, 1915.</i></p>
+
+<div class="block3"><h3>WAS BACK ONLY THREE WEEKS</h3>
+
+<h4 class="sc">Corp. Edwards, Reported Missing, Was Wounded Short Time
+Ago.</h4>
+
+<p>Lance-Corp. Edward Edwards of the Princess Pats who is reported
+missing to-day, has only been back at the trenches for three
+weeks, after having been wounded and in England for a month with
+a bullet in his foot. He lived at 70 Standish Avenue, Rosedale,
+where his wife and three young sons now live. He is 38 years of
+age and has been in Canada ten years. Previous service in Africa
+and India with the Gordon Highlanders is to his credit.</p></div>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="noin"><i>Letter from Corporal Edwards to His Wife in Toronto.</i></p>
+
+<div class="block3">
+<p><span style="padding-left: 3%;">Mon Adress exacte:</span><br />
+<span style="padding-left: 2%;">GIESSEN (Allemagne)</span><br />
+Compagnie No. 6 Baraque No. A.<br />
+Nom et Pr&eacute;nom: E. Edwards. Oct. 2nd, 1915.</p>
+
+<p><span class="sc">My Dearest Em</span>: A few more lines, hoping they find all
+in the best of health and everything going on all right. I
+received your parcels all right. They were a treat and came in
+good condition. How are the boys getting along? <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>Awfully sorry
+about Hector but hope he is all right again, poor chap's been
+having a hard time of it. How are Gordon and Frank. Tell them I
+was asking for them. I guess the Beastie has grown quite a big
+chap. Thanks for J. Birnies' address. I will drop him a card
+some time but you see I can only send two letters a month. Jack
+wanted me to write to the lodge but I can't see how I can manage
+it. Em, lass, don't send me any clothing as I will manage all
+right. Col. Farquhar's wife is going to send me out some and
+Major Gault is sending tobacco and cigarettes so I will be all
+right. I had a parcel from Bob with a shirt and some eatables;
+also one from Jean at Blacktop and one from home. We are always
+on the lookout for them. Have you had any word from Mina? I've
+had letters from them all. We are having rather cool weather. I
+sent a post card to G. Nelson; I don't know if he ever got it
+but you can ask him when he comes up. Em, what are you doing
+about the house? Are you getting it fixed up or are you coming
+over home? It would be rather late this year to come over but
+please yourself; only let me know what you are doing. Is George
+still in Canada? Jean was expecting him to drop in any time. He
+has been very good to me ever since I landed first in England. I
+will never be able to pay her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>back. I can't give you any news
+as I don't know it myself. Don't wait on a letter from me before
+you write but write often and tell me all about yourself and the
+boys. Tell Jack to write and I will drop him a card when I can.
+Keep your heart up and look after yourself. Tell Miss Holmes I
+was asking for her; also Mrs. Arlow. Tell her I got her letter;
+also tell all my friends I was asking for them. If Mr. Skerrow
+comes up again tell him I am doing fine but would sooner be
+working up in N. Toronto&mdash;but am making the best of it. I think
+I will stop Em; I have really nothing to tell you, only write
+soon and often. Give the boys a tight one for me. Best love to
+you all. Good bye.</p>
+
+<p class="right">Your Affect. Ed.</p>
+
+<p>149 Corpl. E. Edwards,<br />
+<span style="padding-left: 3%;">Barrack A.,</span><br />
+<span style="padding-left: 4%;">Company 6,</span><br />
+<span style="padding-left: 5%;">Prisoner of War.</span><br />
+<span style="padding-left: 6%;">Giessen, Germany.</span></p>
+
+<p>P.S. Just received your letter Sept. 3rd. Tell Mrs. Bownie not
+to bother sending anything. I have got all I want. Can't send a
+long letter. This is all we are allowed. Ed.</p></div>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="noin"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span><i>Extract from Montreal Gazette, Sept. 21, 1916.</i></p>
+
+<div class="block3"><h3>EDWARD EDWARDS ESCAPES FROM FOE</h3>
+
+<h4 class="sc">Toronto Soldier With Two Others Make Get-Away. Wander for
+Three Weeks.<br />
+Brass Band Escorts Them to Mayor of Town in Holland.</h4>
+
+<p>London, Sept. 21.&mdash;Registered as dead by the Canadian Pay and
+Record office, which was about to authorise distribution of
+their effects, Lance-Corp. Edward Edwards of the Princess
+Patricias, 70 Standish Avenue; Pte. James Jerry Burke (1216)
+Eighth Battalion, Winnipeg and Pte. M.C. Simmons (23445) of
+Seventh Battalion, Port Arthur, have arrived in London after
+having escaped from a German prison camp. They experienced some
+strenuous adventures. For three weeks they were at large; slowly
+and cautiously wending their way to the Holland frontier, they
+covered the distance of 150 miles. In Holland the fugitives to
+their surprise, found a warm welcome. In fact, a local band
+headed them in procession to the Mayor, who in turn communicated
+with the British Consul, with the result that they were shipped
+to England.</p></div>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="noin"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span><i>Extract from Toronto Daily Star, Sept. 22, 1916.</i></p>
+
+<div class="block3"><h3>MRS. EDWARDS IS REJOICING</h3>
+
+<h4 class="sc">Can Hardly Believe That Husband Escaped from German
+Prison.<br />
+Heard So Many Different Tales.<br />
+Comrades Who Have Returned Assured Her He Would Get Away.</h4>
+
+<p>"I cannot believe it until I hear from him. But I do hope it is
+true. I am glad I never kept him back, and never told him not to
+go. He is a soldier to the backbone."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Edward Edwards, 70 Standish Avenue, Rosedale, was
+discussing the report that her husband, Lance-Corp. Edward
+Edwards of the Princess Patricias, had escaped from a prison
+camp in Germany and after travelling over 150 miles of country
+arrived with two others on Dutch territory whence they were
+shipped to England after being f&ecirc;ted by some of the people in
+Holland.</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard so many different stories. At first I was told he
+was killed, but later he sent me a letter from Germany telling
+me he was in a prison camp there. Only last Saturday I had a
+letter from him in which he asked me to send him on a box of
+soap to wash his clothes. He said in that letter that he had
+enough tobacco, cocoa and coffee <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>to last him for some time but
+he needed soap."</p>
+
+<p>Lance-Corporal Edwards, who was connected with the Royal
+Grenadiers, in Toronto, was formerly a member of the Gordon
+Highlanders, and fought with the 2nd Battalion of that regiment
+throughout the South African War. Stationed in India at the
+outbreak of that war the regiment was sent to South Africa and
+was shut up in Ladysmith. He is the possessor of three medals
+and five clasps. He took part in the great Delhi Durbar.</p>
+
+<p>"Over a year ago my husband was shot in the foot," said Mrs.
+Edwards. "He returned to the trenches and was just three weeks
+back when he was posted as missing. That was a year ago last
+May. For a long time I had no word of what had happened to him
+until I had a letter from him."</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">Visits from Comrades.</h4>
+
+<p>"Many of the returned Princess Patricias come to see me. Only
+last Sunday one of them said to me when talking of my husband:
+'He will be escaping from the Germans some of these days.' And
+it is just like him to do that. But he and the two with him must
+have suffered terribly in the time they were hiding through 150
+miles of the enemy's country. I wish I had him home now."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>"I heard from him regularly every six weeks by letter.
+Occasionally he would send me a postcard between the letters. He
+never discussed the war, except in the phrase that it could not
+last for ever. He always wrote bright and cheerful letters."</p>
+
+<p>At No. 68 Standish Avenue lives the widow of Private Percy
+Edwards, brother of Lance-Corporal Edwards. Private Edwards was
+a reservist of the Gordon Highlanders and at the outbreak of the
+war was called home to join his regiment. He was killed in the
+first action in which the Gordons were engaged. His widow and
+three young sons live next door to Mrs. Edwards, who also has
+three young sons. Both of the Edwards brothers and their wives
+are natives of Aberdeenshire, Scotland.</p></div>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="noin"><i>Postal Card to Mrs. E. Edwards, 70 Standish Ave., N. Rosedale,
+Toronto, Ont., Canada.</i></p>
+
+<div class="block3"><p>12th Sept. 1916. Assen, Holland. Dear Em: I guess you will get
+my letter along with this card explaining things. You will know
+that I have escaped from Germany and am on my way to England but
+will write you every chance I get. Give my love to the boys and
+I hope all is well <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>at home. I am feeling pretty good. This is
+where I am just now. Yours ever, Ed.</p></div>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="noin"><i>Postal to Mrs. E. Edwards, 70 Standish Ave., N. Rosedale, Toronto,
+Canada.</i></p>
+
+<div class="block3"><p class="noin">Sept. 8th, Newcastle-on-Tyne, England.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Em: Hope you have received all my letters that I have
+written you from Holland. They will tell you all about my
+escape. I leave here for London to-night. Will write you from
+there. Love to the boys. Write me Bulter address. Ed.</p></div>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="noin"><i>Postal Card to Mrs. E. Edwards, 70 Standish Ave., N. Rosedale,
+Toronto, Canada.</i></p>
+
+<div class="block3"><p>Sept. 22nd, 1916. Folkestone, England. Dear Em: Hope you got the
+cable all right, also some of the letters and cards I sent you.
+What do you think of my escape? Not so bad, eh? Write me at
+Bulter. How are the boys? Give them my love. Am back at
+Shornecliffe with the regiment. Will be going on leave. Trying
+to get over to see you. Will write you to-morrow. Write as soon
+as you can. Ed.</p></div>
+
+<br />
+
+<div class="img"><a name="imagep220" id="imagep220"></a>
+<a href="images/imagep220.jpg">
+<img border="0" src="images/imagep220.jpg" width="45%" alt="Homeward Bound" /></a><br />
+<p class="cen" style="margin-top: .2em; font-size: 80%; margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 25%;">HOMEWARD BOUND.
+CORPORAL EDWARDS IN CENTER.<span class="totoi"><a href="#toi">ToList</a></span></p>
+</div>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="noin"><i>Post Card to Cpl. E. Edwards, 7 St. Mary's Place, Cuttor,
+Aberdeenshire, Scotland, from Cpl. E. Hardy, a fellow prisoner.</i></p>
+
+<div class="block3">
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>
+<span style="padding-left: 3%;">Mon Adress Exacte:</span><br />
+Nom et Pr&eacute;nom: Cpl. E. Hardy<br />
+No. matricule: 1906<br />
+No. de la Compagnie: 8<br />
+Lettre de la baraque: "E"<br />
+<span style="padding-left: 2%;">GIESSEN (Allemagne)</span></p>
+
+<p class="right">Giessen, le 25-9-1916.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Ted: I received your P.C. quite safe. I did a little dance on my
+own. Charlie Walker is away somewhere. How are Dennie and Nobler going
+on. You may be sure I was pleased to hear of you getting in port safe.
+Sorry to hear you got wrecked on your first trip but you have no worry
+now. Good Luck. Ted.</p></div>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="noin"><i>Post Card to Cpl. E. Edwards, Number One Company P. P. C. L. I., St.
+Martins Plains, Shornecliffe, England. Via Holland, from Hookie
+Walker, a fellow prisoner.</i></p>
+
+<div class="block3">
+<p><span style="padding-left: 4%;">Mon addresse exacte:</span><br />
+Nom et pr&eacute;nom: C. Walker,<br />
+No. matricule:<br />
+No. de la compagnie: 6, Baraque: B.<br />
+No. du detachement: 1<br />
+<span style="padding-left: 4%;">Giessen (Allemagne) Oct. 1st, 1916.</span></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>Dear Old Ted: I received your P.C. God Bless you and good Luck
+be with you always. I have been on the water and got wrecked
+also but I have not given up by any means. I am in the best of
+health. Remember me to all and God be with you. Hookie.</p></div>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="noin"><i>Undated Post Card to Mr. E. Edwards Jun, 7 St. Mary's Place, Cutter,
+Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Via Holland, from Cpl. Hardy.</i></p>
+
+<div class="block3">
+<p><span style="padding-left: 4%;">Mon Adresse exacte:</span><br />
+Nom et pr&eacute;nom: Cpl. E. Hardy<br />
+No. matricule: 1906<br />
+No. de la compagnie: 8, Baraque "E"<br />
+No. du detachement:</p>
+
+<p class="right">Giessen (Allemagne)</p>
+
+<p>Dear Ted: I am very glad everything went on A1. I am sorry I was
+not with you. I am not wanting anything, thanks. I hope you have
+a good time when you go to Canada. I have not seen anything of
+Hookie for about 12 months, nor Stamper. I have still got a few
+things safe for you when I come home. I will close with best
+respects, Ted.</p></div>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="noin"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span><i>Undated Card to Mrs. Edwards, Rotterdam, Holland.</i></p>
+
+<div class="block3"><p>Dear Em. Hope you are getting my letters all right and that all
+is well at home. I am still feeling and getting treated pretty
+good and will be in England in two or three days. Since it all
+goes well write me c/o of Bulter address and I will be sure to
+get them. How are the boys? Is the wee chap still holding my
+place? Tell Gordon when I get to England I will help him get a
+bicycle so that he can be the same as Hector. This is where I am
+just now but will be on my way in a few hours. I have sent you
+Tinnie's photo. How will she do? It might be all we can get. Ed.</p></div>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="noin"><i>Postal to Mrs. Edwards, 70 Standish Ave., N. Rosedale, Toronto,
+Canada.</i></p>
+
+<div class="block3">
+<p class="noin">26-10-16. &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; From Folkestone.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Em: Arrived back in Folkestone all right. Called on Mrs.
+Cawthra. Had a long talk with her. Can't get any word of when I
+am to get over to Canada but will let you know as soon as
+possible. Might be some time yet. Got the letter with Hector's
+and will bring the things with me when I come home. How are the
+boys getting along? Wish I was there. Good-bye. Ed.</p></div>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="noin"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span><i>Extract from Toronto Daily Star, December, 1916.</i></p>
+
+<div class="block3"><h3>HOME ON LEAVE AFTER ESCAPE FROM THE HUNS</h3>
+
+<h4 class="sc">Sgt. Edward Edwards Tells Graphic Story of 100 Mile
+Flight.<br />
+
+Wife Had to Prove Husband Was Alive.<br />
+
+Sent His Photo and Letters Before War Office Would Believe It.</h4>
+
+<p>No bands played and no Reception Committee extended the welcome
+hand to Sergt. Edward Edwards when he stepped off the train at
+the Union Station and walked to the home of his wife and family
+one day last week, after two years and seven months' absence at
+the front with a storehouse of thrilling experiences that rival
+even the exploits of the Three Musketeers. That he was one of
+only 49 left of the crack Princess Patricias who were mown down
+at the Ypres Salient on May 8, 1915, was wounded twice, missing
+and officially declared dead and escaped twice from German
+prison camps in company with two companions are only incidents
+in a long chapter of events which surpass in thrilling interest
+Dumas' most daring fiction. Tom Brumley, another member of a
+Toronto regiment, and Mervin Simmons, a Canadian from Trail,
+B.C., were the two friends of the modern D'Artagan, but
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>unfortunately Brumley was recaptured by the Huns during the
+first escape and Sergt. Edwards has not heard from him since.</p>
+
+<p>Sergt. Edwards is now on ten weeks' furlough and is due to
+report in England on May 10, when he expects to go into the
+fighting again. "We went to the Ypres salient in May. I was one
+of ten in my company to get through," said he.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">Tribute to Col. Buller</h4>
+
+<p>Here Sergt. Edwards paid a tribute to his late commanding
+officer, Col. Buller, who was killed on the 2nd of June of this
+year. "It was the Germans, too, who told us of our old Colonel's
+death. They knew everything, it seemed, about our commanders and
+could tell the regiment and division that we belonged to."</p>
+
+<p>We were taken to Roulers, Belgium. After a brief stay there we
+were taken to Giessen. There were 1,200 prisoners, mostly
+Russian and French. The food we got was awful.</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">Refused to Work</h4>
+
+<p>"After a stay here of about six months I was sent with my two
+friends, Brumley and Simmons, to a punishment camp for refusing
+to work in a steel factory to make munitions. Three hundred
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>British and Canadians also refused in spite of threats, and
+ill-treatment, and all were sent on to Celle Laager, the main
+punishment camp. We were there two weeks and then we were split
+into small parties and I was slated with my two friends for a
+place called Oldenburg. Here they wanted us to go into a moor
+and drain the place to grow potatoes. It was from this place
+that we made our first serious attempt to escape.</p>
+
+<p>We made a dash for the shelter of the moor. In a few minutes we
+heard the baying of a vicious pack of dogs they had sent in
+pursuit, but we managed to elude them and struck out for the
+Dutch border more than 100 miles distant. We came to the River
+Ems four miles from the border of Holland. We could not find a
+boat or raft and were recaptured."</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<h4 class="sc">Made Final Escape</h4>
+
+<p>After undergoing this sentence, Sergt. Edwards and Simmons were
+taken to another punishment camp at Salsengen and it was from
+here that they made their successful escape on August 21.</p>
+
+<p>The British Consul at Rotterdam arranged the wanderers' passage
+to England, where they arrived on the 18th of September. When he
+reported in London, Sergt. Edwards had to prove <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>he was alive,
+because the records of the War Office had him marked up as dead.
+A lot of red tape had to be untangled before the gallant soldier
+could be officially brought back from the dead, but at that time
+he was still writing to his wife, so that, when she saw her
+husband's name in the casualty list, she at once contradicted
+the officials by sending her husband's letters and his pictures.</p></div>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="noin"><i>Postal card to No. 39 Cpl. E. Edwards, P. P. C. L. I. Depot, South
+Camp, Seaford, Sussex, England, from Charles Scarfe, who was also
+captured on May 8th.</i></p>
+
+<div class="block3"><p>Manor Farm, Interlaken, Switzerland, Jan. 3rd, 1917.</p>
+
+<p>Dear Old Pal Teddy:</p>
+
+<p>Just a card hoping to find you well as it leaves me A-1. Hope
+you had a good Christmas. Had a fairly good one myself but hope
+we are in Canada next one. Have had enough of being a prisoner
+of war. Remember me to all the boys and write soon. From your
+old pal, Charlie.</p></div>
+
+<br />
+
+<p><i>Postal card to 39 Cpl. E. Edwards, P. P. C. L. I. Depot, South Camp,
+Seaford, Sussex, England, from his comrade in the escape.</i></p>
+
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+<div class="tr">
+<p class="cen"><a name="TN" id="TN"></a>Typographical errors corrected in text:</p>
+<br />
+Page &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;xi: &nbsp;Geissen replaced by Giessen<br />
+Page &nbsp;&nbsp;63: &nbsp;Piccadily replaced with Picadilly<br />
+Page &nbsp;&nbsp;99: &nbsp;GEISSEN replaced by GIESSEN (captions)<br />
+Page 161: &nbsp;Simonds replaced by Simmons<br />
+Page 184: &nbsp;liks replaced by like<br />
+Page 221: &nbsp;prenom replaced with pr&eacute;nom<br />
+</div>
+
+<br />
+<hr />
+<br />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Escape of a Princess Pat, by George Pearson
+
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+</body>
+</html>
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+Project Gutenberg's The Escape of a Princess Pat, by George Pearson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Escape of a Princess Pat
+       Being the full account of the capture and fifteen months'
+       imprisonment of Corporal Edwards, of the Princess Patricia's
+       Canadian Light Infantry, and his final escape from Germany
+       into Holland
+
+Author: George Pearson
+
+Release Date: June 3, 2008 [EBook #25683]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sigal Alon, Jeannie Howse and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Transcriber's Note:                                       |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has     |
+    | been preserved.                                           |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For     |
+    | a complete list, please see the end of this document.     |
+    |                                                           |
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT
+
+GEORGE PEARSON
+
+
+
+
+    [Illustration: CORPORAL (NOW SERGEANT) EDWARD EDWARDS, PRINCESS
+    PATRICIA'S CANADIAN LIGHT INFANTRY.]
+
+
+
+
+THE ESCAPE OF A
+PRINCESS PAT
+
+_Being the full account of the capture and fifteen months'
+imprisonment of Corporal Edwards, of the Princess
+Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, and his
+final escape from Germany into Holland_
+
+BY
+GEORGE PEARSON
+
+
+
+
+McCLELLAND, GOODCHILD & STEWART
+
+PUBLISHERS  ::  ::  ::   TORONTO
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1918,
+BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+TO THE MEMORY OF
+OUR COMRADES WHO FELL
+THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+In order to remove all question of doubt in the mind of the reader it
+might perhaps be well to state here that the facts as given are the
+bona fide experiences of Corporal Edwards, Number 39, Number One
+Company, P. P. C. L. I., and as such were subjected to the closest
+scrutiny both by the author and others before it was deemed advisable
+to give the account to the public. In particular great pains were
+taken to do full justice to all enemy individuals who figure in the
+story.
+
+Recognizing the seriousness of the charges implied by the recital, all
+those concerned with it are extremely anxious that the correctness of
+the account should constitute its chief value: In short the intention
+has been to make of the story a readable history.
+
+The main facts--having to do with the destruction of the regiment on
+the eighth of May, 1915, the identity and activities of the
+individuals mentioned and the more important of the later happenings,
+including the final escape into Holland--are matters of official
+record and as such have frequently been mentioned in the official
+dispatches. The more personal details are based on the recollections
+of Corporal Edwards' retentive mind, aided by his very unusual powers
+of observation and the rough diary which he managed to retain
+possession of during his later adventures.
+
+For the events preceding the capture of Corporal Edwards on the eighth
+of May the author has relied upon his own recollections; as he too had
+the honor of having been "an original Patricia."
+
+                                                   G.P.
+
+Sept. 1, 1917.
+Toronto, Canada.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER                                                           PAGE
+
+    I Polygon Wood                                                  14
+
+   II The Fourth of May                                             20
+
+  III Corporal Edwards Takes up the Tale                            23
+
+   IV Major Gault Comes Back                                        28
+
+    V The Eighth of May and the Last Stand of the Princess Pats     33
+
+   VI Prisoners                                                     45
+
+  VII Pulling the Leg of a German General                           61
+
+ VIII The Princess Patricia's German Uncle                          70
+
+   IX How the German Red Cross Tended the Canadian Wounded          76
+
+    X The Curious Concoctions of the Chef at Giessen                81
+
+   XI The Way They Have at Giessen                                  86
+
+  XII The Escape                                                   104
+
+ XIII The Traitor at Vehnmoor                                      115
+
+  XIV Away Again                                                   123
+
+   XV Paying the Piper                                             140
+
+  XVI The Third Escape                                             158
+
+ XVII What Happened in the Wood                                    177
+
+XVIII The Last Lap                                                 185
+
+  XIX Holland at Last                                              194
+
+   XX "It's a Way They Have in the Army"                           203
+
+The Evidence in the Case                                           210
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+Corporal (Now Sergeant) Edward Edwards, Princess
+  Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry                    _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                                  PAGE
+
+British wounded waiting for transportation to a dressing
+  station                                                           26
+
+The Princess Patricias in billets at Westoutre, Belgium             26
+
+German prisoners bringing wounded men down a communication
+  trench                                                            42
+
+Wounded Canadians receiving first aid after an attack               64
+
+Recipes from Corporal Edward's Diary                                84
+
+Fellow prisoners at Giessen                                         98
+
+Fellow prisoners at Giessen                                         98
+
+Record of second escape and recapture                              126
+
+German prisoners at Southampton                                    136
+
+High explosives bursting over German trenches                      136
+
+Salient details of the third escape                                170
+
+Private Mervin C. Simmons, C.E.F.                                  192
+
+The cemetery at Celle Laager Z 1 Camp                              206
+
+Corporal Edwards after his escape                                  206
+
+Homeward bound                                                     220
+
+
+
+
+THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT
+
+
+
+
+THE ESCAPE OF A PRINCESS PAT
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+POLYGON WOOD
+
+  Ypres and Hill 60--Preparing for the Gas--Why the Patricias
+  Cheered--The Retirement--The Thin Red Line.
+
+
+The Princess Patricias had lain in Polygon Wood since the twentieth of
+April, mid-way between the sanguinary struggles of St. Julien and Hill
+60, spectators of both. Although subjected to constant alarm we had
+had a comparatively quiet time of it, with casualties that had only
+varied from five to fifty-odd each day.
+
+By day and night the gun-fire of both battles had beat back upon us in
+great waves of sound. There were times when we had donned our water
+soaked handkerchiefs for the gas that always threatened but never
+came, so that the expectation might have shaken less steady troops.
+Quick on the heels of the first news of the gas the women of Britain,
+their tears scalding their needles, with one accord had laboured, sans
+rest, sans sleep, sans everything, so that shortly there had poured in
+to us here a steady stream of gauze pads for mouth and nostril. For
+the protection of our lungs against the poison of the gas they were at
+least better than the filthy rags we called handkerchiefs. We wore
+their gifts and in spirit bowed to the donors, as I think all still
+do. We soaked them with the foul water of the near-by graves and kept
+them always at our side, ready to tie on at each fresh alarm.
+
+Once there had come word in a special army order of the day: "Our
+Belgian agent reports that all enemy troops on this front have been
+directed to enter their trenches to-night with fixed bayonets. All
+units are enjoined to exercise the closest watch on their front; the
+troops will stand to from the first appearance of darkness, with each
+man at his post prepared for all eventualities. Sleep will not be
+permitted under any circumstances."
+
+The consequence had been that that night had been one of nervous
+expectation of an attack which did not materialise. We always carried
+fixed bayonets in the trenches but the Germans were better equipped
+with loopholes, as they were with most other things, and were forced
+to leave their bayonets off their rifles in order to avoid any danger
+of the latter sticking in their metal shields when needed in a hurry,
+to say nothing of the added attention they would draw in their exposed
+and stationary position at the mouth of a loophole. The "Stand-to" had
+come as a distinct relief that morning.
+
+And always there had been the glowering fires of a score of villages.
+The greater mass of burning Ypres stood up amongst them like the
+warning finger of God. Occasionally the roaring burst of an ammunition
+dump flared up into a volcano of fiery sound. The earth under our feet
+trembled in convulsive shudders from a cannonade so vast that no one
+sound could be picked out of it and the walls of dug-outs slid in,
+burying sleeping men. But like the promise of God there came to us in
+every interval of quietness, as always, the full-throated song of many
+birds.
+
+Our forces consisted of the French who held the left corner of the
+Ypres salient, then the Canadian division in the centre, next the 28th
+Division of the regular British Army and then our own, the 27th, with
+Hill 60 on our right flank. The enemy attacked both at Hill 60 and at
+the line of the Canadian Division and the French, and we held on to
+the horse-shoe shaped line until the last possible moment when one
+more shake of the tree would have thrown us like ripe fruit into the
+German lap.
+
+So near had the converging German forces approached to one another
+that the weakened battery behind our own trenches had been at the
+last, turned around the other way and fired in the opposite direction
+without a shift in its own position. For our own protection we had
+nothing. And later still these and all other guns left us to seek new
+positions in the rear so that only we of the infantry remained.
+
+Daily there had come orders to "Stand-to" in full marching order, to
+evacuate; at which all ranks expostulated angrily. And then perhaps
+another order--to stick it another day; at which we cheered and
+slapped one another boisterously on the back so that the stolid
+Germans over yonder must have wondered, knowing what they did of our
+desperate situation.
+
+But the dreaded order came at last and was confirmed, so that under
+protest and like the beaten men that we knew we were not, we slunk
+away under cover of darkness on the night of the third of May to
+trenches three miles in the rear, and with us went the troops on ten
+more miles of British front.
+
+The movement as executed was in reality a feat of no mean importance
+on the part of the higher command. Faced by an overwhelmingly superior
+force, our badly depleted three divisions had barely escaped being
+bagged in the net of which the enemy had all but drawn the noose in a
+strategetic surrounding movement.
