The Escape Artists

by Neal Bascomb

  The other tunnelers banded up in twos and threes and gathered what they could in supplies. None came up with an intricate scheme like Gray’s; most spent their efforts on which route they would take to get to the border.

  To help with that, Dick Cash was spending his nights in a darkroom he had set up in the attic, making maps for each of the escapees. He followed a slow but systematic process. The military map they had given him was too large to be duplicated in its entirety. The general route they would travel needed to be divided into sections, and each of these numbered, photographed, and printed—dozens of times.

  Cash’s monk-like shifts alone in the darkroom were laboriously routine. He took a photograph of a section with the camera, then developed the negative on the camera’s glass plate in a chemical bath. After it dried, he started making copies of the section by placing a piece of photo paper on top of the plate, then exposing light through the negative onto it. Then he developed and fixed the print with more chemicals and set it to dry. The carbide bike lamp produced a steady, bright, but heatless light that was ideal both for developing and printing photos, particularly with all the inflammable liquids Cash used. There might well have been moments, surrounded in the half-light by photos hanging from clips on string, noxious chemicals permeating the air, when he thought he was back in Australia, working in his business, Cissy waiting for him to come home for dinner. But then a creak of the floor or the bellow of a voice outside in the yard wrenched him back to reality—and the very real danger he would face if caught. Of one thing he was sure: Niemeyer would have him shot.

  All the same, he continued.

  Just as the weather turned warm, escape fever hit Holzminden. On June 6, three prisoners attempted to abscond inside a rubbish bin. They were caught before the cart reached the gate. Days later, two diehard breakout fiends, Timothy Brean and Cuthbert Sutcliffe, made their own attempt, but in a more flamboyant fashion. Sutcliffe, whose nickname was Fluffy, often took the female roles in the camp’s plays. Over the past months, he had grown out his hair past his shoulders, seemingly to better play the parts. But he had an ulterior motive: hair curled, cheeks rouged, and dressed like a “girl typist,” Sutcliffe broke through the reinforced barricade in Block A and entered the Kommandantur. Brean was at his side, wearing a pristine German officer’s uniform and dictating notes to his “assistant” as they headed out the barracks entrance. Sutcliffe sashayed out the gate, attracting nothing more than the admiring gazes of the guards. But Brean was recognized as a British officer, and the would-be escapees were seized.

  None of these prisoners had informed Rathborne about their plans, and their attempts made the tunnelers anxious that another search or punishment order would stall—or, worse, uncover—their own efforts, particularly since rumors about a sap at the prison persisted. The men kept constant watch for any signs a search was imminent.

  One day, a civilian worker entered the Spielplatz, walking around the perimeter of the wall with some kind of electrical contraption in his hand. The officers were sure he was using the equipment to detect the presence of a tunnel, but later learned that he was simply testing out the conductors on the arc lights. Another day, Niemeyer and his guards stopped by the eastern postern gate, directly above the tunnel, and tested the wire mesh on the fence. When one of the prisoners dared ask why, Niemeyer responded with a smile: “To prevent the escapes, you know.”

  Compounding this anxiety, Niemeyer had the whole camp riled up over his treatment of Captain William Leefe Robinson—the “English Richthofen” and the pilot who had shot down the first German Zeppelin. Since Robinson came to Holzminden in mid-May 1918, Niemeyer had made it his mission to break the Zeppelin killer. Robinson had rarely seen the outside of a solitary cell, and when he did, Niemeyer forced him daily from his bed at bayonet point, inflicted additional roll calls on him, restricted his movements, demeaned him in front of camp visitors, and whipped him in private. His treatment left every British officer spoiling for a fight.

  Given these incidents, and the burden of leading the tunnel project at its most critical hour, Gray was uncharacteristically on edge when one day he found himself confronted by an irksome German attendant in the parcel room. Something about the man’s tone, or look, or the way he mishandled packages from home set Gray off.

