Bretherton

by Morris, W. F. ;

  The plan of his escape had been most carefully worked out and explained to him by Colonel Liddel. He was to choose a fellow-prisoner to share his escape, and once outside the camp, they were to separate or not as he thought best. Whether the other man reached Germany or was recaptured was a point of minor importance, since his letters to his relations recounting his attempted escape in the company of Colonel von Wahnheim would furnish a convincing proof of the authenticity of that officer’s German nationality and patriotism.

  Bretherton had chosen the man, a young Major, von Carlenheim by name, and had already discussed with him various plans of escape; and by the prearranged secret signal he had notified the Commandant of his choice and consequent readiness for putting into execution the real plan.

  For the last three days he had watched the means of his escape being prepared and knew therefore that the time of its employment was fast approaching. Four workmen had been laying new drain-pipes in the camp. A trench some four feet deep by two feet wide had been cut across the exercise-yard, passing under the wire-entanglement fence of the camp by a short tunnel six feet long and continuing outside the camp to join the main drainage at a distance of fifty yards or more from the fence. The drain-pipes were as yet unlaid, and they reposed in a heap by a rough shelter erected for the use of the workmen at the junction of the trench with the main drainage system. Outside the wire fence at the point where the tunnel passed beneath it, an extra sentry had been posted.

  All was ready, and now the time for action had arrived. The twisted ball of paper he held in his hands was the signal. The words “Brixham, S.S. Dordrecht,” meant that in Brixham harbour, ready to sail the following day, lay the S.S. Dordrecht, a Dutch ship commanded by a Dutch skipper, who, the British Secret Service had reason to believe, would not be averse from smuggling an escaped German prisoner-of-war into Holland.

  Bretherton tore the paper into tiny fragments and went in search of von Carlenheim. He found him playing tennis on the dust court that had been made in one corner of the exercise-ground, and, the set finished, led him aside out of earshot of the others.

  “I am going to have a shot at escaping to-night,” he began. “Are you game to come with me?”

  Von Carlenheim was game. “But how is it to be managed, Colonel?” he asked.

  “That drain-pipe trench,” answered Bretherton. “The workmen leave at five o’clock. It is practically dark then, and all we have to do is to drop into the trench when nobody is looking and crawl along it under the wire to the other end where it is practically out of range of the camp lamps.”

  “But, Colonel, the sentry!” objected von Carlenheim.

  “The idea is to get some other fellows to create a disturbance,” answered Bretherton. “If they make enough row, the sentry may walk along to see what is happening and give us a chance of slipping under the wire.”

  “But suppose the sentry does not go, Colonel?”

  Bretherton shrugged his shoulders. “We shall be lying in the trench waiting, and if he does not move, we shall have to crawl back again, that’s all. There will be no harm done. It’s a sporting chance. Anyway if you don’t like the idea, I will ask someone else. But I should prefer to have you with me, since I speak only a word or two of the language, and your fluent English may be very useful.

  “Oh, I am with you, Colonel,” answered von Carlenheim. “A simple plan of this nature often succeeds where a more complicated one would fail.”

  II

  As Bretherton prowled restlessly about the camp that afternoon he was reminded of those anxious hours preceding his escape from Ebenthal with poor Melford. Then, however, he had been buoyed up by hopes of freedom and returning to his own people. Now no such prospect sustained him. And though on this occasion he was to escape with the connivance of the authorities, the element of danger would not be entirely absent, for the Commandant was the only man in the camp who knew his real identity. The guards would not hesitate to fire at an escaping prisoner; and death at the hands of his old and patriotic fellow-countrymen who guarded the camp would be no less final than on the battlefields of France, and far less glorious. And success would be but the prelude to a lonely vigil among the enemy, during which he would carry his life in his hands every moment of the day and night.

  At six o’clock the prisoners paraded in one corner of the exercise-ground for roll-call. Daylight had gone, and the electric lamps around the camp threw the wire fence into brilliant relief, but served only to intensify the shadows beyond the range of their rays. A sentry with fixed bayonet stood outside the fence at the point at which the pipe trench left the camp. The trench itself was seen as a black ribbon that emerged from the gloom of the exercise-yard, crossed the belt of light, disappearing for a couple of yards where the tunnel passed the wire, and melted into the darkness beyond.