+
+In detail, the movement had consisted of withdrawing under cover of
+darkness with all that we could carry of our trench material, both to
+prevent it falling into hostile hands and equally to strengthen our
+new position. A small rearguard of fifteen men to the regiment had
+held our front for the few hours necessary for us to "shake down" in
+the new position. Their task was to remain behind and to give a
+continuous rapid-fire from as many different spots as possible in a
+given time, thereby keeping up the illusion of a heavily manned
+trench. Then, they too had faded quietly away, following us.
+
+Our new trenches were three miles behind those we had just evacuated
+in Polygon Wood. Zillebeke lay just to the left and beyond that,
+Hooge. We were in the open, with Belle-waarde Wood and Lake behind us.
+
+We continued to face vastly superior forces. To make matters worse the
+trenches were assuredly a mockery of their kind and there was even
+less of adequate support than before. And at that the drafts arrived
+each day--if they were lucky enough to break through the curtains of
+fire with which the enemy covered our rear for that very purpose, as
+well as for the further one of curtailing the arrival of all necessary
+supplies of food and ammunition.
+
+Every camp and hospital from Ypres to Rouen and the sea and from
+Land's End to John O' Groat was combed and scraped for every eligible
+casualty, every overconfident office holder of a "cushy" job, and in
+short, for all those who could by hook or crook hold a rifle to help
+stem this threatening tide. And in our own lot, even those wasteful
+luxuries, the petted officers' servants were amongst us, doing
+fighting duty for the first time, so that we almost welcomed the
+desperate occasion which furnished so rare and sweet a sight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE FOURTH OF MAY
+
+  The Unofficial Armistice--The Clash of the Scouts--"Sticking It"
+  on the Fourth.
+
+
+We suffered cruelly on the Fourth. The dawn had discovered two long
+lines of men, madly digging in plain sight of one another. There was
+no firing except that one little storm when the stronger light had
+shown our rear guard ridiculously tangled up with a screen of German
+scouts so that some of each were nearer to foe than to friend and so
+had foes on either side. They shot at one another. Some of us in our
+excitement shot at both, scarce able to distinguish one from the
+other. Others amongst us strove to knock their rifles up. And the
+Germans in their trenches shot too. Both of us of the main bodies
+continued to respect the tacit truce imposed by the conditions under
+which we found ourselves, insofar as we ourselves were concerned, and
+fired only at the poor fellows in between.
+
+As for them, I fear the absurd nature of their tragic plight excited
+more of wonder than of concern. They merged into hedges and ditches
+swallowed them. Their case was only one incident of many, and what
+became of them I have never heard, except that Lieutenant Lane who
+commanded our rear guard was with us on the Eighth, so I presume that
+some must have crawled up to us that night and so saved themselves for
+the moment. Anything else would have been a great pity for so brave a
+squad.
+
+The digging continued until the better equipped Germans had finished
+their task; when they sought their holes with one accord, an example
+which we as quickly followed.
+
+This was at nine o'clock on the morning of the fourth of May. From
+then on until dusk the intensity of a furious all-day bombardment by
+every known variety of projectile had been broken only at intervals to
+allow of the nearer approach of the enemy's attacking infantry. The
+worst was the enfilade fire of two batteries on our right which with
+six-inch high explosive shells tore our front line to fragments so
+that we were glad indeed to see the night come. Only once had ours
+replied, one gun only. That was early in the morning. It barked
+feebly, twice, but drew so fierce a German fire that it was forever
+silenced.
+
+Some infantry attacks followed but were beaten off. Only a weak half
+of the battalion was in the front line trench. The remainder were in
+Belle-waarde Wood, the outer fringe of which was a bare one hundred
+yards behind the front line. They were fairly comfortable in pine
+bough huts which were, however, with some of their occupants, badly
+smashed by shell fire that day.
+
+The outcome was that although all attacks were beaten off, our losses
+were well on to two hundred men, most of whom were accounted for in
+the more exposed front line.
+
+The order had been that we were to hold this front for several days
+more although the regiment had been in the trenches since April the
+20th, and, except for a march back to Ypres from Polygon Wood, since
+early April. But after such a smashing blow on men who were already
+thoroughly exhausted, the plan was changed and our line was taken over
+by the King's Shropshire Light Infantry, the "Shrops" we called them,
+a sister regiment in our brigade, the 80th.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+CORPORAL EDWARDS TAKES UP THE TALE
+
+  Amongst the Wounded--Trench Nerves--Resting in Coffins.
+
+
+It was on this day that I rejoined the regiment. I had been wounded in
+the foot at St. Eloi in February and had come up in a draft fresh from
+hospital and had lain in the supports at the huts all of the Fourth.
+
+The survivors of the front line fire joined those at the huts shortly
+after nightfall. They were stupid from shell fire, too dazed to talk.
+I saw one man wandering in half circles, talking to himself--and with
+a heavy pack on. There were others in worse plight; so there was no
+help for him.
+
+Myself, I was too much engrossed in a search for my comrade Woods to
+bother with other men less dear, however much I might sympathise with
+them.
+
+He and I had been "mates" since Toronto days, had made good cheer
+together in the hot August days of mobilisation at Ottawa and had
+rubbed mess tins together under the starry sky at Levis before the
+great Armada had taken us to English camps and other scenes.
+
+It was he who had fetched me out of danger at St. Eloi. And now it was
+my turn. They told me he was somewhere on a stretcher.
+
+I searched them all. I struck matches--and was met by querulous
+curses; I knelt by the side of the dying; I inquired of those wounded
+who still could walk, but find him I could not. It appears that a new
+and heavy moustache had helped to hide him from me. I was in great
+distress, but in the fullness of time and when our small circles had
+run their route, I discovered him in Toronto.
+
+The word was that we were to go to Vlamertinghe, where the Zeppelins
+had bombed us in our huts. It lay well below threatened Ypres.
+
+We of Number One Company passed Belle-waarde Lake, with its old
+dug-outs and its smells, and struck off across the fields, the better
+to avoid the heavy barrage fire which made all movement of troops
+difficult beyond words. We reached the railroad up and down which in
+quieter times the battalion had been wont to march to and fro to the
+Polygon Wood trenches.
+
+The fire became heavier here and the going was rough so that what with
+the burden of packs which seemed to weigh a ton and all other things;
+we moved in a mass, as sheep do. When slung rifles jostled packs, good
+friends cursed one another both loud and long. This was trench nerves.
+
+Shortly, we ran into a solid wall of barrage fire. The officer
+commanding the company halted us. We were for pushing on to that rest
+each aching bone and muscle, each tight-stretched and shell-dazed
+nerve fairly screamed aloud for. But he was adamant. We cursed him. He
+pretended not to hear. This also was trench nerves.
+
+It was growing late. The star shells became fewer. The search-lights
+ceased altogether. In half an hour those keen eyes in distant trees
+and steeples would have marked us down--and what good then the agony
+of this all-night march? Better to have been killed back there in
+Belle-waarde. We were still a good two miles from Ypres town.
+
+The officer literally drove us back over the way we had come. His
+orders had anticipated this eventuality so that rather than force
+the passage of the barrage fire, merely for a rest, we should rest
+here where no rest was to be had. Undoubtedly, if we had been "going
+up" it would have been different. We should have gone on--no fire
+would have stopped us.
+
+    [Illustration: BRITISH WOUNDED WAITING FOR TRANSPORTATION TO A
+    DRESSING STATION.]
+
+    [Illustration: THE PRINCESS PATRICIAS IN BILLETS AT WESTOUTRE,
+    BELGIUM. ON TOP OF WAGON IN FOREGROUND IS "KNIFE-REST" TYPE OF
+    WIRE ENTANGLEMENTS.]
+
+The half hour limit brought us to a murky daylight and an old and
+sloppy support trench which bordered the track and into which we flung
+ourselves, to lay in the water in a dull stupor that was neither sleep
+nor honest waking.
+
+Later, when the rations had been "dished out" we bestirred ourselves
+and so found or dug queer coffin-shaped shelves in either wall. Out of
+courtesy we called them dug-outs.
+
+I do not remember that any one spoke much of the dead.
+
+The rain stopped and for a time the unaccustomed sun came out. We
+drove stakes in the walls above our coffins, hunted sand-bags and hung
+them and spare equipment over the open face and then crawled back into
+the water which, as usual, was already forming in the hollows that our
+hips made where we lay. Until noon there was little heard but the
+thick breathing of weary men. Occasionally one tossed and shouted
+blasphemous warnings anent imaginary and bursting shells; whereat
+those within hearing whined in a tired and hopeless anger, and, if
+close by, kicked him. Trench nerves.
+
+All day the fire of many guns sprayed us. Near by, the well defined
+emplacement of one of our own batteries inevitably drew to the entire
+vicinity a heavy fire so that one shell broke fair amongst our
+sleeping men.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+MAJOR GAULT COMES BACK
+
+  "The King Is Dead": "Long Live the King"--Back to
+  Belle-waarde--The Seventh of May.
+
+
+That was on the fifth. In the afternoon young Park came to us. He was
+the Commanding Officer's orderly. There was down on his face but he
+was full of all that strange wisdom of a trenchman who had experienced
+the bitter hardships and the heartbreaking losses of a winter in the
+cursed salient of St. Eloi, by Shelley Farm and The Mound of Death.
+But just now this infant of the trenches had the round eyes of a
+startled child, which in him meant mad excitement.
+
+"The C.O.'s hit."
+
+The word slid up the trench: "The C.O.'s hit."
+
+"Strike me! Cawn't this bleedin' regiment keep a bleedin' Colonel----?
+That makes two of them!"
+
+"How did it happen?"
+
+"What the devil are we goin' to do?"
+
+"Who says so?"
+
+"The second in six weeks!"
+
+"Parkie."
+
+"By----! This mob's in a Hell of a fix, Bo'."
+
+Park was leaning on his rifle, trench fashion. "Oh, dry up. You give
+me a pain."
+
+And then he launched his thunderbolt, "Gault's back."
+
+The chorus of despair became one of wild delight.
+
+"We're jake!" "He'll see us through." "Where is he?" "How's his arm?"
+"The son-of-a-gun! Couldn't keep him away, could they?"
+
+"No fear. Not 'im. Bloody well wanted to be wiv 'is bleedin' boys, 'e
+did. 'E ain't bloody well goin' to do 'is bloody solderin' in a
+'cushy' job in Blighty--like some of 'em. Not after rysin' us. Do it
+wiv 'is bloody self like a man; an' that's wot 'e is."
+
+The speaker glared accusingly; but his declaration agreed too well
+with what all thought for any one to take exception to it.
+
+The new Commanding Officer had been wounded at St. Eloi on March 1st
+and this was our first intimation of his return.
+
+Park took up his tale. "He's over there with the C.O. now," and
+switching: "Shell splinter got him in the eye. Guess it's gone and
+maybe the other one too."
+
+"By----!" he burst out passionately: "I hope it don't. He's been damn
+good to me--and to you fellows too," he added fiercely, while his
+lower lip quivered.
+
+I think all stared anywhere but at Park, in a curious embarrassment.
+
+"Got it goin' from one trench to another to see about the rations
+comin' up instead of stayin' in like a 'dug-out wallah.' Got out on
+top of the ground, walked across an' stopped one," he added bitterly.
+
+A considerable draft of "old boys," ruddy of face and fresh from
+hospital, together with some more new men reached us that night. We
+"went up" again with the dusk of the following night and "took over"
+our previous trenches in front of Belle-waarde Wood.
+
+We were told that the Shropshires had been rather badly cut up in the
+interval of their occupation by a further course of intense
+bombardment and some fierce infantry fighting. Nevertheless, the
+trenches had been put into much better shape since our earlier
+occupancy of them, so that what with our work that night they were by
+the morning of the seventh in fairly good shape.
+
+The night was not unusual in any way. There was the regular amount of
+shelling, of star shells, of machine gun and rifle fire, and of
+course, casualties. Those we always had, be it ever so quiet.
+
+Even the morning "Stand-to" with that mysterious dread of unknown
+dangers that it invariably brought gave us nothing worse than an hour
+of chilly waiting--and later, the smoke of the Germans' cooking fires.
+
+There were none for us. It was as simple as algebra. Smoke attracted
+undue artillery attention--the Germans had artillery; we had not. They
+had fires; we had not.
+
+The day rolled by smoothly enough. Except for the fresh graves and a
+certain number of unburied dead the small-pox appearance of the
+shell-pitted ground about might have been thought to have been of
+ancient origin; so filled with water were the shell holes and so large
+had they grown as a result of the constant sloughing in of their
+sodden banks.
+
+During all these days the German fire on the salient at large had
+continued as fiercely as before but had spared us its severest trials.
+
+The night of the seventh passed to all outward appearance pretty much
+in the same manner as the preceding one.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE EIGHTH OF MAY AND THE LAST STAND OF THE PRINCESS PATS
+
+  Morning in the Trenches--The Artillery Preparation for the
+  Infantry Attack--The P.P's Chosen to Stem the Tide--The Trust of
+  a Lady--Chaos--Corporal Dover--The Manner in Which Some Men Kill
+  and Others Die.
+
+
+It seemed as though I had just stepped off my whack of sentry go for
+my group when a kick in the ribs apprised me that it was "Stand-to." I
+rubbed my eyes, swore and rose to my feet. Such was the narrowness of
+the trench that the movement put me at my post at the parapet, where
+in common with my mates, I fell to scanning the top for the first
+signs of day and the Germans.
+
+The latter lay on the other side of the ravine from us as they had
+since the Fourth, except for such times as they had assaulted our
+position. The smoke of Ypres and all the close-packed villages of a
+thickly populated countryside rose sullenly on every hand.
+
+Over everything there hung the pallor of the mist-ridden Flemish
+morning, deadly quiet, as was usual at that time of the trench day
+when the tenseness of the all-night vigil was just merging into the
+relieving daylight.
+
+At half past six that stillness was punctuated by a single shell,
+which broke barely in our rear. And then the ball commenced--the most
+intense bombardment we had yet experienced. Most of the fire came from
+the batteries in concealed positions on our right, whence, as on the
+fourth, they poured in a very destructive enfilade fire which swept up
+and down the length of the trench like the stream of a hose, making it
+a shambles. Each burst of high-explosive shells, each terrible
+pulsation of the atmosphere, if it missed the body, seemed to rend the
+very brain, or else stupefied it.
+
+The general result was beyond any poor words of mine. All spoken
+language is totally inadequate to describe the shocks and horrors of
+an intense bombardment. It is not that man himself lacks the
+imaginative gift of words but that he has not the word tools with
+which to work. They do not exist. Each attempt to describe becomes
+near effrontery and demands its own separate apology.
+
+In addition, kind Nature draws a veil for him over so much of all the
+worst of it that many details are spared his later recollection. He
+remembers only the indescribable confusion and the bursting claps of
+near-by flame, as foul in color and as ill of smell as an addled egg.
+He knows only that the acid of the high-explosive gas eats into the
+tissue of his brain and lungs, destroying with other things, most
+memories of the shelling.
+
+Overhead an aeroplane buzzed. We could even descry the figures of the
+pilot and his observer, the latter signaling. No gun of ours answered.
+The dead and dying lay all about and none could attend them: A rifle
+was a rifle.
+
+This continued for an hour, at the end of which time we poked our
+heads up and saw their infantry coming on in columns of mobs, and some
+of them also very prettily in the open order we had ourselves been
+taught. Every field and hedge spewed them up. We stood, head and
+shoulders exposed above the ragged parapet, giving them "Rapid-fire."
+They had no stomach for that and retired to their holes, leaving many
+dead and grievously wounded.
+
+It was at this time that we saw the troops on our flanks falling back
+in orderly fashion. I called that fact to the attention of Lieutenant
+Lane, who was the only officer left in our vicinity. He said that the
+last word he had received was to hang on.
+
+This we proceeded to do, and so, we are told, did the others. We
+learned later that the battalion roll call that night showed a
+strength of one hundred and fifty men out of the six hundred and
+thirty-five who had answered "Present" twenty-four hours earlier. And
+the official records of the Canadian Eye Witness, Lord Beaverbrook,
+then Sir Max Aitken, as given in "Canada in Flanders," state that
+"Those who survive and the friends of those who have died may draw
+solace from the thought that never in the history of arms have
+soldiers more valiantly sustained the gift and trust of a Lady,"
+referring to the Color which had been worked for and presented to us
+by the Princess Patricia, daughter of His Royal Highness the Duke of
+Connaught, then Governor-General of Canada.
+
+We were on the apex of the line and were now unsupported on either
+side. It was about this time, I believe, that a small detachment of
+the King's Shropshire Light Infantry, a sister regiment in our
+brigade, fetched to the companies in our rear twenty boxes of badly
+needed ammunition and reenforced the Princess Patricias.
+
+Following the beating off of their infantry attack the Germans gave us
+a short breathing spell until their machine guns had been trained on
+our parapet and a school of light field guns dragged up into place.
+The aeroplane came out again, dropping to within three hundred feet of
+our trench, and with tiny jets of vari-colored smoke bombs, directed
+the terribly accurate fire of the enemy guns, already so close to, but
+so well insured against any harm from us that they attempted no
+concealment. And the big guns on the right completed the devastation.
+
+This continued for another half hour, at the end of which time there
+remained intact only one small traverse in the trench, which owed its
+existence to the fragment of chicken wire that held its sides up. The
+remainder was absolutely wiped out. This time there was no rapid fire,
+nor even any looking over the top to see if the enemy were coming on.
+Instead, the Germans fairly combed the parapet with their machine
+guns. Each indication of curiosity from us drew forth from them such a
+stream of fire that the top of the parapet spat forth a steady shower
+of flying mud, and, which made it impossible for us to defend
+ourselves properly, even had there been enough of us left to do so.
+
+The rest was chaos, a bit of pure hell. Men struggling, buried alive
+and looking at us for the aid they would not ask for. Soldiers all.
+And the Germans now pouring in in waves from all sides, and especially
+from our unprotected flanks and rear, hindered only by the desultory
+rifle fire of our two weakened companies in the support trenches. We
+were receiving rifle fire from four directions and bayonet thrusts
+from the Germans on the parapet. Mowed down like sheep. And as they
+came on they trampled our dead and bayoneted our wounded.
+
+The machine-gun crew had gone under to a man, doing their best to the
+last. I think Sergeant Whitehead went with them, too; at least he was
+near there a short time before, and I never saw him or any of the gun
+crew again. The only living soul near that spot was Royston, dragging
+himself out from under a pile of debris and covered with mud and
+blood, his face horribly swollen to twice its normal size, blinded for
+the moment.
+
+To quote "Canada in Flanders" again:
+
+"At this time the bombardment recommenced with great intensity. The
+German bombardment had been so heavy since May 4th that a wood which
+the Regiment had used in part for cover was completely demolished. The
+range of our machine-guns was taken with extreme precision. All,
+without exception, were buried. Those who served them behaved with the
+most admirable coolness and gallantry. Two were dug out, mounted and
+used again. One was actually disinterred three times and kept in
+action till a shell annihilated the whole section. Corporal Dover
+stuck to his gun throughout and, although wounded, continued to
+discharge his duties with as much coolness as if on parade. In the
+explosion that ended his ill-fated gun, he lost a leg and an arm, and
+was completely buried in the debris. Conscious or unconscious, he lay
+there in that condition until dusk, when he crawled out of all that
+was left of the obliterated trench and moaned for help. Two of his
+comrades sprang from the support trench--by this time the fire
+trench--and succeeded in carrying in his mangled and bleeding body.
+But as all that remained of this brave soldier was being lowered into
+the trench a bullet put an end to his sufferings. No bullet could put
+an end to his glory."
+
+George Easton was firing with me at the gray mass of the oncoming
+horde. "My rifle's jammed!" he cried.
+
+"Take mine." And I stooped to get one from a casualty underfoot. But a
+moment later, as I fired from the parapet, my bayonet was broken off
+by a German bullet. I shouted wildly to Cosh to toss me one from near
+by.
+
+Just then the main body of the Germans swarmed into the end of the
+trench.
+
+Of this Lord Beaverbrook says: "At this moment the Germans made their
+third and last attack. It was arrested by rifle fire, although some
+individuals penetrated into the fire trench on the right. At this
+point all the Princess Patricias had been killed, so that this part of
+the trench was actually tenantless. Those who established a footing
+were few in number, and they were gradually dislodged; and so the
+third and last attack was routed as successfully as those which had
+preceded it."
+
+His conclusion that we had all been killed was justifiable even
+though, fortunately for me, it was an erroneous one. So I am glad for
+other motives than those of mere courtesy to be able here to set him
+right.
+
+Bugler Lee shouted to me: "I'm shot through the leg." A couple of us
+seized him, planning to go down to where the communication trench had
+once been. But he stopped us, saying: "It's no good, boys. It's a dead
+end! They're killing us."
+
+Cosh swore. "Don't give up, kid! We'll beat the ---- yet!" A German
+standing a few yards away raised his rifle and blew his head off.
+Young Brown broke down at this--they had just done in his wounded pal:
+"Oh, look! Look what they've done to Davie," and fell to weeping. And
+with that another put the muzzle of his rifle against the boy's head
+and pulled the trigger.
+
+Young Cox from Winnipeg put his hands above his head at the order. His
+captor placed the muzzle of his rifle squarely against the palm and
+blew it off. There remained only a bloody and broken mass dangling
+from the wrist.
+
+    [Illustration: GERMAN PRISONERS AFTER A SUCCESSFUL CANADIAN
+    ATTACK, BRINGING WOUNDED MEN DOWN A COMMUNICATION TRENCH.]
+
+I saw a man who had come up in the draft with me on the 4th, rolling
+around in the death agony, tossing his head loosely about in the wild
+pain of it, his pallid face a white mark in the muck underfoot. A
+burly German reached the spot and without hesitation plunged his
+saw-edged bayonet through the throat.
+
+Close by another wounded man was struggling feebly under a pile of
+earth, his legs projecting so that only the convulsive heaving of the
+loose earth indicated that a man was dying underneath. Another German
+observed that too, and shoved his bayonet through the mud and held it
+savagely there until all was quiet.
+
+This I did not see, but another did and told me of it afterward.
+Sergeant Phillpots had been shot through the jaw so that he went to
+his knees as a bullock does at the slaughtering. He supported himself
+waveringly by his hands. The blood poured from him so that he was all
+but fainting with the loss of it.
+
+A big German stood over him.
+
+Phillpots looked up: "Play the game! Play the game!" he muttered
+weakly.
+
+The German coolly put a round through his head.
+
+I was still without a bayonet, and seeing these things, said to
+Easton: "We'd better beat it."
+
+He swore again. "Yes, they're murdering us. No use stopping here. Come
+on!"
+
+And just then he, too, dropped. I thought him dead. There was no use
+in my stopping to share his fate or worse. It was now every man for
+himself. At a later date we met in England.
+
+The other half of the regiment lay in support two hundred yards away
+in Belle-waarde Wood and in front of the chateau and lake of that
+name, where my draft had lain on the fourth. I made a dash for it.
+What with the mud and the many shell holes, the going was bad. I was
+indistinctly aware of a great deal of promiscuous shooting at me, but
+most distinctly of one German who shot at me about ten times in as
+many yards and from quite close range. I saw I could not make it. I
+flung myself into a Johnson hole, and as soon as I had caught my
+breath, scrambled out again and raced for the trench I had just left.
+I was by this time unarmed, having flung my rifle away to further my
+flight, notwithstanding which another German shot at me as I went
+toward him.
+
+As I landed in the trench an angry voice shouted something I could not
+understand. And I scrambled to my feet in time to see a German
+sullenly lower his rifle from the level of my body at the command of a
+big black-bearded officer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+PRISONERS
+
+  A German Version of a Soldier's Death!--The Courage of
+  Cox--Robbing the Helpless--Water on the End of a Bayonet--The
+  Curious Case of Scott--Prussian Bullies--Why I Was Covered with a
+  Fine Sweat.
+
+
+The Germans were by this time in full possession of this slice of
+trench, and for the next few minutes the officer was kept busy pulling
+his men off their victims. Like slavering dogs they were.
+
+He did not have his lambs any too well in hand, however. O.B. Taylor,
+a lovable character in Number One Company, came to his end here. The
+Germans ordered him and Hookie Walker to go back down the trench. He
+had no sooner turned to do so than a German shot him from behind and
+from quite close, so that it blew the groin completely out, making a
+terrible hole. We could not tie up so bad a wound and he bled to
+death. Hookie Walker remained with him to the last, five hours later,
+when he said: "I'm going to sleep boys," and did so. Fortunately, he
+did not suffer. And all the others except young Cox were equally
+fortunate, since they were murdered outright.
+
+Taylor's was the most calculated of all the murders we had witnessed
+and outdid even those of the wounded because the excitement of the
+fight was two hours old and he was doing the bidding of his captors at
+the time. The killing of those who resisted was of course quite in
+order. Why he was killed while Walker was left unharmed and at his
+side to the last we did not know and could only credit to a whimsy of
+our captors. No punishment was visited upon his murderer or upon any
+of them so far as we were able to learn.
+
+Upon my later return to Canada I found that Taylor's sister there had
+received a letter from a German officer enclosing a letter addressed
+to her which had been found on her brother's body, together with three
+war medals and a Masonic ring. The latter was the key to the incident
+since the officer also claimed to have been a Mason. In his letter
+this officer said that her brother had met a soldier's death!
+
+Some said that our friendly officer was not a German but an Irishman.
+I doubted that but it may have been so, for it was true that his
+speech contained no trace of the accent which is usually associated
+with a German's English speech. His was that of an English gentleman.
+And to him we undoubtedly owed our wretched lives that day.
+
+I in particular have good cause to be grateful. A German, all of six
+foot four, who swung a tremendously broad headsman's axe with a curved
+blade, tried several times to get at me. Each time the officer stopped
+him. Still he persisted. He apparently saw no one else and kept his
+eye fastened on me with deadly intention in it. He pushed aside the
+others, Prussians and prisoners alike; he whirled the shining blade
+high above a face lit up with savage exultation, terrible to see, and
+which reflected the sensual revelling of his heated brain in the
+bloody orgy ahead. As I followed the incredibly rapid motions of the
+blade, my blood turned to water. My limbs refused to act and my mind
+travelled back over the years to a little Scottish village where I had
+been used to sit in the dark corners of the shoemaker's shop,
+listening to him and others of the old 2nd Gordons recount their
+terrible tales of the hill men on the march to Kandahar with "Bobs."
+And now I felt that same tremendous sensation of fear which used to
+send me trembling to my childish pallet in the croft, peering
+fearfully through the darkness for the oiled body of a naked Pathan
+with his corkscrew kris. Terror swept over me like a springtime flood.
+He saw no one else. His eye fastened on me in crudest hate. But as he
+stood over me with feet spread wide and the circle of his axe's swing
+broadening for the finale, the thread of rabbit-like mesmerism broke
+and I sprang nimbly aside as the blade buried itself deep in the mud
+wall I had been cowering against. I endeavoured to dodge him by
+putting some of my fellow prisoners between us. No use. He followed
+me, shoving and cursing his way among them, swinging his axe. My hair
+stood on end and I felt rather critical of their much-vaunted Prussian
+discipline. Another endeavoured to bayonet Charlie Scarfe. The officer
+at last stopped them both.
+
+Our captors belonged to the Twenty-first Prussian Regiment and were,
+so far as we knew, the first of their kind we had been up against,
+all previous comers on our front having been Bavarians and latterly
+of the army group of Prince Ruprecht of Bavaria--"Rupie," we called
+him. They wore the baggy grey clothes and clumsy looking leather top
+boots of the German infantryman. The spiked _pickelhauben_ was
+conspicuous by its absence and was, we well knew, a thing only of
+billets and of "swank" parades. In its place was the soft pancake
+trench cap with its small colored button in the front.
