Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons Part 24

PRISON THREE--KLINGELPUTZ

CHAPTER XVI

FREE ON "Pa.s.s" IN COLOGNE

It was two o'clock in the afternoon when I saw the last of Sennelager Camp as the train swung round a curve which blotted the Avernus over which Major Bach reigned supreme from sight if not from memory. The train in which we were travelling, of course, was wholly occupied by Germans. I found it impossible to secure a seat owing to the crowded character of the carriages, and as misfortune would have it I was compelled to stand until I reached my destination.

Naturally being thrown among so many of the enemy I was regarded with a strange interest by my fellow-travellers. They could see I was not a German, and although they did not resort to any provocative word or deed, it would have needed a blind man to have failed to detect their uncompromising hostility towards me. We travelled _via_ Soest, and my position was rendered additionally unnerving because train after train labelled with the flaming Red Cross thundered by, bearing their heavy loads of the German battered and maimed from the battlefields. It was easy to see that the number of the train-loads of wounded was exercising a peculiar effect upon the pa.s.sengers, for was not this heavy toll of war and the crushed and bleeding flower of the German army coming from the front where the British were so severely mauling the invincible military machine of Europe and disputing effectively their locust-like advance over the fair fields of Belgium and Northern France? Is it surprising under the circ.u.mstances that they glowered and frowned at me in a disconcerting and menacing manner?

[Ill.u.s.tration: Facsimile of the Pa.s.s issued by the German authorities to the author on his leaving Sennelager for Coln-on-Rhein.]

As the hours rolled by I began to feel fainter and hungrier. I had had nothing since the usual cup of acorn coffee at seven in the morning.

Although I became so weak that I felt as if I must drop, I buoyed up my flagging spirits and drooping body by the thought that I should soon meet and enjoy the company of K----. But I was aboard a fourth-cla.s.s train and it appeared to be grimly determined to set up a new record for slow-travelling even for Germany. The result was that I did not reach Cologne, or Koln, as the Germans have it, until one o'clock the following morning, having stood on my feet for eleven hours and without a bite to eat.

I fell rather than stepped from the train and turned out of the station.

Again my spirits sank. The city was wrapped in a darkness which could be felt. There was not a glimmer of light to be seen anywhere. To pick one's way through a strange city in a strange land and without more than a bare smattering of the language under conditions of inky blackness was surely the supreme ordeal. At every few steps I blundered against a soldier with his loaded rifle and fixed bayonet, ready to lunge at anything and everything which, to a highly strung German military mind, appeared to a.s.sume a tangible form in the intense blackness. Since my return home I have experienced some striking specimens of British darkened towns, but they do not compare with the complete darkness which prevailed in Cologne that night. Not a single faint gleam of light came from a window. I am confident that if I had dared to strike a match I should have been surprised by a volley of bullets from all directions.

Cologne was indeed a city of darkness and of the dead. Only the footfalls of the guard and the clank of rifles were to be heard. To proceed was impossible. I concluded that before I had gone very far in my wanderings I should be arrested and find myself in the privacy of a prison cell. Moreover I was absolutely exhausted. Sore at heart I returned to the station, and walking up to the first officer I saw, introduced myself as "Mahoney, late of Sennelager Camp."

At this revelation the officer stared as if confronted by an apparition and sternly demanded my authority for being at large. I drew out my "pa.s.s," together with the address of K----, for which I was searching so vainly.

Thrusting my "pa.s.s" into his pocket the officer gruffly ordered me to follow him. I demanded the return of the small piece of paper which const.i.tuted my sole protection, but he rudely declined to accede to my request. I followed him and we turned into a room at the station which happened to be the sleeping quarters of the night guard.

Here I was again interrogated somewhat sharply, but taking the bull by the horns I boldly declared that I was an Englishman and had been arrested and imprisoned upon the charge of being a spy!

My candid statement amazed the officer, who appeared to consider that he had made a most fortunate capture. An interpreter, who understood only a little English, was summoned to my a.s.sistance, and we contrived to understand one another. He was visibly impressed by my distressed and sickly appearance and enquired if I were in need of something to eat. I said I was famished and he explained the situation to the officer. The upshot was that a few of those present gave me some bread and cold rice, which I devoured ravenously.

I was handed over to a guard who was instructed to take me--somewhere?

We set out through the dark streets, and it was an eerie journey.

Sentries were stationed at intervals of a few yards and in crossing the bridge we were frequently stopped and not permitted to proceed until my guardian, although in uniform and armed, had given the pa.s.sword. In due course we reached a towering building which I discovered to be the Polizei Prasidium. Here I was handed over to the official in charge, my military guard evidently explaining the whole circ.u.mstances.