  The two exchanged words, and the attendant grabbed Gray. The level-headed reaction would have been to submit, particularly at such a crucial time as this, but Gray had had enough. He rooted himself to the floor and refused to budge. Shouts of alarm brought a host of German guards. Perhaps to shield his embarrassment at being unable to manage the situation, the attendant accused Gray of brandishing a large knife that had in actuality remained on the table throughout the short scuffle. Gray was hauled down to a solitary cell, and Niemeyer sent him to Hanover for a court-martial.

  For once, the scales of justice tipped in favor of a British prisoner, and Gray received only two weeks’ solitary imprisonment for “simple disobedience.” Through Captain Hugh Durnford, a fellow Anglo-Indian officer who spoke Hindi and who occupied a room in Block B right above his cell window, Gray was kept apprised on the tunnel’s progress and was able to relay messages to the team. Gray urged Blain and Kennard to launch the escape once the sap reached the rows of rye, even if he was not yet free himself. The men could not risk a delay.

  On one of the walls in Gray’s cell, a previous prisoner had scribbled the line “Stone walls do not a prison make. Nor iron bars a cage.” As Gray languished in the cellar, looking at those words, work on the tunnel approached its most critical hour.

  One night near the end of June, Jim Bennett and his two shift mates crept from their rooms and climbed the stairs to the attic floor. Another officer unscrewed the door-handle plate, let them through, then refastened the plate so the padlock and chain were in place if a guard came by. The three men removed the panel that gave access to the eaves, hurried down the sloped space, and exited into the orderly quarters. At the bottom of the stairs, they slipped through the narrow door hidden in the panel. Swollen sacks of dirt and stone filled almost the entire chamber.

  A half hour later, Bennett reached the face of the sap. Although their new entry method provided round-the-clock access, the tunnelers really did need every minute. The “last lap” of their dig had proven to be the most difficult, not only because of the distance from the entrance but also because they hit another layer of stones as they began to gradually angle the tunnel up toward the surface. After a long stint prying these stones loose from the hard clay, then filling his sack with dirt and rocks, Bennett shimmied his way back to the entrance to change places with one of his shift mates.

  Several hours later, the three heaved their sacks over their shoulders. With the tunnel chamber packed from floor to ceiling with bags, they now had to carry out their excavated debris. When they climbed back up to the attic floor, they scattered the contents of the sacks about the eaves, then returned to their rooms. The finish seemed close enough to taste.

  On June 30, a few days later, the team figured that their tunnel extended into the rye field. By a length of parcel string stretched from opening to end, it measured almost sixty yards. Infantry lieutenant Walter “Basil” Butler, who had taken to the digging enterprise like a born sapper, volunteered for the mission of pinpointing the exact position of the tunnel’s terminus.

  Butler scrabbled through the hole while Bennett and several others stood watch at a fourth-floor window in Block B. For most of its distance, the tunnel ran nine feet underground, but the incline at the end brought Butler to within five feet of the surface. He had brought with him a long, stiff wire with a white cloth attached to its end.

  Once at the far reaches of the passage, he slowly, carefully, pushed the wire up through the earth, keeping a close measure of how much was needed to reach the surface.

  Their hearts beating expectantly, the tunnelers searched the field for any sign of the emerging wire. If the guard outside the wall were to spot a white flag sud
denly issuing from the ground, they—and the tunnel—would be done for. After what seemed like a lifetime, the wire finally broke through. As Bennett described it, it “nosed its way up through the earth like some strange new plant.” Then it disappeared just as quickly underground. The men witnessing it were crushed. The flag had emerged eight yards shy of the rye.

  Eighteen

  The tunnelers had no other choice than to keep digging. The rye field was farther than they had predicted, and the rises and falls, twists and turns of their tunnel had thrown off their measurements as well. Now they were fighting time and distance. Any day, the tall stalks of rye might be harvested and their cover lost. Desperate, they burrowed for shift after shift, with a frenzy that left them exhausted and rattled. Not only did they have to excavate another twenty-four feet of earth but they also needed to cut an offshoot chamber to house the dirt that would be brought down on the night they cut to the surface. One July day followed the next, the layer of compacted stones continuing to dog their efforts, and they had only advanced a few yards. They were simply not making the progress they needed.