+
+The enemy were armed for the most part with pioneers' bayonets, as
+well adapted by reason of their saw edges for sticking flesh and blood
+as for sawing wood; and, if for the former, an unnecessarily cruel
+weapon, since it was bound to stick in the body and badly lacerate it
+internally in the withdrawal; especially if given a twist.
+
+The trench front had been about-faced since its change of ownership
+and the Germans were already casting our dead out of the shattered
+trench, both in front and behind, and in many cases using them to stop
+the gaps in the parapet; so that they now received the bullets of
+their erstwhile comrades.
+
+We were ordered up and out at the back of the parapet and then made to
+lie there. The German artillery had ceased. We had none. Odd shots
+from the remnant of our fellows still hanging on in the supports
+continued to come over, but none of us were hit. In all probability,
+they withheld their fire when they saw what was afoot. Some German
+snipers in a farmhouse at the rear were less considerate, but
+fortunately failed to hit us.
+
+Later we were ordered to take our equipment off and those who had
+coats, to shed them. We did not see the latter again and missed them
+horribly in the rain of that day. Two of the Prussians "frisked" us
+for our tobacco, cigarettes, knives and other valuables.
+
+This was in bitter contrast to our own treatment of prisoners under
+similar conditions. True, we had always searched them but had
+invariably returned those little trinkets and comforts which to a
+soldier are so important. And I think our men had always showered them
+with food and tobacco.
+
+We were then marched to the rear, with the exception of one, who, by
+permission of the officer, remained with the dying Taylor.
+
+There were ten of us all told. I have only heard of a few others who
+were captured that day. Roberts is still in Germany and Todeschi has
+been exchanged and is now in Toronto. The latter lay with a boy of the
+machine-gun crew for a couple of days in a dug-out, both badly
+wounded. A German stumbled on to them. They pleaded for water. The
+German said, "I'll give you water" and bayoneted the boy as he lay. He
+raised his weapon so that the blood of his comrade dripped on
+Todeschi's face.
+
+"All right," Todeschi cried in German, "kill me too, but first give me
+water, you----"
+
+The German lowered his rifle in amazement: "What, you schwein, you
+speak the good German? Where did you learn it?"
+
+"In your schools. For Christ's sake--give me water--and kill me."
+
+"What! You live with us and then do this? Schwein!"
+
+"All right, I will give you water and I will not kill you; just to
+show you how well we can treat a prisoner."
+
+Todeschi was then taken to the field dressing station where according
+to his own account his mangled leg was amputated without the use of
+any anesthetic. But that may have been because in such a time of
+stress they had none. Later he was exchanged.
+
+I met Scott in the prison camp a few days later and he told his tale.
+It appears that in the confusion of the earlier fighting he had become
+separated from the regiment, became lost and eventually floundered
+into an English battalion. He reported to the officer commanding the
+trench and told his story. The officer had no idea where the Patricias
+lay and so ordered Scott to remain with them until such time as an
+inquiry might establish the whereabouts of his regiment.
+
+They were captured, but under less exciting circumstances than
+occurred in our own case. And the Germans had word that there was a
+Canadian amongst these English troops. It was one of the first things
+mentioned. They did not say how they had acquired their information,
+but shouted out a request for the man to stand forth. When no one
+complied, they questioned each man separately, asking him if he was a
+Canadian or knew aught of one in that trench.
+
+They all lied: "No." The Germans were so certain that they again went
+over each man in turn, examining him.
+
+Scott was at the end of the line. He began to cut the Canadian buttons
+off his coat and to remove his badges. Several men near by assisted
+and replaced them with such of their own as they could spare; each man
+perhaps contributing a button. They had no thread nor time to use it
+if they had, so tacked the buttons into place by all manner of
+makeshifts, such as broken ends of matches thrust through holes
+punched in the cloth; anything to hold the buttons in place and tide
+the hunted Scott over the inspection. He passed. The Germans were
+quite furious.
+
+Scott and his companions could only guess at the cause of this strange
+conduct, but presumed that the Canadian was wanted for special
+treatment of an unfavorable, if not of a final nature.
+
+To return to our own case:
+
+About the middle of the afternoon we were herded by our guards into a
+shallow depression a short distance in the rear of the trench and
+there told to lie down. The officer and his men returned to the
+trench. Until we were taken back to the trench at six we were
+continually sniped at by the Germans in the captured trench. We had no
+recourse but to make ourselves as small as possible, which we did. And
+whether owing to the fact that the hollow we were lying in prevented
+our being actually within the range of the enemy vision, or whether
+they were merely playing cat and mouse with us, I do not know, but
+none were hit. Young Cox suffered stoically. His mangled hand had
+become badly fouled with dirt and filth, and the ragged bones
+protruded through the broken flesh. So, in a quiet interval between
+the sniping periods we hurriedly sawed the shattered stump of his hand
+off with our clasp knives and bound it up as best we could. It was not
+a nice task, for him nor us, but he did not so much as grunt during
+the operation. The nearest he came to complaining was when he asked me
+to let him lay his hand across my body to ease it, at the same time
+remarking: "I guess when they get us to Germany they'll let us write,
+and I'll be able to write mother and then she'll not know I've lost my
+hand." He was a most valiant and faithful soldier.
+
+The perpetual rain and mist peculiar to that low-lying land added to
+our wretched condition and increased the pain of the wounds that most
+of us suffered from.
+
+At six o'clock our guards returned and curtly ordered us to our feet.
+We were taken back to the trench, where our officer friend had us
+searched again. Here for the first time my two corporal's stripes were
+noticed and a mild excitement ensued. "Korporal! Korporal!" they
+exclaimed and crowded up the better to inspect me and verify the
+report, and jabbering "_Ja! Ja!_" Apparently a captured corporal was a
+rarity. Strangely enough, they paid little or no attention to the
+sergeant of our party, although he had the three stripes of his rank
+up.
+
+As I happened to be in the lead of our party and the first to enter
+the trench, I was the first man searched and so had to await the
+examination of the others. Worn out by the events of the day and the
+wound I had received early in the morning from a shell fragment, I
+fell asleep against the wall of the trench where I sat.
+
+I was awakened by a poke in the ribs from Scarfe. "Time to shift,
+mate."
+
+I rose to my feet and, following the instructions of the officer, led
+the way along the trench. The Germans had already, with their usual
+industry, gotten the trench into some sort of shape again, with the
+parapet shifted over to the other side and facing Belle-waarde Wood.
+And everywhere along its length I noticed the bodies of our dead built
+into it to replace sandbags while others lay on the parados at the
+rear.
+
+It was not nice. The faces of men we had known and had called comrade
+looked at us now in ghastly disarray from odd sections of both walls.
+Already they were taking a brick-like shape from the weight of the
+filled bags on top of them. In places the legs and arms protruded,
+brushing us as we passed. However, this was war and quite ethical.
+
+Naturally we had to crowd by the other occupants of the trench. And
+each took a poke at us as we went by, some with their bayonets,
+saying: "Verdamnt Englaender" and: "Englaender Schwein,"--pigs of
+English. Also quite a number of them spoke English after a fashion.
+There was in these men none of the soldier's usual tolerance or
+good-natured pity for an enemy who had fought well and had then
+succumbed to the fortunes of war. Instead, a blind and vicious rage
+which took no account of our helpless condition.
+
+They cuffed us, they buffeted us, they pricked us cruelly with their
+saw bayonets and then laughed and sneered as we flinched and dodged
+awkwardly aside. Then they cursed us.
+
+Shortly, we were led into the presence of a man whom I shall remember
+if I live to be a hundred. He wore glasses and on his upper lip there
+bloomed such a dainty moustache as is affected by "Little Willie" as
+Tommy calls the German Crown Prince. He had the eye of a rat. It
+snapped so cruel a hate that one's blood stopped.
+
+He seized me by the right shoulder with his left hand: "You Corporal!
+You Corporal!" as though that fact of itself condemned me, and at the
+same time tugging at his holster until he found his revolver, which he
+placed against my temple. Then and there I fervently prayed that he
+would pull the trigger and end it all. I was fed up. The all-day
+bombardment, the last terrible slaughter of helpless men, the rain and
+cold, combining with the pain of the raw wound in my side, had gotten
+on my nerves. With the revolver still at my head I turned to Scarfe:
+"They're going to do us in, Charlie. I only hope they'll do it proper.
+None of that bayonet stuff. Bullets for me." Already the Prussians
+were crowding round us threateningly again, with their saw-edged
+bayonets ready, some fixed in the rifle, others clasped short, like
+daggers, for such a butchering as they had had earlier in the
+afternoon, when I had been so nearly axed.
+
+"Might as well kill us outright as scare us to death," complained
+Scarfe bitterly.
+
+Nevertheless our hearts leaped when a moment later our mysterious
+black officer friend hove in sight. Life is sweet.
+
+He asked them what they did with us. The tableau answered for itself
+before the words had left his lips. And then we had to listen to our
+fate discussed in language and gesture so eloquent and so fraught with
+terrible importance to us that our sensitized minds could miss no
+smallest point of each fine shade of cruel meaning.
+
+"Little Willie" thought it scarce worth their while to bother with so
+small a bag; that it would not be worth the trouble to send a
+miserable ten of _Verdamnt Englaender_ back to the Fatherland--Better
+to kill them like the swine they were.
+
+Our blood froze to hear the man and to see the poison of that rat soul
+of his exuding from his every pore, in every gesture and in each fresh
+inflection of his rasping voice. And all his men shouted their fierce
+approval and shook in our faces their bloody butcher's bayonets. It
+was a bitter draught. If they had killed us then it would have had to
+have been done in most cold blood, exceeding even the murder of Taylor
+in planned brutality. He at least had not known that it was coming and
+had not felt this insane fear which we now experienced and which made
+us wonder how they would do it. Would each have to watch the other's
+end? And would it be done by bullet or by bayonet? We greatly feared
+it would be the latter. We pictured ourselves held down as hogs
+are--our throats slit----!
+
+The dark officer thought otherwise and minced no words in the saying.
+Our hearts leapt out to him warmly, in gratitude.
+
+He sharply ordered them to desist, at which they slunk sullenly away,
+as hungry dogs do from a bone.
+
+I felt an uncomfortable physical sensation and ran my hand uneasily
+beneath my shirt. I was covered with a fine sweat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+PULLING THE LEG OF A GERMAN GENERAL
+
+  Polygon Wood and Picadilly Again--German Headquarters--Surprising
+  Kitchener--"Your Infantry's No Good"--The Germans Give Us News of
+  the Regiment.
+
+
+We were then escorted under heavy guard out over the fields in the
+rear, past the nearby farmhouse, which was simply filled with snipers.
+The latter, however, did not shoot at us, presumably because they
+might have hit some of our numerous guards. We seemed to be working
+right through the heart of the German Army. Everywhere the troops were
+massed. Along the road they lay in solid formation on both sides. If
+we had had artillery to play on them now they would have suffered
+tremendous losses. The whole countryside presented a living target.
+All the way they shouted "Schwein" and taunted us in both languages.
+Every shell-hole, farmhouse, hut, dugout and old trench on the
+three-mile stretch between the Front and Polygon Wood contributed its
+quota.
+
+The regiment had evacuated Polygon Wood on the night of the third.
+Across the old trail our fatigue parties had tramped new ones in the
+mud, up past Regent Street, Leicester Square and Picadilly. We passed
+them all.
+
+We were marched over to the little settlement of pine-bough huts which
+the regiment had previously taken over from the French. The men with
+me greeted them like old friends. Here was the Sniper's Hut, there the
+Commanding Officer's. This was the hut in which the brave Joe Waldron
+had "gone West," that on the site of one where fourteen of "ours" had
+stopped a shell while they slept. Memories submerged us and made us
+weak. Even the guiding rope that our men had used to hold themselves
+to the trail of nights still held its place for groping German hands.
+
+Beside it lay the fragments of the French signboards, jocular
+advertisements of mud baths for trench fever, the _hotel_ this and the
+_maison_ that. One of my companions pointed to a larger hut which he
+said our fellows had called the Hotel Cecil. The board was missing
+now. And no German signboard took its place. Their wit did not run in
+so richly innocent a channel.
+
+The huts lay just off the race track in front of the ruined chateau,
+buried deep in the remnants of what had once been the beautiful park
+of a large country estate. These huts were now the German
+headquarters.
+
+There was as much English as German talked there that day. Everywhere
+there was cooking going on, mostly in portable camp kitchens.
+
+As we came to a halt one big fellow smoking a pipe observed
+nonchalantly: "You fellows are lucky. Our orders were to take no
+Canadian prisoners."
+
+The man was so casual, so utterly matter-of-fact and there was about
+his remark so simple an air of directness and of finality that there
+was no escaping his sincerity, unduly interested though we were.
+
+Another officer said "Englaender?"
+
+The big fellow said "Kanadien." The other raised his brows and
+shoulders: "Uhh!"
+
+A younger officer came up: "Never mind, boys: Your turn to-day. Might
+be mine to-morrow." Turning to the others, he too said:
+"Englaender?"
+
+    [Illustration: WOUNDED CANADIANS RECEIVING FIRST AID IN A
+    SUPPORT TRENCH AFTER AN ATTACK.]
+
+"No! Canadian."
+
+"Oh!" And he appeared to be pleasantly surprised. He asked me for a
+souvenir and pointed to the brass Canada shoulder straps and the red
+cloth "P. P. C. L. I.'s" on the shoulders of the others. But I had
+already shoved my few trinkets down my puttees while lying back of the
+trench that afternoon. Scarfe, however, gave up his "Canada" straps.
+
+The young officer gave him in return a carved nut with silver filigree
+work and gave another man a silver crucifix for the bronze maple
+leaves from the collar of his tunic. And, more important still, he
+gave us all a cigarette, while he had a sergeant give us coffee.
+
+That, the cigarette, was I think much the best of anything we received
+then or for some time to come. Since the bombardment and our wounding,
+our nerves had fairly ached for the sedative which, good, bad or
+indifferent, would steady the quivering harp strings of our nerves.
+And a cigarette did that.
+
+The headquarters staff appeared on the scene. They wanted information,
+just as ours would have done under similar circumstances, but these
+took a different method to acquire it. As before, in the trench, they
+selected me for the spokesman. The senior officer, a general
+apparently, addressed me: "How many troops are there in front of our
+attack?"
+
+I lied: "I don't know."
+
+He shook a threatening finger at me. "I'll tell you this, my man: We
+have a pretty good idea of how many troops lay behind you and if in
+any particular you endeavour to lead us astray it will go very hard
+with all of you. Now answer my question!" His English was good.
+
+I cogitated. It would not do to tell him the terrible truth. That was
+certain. So I took a chance. "Three divisions." He appeared to be
+satisfied. The fact was, there were none behind us. We were utterly
+without supporting troops.
+
+"And Kitchener's Army? How many of them are there here?"
+
+"Why, they haven't even come over yet, sir."
+
+"Don't tell me that: I know better. They've been out here for months."
+
+"But they haven't," I persisted. I told the truth this time.
+
+"Yes," he shouted angrily.
+
+"No," I flung back.
+
+"Well, how many of them are there?"
+
+The division yarn had gone down well. And perhaps I was slightly
+heated. My spirit ran ahead of my judgment. "Five and a half to seven
+million," I said.
+
+He exploded. And called me everything but a soldier. I could not help
+but reflect that I had overdone it a bit. And I certainly thought that
+I was "for it" then and there.
+
+To make matters worse he asked the others and they, profiting by my
+mistake and following the lead of the first man questioned, put
+Kitchener's army at four and a half million; which was only a trifle
+of four million out. So I determined to be reasonable. When he came to
+me again I confirmed the latter figure, explaining my earlier
+statement by my lack of exact knowledge. And so that particular storm
+blew over.
+
+The general came back to me again. "You Canadians thought this was
+going to be a picnic, didn't you?" He was very sarcastic.
+
+"No, we didn't, sir."
+
+"Well, you thought it was going to be a walk through to Berlin, didn't
+you?"
+
+"Why, no. We thought it was the other way about, sir," I ventured.
+
+He shifted: "Well, what do you think of us anyhow?"
+
+"Your artillery was all right but your infantry was no good." I began
+to feel shaky again. However, he took that calmly enough.
+
+"Oh! So our infantry was no good."
+
+"We could have held them all right, sir."
+
+He ruminated on that a moment, rumbled in his throat and abruptly
+changed the subject, in an unpleasant fashion, however.
+
+"You're the fellows we want to get hold of. You cut the throats of our
+wounded."
+
+I denied it and we argued back and forth over that for several
+minutes, and very heatedly. He referred to St. Julien and said that
+this thing had occurred there. I said and quite truthfully that we had
+not been at St. Julien, that we were in the Imperial and not the
+Canadian Army and had been spectators in near-by trenches of the St.
+Julien affair. I even went into some detail to explain that we were a
+special corps of old soldiers who, not being able to rejoin their old
+regiments, had at the outbreak of war formed one of their own and had
+been accepted as such and sent to France months ahead of the Canadian
+contingent. I added that I myself had just rejoined the regiment,
+having got my "Blighty" in March at St. Eloi and as proof of my other
+statements I further volunteered that I was one of the 2nd Gordons and
+after the South African War had gone to Canada where I had finished my
+reserve several years since.
+
+He listened but was plainly unconvinced. Another officer broke in: "I
+can explain it, sir. These men were in the 80th Brigade and the 27th
+Division. Colonel Farquhar was their Commanding Officer and Captain
+Buller took command when Colonel Farquhar was killed." We stared at
+one another in amazement, for it was all quite true.
+
+This finished that examination. We did not tell them that Colonel
+Buller had been blinded a few days before and had been succeeded by
+that Major Hamilton Gault who had been so largely instrumental in
+raising us.
+
+None of our wounds had received the slightest attention. Cox in
+particular suffered cruelly but refused to whimper. Royston's head was
+swollen to the size of a water bucket and he was in great pain. We
+left them here and never saw them again. Cox died two weeks later of a
+blood poisoning which was the combined result of our rough surgery and
+the wanton neglect of our captors. I do not think he was ever able to
+write his mother as he wished. At least she wrote me later for
+information. There was no need of his dying even though it might have
+been necessary to have amputated his arm higher up. Royston was
+exchanged to Switzerland and recovered from his wounds except for the
+loss of an eye.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE PRINCESS PATRICIA'S GERMAN UNCLE
+
+  Roulers--The Old Woman and the Gentle Uhlans--Billeted in a
+  Church--Quizzed by a Prince.
+
+
+We were marched to Roulers, which we reached well after dark. A
+considerable crowd of soldiers and civilians awaited our coming. The
+Belgian women and children congregated in front of the church while we
+waited to be let in, and threw us apples and cigarettes. The uhlans
+and infantrymen rushed them with the flat side of their swords and the
+butts of their muskets; and mistreated them. They knocked one old
+woman down quite close to where I stood. So we had to do without and
+were not even permitted to pick up the gifts that lay at our feet,
+much less the old woman.
+
+The church had been used as a stable quite recently and the
+stone-flagged floor was deep with the decayed straw and accumulated
+filth of men and horses. We lay down in it and got what rest we could
+for the remainder of the night. There were about one hundred and fifty
+prisoners in all--Shropshires, Cheshires, King's Royal Rifles and
+other British regiments--all from our division and mostly from our
+brigade. Other small parties continued to come in during the night,
+but there were no more P.P.'s. In the morning a large tub of water was
+carried in and each man was given a bit of black bread and a slice of
+raw fat bacon. The latter was salty and so thoroughly unappetizing
+that I cannot recall that any one ate his ration, for in spite of the
+fact that we had been twenty-four hours without food, we were so upset
+by the experiences we had undergone, so shattered by shell fire and
+lack of rest that we were perhaps inclined to be more critical of our
+food than normal men would have been.
+
+Shortly afterward a high German officer came in with his staff. He was
+a stout and well-built man of middle age or over, typically German in
+his general characteristics but not half bad looking. His uniform was
+covered with braid and medals. Every one paid him the utmost
+deference. He stopped in the middle of the room.
+
+"Are there any Canadians here?"
+
+I stepped forward. "Yes, sir."
+
+"I mean the Princess Patricia's Canadians."
+
+"Yes, sir. I am. And here's some more of them," and I pointed at the
+prostrate figures of my companions, where they sprawled on the
+flagstones.
+
+"Princess Patricia's Regiment?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, the Princess Patricia is my niece--awfully nice girl. I hope it
+won't be long before I see her again."
+
+I grinned: "Well, I hope it won't be long before I see her, too, sir."
+
+The other fellows joined us, the straw and the smell of it still
+sticking to their clothes as they formed a little knot about the
+Prince and his staff.
+
+The scene was incongruous, the smart uniforms of the immaculately kept
+staff officers contrasting strangely with our own unkempt foulness. We
+occupied the centre of the stage. Around us were grouped the men of
+our sister regiments, most of them lying on the floor in a dazed
+condition. There were few who came forward to listen. They were too
+tired, and to them at least, this was merely an incident--one of a
+thousand more important ones. Odd parts of clothes hung on the ornate
+images and decorations of the room. A German rifle hung by its sling
+from the patient neck of a life-sized Saviour, while further over, the
+vermin-infested shirt of a Britisher hung over the rounded breasts of
+a brooding Madonna, with the Infant in her lap.
+
+At the door a small group of guards stood stiffly to a painful
+attention and continued so to do whilst royalty touched them with the
+shadow of its wings.
+
+The Prince questioned us further and I told him that I had been on a
+guard of honor to the Princess when she had been a child and when her
+father, the Duke of Connaught had been the General Officer Commanding
+at Aldershot.
+
+He laughed back at us and was altogether very friendly. "You'll go to
+a good camp and you'll be all right if you behave yourselves."
+
+Scarfe shoved in his oar here, grousing in good British-soldier
+fashion: "I don't call it very good treatment when they steal the
+overcoats from wounded men."
+
+"Who did that?" He was all steel, and I saw a change come over the
+officers of the staff.
+
+"The chaps that took us prisoners," said Scarfe.
+
+"What regiment were they?" The Prince glanced at an aide, who hastily
+drew out a notebook and began to take down our replies.
+
+"The 21st Prussians, sir."
+
+"Do you know the men?"
+
+"Their faces but not their names."
+
+"Of what rank was the officer in charge?"
+
+We did not know, but thought him a company officer of the rank of
+captain perhaps. He asked for other particulars which we gave to the
+best of our knowledge.
+
+"I'll attend to that," he said. However, we heard no more of it. We
+refrained from complaining about the actual ill-treatment and
+indignities we had been subjected to, the murder of our unoffending
+comrades, or the lack of attention to our wounds, as we rightly judged
+that we should only have earned the enmity of our guards.
+
+"May I have your cap badge?" the Prince asked, decently enough.
+
+I lied brazenly: "Sorry, sir; I've lost mine."
+
+The fact was I had shoved it down under my puttees while lying back of
+the trench the previous afternoon.
+
+Scarfe said: "You can have mine, sir."
+
+He took it. "Thanks so much." He glanced at the aide again; rather
+sharply this time, I thought. The latter blushed and hastily extracted
+a wallet, from which he handed Scarfe a two-mark piece, equal to one
+and ten pence, or forty-four cents. He gave us his name before
+leaving, and my recollection is that it was something like Eitelbert.
+Evidently he was a brother of the Duchess of Connaught, whom we knew
+to have been a German princess whose brothers and other male relatives
+all enjoyed high commands among our foes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+HOW THE GERMAN RED CROSS TENDED THE CANADIAN WOUNDED
+
+  "Come Out Canadians!"--The Crucifixion--"Nix! Nix!"--Civilian
+  Hate--"Englaender Schwein!"
+
+
+We remained in the fouled church all of that day and night and until
+the following morning. No more food appeared. We were marched down to
+the railroad under heavy escort, crowded into freight cars and locked
+in. The guards were distributed in cars of their own, alternating with
+ours. Our wounds remained unattended to.
+
+At every station they thundered: "Come out, Canadians!" They lined us
+up in a row while a staff officer put the same questions to us in
+nearly every case. They were particularly interested in the quality of
+our rations and asked if it was not true that we were starving and if
+our pay had not been stopped. The guards invariably explained to the
+civilians that these were the Canadians who had cut the throats of the
+German wounded.
+
+We did not know how to explain the prevalence of this impression. On
+the contrary, we were aware of the story of the crucifixion of three
+of the Canadian Division during Ypres. The tale had come smoking hot
+to our men in the Polygon Wood trenches during the great battle. It
+gave in great detail all the salient facts which were that after
+recapturing certain lost positions, the men of a certain regiment had
+discovered the body of one of their sergeants, together with those of
+two privates, crucified on the doors of a cowshed and a barn. German
+bayonets had been driven through their hands and feet and their
+contorted faces gave every appearance of their having died in great
+agony. This story was and is generally believed throughout all ranks
+of the Canadian Army. For its truth I cannot vouch.
+
+We knew that our own men had never mistreated any prisoners and had in
+fact usually done quite the reverse. How far other regiments may have
+gone in retaliation for what was known as "The Crucifixion," it is
+impossible to say. That prisoners may have been killed is possible,
+for such things become an integral part of war once the enemy has so
+offended. But we could not believe that there had been any cutting of
+throats as that would imply a sheer cold-bloodedness that we could not
+stomach.
+
+The mob surged around and reviled us, while the guards, in high good
+humour, translated their remarks, unless, as was frequently the case,
+they were made to the officials in English for our benefit. The other
+British soldiers were left in their cars.
+
+Our wounded were getting very badly off by this time. It was
+impossible to avoid trampling on one another as the car was very dark
+at best and the one small window in the roof was closed as soon as we
+drew into a station. When taken out we were under heavy escort and
+were allowed no opportunity to clean up the accumulated filth of the
+car. We suffered terribly for food and water, and some of the wounds
+began to turn, so that what with exhaustion and all, we grew very
+weak.
+
+At one station the guards took us out and made us line up to watch
+them eat of a hearty repast which the Red Cross women had just brought
+them. And we were very hungry. When, we too, asked for food they said:
+"Nix! Nix!" The crowds met us at every station and included women of
+all classes, who called us _Englaender Schwein_ and who at no time gave
+us the slightest assistance, but, instead, devoted themselves to the
+guard.
+
+Other men told us later that Red Cross women had spat in their
+drinking water and in their food. There was no opportunity for this in
+our case as we did not receive any of either.
+
+We did not receive any food during this trip, which lasted from the
+morning of one day until the night of the next. We had gone since the
+day of our capture on the coffee received at headquarters in Polygon
+Wood and the single issue of bread, water and bacon received in the
+church, the latter of which we could not eat; a total of three days
+and nights on that one issue of rations.
+
+We pulled into Giessen at eleven, the night of May tenth. The citizens
+made a Roman holiday of the occasion and the entire population turned
+out to see the _Englaender Schwein_. There was a guard for every
+prisoner, and two lines of fixed bayonets. The mob surged around,
+heaping on us insults and blows; particularly the women. With hate in
+their eyes, they spat on us. We had to take that or the bayonet.
+These were the acts not only of the rabble, but also of the people of
+good appearance and address.
+
+One very well-dressed woman rushed up. Under other circumstances I
+should have judged her to have been a gentlewoman. She shrieked
+invectives at us as she forced her way through the crowd. "Schwein!"