The official scrutinised me closely. Bidding me to follow him he again plunged into the darkness. After taking me to the address of K----, which I had produced, and finding no one there, he led me to a restaurant. The proprietor was roused and ordered to take me in for the night. When he learned that I was an Englishman on "pa.s.s" he commenced to swear and curse in a fearful manner, finally declaring he would not shelter any such swine in his house. The official had a short way with this individual. He drew his sword, drove the awakened and enraged German into his restaurant, and in a tone which could not be misconstrued demanded that accommodation and meals should be found for me. The threatening att.i.tude of the officer completely cowed the proprietor, but I, fearing that the latter would round on me once I was at his mercy, intimated to the guard that I was not going to spend the night in this hotel.

There was a brief altercation, but at last we returned to the Prasidium.

Here I intimated that I was perfectly willing to sleep upon the floor of the guard-room, but the official explained that this was a flagrant breach of the rules and the idea could not be entertained for a moment.

We haggled for a few minutes and then a solution of the distracting problem occurred to the officer. He would lodge me for the night in a cell! I accepted the suggestion with alacrity and thereupon pa.s.sed below where I made myself comfortable, the official a.s.sisting me as much as he could.

It seemed as if I had only just dropped off to sleep when I was rudely awakened. It was six o'clock when prisoners had to be roused, and although I was not a prisoner, but had slept in the cell from my own choice, I had to conform with the regulations. I was turned out into the street, without a bite of food, needless to say, to kick my heels about for some two hours until the business offices opened. I seized the opportunity to have a shave and hair-cut as well as a thorough wash and brush up.

About 8.30 I presented myself at my friend's office. To my surprise he responded to my ring himself and at once introduced me to his wife, who had come into the city with him that morning. I was warmly greeted but my thin and wan appearance affected them, especially Mrs. K----. I then discovered why I had failed to rouse him in the early hours of the morning when accompanied by the officer from the police station. He did not live in Cologne but in a pretty and quiet little residential village overlooking the Rhine some three miles out.

Taking pity upon me they insisted that I should at once proceed to their home, but before this could be done certain formalities demanded attention. My "pa.s.s" was only applicable to the city of Cologne and did not embrace the outlying places. We had to return to the police headquarters, corresponding to our Scotland Yard, for this purpose. Here my papers were turned out and subjected to the usual severe scrutiny, while I myself was riddled with questions. At last, through the good offices of K----, who was well-known to the officials, I received permission to proceed to his residence. This necessitated our being accompanied to his home by two detectives who furthermore were to see that I received the necessary local "pa.s.s" for the villa in question.

Notwithstanding the depressing company of the detectives I thoroughly enjoyed that ride along the banks of the Rhine. It was a glorious morning and the countryside was at the height of its alluring autumnal beauty. Reaching the village I was taken before the Burgermeister, a pompous individual, to undergo another searching cross-questioning, but ultimately the "pa.s.s" was granted. At the same time my "pa.s.s" for Cologne was withdrawn. I had either to live, move, and have my being in one place or the other--not both--and was not to be permitted to travel between the two places.

I must digress a moment to explain one feature of German administration and the much vaunted Teuton organisation, which is nothing more nor less than a huge joke, although it is unfortunately quite devoid of humour for the luckless victim. In times of war, Germany is subdivided into districts, each of which receives the specific number of an Army Corps.

Thus there is Army Corps No. 1, Army Corps No. 2, and so on. It is just as if, under similar exigencies, the names of the counties in Great Britain were abandoned for the time being in favour of a military designation, Middles.e.x thus becoming Army Corps No. 1, Surrey No. 2, and so on, the counties being numbered consecutively.

Each Army Corps has its commanding officer and he has absolute control over the territory a.s.signed to him, the movement of its inhabitants, strangers and visitors. But the strange and humorous fact about the whole system is that each commanding officer is a little autocrat and extremely jealous of his colleague in the adjacent Army Corps. The commander of Army Corps No. 1 issues a "pa.s.s" which ent.i.tles you to move about freely in his district.

When Major Bach presented me with my "pa.s.s," he gravely warned me always to have it upon my person, to show it upon demand, but never to allow it out of my possession even for a minute, and if it should be taken for inspection to insist upon its return at once. He a.s.sured me that the mere production of the "pa.s.s" and the signature would permit me to go wherever I liked, and to move to and fro throughout Germany. I firmly believed his statement until I received my first rude shock to the contrary. As a final warning he stated that if I happened to be stopped by a soldier or anyone else and had not my "pa.s.s" with me, I should find myself in an extremely serious position. Naturally I hung on to that little piece of paper as tenaciously as if it had been a million pound bank-note.

