13 Days: The Chronicle of an Escape from a German PrisonCaunter, John Alan Lyde
History
13 Days: The Chronicle of an Escape from a German Prison
Caunter, John Alan Lyde
Prisoner-of-war escapes; World War, 1914-1918 -- Prisoners and prisons, German
It was by no means a good place, as, although the cart was an ancient
one and the farm people would probably not require it, the possible
arrival of dogs with the men who would undoubtedly turn up in the
morning to see to the animals in the farm, would lead to a
nerve-racking experience, if not to actual capture.
While Fox reposed at the bottom of the cart I searched round for
water, so as to fill the bottles against our possible stay of eighteen
hours in the cart. There were two pumps in the yard, but both were
broken.
I could find no water anywhere. The whole farm was a mystery which we
never solved.
Returning to the pig-cart I was told by Fox that it would never do, as
he had already got cramp after only ten minutes in it. He got out and
we noticed then that it was threatening to become light.
Deciding to risk all we left the farm, making for the river in the
hopes of avoiding the Germans. Our marvellous luck again came to the
rescue. From the farm ran a narrow path which we had not noticed
before. This we took, and after going only a short distance along it
suddenly struck the bank of the river proper long before we expected
to do anything of the kind.
This path was so small and unimportant that it must have been
overlooked and considered too unimportant to require guarding, as we
saw no Germans thereabouts.
It did not take us long, now that we were on the bank of the river, to
get on to a point of land jutting out into it, and taking cover in the
long grass and bushes there.
The Ems flowed sluggishly at this point, and appeared to be about a
hundred yards across.
We had made up our minds to leave all the not absolutely essential
articles of clothing, etc., behind us here, and tie the things we must
take with us to the tops of our heads and then swim.
Knowing that anyone found moving about the frontier line is a
suspicious character to German frontier guards, and therefore asked to
show his papers, although he might be in civilian clothes, I left my
long coat of cotton stuff behind, preferring to rely on my old khaki
coat which I wore underneath to make me less visible.
Fox had made the suggestion of the tying our clothes to our heads
scheme, and I thought he knew all about it, so had not asked anything
more about it. Now, taking our boots and coats off, we tied them into
bundles, and Fox got his safely on to the top of his head and took to
the water at once.
He looked a weird sight, swimming slowly on his chest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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