+she screamed, and struck at the man next me. He snapped his shoulders
+back as a soldier does at attention. Then, drawing deep from the very
+bottom of her lungs, she spat the mass full in his face. The muscles
+of his face twitched painfully but he held his eyes to the front and
+stared past his tormentor, seeing other things.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE CURIOUS CONCOCTIONS OF THE CHEF AT GIESSEN
+
+  Oliver Twist at Giessen--Acorn Coffee and Shadow Soup--Chestnut
+  Soup--Fostering Racial Hatred.
+
+
+We had a mile-and-a-half march to the prison camp. Those who were past
+walking were put in street cars and sent to the laager, where upon our
+arrival we were shoved into huts for the night, supperless, of course.
+This was our introduction to the prison camp of Giessen.
+
+The next morning we each received three-quarters of a pint of acorn
+coffee, so called, horrible-tasting stuff; and a loaf of black
+bread--half potatoes and half rye--weighing two hundred and fifty
+grams, or a little more than half a pound, among five men. This
+allowed a piece about three by three by four inches to each man for
+the day's ration. The coffee consisted of acorns and four pounds of
+burned barley boiled in one hundred gallons of water. There was no
+sugar or milk. My curiosity led me later to get this and other recipes
+from the fat French cook.
+
+All that day and for several following, official and guards were busy
+numbering and renumbering us and assigning us to our companies. They
+were hopelessly German about it, and did it so many times and very
+thoroughly. There were twelve thousand men in the camp and eight
+hundred in the laager. The majority were Russian and French with a
+fairish sprinkling of Belgians. There were perhaps six hundred British
+in the entire camp. The various nationalities were mixed up and each
+section given a hut very similar to those American and British troops
+occupy in their own countries. A number of smaller camps in the
+neighbouring districts were governed from this central one.
+
+For dinner we had shadow soup, so named for obvious reasons. The
+recipe in my diary reads: "For eight hundred men, two hundred gallons
+of water, one small bag of potatoes and one packet of herbs."
+
+To make matters worse the vegetables issued at this camp were in a
+decayed condition and continued to come to us so.
+
+Another staple dinner ration was ham soup. This was the usual two
+hundred gallons of water boiled with ten pounds of ham rinds, ten
+pounds of cabbage and twenty pounds of potatoes. The ham rind had hair
+on it but we used to fish for it at that and considered ourselves
+lucky to get a piece. Oatmeal soup, another meal, consisted of two
+hundred gallons of water, two pounds of currants and fifty pounds of
+oatmeal; chestnut soup, two hundred gallons of water, one hundred
+pounds of whole chestnuts and ten pounds of potatoes. It was a
+horrible concoction and my diary has: "To be served hot and thrown
+out."
+
+Meat soup was two hundred gallons of water, ten pounds of meat, one
+small bag of potatoes and ten pounds of vegetables. This was the most
+nutritious of the lot. Unfortunately for us, the small portion of meat
+and most of the potatoes were given to the French, both because the
+cook and all his assistants were Frenchmen and because the authorities
+willed it so.
+
+This was usually managed without any apparent unfairness by serving
+the British first and the French last, with the result that the one
+received a tin full of hot water that was too weak to run out,
+while the Frenchmen's spoons stood to attention in the thicker mess
+they found in the bottom. This, with other things, contributed to make
+bad blood between the two races. A great show was made of stirring up
+the mess, but it was a pure farce.
+
+    [Illustration: RECIPES FROM CORPORAL EDWARD'S DIARY.]
+
+Rice soup consisted of two hundred gallons of water, fifty pounds of
+rice, twenty pounds of potatoes and one pound of currants; bean soup,
+two hundred gallons of water, fifty pounds of beans, and twenty pounds
+of potatoes; pork soup, two hundred gallons of water, ten pounds of
+pork and fifty pounds of potatoes. Porridge was made of two hundred
+gallons of water, fifteen pounds of oatmeal and two pounds of barley.
+The diary states: "To be served hot as a drink."
+
+Once in two months a ration of sausage was dished out. For breakfast
+once a week there was one pint of acorn coffee without sugar or milk
+and one and a half square inches of Limburger cheese. To quote from
+the diary: "Before serving, open all windows and doors. Then send for
+the Russians to take it away."
+
+The Germans discriminated against the British prisoners. When there
+was any disagreeable duty; the cry went up for "der Englaender." The
+much-sought-for cookhouse jobs all went to the French, who waxed fat
+in consequence. No Britisher was ever allowed near the cookhouse. The
+French had for the most part been there for some time, and, their
+country lying so close by; they were receiving parcels. We were not,
+and this made the food problem a very serious one for us. Their
+supplies were received through Switzerland which was the one anchor to
+windward for so many of us in this and other respects.
+
+At first the French used to give us a certain amount of their own
+food, but eventually ceased to do so. Most of them worked down in the
+town daily and could "square" the guard long enough to buy tobacco at
+twenty-five pfennigs--or two and a half pence--a package, which they
+sold to us later at eighty pfennigs--until we got on to their
+profiteering.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE WAY THEY HAVE AT GIESSEN
+
+  "Raus!"--The Strafe Barracks--The Appeal for Casement--Why
+  Parcels Should Be Sent--A Hell on Earth--That Brickyard
+  Fatigue--Gott Strafe England--Slow Starvation--Merciless
+  Discipline--Canadian Humor--The Debt We Owe--Inoculating for
+  Typhoid?--Joseph's Coat of Many Colors--The Russian Who Unwound
+  the Rag--The Monotony of the Wire--Teaching the Germans the
+  British Salute.
+
+
+Except for the starving, as I look back now, Giessen was not such a
+bad camp as such places go. At least it was the best that we were to
+know. The discipline, of course, was fairly severe, but on the other
+hand the Commandant did not trouble us a great deal. The petty
+annoyances were harder to endure. Frequently we would get the "Raus!"
+at half-hour intervals by day or night; "Raus out!" "Raus in!" and so
+on.
+
+We never knew what our tormentors wanted but supposed it to be a
+systematic attempt to break our spirit and our nerve by the simple
+expedient of habitually interfering with our sleep so that we would
+become like the Russians. They were mostly utterly broken in spirit
+and had the air of beaten dogs, so that they cringed and fawned to
+their masters.
+
+The least punishment meted out for the most trifling offense was three
+days' cells. Some got ten years for refusing to work in munition and
+steel factories, particularly British and Canadians.
+
+There are large numbers of both who are to-day serving out sentences
+of from eighteen months to ten years in the military fortresses of
+Germany under circumstances of the greatest cruelty.
+
+The so-called courts-martial were mockeries of trials. The culprit was
+simply marched up to the orderly room, received his sentence and
+marched away again. He was allowed no defence worthy of the name.
+
+Some of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry were "warned" for work
+in a munitions factory. When the time came around they were taken away
+but refused to work and so they were knocked about quite a bit. One
+was shot in the leg and another bayoneted through the hip, and all
+were sent back to camp, where they were awarded six weeks in the
+punishment camp, known as the strafe barracks.
+
+This was a long hut in which were two rows of stools a few paces
+apart. The _Raus_ blew for the culprits at five-thirty. At six they
+were marched to the hut and made to sit down in two rows facing one
+another, at attention--that is, body rigid, head thrown well back,
+chest out, hands held stiffly at the sides and eyes straight to the
+front--for two hours! Meanwhile the sentries marched up and down the
+lane, watching for any relaxation or levity. If so much as a face was
+pulled at a twinkling eye across the way, another day's strafing was
+added to the penalty. At the end of the two hours one hour's rest was
+allowed, during which the prisoners could walk about in the hut but
+could not lie down! This continued all day until "Lights out." For six
+weeks. No mail, parcels, writing or exercise was permitted the
+prisoners during that time, and the already scanty rations were cut.
+
+During good behavior we were allowed two post cards and two letters a
+month, with nine lines to the former and thirteen to the page of the
+latter. No more, no less. Each letter had four pages of the small,
+private-letter size. The name and address counted as a line. Mine was
+Kriegsgefingenenlaager, Kompagnie No. 6, Barackue No. A. The writing
+had to be big and easily read and, in the letters, on four sides of
+the paper. No complaint or discussion of the war was permitted. Fully
+one-half of those written were returned for infringements, or fancied
+ones, of these rules. Sometimes when the censor was irritated they
+were merely chucked into the fire. And as they had also to pass the
+English censor it is no wonder that many families wondered why their
+men did not write.
+
+We were there for three months before our parcels began to arrive. We
+considered ourselves lucky if we received six out of ten sent, and
+with half the contents of the six intact. In the larger camps the
+chances of receipt were better. The small camps were merely units
+attached to and governed by the larger ones, which handled the mail
+before giving it to the authorities at the smaller ones.
+
+Thus, a man who was "attached" to Giessen camp, although perhaps one
+hundred miles away from it, had to submit to the additional delay and
+chance of loss and theft included in the censoring of the parcel at
+Giessen as well as at the actual place of his confinement.
+
+This doubled the chances of fault-finding and of theft. Knowing this
+to be true, I most earnestly recommend the sending of parcels. True, a
+large proportion of them are not received, but those that are
+represent the one salvation of the prisoner-of-war in German hands. So
+terribly true is this that when we began to receive parcels at
+irregular intervals, we used regularly to acknowledge to our friends
+the receipt of parcels which we had never received. This was the low
+cunning developed by our treatment. If advised that a parcel of tea,
+sugar or other luxuries had been sent and it did not appear after
+weeks of patient waiting, we knew that we should never see that
+parcel. Nevertheless, we usually wrote and thanked the donor and
+acknowledged the receipt, fearful otherwise that he or she should say:
+"What's the use?" and send no more. And we were not allowed to tell
+the truth--that it had been stolen.
+
+The first three months of our stay at Giessen were probably the worst
+of all, including as they did the transition period to this life. It
+seemed then a hell on earth. The slow starvation was the worst. Once,
+in desperation, I gave a Frenchman my good boots for his old ones and
+two and a half marks, and then gave sixty pfennigs of this to the
+French cook for a bread ration. Again, in going down the hut one day,
+I espied a flat French loaf cut into four pieces, drying on the window
+sill. Seizing one piece, I tucked it under my tunic and passed on
+before the loss was discovered. Some of the British could be seen at
+times picking over the sour refuse in the barrels. This amused the
+Germans very much. We endeavoured to get cookhouse jobs for the
+pickings to be had, but could not do so. At a later date, when the
+Canadian Red Cross, Lady Farquhar, Mrs. Hamilton Gault and our
+families were sending us packages regularly, we made out all right.
+
+Some English societies were in the habit of sending books, music and
+games to the prisoners but none of these ever reached the group with
+whom I associated, even before our later actions put us quite beyond
+the German pale.
+
+The appeal for Casement and the Irish Brigade was made to us. A
+number of prisoners were taken apart and the matter broached privately
+to them. Pamphlets on the freeing of Ireland were also distributed. I
+did not see any one go over, and an Irishman who was detailed with
+another Canadian and myself on a brickyard fatigue said that they had
+recruited only forty in the camp. The whole thing turned out to be a
+failure.
+
+There were twelve of us all told on that brickyard job. Three or four
+shoveled clay into the mixing machine, two more filled the little car
+which two others pushed along the track of the narrow-gauge railroad.
+We were guarded by four civilian Germans of some home defense corps,
+all of whom labored with us. The two trammers used to start the car,
+hop on the brake behind and let it run of its own momentum down the
+incline to the edge of the bank where it would be checked for dumping.
+Sometimes we forgot to brake the car so that it would ricochet on in a
+flying leap off the end of the track, and so on over the dump. The
+guards would rage and swear but could prove nothing so long as our
+fellows did not get too raw and do this too frequently.
+
+One day we shovelers decided to add to the gaiety of nations. While
+one attracted the guards' attention elsewhere we slipped a chunk of
+steel into the mess. There was a grinding crash, and a large cogwheel
+tore its way through the roof. In a moment, the air was full of
+machinery and German words. It was a proper wreck. The guards ran
+around gesticulating angrily, tearing their hair and threatening us,
+while we endeavoured to look surprised. It is reasonable to suppose
+that we were unsuccessful, for we were hustled back to camp and drew
+five days' cells each from the Commandant. There was no trial. He
+merely sentenced us.
+
+United States Ambassador Gerard only came to Giessen once in my time
+there, and that was while I was off at one of the detached camps, so I
+had no opportunity of observing the result.
+
+We knew very little of what was going on in the outside world. The
+guards were not allowed to converse with us, and if one was known to
+speak English he was removed. However, they were more or less curious
+about us so that a certain amount of clandestine conversation
+occurred. Some were certain that they were going to win the war.
+Others said: "England has too much money. Germany will never win."
+They used frequently to gather the Russians, Belgians and French
+together and lecture them on England's sins. They said that England
+was letting them do all the fighting, bleeding them white of their men
+and treasure so as to come out at the end of the war with the balance
+of power necessary for her plan of retaining Constantinople and the
+Cinque Ports of France. Many were convinced, and this did not add to
+the pleasantness of our lot.
+
+The notorious _Continental Times_ was circulated amongst us freely in
+both French and English editions. It regularly gave us a most
+appalling list of German victories and it specialised in abuse of the
+English. We counted up in one month a total of two million prisoners
+captured by the Germans on all fronts.
+
+As I have said, Giessen was the best camp of all, barring the
+starvation. But the discipline there was merciless. The laager was
+inclosed by a high wire fence which we were forbidden to approach
+within four feet of. A Russian sergeant overstepped that mark one day
+to shout something to a friend in an adjoining laager. The sentry
+shouted at him. He either failed to hear or did not understand. The
+sentry killed him without hesitation.
+
+A Belgian started over one day with some leftover soup which he
+purposed giving to the Russians. The sentry would not let him pass. He
+went back and told his mate. The latter, a kindly little fellow,
+thinking that the sentry had not understood the nature of the mission,
+decided to try himself. The sentry stopped him. He attempted to argue.
+The sentry pushed him roughly back. He struck the German. The latter
+dropped him with a blow on the head, and while he lay unconscious
+shoved the bayonet into him. It was done quite coolly and
+methodically, without heat. He was promoted for it. We were told that
+he had done a good thing and that we should get the same if we did not
+behave.
+
+A Canadian who was forced to work in a munitions plant and whose task
+included the replacing of waste in the wheel boxes of cars enjoyed
+himself for a while, lifting the greasy waste out and replacing it
+with sand. He got ten years for that.
+
+The German in charge of our laager hated the _verdamnt Englaender_ and
+lost no opportunity of bulldozing and threatening us. One of the
+Canadians who had been in the American Navy was unusually truculent.
+The German purposely bunted him one day. "Don't do that again!" The
+German repeated the act. The sailor jolted him in the jaw so that he
+went to dreamland for fifteen minutes. The prisoner was taken to the
+guardroom and we never heard his ultimate fate, but at the ruling rate
+he was lucky if he got off with ten years.
+
+It is men like this to whom our Government and people owe such a debt
+as may be paid only in a small degree by our insistence after the war
+that they be given their liberty. A greater glory is theirs than that
+of the soldier. They wrought amongst a world of foes, knowing their
+certain punishment, but daring it rather than assist that foe's
+efforts against their country.
+
+One day we were told that we must be inoculated in the arm against
+typhoid. We thought nothing of that. But the next day men began to
+gather in groups so that the guards shouted roughly at them, bidding
+them not to mutter and whisper so.
+
+Where the word came from I know not. It may have emanated in the
+fears of some active imagination on the chance and truthful word of a
+guard, flung in derision at some desperate man, or in a kindlier mood
+and in warning. The word was that we were to be inoculated with the
+germs of consumption. I understand that it appeared also in the papers
+at home. It seemed horrible beyond words to us. The idea appeared
+crazy but was equally on a par with the events we witnessed daily.
+Myself, I planned to take no chances; if it were humanly possible.
+
+We were all ordered to parade for the inoculation. I hid myself with a
+few others and so escaped the operation. Nothing was said so I could
+only suppose that they failed to check us up as it was not in keeping
+with the German character as we had come to know it to miss any
+opportunity of corrective punishment even though the inoculation had
+been for our own good.
+
+It is true that some of the men so inoculated fell prey to
+consumption. On the other hand one of them had had a well defined case
+of it before, and it was almost certain that the living conditions
+prevailing amongst us would insure the appearance of the disease so
+that we had no proof that any man was so inoculated. Some of the men
+so affected were sent to Switzerland for the benefit of the mountain
+air through an arrangement made by the Red Cross with the Swiss
+authorities.
+
+    [Illustration: FELLOW PRISONERS AT GIESSEN. FROM LEFT TO RIGHT:
+    A CHESHIRE REGIMENT MAN, A SIBERIAN RUSSIAN, AN EAST YORKSHIRE
+    LIGHT INFANTRYMAN AND A GORDON HIGHLANDER.]
+
+    [Illustration: FELLOW PRISONERS AT GIESSEN. THREE HIGHLANDERS
+    AND A YORKSHIRE LIGHT INFANTRYMAN.]
+
+One of our guards was subject to fits and habitually ran amuck amongst
+us, abusing some of the prisoners in a painful fashion. We made
+complaint of this through the proper channels, for which crime the
+officer in charge stopped our fires and other privileges for the time
+being.
+
+Most of the men wore prison uniforms or in some cases, suits sent from
+England which were altered by the authorities to conform to their
+regulations. These required that if one was not in a distinctive and
+enemy uniform that broad stripes of bright colored cloth be set into
+the seam of the trousers; not sewed on, but into the goods. A large
+diamond shaped piece or else a square of such cloth was set into the
+breast and back of the tunic. I preferred my uniform, dilapidated
+though it was. We were permitted the choice, probably less out of
+kindness than because of the saving involved.
+
+There was a big simple giant of a Russian here who was badly sprung
+at the knees. He had been forced to work during the winter in an
+underground railway station near Berlin. He had had no shoes and had
+stood in the water for weeks, digging. He was very badly crippled in
+consequence.
+
+Some four hundred Russians came to us after the fall of Warsaw. They
+were mostly wounded and all rotten. On the three months' march to
+Giessen the wounded had received absolutely no attention other than
+their own. Here we had a crazy German doctor, a mediocre French one
+and Canadian orderlies. If an Englishman went to the hospital for
+treatment it was "Vick!"--Get out. These Russians were treated
+similarly. The French fared better. One big, fine-looking Russian,
+with a filthy mass of rags wound round his arm, reported for
+attention. They unwound the rag and his arm dropped off. He died, with
+five others, that afternoon, and God only knows how many more on the
+trip they had just finished.
+
+They were buried in a piano case, together. Usually they were placed
+in packing cases. We asked for a flag with which to cover them as
+soldiers should be. They asked what that was for and there it ended.
+
+Another Russian had a foul arm which leaked badly so that it was not
+only painful to him but offensive to the rest of us. Nothing was done
+for him.
+
+They were all thoroughly cowed, as are dogs that have been illtreated.
+And they jumped to it when a German spoke--excepting two of their
+officers, who refused to take down their epaulets when ordered to do
+so. We did not learn how they fared. These were the only captive
+officers of any nationality whom we saw.
+
+We became sick of the sight of one another as even the best of friends
+do under such abnormal conditions. For variety I often walked around
+the enclosure with a Russian. Neither of us had the faintest idea what
+the other said, but it was a change!
+
+The monotony of the wire was terrible--and just outside it in the lane
+formed by the encircling set of wire, the dogs, with their tongues
+out, walked back and forth, eyeing us.
+
+There was so little to talk about. We knew nothing and could only
+speculate on the outcome of the commonest events which came to us on
+the tongue of rumour or arose out of our own sad thoughts.
+
+The authorities were not satisfied with our recognition--or lack of
+it--of their officers and took us out to practice saluting drill--a
+thing always detested by soldiers, especially veterans. The idea was
+to make us salute visiting German officers properly, in the German
+fashion and not in our own. Theirs consisted of saluting with the
+right hand only, with the left held stiffly straight at the side,
+while our way was to salute with the hand farthest from the officer,
+giving "Eyes left" or "Eyes right" as the case might be, and with the
+free hand swinging loosely with the stride.
+
+So a school of us were led out to this. The very atmosphere was tense
+with sullen rebellion. The guards eyed us askance. The officer stood
+at the left awaiting us; beyond him and on the other side of the road,
+a post.
+
+An _unteroffizier_ ordered us to march by, one by one, to give the
+_Herr Offizier_ "Augen Links" in the German fashion, and to the post,
+which represented another officer, an "Augen Rechts" when we should
+come to it.
+
+"I'll see him in hell first," I muttered to the man next me. I was in
+the lead of the party. I shook with excitement and fear of I knew not
+what.
+
+As the command rang out I stepped out with a swing, and with the
+action, decision came to me. As I approached the officer he drew up
+slightly and looked at me expectantly.
+
+I gave him a stony stare, and passed on.
+
+A few more steps and I reached the post. I pulled back my shoulders
+with a smart jerk, got my arms to swinging freely, snapped my head
+round so that my eyes caught the post squarely and swung my left hand
+up in a clean-cut parabola to "Eyes right," in good old regimental
+order.
+
+A half dozen shocked sentries came up on the double. It was they who
+were excited now. I was master of myself and the situation. The
+_unteroffizier_ ordered me to repeat and salute. I did so--literally.
+The officer was, to all outward appearances, the only other person
+there who remained unmoved. My ardour had cooled by this time, and his
+very silence seemed worse than the threats of the guard. Nor was I
+exactly in love with my self-appointed task. Nevertheless, I saw my
+mates watching me and inwardly applauding. I was ashamed to quit. I
+did it again. That won me another five days' cells.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE ESCAPE
+
+  Picking a Pal for Switzerland--Cold Feet--The Talk in the
+  Wood--Nothing Succeeds Like Success and--!--Simmons and Brumley
+  Try Their Hand.
+
+
+Mervin Simmons of the 7th, and Frank Brumley of the 3rd Battalion,
+Canadian Expeditionary Force were planning to escape. Word of it
+leaked through to me. This added fuel to the fire of my own similar
+ambition. They, and I too, thought that it was not advisable for more
+than two to travel together. I began to look around for a partner. I
+"weighed up" all my comrades. It was unwise to broach the subject to
+too many of them. I bided my time until a certain man having dropped
+remarks which indicated certain sporting proclivities, I broached the
+subject to him. He was most enthusiastic. We decided on Switzerland as
+our objective and awaited only the opportunity to make a break.
+
+There were few if any preparations to make. We were not yet receiving
+parcels and our allowance of food was so scanty that it was impossible
+to lay any by. We had a crude map of our own drawing. And that was our
+all.
+
+In the interval we discussed ways and means of later travel and
+endeavoured to prepare our minds for all contingencies, even capture.
+We talked the matter over with Simmons and Brumley at every
+opportunity, so as to benefit also by their plans. This required
+caution so we were careful at all times that we should not be seen
+together; rather that we should even appear unfriendly. We developed
+the cunning of the oppressed. Once we even staged a wordy quarrel over
+some petty thing for the benefit of our guards and others of the
+prisoners whom we distrusted. At other times we foregathered in dim
+corners of our huts as though by chance. We conversed covertly from
+the corners of our mouths and without any movement of the lips, as
+convicts do. This avoidance of one another was made the easier because
+of the arrangement of the personnel of each hut. The various
+nationalities were pretty well split up in companies, presumably to
+prevent illicit co-operation and each company was separated from the
+others by the wire.
+
+Our chance came at last. We were "warned" for a working party on a
+railroad grade near by. As compliance would enable us to get on the
+other side of the wire, we made no protest. This work was a part of
+the authorities' scheme of farming prisoners out to private
+individuals and corporations who required labour. In this case it was
+a railroad contractor. As a rule the contractors fed us better than
+the authorities, if for no other reason than to keep our working
+strength up.
+
+We were marched out of the laager without any breakfast each morning
+to the work and there received a little sausage and a bit of bread for
+breakfast. At noon we received soup of a better quality than the camp
+stuff. It was cooked by a Russian Pole, a civilian; one of many who
+was living out in the town on parole. These had to report regularly to
+the authorities and had to remain in the local area.
+
+We were on the job a week before things seemed favourable. We had only
+what we stood in, excepting the rough map, which was drawn from
+hearsay and our scanty knowledge of the country. We planned to travel
+at night, lay our course by the stars and perhaps walk to Switzerland
+in six weeks.
+
+We worked all morning, grading on the railroad embankment. At noon we
+knocked off for soup and a rest. We were on the edge of a large wood.
+Some of the men flung themselves on the bank; others went to see if
+the soup was ready. A few went into the wood. The solitary guard was
+elsewhere. We said good-bye to the few who knew of our plans. They
+bade us God-speed and then we, too, faded into the recesses of the
+wood.
+
+We had no sooner set foot in it than I noticed a curious change come
+over my companion. He said that it was a bad time, a bad place, found
+fault with everything and said that we should not go that day.
+However, we continued, half-heartedly on his part, to shove our way on
+into the wood. Occasionally he glanced fearfully over his shoulder and
+voiced querulous protests. I did not answer him. A little further on
+and he stopped. A dog was barking.
+
+"There's too many dogs about, Edwards. And just look at all those
+houses." He pointed to where a village showed through the trees.
+
+"Sure thing, there'll be houses thick like that all the way. It's our
+job to keep clear of them."
+
+"Yes, but look at the people. There's bound to be lots of them where
+there's so many houses."
+
+"Of course there are," I replied: "Germany's full of houses and
+people. That's no news. Come on."
+
+"Oh! They'll see us sure, Edwards--and telegraph ahead all over the
+country. We haven't got any more show than a rabbit."
+
+With that I lost patience and gave him a piece of my mind. We stood
+there, arguing it back and forth.
+
+It was no use: He fell prey to his own fears; saw certain capture and
+a dreadful punishment. He conjured up all the dangers that an active
+imagination could envisage: Every bush was a German and every sound
+the occasion of a fresh alarm. He was like to ruin my own nerves with
+his petty panics.
+
+It was in vain that I pleaded with him: He could not face the dangers
+that he saw ahead. The laager seemed to him, by comparison, a haven
+of refuge. When all else failed, I appealed to his pride. He had none.
+I warned him that we should meet with nothing but scorn from our
+comrades, excepting laughter, which was worse. I begged and pleaded
+with him to go on with me. No use. All his courage was foam and had
+settled back into dregs.
+
+And so we returned. I was heart-broken. But there was no use in my
+going on alone. To travel by night we must sleep in the day time and
+that required that some one should always be on watch to avoid the
+chance travellers of the day--which was obviously impossible for any
+one who travelled alone.
+
+We had been gone only an hour and a half and the guard was just
+beginning to look around for us. Otherwise we had not been missed nor
+seen, for the wood was a large one and we had not yet gotten out of
+its confines. The guard was too relieved to find us, when we stepped
+out of the wood and picked up our shovels, to do more than betray a
+purely personal annoyance. He asked where we had been and why we had
+remained for so long a time. We gave the obvious excuse. He was too
+well pleased at his own narrow escape from responsibility to be
+critical, so that the affair ended in so far as he or his kind were
+concerned. Which made what followed the harder to bear.
+
+For it was not so with our own comrades. My prognostication had been a
+correct one. A few of them had known that we were going; some had bade
+us good-bye. They rested on their picks now and stared at us, lifting
+their eyebrows, with a knowing smile for one another and a half-sneer
+for us. My companion had already plumbed the depths of fear and so was
+now lost to all shame. Myself, I found it very hard. Soldiers have,
+outwardly at least, but little tenderness, except perhaps in bad
+times, and they showed none now. Nor mercy. The situation would have
+been ridiculous had it not been so utterly tragic--to have failed
+without trying! Edwards's escape became camp offal. We became the butt
+and the byword of the camp, so that I honestly regretted not having
+pushed on alone. I felt sure that the almost certain capture and more
+certain punishment would have been more bearable than this. There was
+nothing that I could say in my own defense except at the other man's
+expense--which would have been in questionable taste and would have
+been deemed the resort of a weakling. So I kept my counsel and
+brooded. The ignorance of the guards made the tragedy comic. It was
+very humiliating. I gritted my teeth and swore that I at any rate
+should go again in spite of their incredulous jeers. But it was all
+terribly discouraging and made me most despondent.
