Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 43]
through that was almost impossible. During our six weeks absence the room had been occupied by others, and to get into a more favourable room I pretended that I wanted to get back into my old room rightly guessing that the guard would oppose any suggestion in that line. Then I asked him if we could not go into an empty room and be together, but "No" most emphatically "No." We ended up getting into the rooms we had wanted to, thanks to his pig-headiness and obstinacy. I was in one room with another boy, and the other two, together in the next room but one, but we still ate and lived together, and to our Sentry's constant dismay, he often found one of us talking earnestly with some of the others, but we always evaded his questions to our own satisfaction.
My mate, the former orderly, had felt the privations more than we other two, as he was badly wounded when captured, and still carries a piece of Fritz's bomb in his lung, the fact that he had been an orderly and had done very little strenuous work left him soft and short-winded, so he paraded to the "quack" and got a couple of days off, and from things given by the other boys was still able to have a good meal waiting for us workers when we came in. On going again to the "Quack' when his two days had expired he was given two days more off, until his condition got him off for a week, when he had at last had to go to work, one or other of us would go sick, so that in this way we generally managed to keep a cook indoors, and incidentally the one left in would do a little towards his next clothing outfit.
My mate had procured a descriptive map and railway timetable, which we studied in every spare minute. Our plan of escape was to form three parties of two each. Two parties now had a map each, but only one of them had a compass, so that one of them would have to go along as we did on our first attempt, but the weather was colder, and the sky quite overcast, and not a star shone for us. Had it not been for my small compass, I fear we would still have been in "Hunland." I had to make a chart, so made a small tracing on notepaper of Railways and Waterways and principal towns, in this way our preparations quickly proceeded.
On returning to the working party, the Sentries and all the Germans concerned, greeted us with jeers, which I bore placidly with the thought that "He who laughs last laughs longest." Some of their remarks were, "How did you enjoy yourself in England?" They repeated their questions so often that I will never forget them nor will they forget the answers. The Stationmaster himself came and asked me "Where are the other three that left with you?"
I glibly answered, "In England having a good time and getting ready to go back to France for another cut" at which he smiled and said, 'Oh no, they have been re-captured and are still in Cells,' and further "that if we were only three miles from the Frontier we would never get through, so strongly was it guarded," I acquiesced to lead him to believe that I thought it futile to make another attempt.
Although the boys came to our rescue with food they could not spare us enough as our appetites were simply ravenous, so we would 'pinch" potatoes and cabbages, take them home and boil them to make our rations go further. It was a very funny sight indeed, when a train