  After two weeks of suffering the heat and small confines of solitary complete, Gray emerged from the cellar more resolved than ever to escape. The tunnelers held a late-night meeting in the barracks to bring him fully up to date. They still had six yards to go to reach the rye field, and it was doubtful they would complete that distance before the harvest. The end of the sap was now almost within reach of the six rows of green beans that had been planted in front of the rye. Although the beans were only two feet high and were in range of the camp’s arc lights, their dense bushy leaves would go some way toward concealing the emergence of the escapees from the tunnel. If the men stayed low enough to ground—and by this time all the officers were experts at that—they could get to the cover of rye and scramble away undetected. After some debate, the men voted to revise their exit point and concentrate on getting to the finish.

  When not on shift, the men finalized their escape preparations. Cash had completed his stack of maps, and the tunnelers pored over every line and marker, scouting the route they would take to avoid the manhunt that was sure to follow their breakout. Some focused on the straightest path west; others considered heading north for several miles; others planned to loop southward first. They picked out bridges to cross, towns to avoid, and forests in which they could bunker down at night. They all figured they could travel, on average, ten miles a day. The debate was intense on where best to cross the border into free Holland.

  One officer’s escape kit, stored in a host of hiding places around the barracks, was typical: one compass, one map, one Tommy cooker, one Dixie cup, nine hard-boiled eggs, five pounds of chocolate, eight sausages in skins, two tins of Oxo cubes, one tin of chocolate powder, one tin of tea tablets, one tin of saccharin, one and a half pounds of dried fruit, sixteen ration biscuits, shaving tackle, soap, mending material, two pairs of spare socks, one bottle of water, one piece of biltong (dried meat), one steel saw. Some also had cigarettes, flashlights, German marks, rope, brandied cherries, oats, and other items for what promised to be a long, hard trail. The men tested their homemade waterproof rucksacks by floating them in a large tin bath. “Bone dry,” one tunneler declared after the test.

  No one had prepared as elaborately as Gray, Kennard, and Blain. Disguised as an escaped lunatic, Kennard would not need papers, but Gray and Blain created identity cards for themselves giving their aliases, the papers stamped and signed with the name of Vechta’s chief of police, Günther. They had an official document, also with the forged signature of Günther, explaining the nature of their business. “We hereby certify that the two guards Carl Holzmann and Franz Vogel (Chief Guard) have the job of transporting the lunatic Kurt Grau to the asylum at Vechta. The above lunatic is forbidden to travel by rail or other public transport and may not meet other people. All policemen and officials are earnestly requested to give all possible help in transporting this lunatic to his destination.” They took the same care with their outfits, and even rehearsed scenarios in which they were stopped by police or soldiers.

  In mid-July, as the tunnel’s terminus neared the bean rows, Niemeyer unwittingly aided them in their preparations by lifting the ban on parole walks. It was an odd sensation for the men to walk casually out of Holzminden when they had been laboring so long underground to be free. Wearing his new boots that his mother had sent, Bennett took advantage of the opportunity. When it came to building stamina, it was one thing to circle the Spielplatz fifty times in an afternoon but quite another to hike across the open ground and into the hills.

  On one walk, the guard accompanying them even allowed them to wade into the cool Weser to get relief from the hot summer sun. Some of the tunnelers pushed deep into the water, searching for the easiest crossing point. After all, as one of them noted, “In our parole cards there was nothing down to tell us not to notice things.”

