Four-Fifty Miles to Freedom — Chapter 5, Part 1 - The Flag Falls
THE FLAG FALLS.
At last the long-deferred day had dawned--the cause rather of relief than excitement to our party, after their planning and scheming for eleven long months and active preparations for as many weeks.
Our only prayer now was that we should at least have a run for our money, and be spared the ignominy of being led back into the camp at Yozgad without the taste of even a few days freedom.
The 7th August being a Wednesday, at 11 A. M.
the usual picnic party set off for the pine woods.
The majority never dreamt for a moment of the intention of twenty-five officers--a quarter of all the officers in the camp--to escape that night.
Their departure was the signal for feverish activity in completing preparations which, by their nature, had to be left until the last day.
Such, in the house then occupied by the present writers, called Hospital House, was the screwing together of the ladders required in case an alternative scheme for getting out of the camp should prove necessary.
Then there were rucksacks and haversacks to be finally made up, and the whole "Christmas Tree" to be tried on to ensure that there was no rattling.
For reasons which will appear, it was necessary too for the Old Man and Looney to convey their kits across the alley into the fowl-house and there leave them concealed, the one in a blanket and the other in a box.
Meanwhile, Grunt and Perce put the finishing touches to the hole commenced, as previously described, in the fowl-house wall, until daylight could be seen through every joint in the outer skin of masonry, and until it was as certain as such things could be that the remaining stones would come away easily.
Watches had to be synchronised to ensure that all six parties should start simultaneously; the fresh meat for the first two days to be issued, and so on almost _ad infinitum_.
It was at this stage that we discovered the maggots in the "pastomar" or "biltong," to which reference has already been made.
That evening, before the hour when intercommunication between houses was supposed to cease, there were many visits from well-wishers living in other houses who knew of our intentions, and last arrangements were made with our British orderlies to play their part.
Doubtless they did it well.
One can imagine the delight with which they would put some of our dummies to bed after our departure, and as we left we heard their efforts in the house to cover our exit with the noise of a sing-song.
If no alarm occurred before daylight, they were to remove the dummies after these had served their purpose at the 4 A. M.
"rounds."
One orderly had also volunteered to build up the hole in the wall as soon as the house and kitchen doors were unlocked next morning.
At last all was ready, and we sat down to what, we hoped, would be our last full meal for many a day.
Twenty minutes to eight came and went, the time when the _onbashi_, or Turkish corporal, usually took roll-call; but it was not till eight o'clock that evening that the six of the party in our house, who, with a Major A---- and the "King of Oireland," another escaper, formed the mess on the top floor, heard his footsteps on the stairs.
We returned his good-night with rather more than usual gusto, and waited till he had disappeared, as his custom was, into the next room.
Now was the moment.
Old Man and Looney slipped out of the room and downstairs into the kitchen, the door of which, with the side-door of the house, was allowed to remain open every night until our orderlies had "washed up."
These two were to go across in their shirt sleeves and carrying plates, so that, if he noticed them at all, the sentry posted over the alley separating the main building from the outhouse would naturally mistake them for orderlies.
In the excitement of the moment, however, Old Man had forgotten to bring down his coat; and Looney, now safely ensconced in the fowl-house, wondered why he had not followed him across.
Next minute there was a tremendous crash and a tinkle of broken crockery.
The Old Man, discovering his loss, had turned back and slipped on the stairs.
Nothing could have exceeded in realism this unintentional imitation of an orderly.
As he picked himself up, he saw the feet of the _onbashi_ descending the stairs above him, with the result that he lost no further time in crossing to the kitchen.
Orderly M---- was sent back to fetch the missing article, which arrived in due course.
Now followed an anxious few minutes.
Sometimes it happened that the _onbashi_ would miscount an officer or man, or count one twice over, and the check would then be repeated throughout the house.
We realised that if this occurred on the present night it would be necessary for Old Man and Looney to reappear from the kitchen, and for scheme No. 2 to come into operation.
Incidentally their kits, then in the outhouse, would have to be brought back in the blanket and box by our orderlies.
Scheme No. 2 was to leave the house, carrying ladders, through a window on the eastern side; after which would follow a ticklish crawl between two sentries forty yards apart to the garden wall nine feet in height.
The bars of the window in question had been loosened and cracked by Looney, with Old Man watching the sentries' movements, during some amateur theatricals held in the house on the previous night.
To our relief, however, this plan had not to be put into execution.
As was his custom, when the orderlies had finished their work, the _onbashi_ locked the house and kitchen doors.
No sooner had his footsteps died away than the advance-guard of our party set to work to complete the opening of the wall.
It was now about 8. 15 P.