+
+And that finished that trip to Switzerland.
+
+A few days later Simmons and Brumley disappeared. There was no
+commotion. One day they were with us and the next--they were not. The
+guards said nothing and we feared to ask. I longed ardently to be with
+them.
+
+In a few days the camp was thrown into a mild turmoil. The poor
+fellows were escorted in under a heavy guard. And very dejected they
+looked too--in rags, very wet and evidently short of food, sleep and a
+shave. Nevertheless, I envied them.
+
+They disappeared for a long time. We were told they got two weeks'
+cells and six weeks of sitting on the stools in strafe barracks. I
+remembered the Yorkshiremen and my envy was tempered.
+
+I spent most of my time casting about for the means for a real
+escape. Quite aside from my natural desire for freedom I felt that my
+good name as a soldier was at stake. However, I waited for an
+opportunity to converse with Simmons and Brumley before doing anything
+as I felt that their experience might contain some useful hints for
+me.
+
+They appeared at the end of two months, quite undismayed. They told me
+of what had happened to them and Simmons approached me on the subject
+of making another try of it with them. I readily consented. They were
+now convinced that three or four could make the attempt with a better
+chance of success than two men. I would have agreed to go an army! All
+I wanted was an opportunity to prove my mettle and retrieve my lost
+reputation.
+
+They told me their story. It seems that they had been sent out as a
+working party to a near by farm. They were locked in the room as usual
+at nine o'clock that night after the day's work and then waited until
+they had heard the sentry pass by a couple of times on his rounds. The
+window was covered with barbed wire which they had no difficulty in
+removing. By morning they were well on the way to Switzerland. They
+figured that they, too, could do it in six weeks' of walking by
+night, laying their course by the stars. They had no money and were
+still in khaki.
+
+They were four days' out and lying close in a small clump of bushes
+adjoining a field in which women were digging potatoes when a small
+boy stumbled on them. They knew they had been seen the day before and
+chose this exposed spot rather than the near-by wood, thinking that it
+was there the hue and cry would run. But he was a crafty little brat
+and pretended that he had not seen them. They were not certain whether
+he had or not and hesitated to give their position away by running for
+it.
+
+The boy walked until he neared the women, when he broke into a run and
+soon all gathered in a little knot, looking and pointing toward the
+fugitives. Some of the women broke away and evidently told some
+Bavarian soldiers who had been searching. The latter had already been
+firing into the woods to flush them out so that if the boy had not
+seen them the soldiers would in all likelihood have passed on, after
+searching the main wood.
+
+It was just four o'clock with darkness still four hours off. Simmons
+and Brumley were unarmed. There was no use in running for it. So they
+surrendered with what grace they could. There was the usual
+_verdamning_, growling and prodding but no really bad treatment. For
+this they were sentenced to two weeks cells and six weeks of strafe
+barracks.
+
+They had been much bothered by the lack of a compass on their trip; so
+when they finished their strafing and were once more allowed the
+privileges of the mail, Simmons took a chance and wrote on the inside
+of an envelope addressed to his brother in Canada: "Send a compass."
+He was not called up so we hoped that it had gone through.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE TRAITOR AT VEHNMOOR
+
+  The Swamp at Cellelaager--Seven Hundred Men and Two Small
+  Stoves--Taking the Stripes Down--The Recreant Sergeant Major--"Go
+  Ahead an' Shoot--!"
+
+
+Giessen is in Hesse. Shortly after this we were all sent to
+Cellelaager in Hanover. This was the head camp of a series reserved
+for the punishment or the working of prisoners. Each unit retained the
+name of Cellelaager and received in addition a number, as Cellelaager
+1, Cellelaager 2 and so on. There were grounds here providing a lot
+for football, and a theatre run by the prisoners, for which there was
+an entrance fee, and other like amusements. These, however, were only
+for those prisoners who were on good behaviour and who were employed
+there. As such they were denied such desperadoes as ourselves.
+
+We remained there for two weeks and were then sent to the punishment
+camp known as Vehnmoor or Cellelaager 6. This was a good day's ride
+away and also in Hanover, fifteen kilometres from the big military
+town of Oldenburg. Here we were turned out to work on the moors with
+four hundred Russians, one hundred French and Belgians and two hundred
+British and Canadians. We were housed in one large hut built on a
+swamp and were continually wet. There were only two small stoves for
+the seven hundred men and we had only a few two pound syrup tins in
+which to cook. A poor quality of peat was our only fuel. As only five
+men could crowd round a stove at a time, one's chances were rather
+slim in the dense mob, every man-jack of whom was waiting to slip into
+the first vacant place that offered.
+
+We slept in a row along the wall, with our heads to it. Overhead a
+broad shelf supported a similar row of men. Above them were the
+windows. At our feet and in the centre of the room, there was a two
+foot passage way and then another row of men, with two shelves housing
+two more layers of sleepers above them. Then another two foot
+passageway, the row of men on the floor against the other wall and the
+usual shelf full above them. The vermin were bad and presented a
+problem until we arranged with the Russians to take one end to
+themselves, the French and Belgians the middle and we the other end.
+By this means we British were able to institute precautionary measures
+amongst ourselves so that after feasting on the Russians and finishing
+up upon the French, our annoying friends usually turned about and went
+home again.
+
+The swamp water was filthy, full of peat and only to be drunk in
+minute quantities at the bidding of an intolerable thirst. There was
+no other water to be had and we simply could not drink this. The
+Russians did, which meant another fatigue party to bury them. The only
+doctor was an old German, called so by courtesy; but he knew nothing
+of medicine. As a corporal, I was held responsible for twenty men.
+That implied mostly keeping track of the sick and I have seen nineteen
+of my twenty thus. But that made no difference. It was "Raus!" and out
+they came, sick or well.
+
+Every morning an officer stood at the gate as we marched out to the
+moor, to take "Eyes right" and a salute, for no useful purpose that we
+could see except to belittle a British soldier's pride. As corporal I
+was supposed to give that command to my squad but rather than do so I
+took my stripes down, although that ended my immunity as a "non-com"
+from the labour of cutting peat. Others, I am sorry to say, were glad
+to put the stripes up and at times went beyond the necessities of the
+situation in enforcing their rule on their comrades. It was one of
+these who was found to be trading in and selling his packages to his
+less fortunate comrades and who was ostracized in consequence.
+
+There were here at Vehnmoor, as there had been at Giessen, a certain
+few of our own men who traded on the misfortunes of their own
+comrades. This man was the worst of them all. He was a sergeant-major
+in a certain famous regiment of the line in the British Army. He was a
+fair sample of that worst type which the army system so often
+delegates authority to--and complains because that authority does not
+meet with the respect it should on the part of its victims.
+
+He excelled in all the arts of the sycophant: The pleasure of the
+guards was his delight, their displeasure, his poignant grief. He
+assumed the authority of his rank with us, he reported the slightest
+of misdemeanours amongst us to the guards and was instrumental in
+having many punished. These and other things gave him and others of
+his kidney the run of the main grounds so that they could stretch
+their legs and have some variety in their lives. Such liberty was
+there for any man who would do as they did.
+
+None of us were safe from these traitors. The sergeant major in
+particular, spied on us, reporting all criticisms of our guards and
+other things German. We raged. He had for his virtue a small room to
+himself in a corner of the hut. When parcels came from England,
+addressed to the senior non-commissioned officer of his regiment, for
+him to distribute; he called the guards in. Shortly they went out with
+their coats bulging suspiciously. We were then called to receive ours
+whilst he stood over, bullying us with all the abusive "chatter" which
+the British service so well teaches. And afterward we watched
+covertly, with all the cunning of the oppressed, and saw him receive
+other stealthy favours from the guards that were not within his
+arrangement with the Commandant.
+
+So one of his own men who had a certain legal learning took down all
+these facts as I have recited them and calling us together, bade us
+sign our names in evidence of so foul a treachery. Which we gladly
+did. And it was and is the prayer of all that when the gates of the
+prison camps roll back this document will get to the War Office and
+there receive the attention it deserves.
+
+My comrades in misfortune here told me of another such a man who had
+gone away just before my arrival at this camp. He, too, was a
+sergeant-major of a line regiment in the old army. I had known him in
+the old days in India. In his own regiment he was never known by his
+own name, but instead by this one: "The dirty bad man." No one ever
+called him anything else when referring to him. That was his former
+record and this is what he did here to keep the memory of it green.
+
+He was instrumental in having fixed on us one of the most terrible of
+army punishments. It appears that some time before one of our men had
+broken some petty rule of discipline and the Germans had asked the
+sergeant-major what the punishment was in our army for such a "crime,"
+as all offences are termed in the army.
+
+"Number One Field Punishment or Crucifixion," had been his lying
+reply. That meant being spread-eagled on the wheel of a gun limber,
+tied to the spokes at wrist and ankle, with the toes off the ground
+and the entire weight of the body on the outraged nerves and muscles
+of those members.
+
+Lacking a gun limber, the Germans used a post with a cross-bar for
+this man's case. After that, this was a recognized mode of punishment
+for many petty offences in this camp.
+
+It is true that this form of punishment is a part of the so-called
+discipline of our army. But it was not meted out for offences of the
+nature of this man's and if it had been, the obvious thing for the
+sergeant-major to have done would have been to have lied like a man;
+instead of which he piled horror on horror for his own countrymen. I
+have the facts and names of these cases.
+
+There will be many strange tales to come from these camps in the
+fulness of time. No doubt some will go against us, but the truth must
+be told at all costs, else the evil goes on and on.
+
+We were sent out one day to dig potato trenches on the moors in a
+terrible rain. We stuck our spades in the ground and refused. The
+guards had French rifles of the vintage of 1870 which carried
+cartridges with bullets that were really slugs of lead. They began to
+load. A little _unteroffizier_ tugged excitedly at his holster for the
+revolver.
+
+A big Canadian stepped up: "Wait a minute, mate." He reached down to
+the little man's waist and drew the gun.
+
+He offered it to its owner, butt forward, "Now go ahead and shoot, and
+we'll chop your damned heads off."
+
+The rest of us confirmed our leader's statement by gathering around
+threateningly and making gruesome and suggestive motions with our
+spades. There were two hundred of us and only forty guards. We meant
+business and they knew it. They took us back to the laager and locked
+us up.
+
+The following night, that of January 22nd, our guards were reinforced
+by thirty more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+AWAY AGAIN
+
+  Why the Prisoners Walked--Cold Feet Again--The Man Who Turned and
+  Fled--Brumley's Precious Legs--The Wait in the Wood--The Cunning
+  of the Hunted--Bad Days in the Swamps--Within Four Miles of
+  Freedom--The Kaiser's Birthday--Another Trip to Holland.
+
+
+Simmons and Brumley, together with my companion of the first escape,
+had determined to make a break for it with me. And although we were
+not quite ready at this time the addition to the guards forced our
+decision. We had a scanty supply of biscuits saved up and I had
+wheedled a file from a friendly Russian; Simmons got a bit of a map
+from a Frenchman; and we secured a watch from a Belgian. With this
+international outfit we were ready, except that we lacked a sufficient
+store of food. However, there was no help for that.
+
+The laager was a twelve-foot-high barbed wire enclosure, eighty feet
+wide by three hundred long, with the hut occupying the greater part of
+the central space. There was sufficient room below the bottom wire to
+permit the trained camp dogs to get in and out at us.
+
+They patrolled the four-foot lane that enclosed the laager and
+wandered up and down it, their tongues out, always on the alert. They
+were as well confined as we were, since the outer wall of wire was
+built down close to the ground. They were very savage and seemed
+instinctively to regard us as enemies; as all good German dogs should.
+
+The sworn evidence of prisoners exchanged since my escape mentions
+that in one case an imbecile Belgian was daily led out to the fields,
+wrapped up in several layers of clothes and then set upon by the dogs
+under the guidance of their guards; this was for the better
+instruction of the dogs.
+
+At each corner of the laager there hung an arc light. The sphere of
+light from those at the end did not quite meet and so left a small
+shadow in the center of the end fence.
+
+As soon as night came we arranged that six other men should walk to
+and fro from the end of the hut to the shadow at the wire, as though
+for exercise. Others, ourselves included, clustered round the end of
+the hut. I watched my chance, and when the moment seemed favorable,
+fell into step beside the promenaders.
+
+We swung boldly out, intent apparently, on nothing. Our arrival at the
+inner wire synchronized with that of one of the guards beyond the
+outer wire. We turned about without appearing to have seen him. Still
+walking briskly, we reached the hut and turned again. The guard's back
+was now turned; he was walking away. At his present rate of travel he
+should be twenty yards off when we next reached the wire. We dared not
+chance suspicion by slackening our gait. My heart stopped.
+
+As we reached the shadow I fell prone and lay motionless. No dogs were
+in sight. Niagara pounded in at my ears but no hostile sound indicated
+that I had been observed. I dragged myself carefully through and under
+the clearance left for the dogs, until my cap brushed the lower wires
+of the main and outer fence. My feet still projected beyond the inner
+wire into the main enclosure so that on their next trip one of my
+comrades inadvertently touched my foot, startling me.
+
+    [Illustration: RECORD OF SECOND ESCAPE AND RECAPTURE.]
+
+I held the strand in my left hand and fell to filing with my right so
+that at the snap there should be no noisy rebound of the spring-like
+wire. A post was at my right, and, the wire having been nailed to it,
+I was safe from this danger on that side.
+
+The sound of the tramp of those faithful feet receded but the sound of
+them came strongly back to me like a message of hope.
+
+By the time they were back once more I had cut through three strands
+and was crawling cautiously toward my objective, a pile of peat two
+hundred yards distant, which seemed to offer cover as a breathing spot
+and starting point. On the signal from the promenaders that I was
+through the wire, Simmons followed, and after him, Brumley. The other
+man lived up to the example he had previously set himself. He drew
+back in alarm and refused to make the attempt.
+
+With twenty-five guards all about and some only thirty feet away, the
+very impudence of the plan offered our only hope of success. I still
+lacked fifty yards of the peat heap when I heard three shots, next
+the dogs, and then the general outcry which followed the detection of
+Brumley.
+
+I rose to my feet and ran. We had already mapped out our course in
+advance by daylight, for just such a contingency; so I struck boldly
+out. I was still in the swamp to my knees, and under those conditions
+even the short start we had might prove sufficient, since our pursuers
+would also bog down. The swamp was intersected by a series of small
+ditches and scattered bushes, which added to the difficulty of the
+passage. I heard Brumley floundering and swearing behind and went back
+to pull him out of a bottomless ditch. Simmons joined us while I was
+still struggling with him. In another hour Brumley's legs played out.
+We could still make out the lights of the laager. It was vitally
+necessary to push on; so we encouraged him as best we could and
+managed, somehow, to reach the edge of the swamp by daylight. We put
+ourselves on the meagre rations our store allowed, one biscuit for
+breakfast and another for supper, with a bit of chocolate on the side.
+We had apparently outdistanced the pursuit. We prayed that our friends
+might not be too severely punished for their part in our escape.
+
+We lay in the heather all day, soaked to the skin with the brackish
+water of the swamp, the odor of which still hung to our clothes. It
+was January and very cold and sleep was impossible under such
+conditions. We nibbled our tiny rations and struck out as soon as
+darkness came. Our plan was to go straight across country, but Brumley
+could not navigate the rough going of the fields; although on the
+level roads he made out fairly well. So we chanced it on the latter.
+
+Brumley was struggling along manfully but his legs caused him great
+suffering. At about two o'clock in the morning we lay to in the shadow
+of a clump of trees at the roadside, thinking to ease him a bit. He
+flung himself down. Simmons massaged Brumley's legs whilst I watched.
+
+We had just said: "Come on," and they were rising to their feet, when
+another figure stepped off the road and in amongst our trees. It was
+so dark where we stood that he probably would not have seen us had not
+Brumley at that very moment been rising to his feet. He appeared as
+much surprised as we were and started back as though in amazement. And
+then without more ado, he turned and fled the way we had come whilst
+we made what haste we could in the opposite direction, all equally
+alarmed.
+
+Who he was or what he wanted, we could only surmise. If he was not
+also an escaped prisoner then he must have been badly wanted by the
+authorities to have been travelling in such a fashion at such an hour;
+and above all, to have been so alarmed by this chance meeting with
+fugitives. In any event we wished him luck and promptly forgot all
+about him.
+
+Later on in the night our road led us directly into a village. We
+hesitated as to what we should do. Brumley was for pushing through.
+The alternative was to go round and through the fields, lose valuable
+time and play out Brumley's precious legs. It was past midnight, so we
+decided on the village route, and started on.
+
+We passed through without being molested, but just as we were leaving
+the other side some civilians saw us and shouted "Halt!" and other
+words meaning "to shoot." We paid no attention. Espying a wood in the
+distance, we struck out for it. Brumley was in misery and threw up the
+sponge. We stopped to argue with him, at the same time dragging him
+along, and while doing so saw two more civilians rushing up and
+shouting as they came. Lights began to spring up all over the village.
+Brumley stopped dead and refused to go farther. We had previously
+agreed that if anything should happen to any one of us the others were
+to push on, every man for himself. No good could be gained by fighting
+when we were so hopelessly outnumbered, so Simmons and I rushed into
+the wood, swung around and out again and lay down on the edge of it,
+in time to see them take Brumley and come sweeping by us in hot
+pursuit. The main body stopped only a moment to inspect their capture,
+gathering around poor Brumley so that we could not at first see what
+had happened to him. Then several of them started back toward the
+village, with him limping along at their side. Ten yards away a knot
+of them gathered and assisted another up into a tree to watch for us.
+One handed him a rifle and the pursuit went on into the wood.
+Occasionally we heard the sentinel stirring.
+
+We scarcely breathed. It seemed impossible that he could not hear the
+pounding of our hearts. We grew quite stiff in our cramped positions,
+but feared to shift a limb and waited for three-quarters of an hour
+before we dared to worm our way cautiously in the other direction. The
+snap of a twig was like that of a rifle on the stillness of the night.
+
+Once we stopped, thinking that certainly he had heard us. It was only
+the beat of a night bird's wings. We dared take only an inch at a
+time, sliding forward on our bellies and then--waiting.
+
+We met another sentry farther up, but worked around him in safety and
+with more of ease, as we were by this time on our feet.
+
+Arriving at the end of the small wood, we walked boldly across the
+intervening fields to another one, large enough to afford cover for an
+army corps, and there felt comparatively safe.
+
+We were, however, very wet and cold and altogether miserable, buoyed
+up only by the liberty ahead. As it was only two o'clock, we pushed on
+for several hours before stopping to lie by for the day.
+
+For days we carried on thus without discovery. Each night was a
+repetition of the preceding one, an interminable fighting of our way
+through dark forests, into and out of sloppy ditches, over fields and
+through thorny hedges, dodging the lights of villages.
+
+We went solely by the stars, which Simmons understood after a fashion,
+and, aided by our map, we held fairly well to our general direction.
+We had no other sources of information than our own good sense. We
+watched the sky ahead at night for the glow which might indicate to us
+the size of the community ahead; and aided by a close observation of
+railroads, telegraph wires and the quality of the wagon roads and the
+quantity of travel on them, were able to form fairly accurate
+estimates of where we were and which places to avoid. Except on
+unfrequented byways we travelled by the fields, hugging the road from
+a distance. This made travel arduous but safer.
+
+At that, we were sometimes spoken to in neighborly greeting. We
+grunted indifferently in reply, as an unsociable man might. When, as
+sometimes happened, people rose up in front of us from gateways or
+hidden roads, it was very disconcerting. On such occasions only the
+darkness saved us, for we took no chances, wherever there were lights.
+
+It was really harder in the day time; when, try as we might, we could
+not count on avoiding for our hiding place the scene of some
+labourer's toil or perhaps the covert of some child's play. We slept
+by turns with one always on guard. It was difficult indeed for the
+guard not to neglect his duty, so utterly weary were we. The lying
+position we needs must retain all day long aided that tendency, and
+yet we were always so wet and cold that real sleep was difficult to
+secure.
+
+In this district the swamps were numerous and difficult to cross. The
+small ditches and canals that drained them or the almost equally
+swampy fields added to our grief. The feet slipped back at each muddy
+step: We fell into ditches: Dogs barked: And we almost wept.
+
+Once a dog helped us by his barking. It was night and we were crossing
+a very bad swamp, an old peat bog which was full of the ditches and
+holes that the peat had been taken from. These were full of black
+water which merged so naturally into the prevailing darkness that we
+repeatedly fell into them. We floundered out of one only to fall into
+another, uncertain where we were going and lost to all sense of
+direction. There was no vestige of track or road. It was then that
+the dog barked. We stopped to listen, conversing in low tones.
+Certainly, we thought, the dog must be near a house and that meant dry
+land and a footing. So we advanced in the direction of the sound,
+stopping to listen to each fresh outburst so as to make certain that
+we should not approach too closely. Apparently he had smelt us on the
+wind.
+
+Before we reached the dog we felt the solid ground under foot and were
+off once more at a tangent from the sound of his barking.
+
+The swamps were a great trouble to us, as were also some of the
+fields, so cut up by ditches and hedges were they, and yet, in order
+to avoid the roads and the wires, we frequently had to lay a
+circuitous route to avoid these obstacles or else chance the road,
+which we would not do. Often, when we could see our course lying
+straight ahead on the road, we put about and tacked off and away from
+it because a parallel course was impossible on account of the swampy
+nature of the ground. With these bad places passed we could perhaps
+pull back to our true course again, but only after double the travel
+that should have been necessary.
+
+However, we did not mind that so much. Nor did we greatly mind the
+short rations we were on. The other privations were too severe for us
+to notice these minor ones.
+
+The worst was the continual state of wetness and the resultant
+coldness of our bodies. It was not so bad at night when we were
+walking and so kept our blood circulating, but by day it was very bad.
+We used to pray for night and the end of our enforced rest. We were
+never dry or warm but were always very cold and miserable. The sun, on
+those rare occasions when it came forth, did not appear until ten or
+eleven in the morning. By mid-afternoon it was again a thing of the
+past. At best it was very weak and we had to hide in the bushes where
+it could not reach us. All we could do was to take off one garment at
+a time and thrust it cautiously out near the edge of our hiding-place
+to some spot on which the sun shone. Under these conditions we grew
+steadily weaker on our allowance of two biscuits a day; for the time
+of year precluded the possibility of there being any crops for us to
+fall back upon for food, and it was too risky a proceeding to attempt
+to steal from the householders.
+
+    [Illustration: GERMAN PRISONERS MARCHING THROUGH GOOD NATURED
+    ENGLISH CROWDS AT SOUTHAMPTON.]
+
+    [Illustration: HIGH EXPLOSIVES BURSTING OVER GERMAN TRENCHES.
+    BRITISH DEAD IN FOREGROUND.]
+
+On the eighth day we reached the River Ems. We had no difficulty in
+recognising it, as it was the only large one on our map that lay on
+the route we had chosen, and we had passed nothing even faintly
+resembling it, with the exception of some large canals, which were
+easily recognizable as such and which we had swum. We made out trees
+which appeared to be on the other shore.
+
+We regretfully decided that it was too late to attempt the crossing
+that night. The daylight proved the line of trees to be merely the
+tops of a flooded woodland. The shore was a good quarter of a mile
+away. It was January; the water was cold and full of floating ice, and
+very swift. Fording was out of the question. For two days and nights
+we wandered up and down the bank, vainly seeking a boat or raft with
+which to make the crossing. We finally discovered a large bridge,
+which was submerged except for its flood-time arches. There was no
+sign of life and it looked safe, so we proceeded to cross. We
+discovered, however, that we had not reached the bridge proper, but
+were merely on the approach to it. We dropped off onto the main steel
+portion. The wind beat the cold rain against us so that we could
+neither see nor hear. However, we went on and were nearly across when
+suddenly a light flashed on us and we heard a startled "Halt!"
+
+We could barely make out the mass of buildings that indicated the line
+of the shore. It seemed too bad to throw up the sponge so easily.
+
+I said under my breath to Simmons: "We'll push right on," and loudly:
+"Hollander!" thinking we might perhaps get far enough away to make a
+run for it. But there was no show: It was too far to the shore.
+
+There was a shouted command and the clatter of rifle-bolts striking
+home. It was no use. We stopped and shouted that we would not run, and
+then waited while they advanced toward us.
+
+The elderly Landsturmers guarding the bridge gathered us in and took
+us over to their guardroom at the hotel. We judged the incident to be
+an epoch in the monotony of their soldierly duties. They were very
+good to us. Two of them moved away from the fire to make room for our
+wet misery and they gave us a pot of boiling water, two bivouac cocoa
+tablets and a loaf of black bread. The news spread, and civilians
+dropped in to stare at and question us. In the morning the entire
+population came to see the _Englaender_ prisoners. We learned that we
+were only four miles from Holland, and cursed aloud. The town was
+Lathen and when, the next morning, we discovered that it was gayly
+bedecked with flags and bunting we decided that we were indeed
+personages of note if we could cause such a celebration. However, it
+was only the Kaiser's birthday.
+
+In the afternoon they took us by rail to Meppen and shoved us in the
+civilian jail, where we were allowed a daily ration of two ounces of
+black bread, one pint of gruel and three-quarters of a pint of coffee
+for two days, until, on January thirtieth, an escort came from
+Vehnmoor. They roped us together with a clothes-line, arm to arm, and
+marched us through the principal streets by a roundabout route to the
+station so that all might see.
+
+We were unwashed, unshaven and so altogether disreputable as to
+satisfy the most violent hatred--such for instance as we found here.
+It did not require our pride to keep our hearts up or to keep us from
+feeling the humiliation of so cruel an ordeal. We simply did not
+experience the painful sensations that such a proceeding would
+ordinarily arouse in the breast of any man; just as after heavy
+shell-fire no man feels either fear or courage; he is too dazed and
+stupid for either. Many spat at us and good old _Englaender Schwein_
+came to us from every side. It seemed like meeting an old friend,
+after our few days away from it. The faces of these people were
+different from those we had left at camp but their hearts were the
+same. They lined the streets and jeered at us. But we were too tired
+and hungry to care.
+
+And that ended that trip to Holland.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+PAYING THE PIPER
+
+  Sheer Starvation--Slipping It Over the Sentry--The Court
+  Martial--Thirty Days Cells--No Place for a Gourmand--In
+  Napoleon's Footsteps--Parniewinkel Camp--"Like Father, Like
+  Son"--The Last Kind German--Running Amuck--The Torture of the
+  Russians--The Continental Times--"K. of K. Is Gone!"
+
+
+Upon arrival at camp, we were put in cells for eleven days while
+awaiting our court-martial.
+
+During that period we suffered terribly from sheer starvation. The
+daily rations consisted of a poor soup and a small quantity of black
+bread. Hungry though I was, there was only one way by which I could
+eat it--hold my breath and swallow. I am aware that the Germans
+consider this food quite palatable but that may be because they are
+accustomed to it. It was to us the resort of starving men. The cells
+were quite dark--four-by-eight-foot wooden boxes. The confinement and
+short rations on top of our arduous journey, during which we had had
+nothing but the two biscuits a day, caused us to grow weaker daily.
+
+Our friends, however, contrived occasionally to get portions of their
+food to us. They maintained a sentry of their own, whose duty it was
+to watch for and report our trips to the latrine. It was unsafe for us
+to ask for this permission more than once a day with the same guard.
+As the latter was frequently changed, however, we were enabled to work
+the scheme to the limit.