  Other restrictions were also lifted. After a month of not being allowed any theater, the prisoners were permitted to stage a revue, Home John, in the Block B dining hall. The actors were costumed in tuxes and evening dresses, and one, playing a statue of William Shakespeare, dressed in white robes and stood atop a box engraved with the great dramatist’s name. Gray played a small role, giving not the slightest hint that he had plans to escape the camp in a few days’ time. Officers crowded into every available space in the dining room to watch the revue, and Niemeyer sent interpreters to make sure that no criticisms were made of the German Reich.

  During a brief intermission, a newly arrived prisoner turned to the fellow next to him and asked indiscreetly, within earshot of the interpreters, “Are you in the tunnel?” The very utterance of the word sent a shockwave through the surrounding prisoners, some of whom were indeed in on the scheme. The interpreters gave no sign of having heard, nor did anyone dare respond, but it was further proof that the existence of the tunnel was common knowledge. There were whispers about it all through the camp. Even prisoners who were unaware of the nature of the plan knew there was an escape in the offing. Another recent arrival, who suspected Bennett was involved in the cabal and was pushing to be a part of whatever it might be, wrote in his diary, “Expect something big to come off any night now . . . The whole camp is getting kind of anxious.” Such talk kept the tunnelers on constant alert for a search, but one had yet to be launched.

  There were other risks too, chiefly from prisoners who aimed to make a run for it ahead of the tunnel break. In the wake of the latter attempt, they knew their own plans would likely suffer from a crackdown by Niemeyer. Rathborne made it his mission to quash any such escapes, the reprisals brought by the attempts the previous June weighing heavy on his mind.

  Soon after the revue, he got wind of a scheme hatched in Block A. Several officers intended to short-circuit the camp lights at night. In the confusion that followed, a decoy crafted to look like a man climbing down to the yard would be hung from the windows on one side of the barracks, while the escapees cut the wire fences on the opposite side and dashed away. It was a clever idea, but Rathborne instructed its ringleader (call him Livewire) to put a stop to it. Livewire resisted. Rathborne made it clear that the tunnel had been in the works for almost nine months, and that, as senior British officer, he was forbidding all other attempts until it had gone ahead.

  Livewire reluctantly agreed but asked to be part of the tunnel breakout. “Impossible,” Rathborne said. Over the past several months, any tunnelers occupying rooms in Block A had gradually won transfers to Block B. At this late stage, any requests to be moved might raise suspicions in the Kommandantur.

  Rathborne won the argument again—or so he thought.

  Far from Holzminden, near the border the tunnelers hoped to soon reach, Will Harvey was planning an escape of his own. In mid-June, he had found out that his name was on the list of prisoners to be transported to Holland. He was sent to Aachen, a mere six miles from the border, to await his transfer. Captain Beetz had been glad to s
ee him go, especially given his role advising his fellow officers during their court-martials. “These lies have been carefully made up for you by Lieutenant Harvey, I suppose,” Beetz had growled to one officer whose clever defense had won him a reduced sentence.

  At the camp in Aachen, housed in a former technical school, Harvey endured one delay after another. “Morgen früh,” the officers promised, but tomorrow never seemed to come because of some argument that the Dutch were taking more British than German internees. Harvey and his fellow prisoners ran out of food from their store of parcels, leaving them to survive on German rations. On parole walks in the countryside, it was torture to see the steeple of a Dutch church so tantalizingly close. Letters from Rogers, regaling him with stories of “oysters and stout” available at all hours at the Dutch hotel where he and his fellow Pink Toes were interned, did not help.

  Harvey concocted a plan to rappel down from a window in the camp’s second-floor infirmary. He acquired a thick wire cable with which to make the descent. His tattered boots should hold together for the short journey to the border. There was no need for a compass or a map. By the third week in July, he was almost set to go when a decorated British Army captain, Henry Cartwright, who had been in captivity for roughly four years, most of the time spent concocting innumerable escapes, arrived at Aachen. Cartwright was to be transferred to Holland in a couple of days but did not want to give the Germans the satisfaction—nor to be relegated to a noncombatant. Harvey advised him of his own plan and offered Cartwright his cable to use first.