  Bretherton and von Carlenheim stood on the right of the ranks, a position that ensured their names being ticked off among the first few; then they would be free to return to their rooms. Next to them stood the men von Carlenheim had detailed for the task of creating the diversion. As soon as their names were ticked off, Bretherton and von Carlenheim walked slowly away across the deserted yard towards the wash-house from which the pipe began. One glance around showed Bretherton that no one was in sight. He dropped into the trench and was closely followed by von Carlenheim.

  He crawled noiselessly forward till he was within some twenty yards of the wire fence; then cautiously he raised his head. On the far side of the fence, with his back towards the camp, stood the sentry, properly at ease beside the trench; and near by on the edge of the pool of light that fell full upon the sentry stood another figure. Bretherton felt a touch upon his heel and turned his head.

  “Our luck is out, Colonel,” whispered von Carlenheim. “The Commandant himself! The sentry will not move whilst he is there.”

  Bretherton did not reply. He did not share von Carlenheim’s misgivings; for it was part of Colonel Liddel’s plan that the Commandant himself should send the sentry to investigate the cause of the disturbance. For two or three minutes they lay motionless in the trench, a period of danger during any moment of which one of the guards might walk across the yard and discover them. And then suddenly angry voices sounded from away to the left; there came a thudding sound as of blows, and a confused shouting that grew in volume to a wild hubbub. Bretherton again raised his head. The sentry’s head was turned in the direction of the disturbance, and the Commandant had abandoned his contemplation of the night sky to look towards the same point. He said something to the sentry. The sentry sloped arms, slapped the butt of his rifle, and marched off quickly along the wire. The Commandant followed at a more leisurely pace.

  Bretherton crawled forward. He entered the zone of light in which the rays of the electric standard struck directly into the trench, passed into the short, deep shade of the little tunnel, emerged into the light once more and passed on into rapidly increasing shadow. Close behind him crawled von Carlenheim.

  At its end by the hut the trench curved so that the hut was between it and the camp, and behind this screen Bretherton rose to his feet. Through a chink in the rough boards he could see the camp, a rampart of light amid the darkness, and at the far corner the needle of light upon the bayonet above the dark figure of the sentry. Angry murmurs still disturbed the evening calm, but the hubbub was dying down.

  Von Carlenheim had followed Bretherton into the hut, and he uttered an exclamation of delight as his eyes fell upon some garments that hung from nails on one side of it.

  “This is luck indeed, Colonel!” he exclaimed.

  “Yes. They could not have been more thoughtful if they had known we were coming,” answered Bretherton with a smothered smile.

  The garments consisted of an old mackintosh, a much-worn overcoat with a dirty muffler in the pocket, a threadbare Norfolk jacket, and three hats: a check cap, a greasy Homburg, and a broken straw.

  “Very thoughtful of the British workman,” commented von Carle
nheim as he put on the Norfolk jacket and raincoat.

  Bretherton dressed himself in the overcoat and Homburg. Von Carlenheim took the cap. Bretherton took a shovel from the corner of the hut and put it over his shoulder; von Carlenheim selected a pick. They turned their backs upon the camp and set out.

  Von Carlenheim had a rough map made in the camp and a small compass. Bretherton had studied the country too well to need a map, and his route had been carefully planned beforehand. They were less than twenty-five miles from the coast, and their escape would not be discovered till the morning roll-call at eight-thirty.

  For an hour or more they tramped along without incident, and von Carlenheim gave “good night” to such people as they met. There was no moon; the night was dark, and few people were abroad. Bretherton’s route had been planned to avoid military posts and other places where he might be questioned, but as they passed a dark spinney, a figure emerged from a lane and turned into the road they were following.

  “Bleedin’ dark night, my lucky lads!” called a jocular voice; and the man fell into step beside the two homeward-plodding workmen, as he took them to be. Bretherton saw the stiff outline of a service cap against the sky; he noted the short British-warm with high upturned collar and riding-switch protruding slantwise from the pocket, showing that the man belonged to a mounted unit; and he cursed the man in his heart. He began to wish that he had separated from von Carlenheim; for alone he could have easily carried off the situation, but in his rôle of von Wahnheim he was limited to a few words of English, and those mispronounced. Von Carlenheim must do the talking, and von Carlenheim might make a slip.