+
+At the worst, this let us out of our cells for a few minutes; and, if
+we were lucky, enabled us to get a handful of broken food. Seeing us
+come out, the prisoner on watch would stroll into the hut and pass the
+word. Shortly, another would come out to us and in passing frequently
+manage to slip us something. On one long-to-be-remembered occasion, a
+man of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, managed to "square"
+the guard, a pleasant-faced young German, in some manner we could
+never fathom, so that the latter actually brought to us two spoons and
+a wash basin full of boiled barley, which we ate in the latrine. That
+was the most humane act experienced from German hands during my
+fifteen months' sojourn in Germany.
+
+On the eleventh day we were marched out to what would be the Germans'
+orderly room. A Canadian who had picked up a smattering of German
+acted as interpreter. He did what he could for us, which was little
+enough.
+
+Asked why we had tried to escape, we feared to tell the truth, that we
+had been forced to it by ill-treatment; so merely stated that we were
+tired of Germany and wanted to go home. The presiding officer said:
+"Well, you fellows have been a lot of trouble to us. I've been told to
+tell you that if you give us any more; we'll have a little shooting
+bee." We were sentenced to thirty days' dark cells. That was our
+court-martial.
+
+One lucky thing happened to us here: When they took our map away it
+fell in two, as a result of having been folded in our pockets. The
+officer crumpled one piece up, made a handful of it and tossed it
+away, at the same time shoving the other half at me, which I eagerly
+clutched. That piece showed the portion of Germany adjoining the
+Holland border.
+
+Our thirty days' dark cells were spent in the military prison at
+Oldenburg. As before, they were four-by-eight feet in size, but with a
+high ceiling which gave me room to stand on my hands for exercise.
+Each of us was confined alone. The walls and floor of the cells were
+of stone; the shutters, of steel which were always closed. There was
+no furniture other than the three boards which served as the mockery
+of a bed and which were chained up to the wall every morning. A small
+shelf which held the water pitcher was the only other furnishing. No
+ray of light was permitted to enter the place. The month was February
+but there were no blankets, and the place was unheated. The rations
+consisted of half a pound of black bread and a pitcher of water, which
+were thrust in to us every morning, so that except for the guard who
+unchained the boards at night we had no visitation in the twenty-four
+long, long hours.
+
+I cannot remember that I brooded much. Rather, I let my mind run out
+as a tired sleeper might, which was no doubt fortunate for me. My
+family were greatly in my thoughts. I wondered how my wife was making
+out and if she was receiving her separation allowance all right, for
+I had heard of many cases where the reverse had happened; and whether
+the boys were well and going to school. I hoped that all was well with
+them and that they did not worry too much over my lot.
+
+As I was not permitted either to send or receive letters during the
+period of my trial and incarceration, my wife was in fact in great
+distress of mind about me as she received no word for many weeks and
+imagined the worst. And when at last I could write it was only to say
+that although I had been well I had been unable to write, leaving her
+to draw her own conclusions.
+
+The cell door opened promptly at five o'clock every morning. We were
+allowed ten minutes in which to clean our cell, go to the lavatory and
+wash up, all under guard. These were the only occasions during which
+we had an opportunity of seeing one another or the other prisoners.
+These rites were all performed in silence, and communication of any
+description was forbidden and so keenly watched for as to be
+impossible. However, Simmons and I got what small comfort we could out
+of seeing one another frequently, and by this time there had grown up
+between us such a mutual respect as to make us value this highly. The
+other prisoners included Germans as well as our allies and there were
+some civilian German prisoners. The German soldier prisoners were
+mostly in for committing the various crimes of soldiering which in the
+British Army would have put them under the general head of defaulters.
+That classification, however, had been done away with in the German
+Army. The slightest infringement of discipline was punished with
+cells. Noncommissioned officers received the same punishment as the
+men, without, however, losing their rank, as would have been the case
+in our army.
+
+Upon finishing the ten minutes allotted to us we were forced to
+re-enter our cells and stand against the wall, at the back, so that we
+could neither see nor communicate with one another until the guard got
+around a few minutes later and looked in to see that all was as it
+should be before slamming the door.
+
+There was no use in trying to stretch the ration out for two meals. I
+tried to and gave it up. And after that I ate the bread, filled up on
+water and sat down on the cold stone floor for another twenty-four
+hours of waiting.
+
+My thoughts dwelt greatly on food. We were supposed to receive soup
+every fourth day, but we did not. The prisoners of other nationalities
+did, and in addition were exercised regularly. At least we could hear
+the rattle of their spoons against their bowls and the tramp of their
+feet. The slow starving was, to my mind, the worst. And after that the
+loss of sleep. If one did drop off, the cold soon caused a miserable
+awakening. I tried not to think, and did all the gymnastic drill I
+knew, even to standing on my hands in the darkness of the cell. I knew
+that if I gave up it would be all off, for I could daily feel myself
+getting wabbly as the confinement and starvation, added to my already
+enfeebled and starved condition when I entered, began to tell on me.
+It must be borne in mind that I had already served eleven days'
+solitary confinement on insufficient food, after several days of jail
+on ditto, and eight days while escaping, during which I had been
+continually wet and without food, other than the two biscuits daily,
+before beginning to serve this sentence. Simmons, of course, was in
+the same plight.
+
+The last day, that of February 22nd, rolled around finally. We were
+taken from our cells at nine o'clock and marched out for an unknown
+destination which we knew only as a stronger punishment camp than the
+others we had been in. Ahead of us we saw poor Brumley; but were
+unable to communicate with him, and I do not know whether he saw us or
+not. That was all we ever learned directly of his fate. His wife, in
+Toronto, has since informed me that he is still in Germany and has
+only lately been recaptured after another attempt at escape.
+
+At eleven that night we arrived at our destination. This was the
+strong punishment camp of Parniewinkel, in Hanover, on the road over
+which Napoleon had marched to his doom at Moscow. We wondered if we,
+too, were going to ours.
+
+We had had no food that day, nor did we get any that night, but were
+shoved into a hut full of Russians, who did not know what to make of
+us. We were so long of hair and beard, so ragged, so emaciated and so
+altogether filthy that they must have thought us anything but British
+soldiers.
+
+Later we found that there were, in all, between four and five hundred
+Russian, eighty French and Belgian, and, including ourselves, eleven
+British prisoners, of whom Simmons and I were the only Canadians, all
+shoved into two huts in the middle of the usual barbed-wire laager.
+
+As Giessen was the best camp, so this one was the worst of all those
+we were to know. It was not so wet as the swamp at Vehnmoor, but the
+drinking water was even worse than the brackish, peat-laden water
+there. The general sanitary arrangements were terrible and the food
+was worse than at Giessen, the camp in which that lack had been the
+worst feature among many bad ones. And on top of it all the treatment
+was very bad, much worse than any we had previously known.
+
+A soup, made from a handful of pickled fish roe and a few potatoes,
+was a stock dish, and terrible to taste. On one night a week we
+received a raw herring fresh from the brine barrel, which we were
+supposed to eat raw and uncleaned, but could not. On one day in seven
+there was a weak cabbage soup and of course, a small daily ration of
+potato-and-rye bread. Fortunately, our parcels were beginning to
+arrive by this time, so that, in fact, we fared better than at any of
+the better camps, in the matter of food. With the Russians it was
+different, and we used to give our soup to them in exchange for their
+share of boiling water, which we used in conjunction with the contents
+of our parcels and which they had no use for anyway, especially for
+washing purposes.
+
+It was difficult to get an opportunity to boil water for the making of
+tea or cocoa, even when parcels furnished the essentials, as there
+were so many men and so few stoves that it was a constant struggle to
+get near the latter.
+
+However, as we had refused to work, we did not require very much food.
+We used also to give our black bread to the Russians, for which they
+insisted on doing our washing, though it was little enough of that
+they did for themselves. They were very good and simple men.
+
+Ours was a good bunch of fellows and gave freely to one another and to
+the unfortunate Russians, who rarely received parcels. There was no
+selling or trading on misfortune here, as in some of the other camps
+we had been in. The Germans themselves were short of necessities here.
+They hated to come to the _Englaenders_ to buy, so used to send the
+Russians to beg for soap which they would not use in any event, and in
+this case simply sold to the guards. Discovering this, we shut down on
+indiscriminate giving. Soap or any other fatty substance was by that
+time very scarce in Germany, amongst the lower classes at least. I was
+the only "non-com" in our lot, and so put up the stripes I had taken
+down to avoid giving _Augen Rechts_ at Vehnmoor. I used that authority
+now to persuade my fellow Britishers to give to the unfortunate
+Russians rather than to the French, who, like ourselves, were
+receiving parcels.
+
+A boy of five years or thereabouts used to come regularly to the wire,
+upon which he would climb and hang like some foul spider on its web.
+Grasping it in both small hands and kicking vainly at it and us, he
+would scream: "Englaender Schwein," and I know not what other names,
+spitting venom like a little wildcat. This was not the riffraff of the
+camp. The boy was the son of the camp Commandant, and the apple of his
+father's eye and the thing was often done under that eye and amid the
+vicious applause of the young father and his terrible crew.
+
+The Commandant was a young chap, a lieutenant. What he lacked in years
+he made up in hate. He was known as an England hater. We were poison
+to him. The latrine, a mere shallow pit, was just outside the door of
+our hut and the Commandant saw to it that the latrine fatigue was
+always wished off on to the British. We were made to bail it out daily
+with buckets, which we then carried to the surrounding fields, on
+which we spread the contents while the Commandant and guards laughed.
+The _unteroffizier_ in immediate charge of us, if left alone would not
+make us do this. He was the last kind German I remember, and I have
+mentioned all whom I can recall as having performed the slightest act
+of kindness to us, even of the most negative quality. He used to say
+that it was a pity to treat us so; that such a job was good enough for
+the Russians, who were no soldiers, anyhow, and who smelled bad and
+would not wash; but for us who were soldiers it was a great shame.
+
+The vermin were so bad here that we chanced further trouble by writing
+on post cards as though to friends in England, and complained. We knew
+that they would be intercepted and go to the Commandant. They did. We
+were marched to Cellelaager to go through the fumigating machine. We
+went into a large hut, stripped, tied our clothes in a bundle and
+shoved them into the large oven to bake for five hours while we sat
+round with nothing on but a smile. In the interval we were made to
+run the clippers closely over our heads and bodies. There were sores
+on some of the Russians as big as a hand, eaten deep into by the
+vermin and the bones threatened to break through the skin of some as
+we sat about naked, shivering. Uncleanly at best and denied soap here,
+the lower class of them neglected all the rules of cleanliness. Their
+"non-coms" were the reverse, being almost without exception men of
+some education and general attainments.
+
+Upon our return to this camp we were told by a friendly Russian in the
+orderly room that the post cards were being held there as evidence
+against us. We begged him to give them to us. He did so, and we had
+barely finished destroying them when a German officer, accompanied by
+a file of men, entered and demanded them. We explained that they had
+been destroyed. He would not believe us. We pointed to the charred
+ashes. He searched our bodies, our beds and the scanty furnishing of
+the hut, naturally without avail. The Russian orderly was severely
+admonished and our fire was cut off as punishment.
+
+The treatment at this camp was uniformly bad. The next morning the
+_Raus_ blew at four-thirty instead of five, as was customary. While we
+were still engaged in dressing the guards rushed in, some with fixed
+bayonets, others with them gripped short, as with daggers. The leader
+wore a button, the insignia of non-commissioned rank. He gave a
+berserker roar of rage and charged furiously at an inoffensive Russian
+and stabbed the poor fellow in the neck; while his victim lay back in
+pleading terror, with outstretched arms. And then, still roaring, he
+slashed a Frenchman who was walking past, on the back of the head.
+Going down the hut, he espied Harckum, of the East Lancashire
+Regiment, tying his shoes. Without warning he plunged at him, and,
+striking, laid open the entire side of the man's face, splitting the
+ear so that it hung in two pieces. This was all quite in order because
+we were slow in dressing.
+
+The Russians, with the exception of a lucky few who received some from
+a Russian society in England, got no parcels, and suffered
+accordingly. They were more amenable to discipline than we were, and
+perhaps because of their hunger used to go out daily to work on the
+moors from daylight until dark. They were a cheerful lot, considering
+everything, little given to thinking of their situation and not
+blessed by any great love of country nor perhaps the pleasantest
+recollections of it; and to that extent at least appeared to be
+comparatively satisfied, even under ill treatment. Ill fed as they
+were, they used frequently to fall out at their work from sheer
+exhaustion, which the Germans said was only laziness and malingering
+and for which they would be returned to a point near the laager, where
+we were, for their punishment. By the Commandant's orders this
+consisted of forcing them to run the gauntlet of two lines of soldiers
+who jabbed them with bayonets if they fell into a walk--until the
+victims could run no more and dropped in their tracks. The Germans
+would then roll their eyelids back for signs of shamming, and if any
+such indications were shown, they were jabbed again--and usually were,
+anyhow--until their failure to respond proved that they were really
+unconscious.
+
+This happened with alarming frequency on a regular schedule, forenoon
+and afternoon, to all Russians who refused to work. On one occasion we
+saw six or eight of them laid out unconscious at one time in this
+manner. We wished to do something for them, but were refused
+permission, and one man who was thought to be a ring leader was
+selected to make an example of; he was awarded seven days' cells.
+
+We had previously agreed that if we were awarded this punishment; we
+should refuse to run the gauntlet and should let them do their worst.
+There was no more heard of all this, but after that the Russians were
+punished on the other side of a belt of trees just outside the laager,
+where we could not see them, though their piteous cries could plainly
+be distinguished.
+
+Three of the Russians broke away from this camp, and finding
+themselves near the stores, crawled in the window and stole a half of
+a pig. They were recaptured, and, after doing thirty days' cells, were
+forced to work out the price of the pig at the rate of thirty
+pfennigs--or six cents--a day, which ordinarily would have been
+credited to them for the buying of necessities. And pork came high in
+Germany.
+
+There was one kind of pill for all ailments. That however, may have
+been only stupidity. At least the practice is not confined to the
+prison camps nor the army of Germany, as all British soldiers know.
+But even these were not for the British.
+
+On another occasion a party of Russians arrived from another camp
+twelve miles away.
+
+They said that some Englishmen there who had refused to work had been
+shot at until all were wounded in the legs.
+
+We continued to receive our old friend, the _Continental Times_, here,
+and through it first learned of the Skager-Rack or Jutland battle, in
+which, the paper claimed, over thirty major British ships had been
+sunk, in addition to a larger number of smaller ones. The _Times_ said
+it was a great victory for the Germans. The last we doubted and the
+first we knew to be untrue, since some of the ships they claimed to
+have sunk had been destroyed previous to our capture, nine months
+before. It was in the _Times_, too, that we first heard of Kitchener's
+end. We could not believe it, and for a month laughed at the guard's
+insistence on the story, until one day a post card arrived from
+England, saying: "K. of K. is gone." That was a terrible blow to us,
+for to the British soldier; Kitchener was the tangible expression of
+the might of his Empire.
+
+Some of our party of eleven British had been prisoners since Mons and
+they were in a very bad way. The poor food, the lack of the
+fundamental necessities of the human frame, the terrible monotony of
+the continual barbed wire, the same faces round them, mostly
+unfriendly, all combined to have a most depressing effect, not only
+upon their bodies, but upon their minds. Many of them will never be of
+any use again. Compared to Ladysmith, when that place was besieged in
+the South African War, the latter, terrible though it was, was far and
+away better than this, even if we did live on horse meat at the last
+in Ladysmith.
+
+There was a certain amount of vice here, induced by the life. A kilted
+Highlander was accused of having fathered a child in a German family,
+where he had been employed. We did not learn the facts of the case;
+but such, at least, was camp gossip and it served to detract
+materially from the habitual despondency of our lot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE THIRD ESCAPE
+
+  Saving Up for the Day--A Special Brand--Watchful Waiting--Off
+  Again--Why the Man in the Moon Laughed--A German Idyll--The
+  Narrow Escapes.
+
+
+Simmons and I had been planning on another escape ever since our
+recapture. So we kept on our good behaviour, while we saved up food
+for _Der Tag_. We had hitherto refused to work, as had the remaining
+Britishers, but in order to keep ourselves fit; we finally volunteered
+to carry the noon ration of soup out to the Russians who worked on the
+moor. Our job consisted of carrying an immense can of soup, swung high
+on a pole from our shoulders, out to the workers, under guard of
+course. Starting at eleven each day and, by permission of the guard,
+occasionally resting, we were usually back by one o'clock. Each day we
+saved a portion of our food. We wanted twenty days' rations each,
+estimating that it would take us that long to walk to Holland. We
+specialised on concentrated foods from our parcels--biscuits, tinned
+meats, and so on. We had our cache in a hole, dug under cover of
+night, under the flooring of the hut. It was unsafe to keep food on
+our bodies or near our beds, as the guards were in the habit of
+calling the _Raus_ at all hours, and sometimes, several times during
+the night. It might be at twelve, two or four, although it was never
+alike on any two nights in succession, except that they always
+searched us. We could see no reason for this; other than to break our
+rest and perhaps our spirits, as at Giessen Camp. Certainly, no one
+would carry any forbidden thing on his person, under such
+surveillance, and they well knew we could hide anything we wished in
+other places; as we did.
+
+Each Saturday morning, Simmons and I paraded for paint. We stood,
+while a big Russian, with a brush and bucket, painted large red and
+green circles on our breasts, backs and knees. Thin stripes were also
+painted down the seams of our trousers and sleeves and around the
+stiff crowns of our caps. This was to mark us as dangerous characters.
+As such we received more of the unwelcome _Raus_ attentions than the
+others and were the more wary in consequence.
+
+We were busy opening our mail on one of those rare occasions, when
+Simmons gave a startled exclamation. I looked up and saw him gazing
+curiously at a small cheese which he turned slowly around in his hand.
+As I stepped to his side, a guard came in. He hastily shoved the cause
+of the strange behaviour into his pocket. When the guard had gone; he
+passed me a letter to read. It was from his brother in Canada. "I
+received your letter all right and am sending you a special brand of
+cheese," I read--and understood.
+
+We waited on tiptoe until night, to open the cheese. It was one of the
+cream cheeses, so popular in Canada, no bigger than my closed hand. We
+gingerly unwrapped the tin foil and broke it open. To our great joy,
+in the hollow heart of it there was tucked away the tiny compass
+Simmons had written for from Vehnmoor just before our second escape.
+With it were four American quarters.
+
+Not anticipating this good luck, we had exercised our ingenuity to
+construct a rude compass of our own out of a safety-razor blade and an
+eyelet from my boot. It was within fifteen to twenty degrees of the
+true north. In addition we had a safety lamp, which one of the guards
+had long been looking for under the impression that he had lost it.
+
+We now had our twenty days' rations saved up and so took turns sitting
+up at night, awaiting our chance. We spent two months in this watchful
+waiting, watching the wire and the sentries. But no opportunity
+offered. We took turn about, one man on watch all night long, every
+night. He could not seem to watch but must lie in his place, observing
+all movement in the hut and listening carefully for any indicative
+noises outside. Occasionally, he might step outside and ostentatiously
+walk about as though sleepless, and, if spoken to, say that he was not
+well.
+
+But always there were the shining eyes of the watching dogs, growling,
+if one came too near, and outside the stodgy sentries; and above all,
+much light.
+
+So we determined to volunteer for work, figuring that they were so
+short of men that they would not lightly refuse us. It so happened
+that ten men were asked for that Saturday to hoe turnips on a near-by
+farm. The pay was thirty pfennigs--or six cents--a day. We
+volunteered and were accepted without cavil. They thought our spirit
+gone and that we had accepted the inevitable. We reasoned that if we
+worked hard while we studied the lie of the land we might be asked for
+again, could go prepared, and make a break for it.
+
+And so it fell out. We worked hard all that day, at the same time
+impressing the topography of the country upon our minds. At the close
+of the day we were taken to the farm for our supper of potatoes and
+buttermilk and then marched off to the laager, four miles distant. On
+the following Monday we were ordered to go out to the same place.
+Unfortunately we could not take our store of food as its bulk would
+have meant our detection. In addition to the equipment already
+mentioned I carried two packages of tobacco, a shaving brush and a box
+of matches. Simmons had a terrible razor which would not shave, four
+boxes of matches and a small piece of soap. These were all our worldly
+possessions. It will be seen that, true to our British tradition, the
+shaving outfit constituted the most formidable part of our
+impedimenta.
+
+We worked all day. And so did the rain. We knocked off for supper at
+eight o'clock. The three guards escorted us to the farmhouse, but
+after locking the front door, went into an adjoining room with the
+farmer for their own meal. The back door was forgotten. We were
+famished, so fell to on the supper of buttermilk and potatoes. I
+finished first and strolled lazily over to the door. Besides Simmons,
+there were seven Frenchmen and an Englishman, all of whom were still
+at table and none of them aware of our plans. I carelessly opened the
+door and stood on the sill a moment. Still pouring. "Come here,
+Simmons, and see this. We're going to get wet before we get back."
+Simmons shoved his chair back and joined me. We both stepped outside
+and gently shut the door.
+
+Once more we were on our way! We found ourselves at the edge of the
+village in which the farmers hereabouts had their homes. We worked our
+way carefully round the outskirts and made for a bit of a wood a mile
+and a half away. We were only half way to our objective when the
+village bells began to ring. Once more the hue and cry was on!
+
+When the deep baying of the dogs joined in we said "Ataboy!" cast
+aside all concealment and began to run for it. We reached the wood
+safely enough, but it turned out to be only a thin fringe of trees,
+offering no concealment whatever. We dashed through them. On the other
+side a village opened up. Back to the wedge of wood we went. A
+good-sized ditch with a foot or so of water in it ran along the edge
+of the wood. Its sides were covered with heather, which drooped far
+down into the water. We flung ourselves into it, after first shoving
+the tin box containing our precious matches into the heather above.
+Pitch darkness would not come until ten o'clock. During the
+intervening two hours we lay on our backs in the water with only the
+smallest possible portion of our faces projecting. Once the guard
+jumped over the ditch less than four yards away. We suffered
+intensely, for, although it was late August, the water was very cold.
+
+When things had become quiet and daylight had passed we withdrew
+ourselves from the muck, and after rubbing our numbed bodies to
+restore the circulation, struck out across the country, intent on
+shoving as much distance as possible between ourselves and the camp
+before another day rolled round. We knew that the alarm would be out
+and the whole country roused, with every man's hand against us. We
+were getting used to that. I, for one, had determined not to be taken
+alive this time. But I certainly did not want to be put to the test.
+So we plowed our way through oat and rye fields and over and through
+ditches--many of them. Once we stripped our soggy clothes off to swim
+a river that faced us. In no place did the water come above our knees;
+but what it lacked in depth, it made up for in coldness. We saw none
+of the humour in that, so we cursed it and stumbled on, two very tired
+men. We pulled handfuls of oats and chewed dryly on them as we plunged
+up to our waists through the crops. We reckoned that we had made
+thirty miles by morning and apparently had outdistanced our pursuers.
+
+One night early in our pilgrimage, we espied some cows in a field.
+Simmons had been a farmer in Canada and so was our agricultural and
+stock authority here. He plunged through the hedge to see if he could
+not capture a hat full of milk whilst I stood guard outside. I stepped
+into the shadow of some trees, and occasionally I could hear a
+guarded "Soo--Cow!" footsteps--and then as like as not, a muffled
+curse. I smiled.
+
+Two figures came hurriedly down the road. I pressed back against the
+hole of the tree, holding my breath. It was fairly light on the road
+and to my amazement I saw two men who wore French uniforms. Also they
+had heavy packs on their back. That last meant but one thing--food.
+
+I rose to my feet: "Kamerad!"
+
+One of them stopped short. The other pressed on. He muttered something
+under his breath and the other broke into a trot to catch up.
+
+I edged along, trying desperately to be friendly. That made them the
+more timid. They would have none of me. No further word was exchanged
+just then except for a repetition of my "Kamerad."
+
+I whistled softly to Simmons. That alarmed them the more. They
+lengthened their stride. So did I mine.
+
+One said something I could not catch. They half halted and made a
+brave attempt to pose as Germans, to judge by their guttural talk and
+brassy front.
+
+I could not explain, although I tried in the half light to show my
+friendliness, and Simmons, now a few rods away, did likewise. I
+endeavoured to address them in French--and could not. I tried German.
+That was worse and the final result--chaos.
+
+All I could think of was "Kamerad." I kept on like a parrot, foolishly
+repeating it.
+
+All this took but a moment and then they were gone and we after them.
+
+So there were they, walking hurriedly, fearful of us for Germans no
+doubt and casting uneasy glances back. I followed slowly, at a loss to
+know what to do, my eyes glued on the inviting squareness of their
+heavy packs. Simmons jogged behind, endeavouring to catch up. The moon
+laughed at all four of us.
+
+"Come on," I said. "They're Frenchmen. We'll follow them. They have
+two packs on their backs! Grub! And maybe we can bum them for a bit."
+
+Simmons needed no second invitation but set out as eagerly as I in
+cautious pursuit; so fearful were we of alarming our quarry. Our eyes
+were glued on their packs.
+
+Just then the road opened up into a broad expanse of heather. And
+there we lost them. We beat about in the heather for a long time, and
+called loudly, but without avail. They were no doubt lying down,
+hiding.
+
+We found some potatoes in a field that night, dug them up with our
+bare hands and ate them raw. We were very sad when we thought of those
+packs.
+
+It was, I remember, on the day following that we saw some of the
+lighter side of German life. The woods thereabouts were cut up into
+big blocks, as city streets are. We were laying to in one of them,
+thankful for the thickness of our shelter when we heard laughing
+voices and then a gust of laughter as a flying group of girls and boys
+romped past. They played about for half an hour, causing us great
+alarm by their youthful fondness for sudden excursions into unlikely
+spots, after nothing in particular. The oldest of the group, a sizable
+boy of seventeen or thereabouts and a pretty girl of near that age,
+hung back long after the younger children had passed on. We had little
+to fear from them. They were quite evidently engrossed in one another.
+He argued earnestly, while she listened with a half-smile. Once, he
+made as if to take her hand but she drew back and stiffened. He
+ignored the rebuff. A moment afterward he said something that pleased
+her so well that the last we saw of them his arm was about her waist
+as they went down the path together.
+
+Parniewinkel lay forty to fifty miles northeast of Bremen, which in
+turn was one hundred and fifty miles from the Holland border. We
+reckoned on having to walk double that in covering the stretch, and
+figured on twenty-one days for the trip.
+
+My diary for that day, August 22, 1916, reads: "Still raining. Soaked
+and cold. Breakfast, dinner and supper: turnips and oats." The night
+was a repetition of the preceding one, and made worse by the number of
+small swamps we had to struggle through. The next day's diary reads:
+"Rain stopped and not so cold. Fair cover; still soaked but
+confident."
+
+We had our first narrow escape that day. We were lying in the corner
+of a hedge. It was so misty as to give almost the effect of night, but
+so long past day as to make travelling unduly dangerous. When the mist
+lifted we found ourselves within fifty yards of a thickly populated
+village with just a narrow strip of field between. We could hear
+all the early morning bustle of any village, the world over. This was
+about three o'clock. An old man followed by a dog made straight for
+us. I had just come off the watch, which we took turn about. Simmons
+whistled cautiously to me, the very sound a warning to be quiet.
+
+    [Illustration: SALIENT DETAILS OF THE THIRD ESCAPE.]
+
+I looked up. The old man wandered along the hedge and stood over him
+for several minutes.
+
+It was very trying but he lay motionless, for fear of the dog. A blow
+would have sufficed for the old man. The latter remained so for a
+couple of minutes, standing over him, busy.
