Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons: Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, RuhlebenTalbot, Frederick Arthur Ambrose
History
Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons: Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben
Talbot, Frederick Arthur Ambrose
World War, 1914-1918 -- Prisoners and prisons
By some means or other the guard suspected my engagement in some such
task. They made several surprise entrances but failed to catch me in the
act of writing. The heavy tread of their coming feet always gave me
ample warning so that I could get my notes into safe hiding. But one
night they burst open the door suddenly and I was caught red-handed. On
my knees was my pad at which I was writing feverishly. But the pad was
inscribed with notes which I regarded as of an emergency character.
Realising the object of their unexpected entry I clapped the pad on the
table, thus covering up the prepared and detailed notes which I desired
to keep. The guard sprang forward delirious with joy at having made a
capture, snatched the loose sheets from the pad, and went off in high
glee to report my heinous offence. But the man in his haste left the
proper notes on the table. He was too thick-brained to think for a
moment that I should ever trouble to prepare two diaries, one for myself
and one for capture if detected, so I still held the treasured original,
which I instantly hid away safely.
As luck would have it not a word was included in the captured notes to
offer written evidence of my private and candid opinion of my captors,
their methods and our life. The fact that I had written nothing
detrimental to the authorities apparently appeased the Commandant,
notwithstanding the enormity of my delinquency. At all events I received
nothing worse than a stern admonition and threats of severe punishment
if I were caught infringing the regulations again, to all of which I
listened humbly, but with my tongue in my cheek.
My diary was posted up fully in due course, and what is more to the
point I got the voluminous and incriminating evidence away from
Sennelager. At a later date I became somewhat apprehensive as to its
safety, and was anxious to get it to England. For some time I was
baffled in my efforts, but at last a friendly neutral offered to take it
and to see that it was delivered to my friend who has chronicled this
story, to whom I had addressed it. This diary wandered about Germany
considerably, the person in question preferring to make haste slowly to
disarm all suspicion. At last the neutral, after having been searched
several times without yielding anything incriminating, got as far as the
frontier. About to pass into the adjacent friendly country the carrier
was detained, and by some mischance the diary happened to be unearthed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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