  The soldier volunteered the information that he was a gunner on leave from Tidworth, special “leaf.” “Aunt o’ mine just died—special family reasons,” he explained with a large wink that was lost in the darkness. Von Carlenheim chuckled in reply, He betrayed no eagerness to get rid of the man. He too was a soldier, he said, an infanteer on leave from France—“only too bloomin’ glad to get back into civvies for a day or two.” He had been helping his brother—indicating Bretherton—who was dumb, poor chap, and none too strong, to do a job of work.

  The soldier nodded and murmured sympathetically, “Poor bleeder!” He appeared to be flattered by the company of a man who had been “out”; he himself was C.3, but hoped to wangle himself across the ditch before it was all over.

  Thus they tramped along, Bretherton silent perforce and apprehensive, von Carlenheim good-humouredly communicative, the soldier profanely loquacious; till the man lighted another cigarette and with a “so long, boys” turned up a side road. The tramp of his ammunition boots upon the road and his shrilly whistled version of a popular air were audible long after his squat form had disappeared in the darkness.

  Bretherton congratulated von Carlenheim on the way in which he had handled the situation, and his praise was the more sincere since his former experience as a hunted prisoner on the roads of Germany enabled him fully to appreciate his companion’s coolness. He decided to keep von Carlenheim with him and if possible enter Germany in his company. The man had proved that his company in England was no added danger, and his testimony to every stage of the escape would lessen any risk of suspicion later on.

  It was past midnight when they reached the outskirts of Brixham. They reconnoitred the town and then struck boldly through it to the harbour. The pale gleam of starlight on a bayonet warned them of the presence of a sentry, but by waiting on the mathematical regularity of his pacing they slipped unperceived on to the quay. The slap and plop of water came from the darkness at their feet, and the spars and tackle of shipping showed indistinctly against the stars. Ahead, a dark tubby shape, surmounted by two stumpy sky-stabbing masts, reared itself above the quay; and Bretherton’s keen eyes deciphered the words “Dordrecht, Rotterdam,” painted in white upon her blunt stern. He twitched von Carlenheim by the sleeve. “A Dutchman,” he whispered. “The very thing we are looking for.”

  Such was Bretherton’s confidence in von Carlenheim that he determined to entrust to him the task of negotiating with the Dutch skipper for their passage. He felt that there could be little risk of failure. It was unlikely that the British Secret Service would have chosen the skipper of the Dordrecht if they had entertained any serious doubts of his willingness to smuggle prisoners-of-war into Holland. And coming from von Carlenheim, the negotiations would have the very valuable and unmistakable stamp of genuineness.

  The deck of the Dordrecht was dark and silent; a single plank connected it with the quay. They waited for the turn in the clockwork sentry’s beat, and then von Carlenheim glided noiselessly over the gang-plank and disappeared among the shadows on deck. Bretherton crouched in the shelter of a dark awning-covered pile of merchandise and waited.

  The time passed slowly. Out at sea the wind whimpered and sighed. Near by, some halliards rattled with machine-gun-like taps against a mast; a smack creaked at her moorings. The tide murmured restlessly against the stones. A clock in the town behind him chimed two. The sentry’s heavy tread grew faint and loud in succession as he paced to and fro, and occasionally there came the rattle of his rifle-butt upon the stones as he ordered arms and stood at ease. And then suddenly a dark form flitted once more over the gang-plank, and von Carlenheim’s voice called softly, “It’s all right, Colonel.”

  Bretherton followed quietly on to the dark, silent deck of the Dordrecht, descended a steep narrow companion-way and found himself in a tiny, warm saloon, brightly lighted by an oil lamp swung on gimbals. A heavy-jowled man wearing a thick blue jersey over his pyjamas sat on a swivel chair at the end of a table. Two dirty glasses and a bottle of spirit stood before him. A bunk with rumpled blankets showed that the skipper had been disturbed from his rest.