+
+The meals for that day were peas and oats. It was a slow way of making
+a meal. We liked the oats the best and pulled some whenever we came to
+them, if our pockets were not already full, so that they should always
+be so. We ate them as we went, from the cupped hand, spilling some and
+spitting out the husks of the others which sometimes stuck in our
+throats, making them very raw.
+
+For August twenty-fourth the diary reads: "Very hard night. Crossed
+about five kilometres of swamps and numerous canals. Bad accident.
+Clothes went to the bottom, but recovered. We are soaked, as usual,
+and only made about eleven kilometres. Are outside town of Bremen.
+Cover very poor. Meals for the day: Nix. Still confident." The cover
+ranked before the food as an item of interest to us. Knowing the
+general direction of Bremen from the camp, and that it was much the
+largest town in the vicinity, we experienced no difficulty in locating
+it by the reflection of its lights against the sky.
+
+"August twenty-fifth: More rain and cold. Hiding on the bank of the
+Weser. Better going last night. Going to look for boat to-night. River
+two hundred yards broad. Socks played out. Made pair out of a shirt.
+Met a cow. Meals for day: turnips, carrots and milk."
+
+"August 26th: More rain. Found boat and crossed river. Hedges grown so
+close and so many of them, we have to go around them. Takes a lot of
+time. Otherwise going good. Meals for the day: turnip, peas and oats.
+Met another cow. Frisked her. Cover none too good. Trying to dry our
+clothes in sun. More confident." We always became more confident at
+the slightest semblance of warmth.
+
+The socks we made out of a shirt which came from the clothes-line of
+some _haus-frau_. We made "dutch" socks in Western fashion by cutting
+out large diamond shaped pieces of the cloth, which when the foot was
+placed on it, folded up nicely into a sock of a kind.
+
+The cow, or rather, her milk, was the greatest treat of all.
+
+It required some searching before we found a boat. We finally
+discovered a boat house which we broke into and by great good luck
+found inside it a boat which answered our purpose. Our chief concern
+was lest the owners might raise a hue and cry against the theft.
+However, when we reached the further shore we gave the boat a good
+push out into the stream so that if they attempted to follow our trail
+they might find the boat a long ways down stream.
+
+"August twenty-seventh: Rain left off. Trying to dry ourselves in sun.
+Had a hard night keeping clear of town. Good cover in a wood. Meals:
+turnips and another obliging cow. Feet pretty sore. No socks. Still in
+the best otherwise."
+
+The town in question was the second one we passed after leaving
+Bremen. We saw the reflection of its lights in the sky and thought
+that we should easily miss it. But suddenly from some high ground we
+found ourselves working directly down on the streets so close below us
+that we could discern people going to and fro. We turned and fled.
+
+Swinging well round to the south we thought at last to clear the town
+easily, instead of which we again came up against it, in the outskirts
+this time. And we repeated that disheartening performance a couple of
+times before we cleared the obstacle and once more swung on our way.
+
+It was such occurrences as this that disheartened us more than
+anything else, even the great hardships. To labor and travail, to do
+the seemingly impossible, night after night and then in the snap of a
+finger to find all our pains, all our agony gone for nothing, reacted
+on us terribly at times.
+
+On the following morning we met with our second narrow escape, under
+much the same circumstances as the first. We had crawled into a hedge
+toward the heel of the night, and rather earlier than usual on account
+of a thick mist which prevented us from holding to our course. When it
+lifted we made out the slope of a house roof shoving itself out of
+the grey fog directly in front of us. Our hedge divided two fields,
+in both of which labourers were already cutting the crops. In this
+hedge, on each side of us, were gateways so close together that when,
+as occasionally happened, people passed through one, we were forced to
+crawl up to the other to avoid detection. We had done so again when,
+without warning, a drover came plodding up behind his sheep. We had no
+time in which to go back up the hedge. The sheep crowded from the rear
+and overflowed at the narrow gateway into the hedge where we lay and
+so ran over our bodies. We remained quiet, thinking he would pass on;
+but what with the frightened actions of his sheep and the yelping of
+the dog his attention was inevitably attracted to the spot where we
+lay. He came over, looked down at us, but said nothing and stalked on.
+We were uncertain as to whether he had seen us or not. Numerous
+incidents of a similar nature had made us overconfident. We had
+previously escaped detection in some very tight corners by simply
+lying quiet. Casual travelers had all but walked on us upon several
+occasions, and at night we ourselves passed many people and thought
+nothing of it.
+
+A moment later the shepherd walked off directly toward the labourers,
+glancing back over his shoulder at us as he did so. We struck out at
+once, before the crowd could gather. We had, at the beginning of this,
+our third escape, agreed not to be taken alive to go through a
+repetition of the torture of mind and body which we had already
+undergone, and, perhaps for this time, worse. And it was understood
+that if one played out the other should carry on. Each of us had a
+stout club and could have made a tidy fight.
+
+Concealment was useless and, furthermore, impossible. We passed close
+by a group of the harvesters and headed for a wood that lay on the
+other side of them. They could not mistake either the vermilion
+circles on our khaki tunics, faded though they were, nor our wild and
+dilapidated appearance, which was not made more reassuring by the
+clubs we carried. Glancing back, we saw them gathering hurriedly in
+little knots.
+
+We reached the wood, flung ourselves down and watched them until dark,
+during which time they made no attempt to follow us. Nor did we see
+any sign of other pursuers, though we kept on the _qui vive_ all
+night, as we trudged through the interminable fields, forcing our way
+through tight hedges and plunging waist deep into the water of small
+canals.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+WHAT HAPPENED IN THE WOOD
+
+  Weather Bad but Hopes High--Primitive Dressmaking--The Woman at
+  the Farm--The Zeppelin--The Fight in the Wood.
+
+
+The only roads we habitually used were side ones, and especially did
+we avoid any with telegraph wires which might be used against us. It
+was a flat and swampy country, full of mist, and the nights were few
+in which it did not rain. And we were always very wet and very cold.
+The latter was worse than the lack of food. Sometimes we struggled for
+hours at a time, knee-deep in desolate stretches of mist-covered
+morasses which gave no promise of firm footing but which often dropped
+us in to the waist instead. In addition, the country was cut up by
+numerous small ditches, six to eight feet wide, which along toward
+morning presented so much of an effort in the jumping that we usually
+plunged into the water by preference. Our feet were adding to our
+misery by this time. On one occasion, as we dragged ourselves out of
+the water, two dogs came rushing at us and then followed, yelping. It
+was nearly daylight and a woman came down to see what was going on. We
+remained motionless near a hedge. She failed to see us, which was
+perhaps good luck for both her and us.
+
+The diary for that period reads: "August 28th: Rain worse than ever.
+Not a piece of our clothes dry and too much water to lie down. Good
+going last night. Cover in a wood outside village. Good. Meals: Nix.
+Ought to reach the Hustre river to-night. In good spirits."
+
+"August 29th: Rain stopped and a bit of sun came out. Feeling much
+more cheerful. Just had a shave and clean-up. Going last night very
+bad. Swamps and canals. Had to leave our course. Feet feeling better.
+Meals for the day: turnips, peas and green apples. Did not reach the
+river. All's well. No complaints." That shave was a terrible torture.
+
+"August thirtieth: Rain, thunder and lightning most of last night. Got
+a bit of shelter in a cowshed in a field. We are wet and cold as
+usual, with no sun to dry. Fair cover in a small wood. Going good
+last night. Haven't struck the Hustre yet. Meals: green apples and
+brambles. Feet pretty sore. Made a needle out of wood and did a bit of
+sewing. Best of health."
+
+We had been ploughing through the mist, confused by it and the
+numerous hedges, when at the side of a small field we had run into
+this cowshed, a tumbledown affair of sods, caved in at the sides and
+partly covered by a thatched roof. We built up the side from which the
+wind came the worst, hung a rotting canvas we found at the other end
+and then snuggled up together to exchange warmth.
+
+The mist had scarcely lifted when we heard a slight noise. We looked
+up. A woman was at the entrance to our hovel, looking down full at us.
+She turned and walked away. We rose, still dazed with sleep, and found
+that we were quite close to a farmhouse which owing to the mist we had
+failed to observe before, and from which our visitor had evidently
+observed the result of our building operations. "She saw us," I said,
+and we regretted not having seized her. She appeared to be signalling.
+
+A good-sized wood lay well up ahead. "Come on," I said. "Let's beat
+it. We can handle a few of 'em better than the whole mob." We could
+see the farm labourers gathering in a knot. The rain came on just then
+and perhaps assisted in dampening their ardour. At any rate they did
+not follow us into the wood. We spent rather an uneasy time though,
+when, late that day, some men approached our hiding place in a clump
+of bushes and for half an hour shot their fowling pieces off all
+around where we lay.
+
+They did not seem to be after us; more likely they were hunters. The
+same thing had happened in a lesser degree several times before. None
+the less it was very uncomfortable to have the buckshot rattling all
+around us in the bushes where we lay and we felt much better when they
+had gone.
+
+As for the wooden needle: That was of course the result of our
+necessity. It was a long thorn--first, a punch in the cloth and like
+as not a stab in the finger in the bargain, then a withdrawal of the
+crude needle and a careful threading of the hole with our coarse
+string, after the fashion of a clumsy shoemaker. Some sewing! Some
+needlewoman!
+
+The green apples and the berries which we got here proved a most
+welcome change in our diet.
+
+"August thirty-first: Not much rain but very cold. Too dark to travel
+last night. No stars out to go by. Crossed the river this morning, at
+last. Good cover in bushes. Feet are badly peeled. Hope for better
+luck to-night. Meals: apples and turnips. Cold and rain are putting us
+in bad state. But still confident." We were daily growing weaker and
+prayed only that our strength would last to put us over the border.
+
+"September first: No rain and a little sun. Feeling much better. Going
+last night much the best we have had. Good cover in a thicket. Will
+soon be going over the same country we did last time we escaped.
+Meals: peas and beans. Still in good health."
+
+"September second: No rain, but cold out of the sun. Pretty fair going
+last night. Feet still sore. Cover on straw stack in middle of field.
+Warmer than the woods. Zeppelin just passed overhead going north.
+Meals: turnips, carrots, apples and peas."
+
+"September third: Fine weather. Good going last night. Feet still
+pretty bad. Had to cut my boots. Fine cover in the wood. Meals: baked
+potatoes. Feel fuller." This was our first cooked meal and the
+pleasure it gave us was beyond all words. We lit it under cover of
+night so that by the time day had come there was nothing but glowing
+coals in which the potatoes roasted while we slept.
+
+My feet were badly swollen by this time so that I was faint with the
+pain of them.
+
+The Zeppelin, strange though it was under the circumstances, was only
+a small incident in many others of vaster importance which were
+happening daily to us but it was flying so low that we deemed it best
+not to move until it had passed. We wondered if it were going to
+England, and envied it.
+
+"September fourth: More rain. Hard going half the night. Crossed large
+peat bog and wet to the waist. Very cold. Cover in wood. None too
+good. Got scared out of our first cover. Meals: Milk, apples and peas.
+Feet not so sore. Still raining and cold. We should soon be at the
+River Ems."
+
+On the evening of this day we walked out to the edge of the wood we
+were in and stood there sizing up the near-by village. It was about
+seven o'clock and wanted about an hour to darkness and our usual time
+for hitting the trail. Without any warning, a burly farmer confronted
+us. He was as badly startled as we were. Our remnants of painted
+uniforms and our ragged, soaked and generally filthy condition no
+doubt added to our terrible appearance. We had long since lost our
+caps and our hair was matted like a dog's. The German was armed with a
+double-barreled shotgun, and at his heels a powerful-looking dog
+showed his teeth to us, so that I marked the red of his tongue. If he
+raised the alarm we were done for. We still had our cudgels.
+
+I do not know whose was the offensive. But I do know that the three of
+us came together with one accord in a wild and terrible medley of
+oaths in two languages and of murderous blows that beat like flails at
+the threshing. Simmons and I struggled for the gun which he tried so
+hard to turn on us, the dog meanwhile sinking its teeth deep in our
+unprotected legs and leaping vainly at our throats; while we felt with
+clutching fingers for his master's, intent only that he should not
+shout.
+
+In those mad moments there sped through our brains the reel of that
+whole horrid film of fifteen months' torture of mind and body; the
+pale, blood-covered faces of our murdered comrades of the regiment,
+the cries of the patient Russians behind the trees, and our own slow
+and deadly starvation and planned mistreatment. All these, and God
+only knows what else, should be ours again if we should be recaptured.
+
+We were near to Holland. In fancy and by contrast we saw the fair
+English fields and the rolling beauty that is Ontario's; we heard the
+good English tongue and beheld the dear faces of our own folk. We bore
+that farmer no ill will. And his dog was to the last a very faithful
+animal, as our clothes and limbs bore true witness. We had no ropes.
+And we were two very desperate men, badly put upon.
+
+We dropped his gun in the bushes, together with the body of his dog;
+and passed on. It had not been fired and we had no desire to have the
+charge of carrying firearms added to the others against us if, in
+spite of all, we should be so unfortunate as to be recaptured.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE LAST LAP
+
+  Crossing the River--The Terrible Swamp--Valuable Apples--Safe
+  Across the Border--Real Walking at Last--Barbarous Barbering.
+
+
+"September fifth: Stopped raining and a little warmer. Got our clothes
+dry once more. Cover in a wood outside a small town. Going last night
+good, after we had crossed another peat bog. Meals: milk, baked
+potatoes and apples. Hope to reach the river to-night. Bad feet. Best
+of health otherwise."
+
+"September sixth: No rain and warmer. Heavy dew. Fairly good going.
+Best of cover. Had a fire. Pretty comfortable. Milk, potatoes,
+apples."
+
+"September seventh: Still fine weather. Very poor cover in a hedge.
+Good road to go on. Made pretty good time last night. Feet feeling
+better. Running out of tobacco. Otherwise in the best and still hope
+the same. Meals: potatoes and beets."
+
+We spent a great deal of time discussing ways and means of adding to
+our stock of tobacco. Any smoker knows what it is to want the weed.
+Consider then our half famished, wet and utterly weary condition. It
+was a real necessity to us. We discussed waiting at the roadside until
+a man with a pipe appeared; when we should rob him. We dismissed that
+as too hazardous. It would be necessary to kill him and that seemed a
+bit thick for a pipe of tobacco. So we did the only thing that was
+left to do--cut down our already scanty rations of tobacco and took
+scrupulous care to smoke to a clean ash every vestige of each heel of
+old pipe, but in spite of that our supply became exhausted.
+
+"September eighth: Lovely weather to-day. Good going last night in
+small swamp. Good cover in a forest on the banks of the Ems. We will
+try to cross to-night. Meals: potatoes and mangels. Our final try for
+liberty. Feel good for it."
+
+We had arrived at the river at two o'clock that morning, too played
+out to attempt the crossing then. We retraced our steps to a potato
+field, dug some of the tubers and, when daylight came, lit a fire and
+roasted them. We were in a dense forest of young trees, so that by
+lighting the fire before the mist lifted, the latter hid our smoke.
+We remained unperceived, though we could hear voices and footsteps on
+every side.
+
+"September ninth: Swam the river and two canals. Crossed a large
+swamp. No rain but very cold. Think we are over the border. Very poor
+cover in a hedge. Wet to the skin. Clothes got soaked but in best of
+spirits and confident."
+
+We went down to survey the river shortly before dusk and found it both
+broad and swift. We went back again and tore a gate from its hinges,
+carried it the five hundred yards down to the river and then stripped
+for the crossing. The gate was not big enough to carry us but answered
+for our clothes. Simmons swam ahead, guiding it, while I shoved from
+behind. We made the crossing without mishap but straightway fell into
+one of the worst experiences of the entire trip. We plunged into a
+swamp which took us five hours to get through. There were moments when
+we all but gave up and thought we should never get out. At times we
+sank in it up to our waists, particularly after leaping at the
+numerous tufts of grass which seemed to promise a footing that they
+never realised and which sometimes sent us in it to the armpits, so
+that we were sure we were doomed to be sucked down for good in the
+filthy mess.
+
+The fearful odour that our plunging around stirred up, naturally aided
+our nervous imaginings and it was undoubtedly the worst trial we had
+yet met with on the journey. I cannot convey the black despair which
+took possession of our hearts at the seeming hopelessness of all our
+efforts to find firm footing or a break in the landscape which might
+indicate a change in the nature of the country, a light, a voice,
+anything that would help to lift from our hearts the feeling of utter
+isolation from all human assistance and the seeming certainty that a
+few bubbles would be the only indication that we had struggled there.
+The darkness of the night intensified these thoughts. The rain did not
+matter. In fact it helped; for we were covered with the worse than
+water of the morass.
+
+We looked at one another. We dared not speak. Anyhow, to do so was not
+our custom at such times as these. But each knew. A dull anger took
+possession of us at the thought of so inglorious an end after all that
+we had suffered to attain our freedom. With a prayer in our hearts we
+cast ourselves forward and somehow, sometime, found at last that we
+were safe and so flung ourselves down in our stinking clothes to lie
+like dogs in a drunken stupour that recked not of time or of our
+enemies.
+
+We discovered an apple orchard here, in which the fruit was ripe. All
+the apples we had had up to date had been of the small and green
+variety. And even they, with the occasional milk, represented our all
+of luxury, so that these seemed indeed the food of the gods. We
+proceeded to fill up and after eating all that we thought we could,
+filled our pockets until they bulged, and started off, each carrying
+an armful of the fruit. At every step we dropped some. We stopped
+again and ate our surplus to make room. We refused to lose any of
+them. We came to a river, stripped, tied our clothes up in a bundle
+and proceeded to swim across, shoving the clothes ahead. I lost
+control of mine and they sank. I dived repeatedly in the darkness
+before I found them. The cargo of apples in the pockets made a bad
+matter worse. I should rather have drowned than have lost my apples.
+The possible loss of the clothes worried us very little. We had
+already decided in that event to waylay some German Michel rather
+than to go naked into Holland. However, by alternately dragging the
+bundle behind and swimming on our backs with it held high on the chest
+with one hand, we made the crossing, apples and all.
+
+We were sitting in the shadow preparing to dress and wondering whether
+we were really over the border and if we could safely walk abroad,
+when we heard men walking toward us. We knew them to be Germans by the
+clank of the hobnailed boots which all our guards had worn. We had not
+a stitch on and our hearts were in our mouths. The patrol of six men
+stopped within five yards of us and then passed on within five feet
+and did not see us. We dressed quickly and went on, only to find a
+canal, for which we had to strip again.
+
+Arriving at the other side; we dressed in the shadow of the bank,
+crawled to the top and plunged through the heather on to a road which
+we had almost crossed, when there came a cry of "Halt!" The patrol
+must have been standing in the trees where we had broken out from the
+heather, and very quietly, too, for we had lain for five minutes to
+make certain that all was safe. Evidently we were on or near the
+border if the number of patrols was any indication. We were not
+certain whether these were Hollanders or Germans. We made one big buck
+jump. "Fire, Gridley, when ready!" I left the entire knee of one
+trouser leg on a clutching thorn. But the patrol did not fire.
+
+And then another canal. "I'm fed up with swimming to-night."
+
+"So am I," agreed Simmons. "There are houses over there. There must be
+a bridge."
+
+We slunk along the bank and to our joy found a small bridge. We dashed
+across it and debouched safely into a tiny village. Here we saw a
+difference, especially in the houses and the roadway. It was in the
+very atmosphere, a result no doubt of instincts made keen by the
+hunted lives we had led. On either side the fields stretched out,
+criss-crossed by a perfect network of small canals and ditches, which
+also served as fences.
+
+We knew we were in Holland.
+
+We deemed it unwise to show ourselves as yet, distrusting the
+sympathies of the Hollanders and fearful that they might give us up;
+and continued this policy until the next day. However, we took a
+chance and stuck to the road, a treat, indeed, to feel a firm footing
+after our weeks of travelling across country fields. This enabled us
+to shove thirty miles between us and Germany by morning.
+
+    [Illustration: PRIVATE MERWIN C. SIMMONS OF THE 7TH BATTALION,
+    1ST DIVISION, CANADIAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE.]
+
+It was not quite daylight when we espied a cow in a field at the
+roadside and gave chase. There was no other food in sight, so when our
+quarry threw up its tail and bounced off; we set out grimly to run our
+breakfast down. It was half an hour later that we corralled it in a
+corner between two broad ditches and were already licking our chops in
+anticipation; when we discovered that our cow was only a big heifer.
+Twenty-four hours earlier it would have been a tragedy. As it was, we
+only laughed. Such is liberty.
+
+At this distance from the border we felt that we were safe from the
+Germans but were very much afraid that we might be interned. So we
+holed up in a farmhouse which had been partly burned down and built a
+roaring fire out of the remains of the charred furniture, placed some
+of the potatoes that were lying about in the fire, made a rough bed
+and went to sleep. Awakening later in the day, we raked the blackened
+potatoes out of the ashes and filled up on them. We were a fearful
+team; absolutely filthy, uncombed, unwashed, unshaven, and with the
+Russian's paint still thick upon us. Afterward we went down to the
+canal and endeavoured to knock the worst of it off. All danger was
+past now. We seemed to walk on air. We were once again British
+soldiers. And so fell to abuse of one another, finding fault and
+grousing; as all good British soldiers do when they are well off. I
+made out to shave Simmons. The terrible razor had never been sharp and
+lately had rusted from its travels. Simmons swore lustily and
+threatened me, ordering me at the same time and in no uncertain terms;
+to desist from the torture.
+
+"Well, we want to go into Holland lookin' respectable. What'll they
+think of British soldiers if they see us? Have a heart!" I
+expostulated.
+
+"Don't give a damn! I've had enough for being a Canadian; but I won't
+stand for this." I left him with his beard still on in patches and the
+bare spots bleeding angrily. As I had already committed myself, I had
+to bear in silence his purposely clumsy handling of that hack-saw. It
+was terrible, and Simmons, the scoundrel, laughed like a demon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+HOLLAND AT LAST
+
+  "No Intern"--Real Bread--Tipperary--A Real Time--The Splendid
+  Hollanders--The Hague.
+
+
+The diary summarizes the later events of that day:
+
+"September tenth: Fine weather and in Holland. All our troubles are
+over. We struck a small town called Alboom where the people did
+everything they could for us. Plenty of food. Slept in a house!"
+
+A man smoking a big pipe and wearing baggy breeches and wooden shoes
+came up and surveyed us with kindly amusement, as Simmons scraped at
+me with infinite gusto. He was a Hollander; not a "Dutchman." We soon
+learned that the latter was a term of contempt applied by the former
+to the Germans.
+
+I asked him for some tobacco, which he readily gave to us from a
+capacious pouch. He waved his pipe at us in friendly fashion and said
+something which we took to be a question as to our identity.
+
+"English," we said, and in desperation turned to our scanty stock of
+French: "_Soldats; prisoniers._"
+
+"Engelsch!" he boomed. We nodded. He simply threw his arms round first
+one and then the other, so that I wiped the ashes from his pipe out of
+my eyes. He lumbered off and shortly returned with a counterpart of
+himself. He talked rapidly to his companion and waved his pipe. We
+made out the words "Duitsch," "Engelsch," and enough of others to know
+that he was telling our tale as he imagined it.
+
+Our fears coming uppermost, we gave voice to them: "Intern?"
+
+"No intern. Engelsch." The other took up the cry: "Engelsch goot!
+Frient." However our suspicions would not down.
+
+The first man pointed out to the canal where a barge lay and made us
+understand that it was his. He wanted us to work our passage on it
+down the canal with him. They invited us by signs to go on board the
+barge for breakfast, an invitation which we joyfully accepted. We
+rowed out to the barge and sat down in the tiny cabin. The meal was
+plain. On the centre of the table was a loaf of brown bread, quite
+good enough it was true, but so reminiscent of the perennial black
+ration of the Germans that my gorge rose at the sight. Out of the
+corner of my eye I saw a white loaf on the shelf, the first in fifteen
+months. I caught Simmons eyeing it. We exchanged guilty looks but were
+ashamed to ask for it. They offered us the brown loaf and delicious
+coffee. I thought perhaps that if we exhausted the brown loaf the
+other might be forthcoming. I kicked Simmons on the shins and fell to
+on it, and, as opportunity offered, thrust pieces in the pockets of my
+tunic until, to our relief, they brought out the white bread, which we
+devoured to the last crumb. It was very good.
+
+We filled our pipes in high contentment and went ashore, where a
+procession of enthusiastic villagers waited to escort us to the
+village. Men, women and children, wooden shoes and all, there were
+four hundred of them. The men all shook hands and pressed money on us.
+The women cried and one white-haired old lady kissed us both. The
+quaint little roly-poly children ran at our sides, a half dozen of
+them struggling to hold our fingers in their chubby fists.
+
+The procession started off, the burgomaster leading, the two sailors
+and ourselves coming next. Some one behind dragged out a mouth organ
+and struck up Tipperary, and men, women and children all joined in. It
+was glorious. We sang, too, in English, and they in their tongue. The
+result was so ridiculous a medley that I smiled myself; but it made no
+difference. The spirit was there; we were happy.
+
+Arriving at the village the burgomaster took us to his home and sat us
+down to a steaming breakfast, while a few of the chosen were invited
+in to watch us polish it off. The crowd remained outside, choking the
+road. Some of the bolder of the children crept slyly in the door,
+others peered shyly at us from the crack of it. And one little chap,
+braver than his comrades, clumped sturdily up to my knee, where he
+stood clutching it in round-eyed wonder and saying never a word for
+the rest of the meal, envied of his mates.
+
+Not until we had leaned back, not contented, but ashamed to ask for
+more, did our hosts give vent to the curiosity that was eating into
+their vitals. An interpreter was found and they led us out to the
+road so that all might hear. The crowd flocked around while the
+officials questioned us. Many were the smothered interjections that
+went up from the men and exclamations of pity from the women as our
+tale unfolded. And the warm sympathy of their honest faces warmed our
+hearts like a good fire.
+
+We started off on our triumphal course again. We were repeatedly
+invited into houses for something to eat. We accepted seven such
+breakfast invitations during the next two and a half hours and stopped
+only out of shame. We were still hungry. Every one gave us cigars,
+immense things, which projected from every pocket and which we carried
+in bundles under our arms. There was no refusing them. They were the
+insignia of the entente. And the coffee! The good, honest, Holland
+coffee with no acorns in it! I doubt if our starving bodies could have
+carried us many days more on the uncooked roots we had been living on.
+The motherly housewives, in their Grecian-like helmets of metal and
+glass that fit closely over their smoothed hair like skull-caps,
+bustled merrily about, intent only on replenishing our plates and
+cups, full of a tearful sympathy which was as welcome as their food.
+
+Later in the day the officials took us to the police station at ----.
+We became very much alarmed again. They read our thoughts and a
+subdued murmur of: "No intern, no intern," swelled up. The local
+burgomaster came to us. His first words, and in good English, too,
+were: "Have something to eat." We did. And then more cigars. The
+police were a splendid lot of men. They loaded us down with gifts and
+asked perfunctory questions for their records. One of them, H. Letema,
+of ----, took us to his home, where his comely wife and daughter
+loaded the table with good things; while he brought out more cigars.
+He showed us to a bed-room before we understood where he was taking
+us. We refused, for reasons of a purely personal nature. "Nix," we
+said, and when he would not accept our refusal we tried it in
+Niederlaender. "No, no." Still he persisted, and his good wife too. So
+we led him firmly aside and showed him the indescribably verminous
+condition we were in. That convinced him. They appreciated that little
+touch and gave us a deep pile of blankets, flung down on three feet of
+sweet-smelling straw in an outhouse, where we slept as we had not
+slept for many months.
