CHAPTER IV ESCAPES Such, in brief, were the precautions of the Xth Army Corps for our safe custody: bolted ground floor windows; wire in abundance; an encircling belt of No Man’s Land searched to its uttermost inch by strong electric lamps; an absence of any ground that could by a stretch of imagination be termed “dead”; police dogs and night patrols; and withal a very formidable cordon of sentries both within and, subsequently, without the camp. It was not an easy nut to crack by the overland route. After the original mode of exit—through the Kommandantur in “A” House and out through the main gate—had become known, and therefore obsolete, more direct methods were practised, with, in many cases, great bravery and ingenuity, but in all a regrettable absence of success. Three of these escapades are perhaps deserving of especial mention. [Illustration: Scene of the Walter-Medlicott attempt. ] [Illustration: A dining-room at Holzminden. ] The first[6] of these will always be regarded by those who saw it or knew of it as the bravest and at the same time the coolest exploit of their prison experience. Both the officers who performed it were subsequently killed—in an attempt, it was said, to break away from their guards after recapture following an escape from Bad Kolberg. Unfortunately the English version of that story will never be known, and the sworn evidence of the sentries—that the British officers, after being delivered over to their escort, and in spite of the most stringent warnings, broke away and were mortally wounded in doing so—remains, even if it be true, cold comfort to their friends. It was the custom that an attempt to escape, if resulting in capture, involved automatic transfer to another camp, and of both Medlicott and Walter, the heroes of this exploit, it can be safely said that neither of them ever stayed anywhere in Germany long enough to worry about making themselves comfortable. Truly a proud record. [Footnote 6: To Lieutenant Fitzgerald of the Australian Flying Corps and his companion—if either of them should read this—my apologies. They were the first men out from Kaserne B at Holzminden, cutting the wire opposite the orderlies’ entrance in broad daylight and getting as far as Munster in mid-winter before recapture. But unfortunately I do not know any further details of their escapade.] On a Sunday afternoon in March the usual sort of things were happening. There was the usual small knot of people round the stoves in the Kaserne B cook-house. There were the usual few taking their afternoon constitutional up and down on the cobbles or round and round on the cinder. There was the usual bored sentry moving up and down on his particular beat in No Man’s Land in the stretch between the two Kasernes. Except to the favoured few in the secret, there was the usual complete absence of life or interest in the sombre enclosure.