  The man rose to his feet as Bretherton entered, nodded silently, and taking a clean glass from the rack on the buffet, filled it from the bottle. He pushed the glass towards Bretherton and motioned him to sit down. The question of finance had yet to be discussed.

  It was a long and tedious business. The Dutchman insisted at some length upon the risk he was running; but eventually the bargain was struck. A generous sum of money was paid over then and there, with a promise of a further like amount to be paid when the fugitives were landed at Rotterdam.

  “Well, gentlemen,” said the Dutchman, rising, “I should advise you to turn in for an hour or two. We sail on the morning tide. We shall have the officials aboard early, and I shall have to hide you among the cargo. So be comfortable while you may, is my advice.”

  III

  The grey light of a rainy, wind-orchestrated dawn was filtering through the scuttles when Bretherton slid from his bunk. He and von Carlenheim partook of hot coffee and bacon sitting opposite each other in the enshadowed saloon. The skipper had prepared a hiding-place which he believed would baffle the authorities. The ship’s hold was filled with large wooden cases, and two of these had been emptied for the reception of the fugitives. Bretherton disliked the idea, though he admitted the necessity of a hiding-place for the short time that the officials would be on board. He smoked one of the skipper’s cheroots and then declared himself ready for entombment. He and von Carlenheim descended to the hold, climbed into the cases, and the lids were screwed on.

  The interior of the case was not uncomfortable, Bretherton found. It was large enough to allow of his sitting upright with his legs outstretched; and it was provided with blankets, half a loaf of bread, a hunk of cheese, and a bottle of water, though it was hoped that in less than three hours the ship would be at sea.

  He found, however, that the absolute darkness, the silence, and the ever-present sense of confinement were facts that forced themselves upon the attention with increasing persistence as time passed; and at the end of half an hour he had come to the conclusion that a prolonged confinement in these conditions might send a man of nervous disposition off his head. His entombment, however, was likely to be short, and with this thought to comfort him, he curled himself up in the blank
ets on the floor of the case and coaxed himself to sleep.

  He was awakened by movement. For some minutes he was aware of it subconsciously; and then as he opened his eyes to a darkness so intense that only by the slight chill on his eyeballs could he tell that they were not closed, he felt the long, dizzy, downward motion of a ship and the subdued throb of machinery.

  It was some ten minutes later that he heard sounds in his immediate neighbourhood, that the lid of the case was taken off, and he staggered out, blinded in the glare of the open hatch, with his forearm pressed across his aching eyes.

  All that day the little Dordrecht staggered up-Channel before a fresh south-westerly gale. Bretherton, who was a good sailor, watched the masses of green, foam-marbled water racing up astern, but von Carlenheim was frankly miserable.

  The night passed uneventfully. Soon after dawn, near the straits, they passed a convoy heading for Folkestone, a black-painted leave-boat and three other ships shepherded by two grey lean destroyers that drove through the smoking seas like dolphins, sliding into great green hillocks to reappear with white cascading decks and reeling mastheads against the low grey clouds. The leave-boat’s decks were brown with troops, and snatches of a popular revue tune were borne fitfuly by the gale to the watchers on the Dordrecht; and to Bretherton the familiar air heard amid the piping of the wind and the crash of seas was sadder than any dirge. A lonely figure upon a foreign ship, beneath an alien flag, denied even the use of his native tongue, he watched with wistful eyes the convoy bucketing its way towards the reeling dirty white line of the English coast, seen fitfully through the spume and run of seas to port. There were his countrymen and his country, the last he would see of them for many a day.

  The convoy faded astern and left only the endless succession of foam-crested, racing seas that flung the little Dordrecht’s stern and dripping propeller high in the air, whilst her decks ran waist deep in frothy water, till her bows rose with a jerk and she staggered down the reverse glacis. Suddenly in one of her drunken lurches the ship jarred cruelly; she seemed to stop dead for a fraction of a second, and then staggered on with racing propeller. The skipper dragged himself from the corner of the tiny wheel-house to which he had been flung, and in spite of his bulk went nimbly down the swaying ladder to the deck. The throb of the engines had ceased; the ship lost way, and rolled alarmingly as she rose and fell on the chasing seas.