+
+In the morning Letema escorted us down to Aaschen, which was the
+nearest large town. A Belgian and a Holland lady, hearing of the
+escaped English prisoners, met us within twenty minutes of our
+arrival, took us in hand and loaded us down with kindnesses. We ate
+only five full sized meals that day, not counting the extras we
+absorbed between them. And there were more cigars. The raw oats and
+potatoes seemed a long way off.
+
+Our day at Aaschen was a repetition of the previous one at Alboom and
+Borger, but on a grander scale. The ladies took us down to Rotterdam
+and did not leave us until they had turned us over to the British
+consul there, whose name I have forgotten but who, with the vice
+consul, Mr. Mueller, was very kind indeed; in fact, all whom we met,
+irrespective of their nationality, age or sex placed us under eternal
+obligations to them. In particular Mr. Neilson, the rector of the
+English church and in charge of the Sailors' Institute there, seemed
+to live only for us.
+
+Mr. Henken at the American consulate was equally kind. They lodged us
+at the Seaman's Rest, took our painted rags away and clothed us in
+blue "civvie" suits which seemed to us the height of sinful luxury.
+We were shaved, clean and could eat everything in sight, at any time
+of the day or night. And did so. The meals we used to shift! We were
+very glad to get rid of our waterproof suits--for that is what they
+had become, from the paint.
+
+Mr. Neilson took us sight seeing every day. Once we went out to Mr.
+Carnegie's Peace Palace which had been closed on account of the war
+but which we were permitted to inspect. I had not thought such
+buildings were done, except in dreams. It made our own bitter past
+seem unreal. The Italian room, in particular, seemed like a delicate
+canvas in marble and done in a fashion the memory of which gripped me
+for days and still haunts me. We spent days thus; supremely happy.
+
+We were joined here by Jerry Burke of the 8th Battalion of Winnipeg.
+He was a nephew of Sir Sam Hughes, the then Canadian Minister of
+Militia and had just made his escape from some other camp.
+
+We were to have left on the fifth with a fleet of boats which sailed
+then. By the time we had got on board, however, the sailors from the
+first boat were returning. They had been torpedoed. And that stopped
+us.
+
+We got away on the S.S. _Grenadier_ on the sixteenth, and after
+hugging the length of the English Coast, arrived safely at
+Newcastle-upon-Tyne on the eighteenth.
+
+Here our troubles began!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+"IT'S A WAY THEY HAVE IN THE ARMY"
+
+  Red Tape in the Army--A Disgruntled Soldier--"Old Soldier, Old
+  Fox"--A Touch for Twenty Quid--_Augen Rechts_ at Seaford--Canada!
+
+
+My family in Canada have since remarked that although my letters had
+invariably been cheerful throughout my imprisonment, from the time I
+set foot on English soil they reflected the deepest despondency. That
+could be explained in part by the fact that uncheerful letters could
+not pass the German but could pass the British censor. But more
+particularly it was due to the fact that I became entangled in the
+interminable red tape of the army system, and, instead of meeting with
+the warm sympathy that an exile longs for, met, on the part of the
+army, with cold suspicion; however kind some individuals were to me.
+
+Simmons and I were not permitted to leave the boat until the military
+came for us. So far so good. We were taken to the headquarters of the
+General Officer Commanding that district. He briefly examined us and
+good-naturedly gave us some money out of his own pocket and tickets to
+London, where we were ordered to report at the War Office.
+
+Arriving in "The Smoke," as the army has named that city, we proceeded
+the next morning to 14 Downing Street and sent our names in to the
+official we had been directed to by the general. He was in mufti,
+whoever he was, and received us kindly enough. We were closely
+questioned about our experiences, particularly in relation to our
+guards, food, treatment, and so on. He also asked us as to the amount
+of sickness among the prisoners, the condition of the country, and so
+on.
+
+Dismissed, we made a dash down past Big Ben and the Parliament
+Buildings for the Canadian Pay and Record Office, where at Millbank it
+overlooked the Thames. A sergeant took our names and after a time took
+us, too, in to the paymaster. Simmons drew his money without
+difficulty but I found that I was fifteen months dead and was told
+that I could get no money until my identity was reestablished. I
+protested; so much so in fact that I fully expected to land in the
+"clink." No use. I was sent out on the street talking to myself.
+
+We next called on Lady Rivers-Bulkeley and Lady Drummond to thank them
+for the very great kindness of themselves and the Canadian Red Cross
+in sending us our parcels regularly, and without which we would
+assuredly have been too weak to have made our escape. Lady Farquhar,
+the wife of our late commanding officer, was out of town, so we did
+not see her, much as we desired to thank her for similar kindnesses.
+
+Simmons was single. He was sent to Canada at once and was promptly
+discharged. I had a wife and family awaiting me there and I wanted
+badly to go to them by the next boat. My wife had been receiving
+letters from me during my fifteen months' imprisonment; she had
+regularly received her separation allowance; the Canadian Red Cross
+and many kind friends in London had been sending me prisoner-of-war
+parcels for a year; the authorities admitted my identity and my former
+comrades recognised me; I had fifteen months' pay at $1.20 a day,
+besides a subsistence allowance of sixty-five cents a day, coming to
+me; but could not draw a cent of it. I was dead. And continued so
+for three months. There is no explanation. "It's a way they have in
+the Army"; or so the army says.
+
+    [Illustration: THE CEMETERY AT CELLE LAAGER Z 1 CAMP.]
+
+    [Illustration: CORPORAL EDWARDS (SECOND FROM LEFT) AFTER HIS
+    ESCAPE. THE TWO GOLD BARS ON HIS LEFT COAT SLEEVE INDICATE THAT
+    HE HAS BEEN TWICE WOUNDED.]
+
+In the end it was only through the active intervention of Sir George
+Perley, the Canadian High Commissioner in London that my case was
+righted. He, I believe, cabled the Ottawa authorities, who in turn got
+in touch with my wife, who produced the necessary documentary evidence
+to prove that I had been alive and a prisoner all this time.
+
+I went to the depot at Seaford. I borrowed from my old friends. I hung
+round the pay office. The paymaster said I was not on the strength of
+the regiment. I was old soldier enough to profit by that calamity at
+least. The bitter injustice of such miscarriage of justice blinded me,
+as I think it eventually does most soldiers, to the accepted code of
+civil life. I refused to attend roll call or do drills, fatigues, or
+any other part of my regimental duties other than certain interesting
+and thrice-daily rites not unconnected with the kitchen.
+
+It is the commonness, the constant repetition of such stupidity and
+such lack of action that so much injures the reputation for
+intelligence of the army in the minds of those who have served in it;
+so that those who know it best, like it least--and put up with it only
+because it is the poor instrument of a good cause.
+
+The paymaster fell sick. A young subaltern was acting for him. My
+sergeant pal tipped me off. As I have said, I was an old soldier with
+all that that implies. He marched me up to the officer, already more
+or less at sea about his new duties. I asked for money. He was aware
+of my history but not of the tangle I was in:
+
+"How much?"
+
+I wondered how much the traffic would bear.
+
+"Twenty quid, sir," I ventured. He went up in the air.
+
+"Impossible! I'll give you ten."
+
+I O. K'd that while the words were yet warm on his lips. Fifty dollars
+is a great deal of money to a soldier. He gave it to me with a pass
+for Scotland--where I had relatives--to which I had long been entitled
+but which had been useless to me as long as I had no money.
+
+I quickly gathered my cronies together and we packed into the canteen
+to celebrate the occasion fittingly, in the only fashion a good
+soldier knows, in army beer so thick and strong that the hops floated
+on the tops of the mess-tins. While searching for the bottom of one of
+these I heard the orderly shouting: "Corporal Edwards! Corporal
+Edwards!" The other men gathered round me in the corner, drinking,
+while I scrunched down so that the orderly passed on and out still
+shouting my name.
+
+I fled to the tent and was hastily getting my things together when a
+corporal came hot-foot saying that the officer wanted me at once. I
+went in, gave him my very best regimental salute and stood at
+attention.
+
+"I find that you are not on the strength, corporal, and are not
+entitled to any money, so I'll trouble you to return that money I gave
+you."
+
+"I'm sorry, sir," I said sadly, "but it's gone."
+
+"Gone? How?"
+
+"Debts, sir," I said firmly. "My mates have been keeping me going."
+
+"Well, you must get it back from them at once and return it to me.
+It's most irregular. Push on now and see that you're back here in an
+hour's time with that money before those fellows spend it all in the
+canteen."
+
+"Very good, sir." I gave him a smashing good _Augen Rechts_ to cheer
+him up against the time he should discover that I was well on my way
+to Scotland.
+
+And I remained there until I received notice that my regimental bones
+had been officially exhumed; after which I had no difficulty in
+getting my back pay and three months' furlough for Canada and home!
+
+
+    AUTHOR'S NOTE.--An amusing and at the same time gratifying
+    sequel to this story developed immediately upon the heels of its
+    publication in a considerably smaller form in the _Saturday
+    Evening Post_. Sergeant Edwards, who had not previously been
+    consulted by the authorities, was at once offered his choice
+    between doing "duty" in Canada or taking a discharge from the
+    army, instead of going overseas again. He chose the discharge.
+
+    An interesting fact in connection with Brumley, the man who was
+    the first to be recaptured on the second attempt to escape, is
+    that according to a post card received from him by his wife, he
+    has since made two other unsuccessful attempts at escape.
+    Scarfe, who was exchanged to Switzerland, reports that he has
+    married a Swiss girl there. Stamper, another Patricia who was
+    captured at the same time as Edwards, has recently been
+    exchanged and is now in England. Scott, who was captured with
+    the men of an English regiment, was exchanged to Switzerland
+    and recently returned to Toronto and has been in hospital, in a
+    serious condition, ever since. The fate of the others is
+    unknown.
+
+
+
+
+THE EVIDENCE IN THE CASE
+
+
+In order to remove any vestige of doubt in the reader's mind as to the
+authenticity of Corporal Edwards' tale, it has been deemed advisable
+to present reproductions of certain newspaper articles and
+correspondence which bear directly on some of the points touched upon
+in the story.
+
+It will be noticed that quite aside from the major fact of the escape
+itself having been brought out here, there is the equally important
+one of the bringing out of a great number of lesser points which tally
+to a hair with such references to them as are made in the story, such
+for instance as the references to the delay in England, the references
+in their post cards of those fellow-prisoners who remain in Germany
+and other facts of a similar nature.
+
+The following are exact reproductions in every case, except for the
+explanatory note which prefaces each item.
+
+
+_Extract from Toronto Daily Star, May 30, 1915._
+
+WAS BACK ONLY THREE WEEKS
+
+    CORP. EDWARDS, REPORTED MISSING, WAS WOUNDED SHORT TIME AGO.
+
+    Lance-Corp. Edward Edwards of the Princess Pats who is reported
+    missing to-day, has only been back at the trenches for three
+    weeks, after having been wounded and in England for a month with
+    a bullet in his foot. He lived at 70 Standish Avenue, Rosedale,
+    where his wife and three young sons now live. He is 38 years of
+    age and has been in Canada ten years. Previous service in Africa
+    and India with the Gordon Highlanders is to his credit.
+
+
+_Letter from Corporal Edwards to His Wife in Toronto._
+
+
+    Mon Adress exacte:
+  GIESSEN (Allemagne)
+Compagnie No. 6 Baraque No. A.
+Nom et Prenom: E. Edwards. Oct. 2nd, 1915.
+
+    MY DEAREST EM: A few more lines, hoping they find all in the
+    best of health and everything going on all right. I received
+    your parcels all right. They were a treat and came in good
+    condition. How are the boys getting along? Awfully sorry about
+    Hector but hope he is all right again, poor chap's been having a
+    hard time of it. How are Gordon and Frank. Tell them I was
+    asking for them. I guess the Beastie has grown quite a big chap.
+    Thanks for J. Birnies' address. I will drop him a card some time
+    but you see I can only send two letters a month. Jack wanted me
+    to write to the lodge but I can't see how I can manage it. Em,
+    lass, don't send me any clothing as I will manage all right.
+    Col. Farquhar's wife is going to send me out some and Major
+    Gault is sending tobacco and cigarettes so I will be all right.
+    I had a parcel from Bob with a shirt and some eatables; also one
+    from Jean at Blacktop and one from home. We are always on the
+    lookout for them. Have you had any word from Mina? I've had
+    letters from them all. We are having rather cool weather. I sent
+    a post card to G. Nelson; I don't know if he ever got it but you
+    can ask him when he comes up. Em, what are you doing about the
+    house? Are you getting it fixed up or are you coming over home?
+    It would be rather late this year to come over but please
+    yourself; only let me know what you are doing. Is George still
+    in Canada? Jean was expecting him to drop in any time. He has
+    been very good to me ever since I landed first in England. I
+    will never be able to pay her back. I can't give you any news
+    as I don't know it myself. Don't wait on a letter from me before
+    you write but write often and tell me all about yourself and the
+    boys. Tell Jack to write and I will drop him a card when I can.
+    Keep your heart up and look after yourself. Tell Miss Holmes I
+    was asking for her; also Mrs. Arlow. Tell her I got her letter;
+    also tell all my friends I was asking for them. If Mr. Skerrow
+    comes up again tell him I am doing fine but would sooner be
+    working up in N. Toronto--but am making the best of it. I think
+    I will stop Em; I have really nothing to tell you, only write
+    soon and often. Give the boys a tight one for me. Best love to
+    you all. Good bye.
+
+                                  Your Affect. Ed.
+
+  149 Corpl. E. Edwards,
+    Barrack A.,
+      Company 6,
+        Prisoner of War.
+          Giessen, Germany.
+
+    P.S. Just received your letter Sept. 3rd. Tell Mrs. Bownie not
+    to bother sending anything. I have got all I want. Can't send a
+    long letter. This is all we are allowed. Ed.
+
+
+_Extract from Montreal Gazette, Sept. 21, 1916._
+
+    EDWARD EDWARDS ESCAPES FROM FOE
+
+    TORONTO SOLDIER WITH TWO OTHERS MAKE GET-AWAY. WANDER FOR THREE
+    WEEKS.
+
+    BRASS BAND ESCORTS THEM TO MAYOR OF TOWN IN HOLLAND.
+
+    London, Sept. 21.--Registered as dead by the Canadian Pay and
+    Record office, which was about to authorise distribution of
+    their effects, Lance-Corp. Edward Edwards of the Princess
+    Patricias, 70 Standish Avenue; Pte. James Jerry Burke (1216)
+    Eighth Battalion, Winnipeg and Pte. M.C. Simmons (23445) of
+    Seventh Battalion, Port Arthur, have arrived in London after
+    having escaped from a German prison camp. They experienced some
+    strenuous adventures. For three weeks they were at large; slowly
+    and cautiously wending their way to the Holland frontier, they
+    covered the distance of 150 miles. In Holland the fugitives to
+    their surprise, found a warm welcome. In fact, a local band
+    headed them in procession to the Mayor, who in turn communicated
+    with the British Consul, with the result that they were shipped
+    to England.
+
+
+_Extract from Toronto Daily Star, Sept. 22, 1916._
+
+    MRS. EDWARDS IS REJOICING
+
+    CAN HARDLY BELIEVE THAT HUSBAND ESCAPED FROM GERMAN PRISON.
+
+    HEARD SO MANY DIFFERENT TALES.
+
+    COMRADES WHO HAVE RETURNED ASSURED HER HE WOULD GET AWAY.
+
+    "I cannot believe it until I hear from him. But I do hope it is
+    true. I am glad I never kept him back, and never told him not to
+    go. He is a soldier to the backbone."
+
+    Mrs. Edward Edwards, 70 Standish Avenue, Rosedale, was
+    discussing the report that her husband, Lance-Corp. Edward
+    Edwards of the Princess Patricias, had escaped from a prison
+    camp in Germany and after travelling over 150 miles of country
+    arrived with two others on Dutch territory whence they were
+    shipped to England after being feted by some of the people in
+    Holland.
+
+    "I have heard so many different stories. At first I was told he
+    was killed, but later he sent me a letter from Germany telling
+    me he was in a prison camp there. Only last Saturday I had a
+    letter from him in which he asked me to send him on a box of
+    soap to wash his clothes. He said in that letter that he had
+    enough tobacco, cocoa and coffee to last him for some time but
+    he needed soap."
+
+    Lance-Corporal Edwards, who was connected with the Royal
+    Grenadiers, in Toronto, was formerly a member of the Gordon
+    Highlanders, and fought with the 2nd Battalion of that regiment
+    throughout the South African War. Stationed in India at the
+    outbreak of that war the regiment was sent to South Africa and
+    was shut up in Ladysmith. He is the possessor of three medals
+    and five clasps. He took part in the great Delhi Durbar.
+
+    "Over a year ago my husband was shot in the foot," said Mrs.
+    Edwards. "He returned to the trenches and was just three weeks
+    back when he was posted as missing. That was a year ago last
+    May. For a long time I had no word of what had happened to him
+    until I had a letter from him."
+
+
+    VISITS FROM COMRADES.
+
+    "Many of the returned Princess Patricias come to see me. Only
+    last Sunday one of them said to me when talking of my husband:
+    'He will be escaping from the Germans some of these days.' And
+    it is just like him to do that. But he and the two with him must
+    have suffered terribly in the time they were hiding through 150
+    miles of the enemy's country. I wish I had him home now."
+
+    "I heard from him regularly every six weeks by letter.
+    Occasionally he would send me a postcard between the letters. He
+    never discussed the war, except in the phrase that it could not
+    last for ever. He always wrote bright and cheerful letters."
+
+    At No. 68 Standish Avenue lives the widow of Private Percy
+    Edwards, brother of Lance-Corporal Edwards. Private Edwards was
+    a reservist of the Gordon Highlanders and at the outbreak of the
+    war was called home to join his regiment. He was killed in the
+    first action in which the Gordons were engaged. His widow and
+    three young sons live next door to Mrs. Edwards, who also has
+    three young sons. Both of the Edwards brothers and their wives
+    are natives of Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
+
+
+_Postal Card to Mrs. E. Edwards, 70 Standish Ave., N. Rosedale,
+Toronto, Ont., Canada._
+
+    12th Sept. 1916. Assen, Holland. Dear Em: I guess you will get
+    my letter along with this card explaining things. You will know
+    that I have escaped from Germany and am on my way to England but
+    will write you every chance I get. Give my love to the boys and
+    I hope all is well at home. I am feeling pretty good. This is
+    where I am just now. Yours ever, Ed.
+
+
+_Postal to Mrs. E. Edwards, 70 Standish Ave., N. Rosedale, Toronto,
+Canada._
+
+    Sept. 8th, Newcastle-on-Tyne, England.
+
+    Dear Em: Hope you have received all my letters that I have
+    written you from Holland. They will tell you all about my
+    escape. I leave here for London to-night. Will write you from
+    there. Love to the boys. Write me Bulter address. Ed.
+
+
+_Postal Card to Mrs. E. Edwards, 70 Standish Ave., N. Rosedale,
+Toronto, Canada._
+
+    Sept. 22nd, 1916. Folkestone, England. Dear Em: Hope you got the
+    cable all right, also some of the letters and cards I sent you.
+    What do you think of my escape? Not so bad, eh? Write me at
+    Bulter. How are the boys? Give them my love. Am back at
+    Shornecliffe with the regiment. Will be going on leave. Trying
+    to get over to see you. Will write you to-morrow. Write as soon
+    as you can. Ed.
+
+
+    [Illustration: HOMEWARD BOUND. CORPORAL EDWARDS IN CENTER.]
+
+
+_Post Card to Cpl. E. Edwards, 7 St. Mary's Place, Cuttor,
+Aberdeenshire, Scotland, from Cpl. E. Hardy, a fellow prisoner._
+
+
+Mon Adress Exacte:
+Nom et Prenom: Cpl. E. Hardy
+No. matricule: 1906
+No. de la Compagnie: 8
+Lettre de la baraque: "E"
+  GIESSEN (Allemagne)
+
+                            Giessen, le 25-9-1916.
+
+    Dear Ted: I received your P.C. quite safe. I did a little dance
+    on my own. Charlie Walker is away somewhere. How are Dennie and
+    Nobler going on. You may be sure I was pleased to hear of you
+    getting in port safe. Sorry to hear you got wrecked on your
+    first trip but you have no worry now. Good Luck. Ted.
+
+
+_Post Card to Cpl. E. Edwards, Number One Company P. P. C. L. I., St.
+Martins Plains, Shornecliffe, England. Via Holland, from Hookie
+Walker, a fellow prisoner._
+
+
+Mon addresse exacte:
+Nom et prenom: C. Walker,
+No. matricule:
+No. de la compagnie: 6, Baraque: B.
+No. du detachement: 1
+    Giessen (Allemagne) Oct. 1st, 1916.
+
+    Dear Old Ted: I received your P.C. God Bless you and good Luck
+    be with you always. I have been on the water and got wrecked
+    also but I have not given up by any means. I am in the best of
+    health. Remember me to all and God be with you. Hookie.
+
+
+_Undated Post Card to Mr. E. Edwards Jun, 7 St. Mary's Place, Cutter,
+Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Via Holland, from Cpl. Hardy._
+
+
+        Mon Adresse exacte:
+Nom et prenom: Cpl. E. Hardy
+No. matricule: 1906
+No. de la compagnie: 8, Baraque "E"
+No. du detachement:
+
+                               Giessen (Allemagne)
+
+    Dear Ted: I am very glad everything went on A1. I am sorry I was
+    not with you. I am not wanting anything, thanks. I hope you have
+    a good time when you go to Canada. I have not seen anything of
+    Hookie for about 12 months, nor Stamper. I have still got a few
+    things safe for you when I come home. I will close with best
+    respects, Ted.
+
+
+_Undated Card to Mrs. Edwards, Rotterdam, Holland._
+
+    Dear Em. Hope you are getting my letters all right and that all
+    is well at home. I am still feeling and getting treated pretty
+    good and will be in England in two or three days. Since it all
+    goes well write me c/o of Bulter address and I will be sure to
+    get them. How are the boys? Is the wee chap still holding my
+    place? Tell Gordon when I get to England I will help him get a
+    bicycle so that he can be the same as Hector. This is where I am
+    just now but will be on my way in a few hours. I have sent you
+    Tinnie's photo. How will she do? It might be all we can get. Ed.
+
+
+_Postal to Mrs. Edwards, 70 Standish Ave., N. Rosedale, Toronto,
+Canada._
+
+
+26-10-16.      From Folkestone.
+
+    Dear Em: Arrived back in Folkestone all right. Called on Mrs.
+    Cawthra. Had a long talk with her. Can't get any word of when I
+    am to get over to Canada but will let you know as soon as
+    possible. Might be some time yet. Got the letter with Hector's
+    and will bring the things with me when I come home. How are the
+    boys getting along? Wish I was there. Good-bye. Ed.
+
+
+_Extract from Toronto Daily Star, December, 1916._
+
+    HOME ON LEAVE AFTER ESCAPE FROM THE HUNS
+
+    SGT. EDWARD EDWARDS TELLS GRAPHIC STORY OF 100 MILE FLIGHT.
+
+    WIFE HAD TO PROVE HUSBAND WAS ALIVE.
+
+    SENT HIS PHOTO AND LETTERS BEFORE WAR OFFICE WOULD BELIEVE IT.
+
+    No bands played and no Reception Committee extended the welcome
+    hand to Sergt. Edward Edwards when he stepped off the train at
+    the Union Station and walked to the home of his wife and family
+    one day last week, after two years and seven months' absence at
+    the front with a storehouse of thrilling experiences that rival
+    even the exploits of the Three Musketeers. That he was one of
+    only 49 left of the crack Princess Patricias who were mown down
+    at the Ypres Salient on May 8, 1915, was wounded twice, missing
+    and officially declared dead and escaped twice from German
+    prison camps in company with two companions are only incidents
+    in a long chapter of events which surpass in thrilling interest
+    Dumas' most daring fiction. Tom Brumley, another member of a
+    Toronto regiment, and Mervin Simmons, a Canadian from Trail,
+    B.C., were the two friends of the modern D'Artagan, but
+    unfortunately Brumley was recaptured by the Huns during the
+    first escape and Sergt. Edwards has not heard from him since.
+
+    Sergt. Edwards is now on ten weeks' furlough and is due to
+    report in England on May 10, when he expects to go into the
+    fighting again. "We went to the Ypres salient in May. I was one
+    of ten in my company to get through," said he.
+
+
+    TRIBUTE TO COL. BULLER
+
+    Here Sergt. Edwards paid a tribute to his late commanding
+    officer, Col. Buller, who was killed on the 2nd of June of this
+    year. "It was the Germans, too, who told us of our old Colonel's
+    death. They knew everything, it seemed, about our commanders and
+    could tell the regiment and division that we belonged to."
+
+    We were taken to Roulers, Belgium. After a brief stay there we
+    were taken to Giessen. There were 1,200 prisoners, mostly
+    Russian and French. The food we got was awful.
+
+
+    REFUSED TO WORK
+
+    "After a stay here of about six months I was sent with my two
+    friends, Brumley and Simmons, to a punishment camp for refusing
+    to work in a steel factory to make munitions. Three hundred
+    British and Canadians also refused in spite of threats, and
+    ill-treatment, and all were sent on to Celle Laager, the main
+    punishment camp. We were there two weeks and then we were split
+    into small parties and I was slated with my two friends for a
+    place called Oldenburg. Here they wanted us to go into a moor
+    and drain the place to grow potatoes. It was from this place
+    that we made our first serious attempt to escape.
+
+    We made a dash for the shelter of the moor. In a few minutes we
+    heard the baying of a vicious pack of dogs they had sent in
+    pursuit, but we managed to elude them and struck out for the
+    Dutch border more than 100 miles distant. We came to the River
+    Ems four miles from the border of Holland. We could not find a
+    boat or raft and were recaptured."
+
+
+    MADE FINAL ESCAPE
+
+    After undergoing this sentence, Sergt. Edwards and Simmons were
+    taken to another punishment camp at Salsengen and it was from
+    here that they made their successful escape on August 21.
+
+    The British Consul at Rotterdam arranged the wanderers' passage
+    to England, where they arrived on the 18th of September. When he
+    reported in London, Sergt. Edwards had to prove he was alive,
+    because the records of the War Office had him marked up as dead.
+    A lot of red tape had to be untangled before the gallant soldier
+    could be officially brought back from the dead, but at that time
+    he was still writing to his wife, so that, when she saw her
+    husband's name in the casualty list, she at once contradicted
+    the officials by sending her husband's letters and his pictures.
+
+
+_Postal card to No. 39 Cpl. E. Edwards, P. P. C. L. I. Depot, South
+Camp, Seaford, Sussex, England, from Charles Scarfe, who was also
+captured on May 8th._
+
+    Manor Farm, Interlaken, Switzerland, Jan. 3rd, 1917.
+
+    Dear Old Pal Teddy:
+
+    Just a card hoping to find you well as it leaves me A-1. Hope
+    you had a good Christmas. Had a fairly good one myself but hope
+    we are in Canada next one. Have had enough of being a prisoner
+    of war. Remember me to all the boys and write soon. From your
+    old pal, Charlie.
+
+
+_Postal card to 39 Cpl. E. Edwards, P. P. C. L. I. Depot, South Camp,
+Seaford, Sussex, England, from his comrade in the escape._
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Typographical errors corrected in text:                   |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Page  xi: Geissen replaced by Giessen                     |
+    | Page  63: Piccadily replaced with Picadilly               |
+    | Page  99: GEISSEN replaced by GIESSEN (captions)          |
+    | Page 161: Simonds replaced by Simmons                     |
+    | Page 184: liks replaced by like                           |
+    | Page 221: prenom replaced with prenom                     |
+    |                                                           |
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Escape of a Princess Pat, by George Pearson
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