The Commanding Officer of an Army Corps always iterates this little speech, I discovered. Naturally you leave the official, completely relieved, thinking yourself virtually free. But the moment you cross the boundary into another Army Corps you are held up. The official demands to know why you are walking about a free man. You flourish the "pa.s.s"

signed by "A" in triumph, and with a chortle, point to the signature.

The official scans the "pa.s.s," shakes his head sagely, and with a curt "Come with me!" orders you to follow him. You protest energetically, and point to the signature. He shakes his head emphatically as he growls "No! No!" and continues, referring to the owner of the signature on your "pa.s.s," "we know nothing about him! You must see my Commanding Officer."

Reaching this official, who regards you as a criminal who has escaped, you suddenly learn that the "pa.s.s" is not a pa.s.sport for your movement through Germany, but is valid only for the Army Corps in which it was issued!

Consignment to prison is the inevitable sequel. You may protest until you are black in the face, but it makes no difference. The papers which you signed day after day until you became sick at the sight of them, but which were necessary to secure your first "pa.s.s," commence their lengthy and tedious trip through the German Circ.u.mlocution Office, the trip occupying weeks. During this time you are kept in prison and treated as if you were a common felon, until at last, everything being declared to be in order, you receive a new "pa.s.s" for the Army Corps in which you have been arrested. The moment you venture into another Army Corps, even if you return into that from which you were first released, arrest follows and the whole exasperating rigmarole has to be repeated. The Army Corps are as arbitrarily defined as anything to be found in tape-tied Germany.

I do not think that such a wildly humorous feature of organisation to compare with this is to be found in any other part of the world. Had it not been for the deliberate misleading, or to term it more accurately, unblus.h.i.+ng lying, upon the part of the respective commanding officers of the respective Army Corps, the British tourists who happened to be in Germany when war broke out would have got home safely. Being ignorant of German manners, customs, and military idiosyncrasies, and placing a blind faith in German a.s.sertion and sc.r.a.ps of paper, the unfortunate travellers fell into the trap which undoubtedly had been prepared to meet such conditions.

The British tourists who were caught in eastern Germany, after their first arrest and release upon one of these despicable and fraudulent pa.s.ses, being rea.s.sured by the intimation that they were free to go where they pleased, naturally thought they would be able to hurry home, and straightaway moved towards the coast. But directly they entered the adjacent Army Corps they suffered arrest and imprisonment until their papers were declared to be in order to permit another "pa.s.s" to be issued. Thus it went on, the tourists being successively held up, delayed, and released. Under these conditions progress to the coast was exasperatingly slow, and finally was summarily prevented by the drastic order of the German Government demanding the internment of every Britisher in the country. It was this senseless and ridiculous manifestation of German scientific organisation gone mad which contributed to the congested nature of the civilian internment camps in the country, and one cannot resist the conclusion that the practice was brought into force with the deliberate intention of hindering the return of Britishers who happened to be in the country when war was declared.

At the peaceful residence of my friend overlooking the Rhine, of the full beauties of which I still cherish a vivid and warm appreciation, I mended very rapidly. To Mr. and Mrs. K---- I owe a debt of grat.i.tude which I shall never be able to repay. I entered their home half-starved, extremely weak, and practically at death's door, but under the careful nursing and unremitting attention of Mrs. K---- and her husband I speedily recovered. I had been suffering considerable mental worry, having received news that my wife at home was seriously ill, but [*gap]

I received a letter, the first since I had left home on August 1st, which communicated the glad tidings that she had completely recovered her health. The receipt of that letter banished all anxiety and fretfulness from my mind. Indeed at the end of a month I felt capable of tempting fate upon my own initiative once more. I felt that I was encroaching upon the generosity and hospitality of my newly-found friends, and this feeling commenced to hara.s.s me.

One morning I expressed to K---- my intention to go into Cologne to look for work. He endeavoured to dissuade me, pointing out that my "pa.s.s"

would not permit me to move beyond the limits of the little village, but I was not to be gainsaid. I felt I could not show sufficient appreciation for what they had done on my behalf, or discharge the debt of obligation which I owed to them.

I started off one morning, full of hope and energy, determined to get a job at all hazards. But that search for work proved to be the most heart-breaking quest I have ever attempted. I realised that my limited knowledge of German would bowl me out. All that I knew I had picked up colloquially while interned at Sennelager, and although it was adequate to enable me to hold a general conversation, it was hopelessly insufficient for commercial purposes. Consequently I decided to pretend to be deaf and dumb.

I entered every shop in the main thoroughfare of Cologne in succession.

I was ready and willing to accept any position, irrespective of its character. I blundered into an undertaker's premises, which I subsequently learned to be the largest firm in this line in the city, and patronised by the rank and fas.h.i.+on of Cologne. I endeavoured to explain the object of my visit to the proprietor by mimicking nail-hammering and pointing to a coffin. He invited me into his inner office where, to my alarm, I descried an officer's uniform hanging behind the door, and evidently belonging to the proprietor who was about to join the colours. I decided to make myself scarce with all speed, but I had to act warily to avoid suspicion.

The proprietor trotted out an elaborate catalogue. He thought I had come to order a coffin! Being arrayed in a frock coat and somewhat burnished up, I suppose I had the appearance of a possible customer. I had led him to believe that I could not speak, but now I a.s.sured him that my real infirmity was very acute stammering. I glanced through the catalogue carefully so as to arouse no suspicions, to alight upon a specimen of the handicraft which cost 1,000 marks--50--and with apparent effort stuttered that I would consult my brother upon the matter. I left the shop with my heart in my mouth, but gaining the street in safety, I put as great a distance between the shop and myself as I could.

I offered my services indiscriminately to a boot-maker, grocer, confectioner--in fact I can scarcely recall what trade I did not strive to enter, but always in vain. Finally I entered a fas.h.i.+onable hairdresser's establishment. By signs and with considerable labour I finally made my mission known, and at last ascertained that an a.s.sistant was required, and I could present myself the following morning. I went off treading on air, absolutely delighted with my success. In fact I was so elated as to omit to notice that this shop was in one of the three streets forming a triangle and an island in a "Y" formed by the two main thoroughfares.

The next morning I returned to the city with my solitary razor in my pocket--I had been instructed to bring my own kit. I entered the shop but was decidedly puzzled at the sight of strange faces. This I attributed to the rush which was prevailing having brought men to the front whom I had not seen the day before. I proffered my razor to explain that I had come to start work as arranged. The a.s.sistant took it, and told me it would be ready on the following morning. He thought I wanted it to be ground and set! Not being able to make myself understood I went outside, looked at the facia, and found I had gone to the wrong address. The shop for which I had been engaged was on the other side of the triangle. I hurried in, to be received with a scowl by the proprietor, who pointed significantly to the clock to intimate that I was very late.

However, the proprietor donned his hat and coat and took me to another shop in a distant part of the city. It was one of his branches. I was to be employed here, but I knew no more about hair-dressing than about the fourth dimension. Still I thought I could fulfil the role of lather-boy very effectively.

To my consternation, after lathering one or two customers, I was ordered to complete the shaving operation. My heart thumped because I wondered how the unfortunate German client would fare in my unskilled hands. Bracing myself up I completed the task without a hitch, although I do not think the customer looked any better after I had finished with him than he did before.

But the succeeding customer encountered disaster. The razor made a slip, inflicting a terrible gash in the man's ear.

Pandemonium was let loose. The blood spurted out, smothering my s.h.i.+rt cuff. The customer raved and swore like a Fury, while the manager, losing his head, dashed up with a handful of powdered alum which he strove to apply to the wound, but made a sorry mess of the effort, because it fell in a shower over the customer's immaculate clothes, causing him to present the appearance which would have ensued had he fouled a bag of flour. I surveyed the scene of the disaster for a few seconds, but observing the customer to be absorbing the complete attention of the manager I unconcernedly invited the next customer to take the chair, which he politely declined.

In the course of a few minutes an unsuspecting individual entered and took the empty seat. I lathered him well, and picked up a razor. But my hand was now exceedingly unsteady. I caught a glimpse of my soiled s.h.i.+rt cuff and decided to incur no further risks. I seized my hat and bolted from the shop.

In my haste I inadvertently infringed another rigid regulation--I boarded a tram-car in motion. For this misdemeanour I was rated severely by the conductor. But as I emphasised my deaf and dumb infirmity he ceased, doubtless feeling that his energy was being wasted. To my consternation a friend of mine boarded this car, which was proceeding toward his home, and he at once commenced a conversation. I was on my guard, and by a surrept.i.tious whisper, I told him of my deaf and dumb subterfuge. When we reached our destination I related my adventure, revealing my soiled and blood-stained s.h.i.+rt cuff as corroboration. As I described the incident he burst into uncontrollable laughter, but then his face became grave. He felt convinced that a complaint would be lodged, and that investigation would follow. If I were detected in the street trouble would ensue, so he urged me to return to my new home and to lie low for a few days to permit things to blow over.