M.
The work went on quickly but quietly.
A few minutes only and the clear starlit sky was visible through the rapidly enlarging aperture.
Then came another anxious moment.
As the two were relieving one another at the work, there suddenly appeared at the half-completed task the head of a mongrel dog.
One growl or bark would suffice to draw the attention of the watchmen over the vegetable gardens outside, who did not hesitate to fire off their ancient rifles on the slightest alarm;
but the dog after one look in at the hole strolled on, and the good work was resumed.
There was one large stone which seemed likely to give trouble; indeed it had almost been decided to let it remain, when it suddenly came away and crashed noisily to the ground.
But the sound, if heard at all, fell on deaf ears--although it must have been at about this very time that some of the party, still in the house and overlooking the wall, saw a man standing within a score of yards from the hole.
Their work completed, Old Man and Looney proceeded to screen it from any one passing casually along, by affixing a square of canvas over the outside with "blobs" of beeswax.
It now only remained to arrange for the easy withdrawal of the staple of the kitchen door, so that the latter could be opened from the outside, although padlocked; then, having donned haversack, water-bottle, and pack, to await the arrival of the remaining six from this house, four of our own and two of another party.
When Old Man and Looney had stepped off to the kitchen the other six of the second-floor mess had remained at table, talking and smoking as usual.
The Turkish corporal taking roll-call reappeared from the room beyond the dining-room, and was told not to forget the "yourt" for the next day.
"Yourt," a kind of junket, is a staple diet of the Turk, and most of the prisoners became very partial to it.
As it was hard to come by except through the medium of a sentry, it was their custom to remind him each evening, so that he might have some faint chance of remembering about it next morning.
A few minutes later they heard the kitchen door being locked, and heaved a sigh of relief.
The advance-party had had enough time to get across to the kitchen, and roll had been correctly called the first time.
Major A---- in our mess, who was not escaping, had offered to watch the Upper House for the alarm-signal, and he was left sitting in the mess-room while the others set to work on various jobs.
Grunt and Perce removed all obstructions to exit from the carpenter's shop door, while Nobby and Johnny took the four ladders from their hiding-place in a wood-store and tied bits of felt round the ends to deaden the sound when they should be placed against the wall.
After this the ladders were taken into the cellar, whence scheme No. 2 might have to be worked.
They then went upstairs to the bedroom, where their escape paraphernalia was stored.
Here they hung towels and blankets over the windows, and started to dress by the light of a candle.
It was a queer sight indeed.
They were, at this point, joined by Sheridan, who belonged to a downstair mess, and one Pat.
The latter was dresser-in-chief, and helped them on with their equipment.
He was very miserable that he was not going himself, but he had a crocked knee and it would have been madness for him to think of marching over broken country by night.
He now employed spare moments repeating certain sentences that he had learnt in order to call away the sentry over the alley: on this depended the best scheme of getting out of the house.
The bedroom was the one in which Old Man, Grunt, and Johnny slept, and those in the room now set to work to make up the dummies in the three beds.
The heads had already been fashioned, and, with a few clothes stuffed under the blankets and the heads placed in position, the beds were soon occupied by three graceful figures in attitudes of deep repose.
The small piece of towel forehead that could be seen over the edge of the blanket looked perhaps a trifle pale, but, apart from that, the beds seemed quite natural.
They could not resist the temptation of calling the Major away from the mess window for a moment, just to have a look at the sleeping beauties, and he returned chuckling to his post.
Water-bottles were then partially filled with a thick paste of cocoa.
Although water was not to be carried at the start, on account of the impossibility of preventing a gurgle in the water-bottle, the cocoa paste was permissible, for, being only just liquid enough to pour, it made no noise.
It had been decided that morning that it would be best to leave the bedroom before 9 P. M.
, at which time the sentries changed.
A few minutes before this hour, therefore, the six officers gave their feet a gouty appearance by tying felt padding on to their boots, and then started down to the ground-floor.
On the way, Johnny turned into the orderlies' room to say good-bye, thanking them hurriedly for their help, without which the preparations for the escape would have been almost impossible.
A few days later he found in the pocket of his jersey, which had been mended by an orderly belonging to the Norfolk regiment, a small piece of paper on which was written, "Good-bye, and good luck, sir.
--B.
," and he still has it in his possession.
Going downstairs they met an officer prisoner, who, not having been admitted to the secret, nearly had a fit at the sight of six such extraordinary objects.
Grunt looked in at another orderlies' room above the exit, and asked them to blow out their lamp and make a noise.
The six then crept quietly into the prearranged room, and waited breathlessly by the door.
Sentries were changed, and once again all became still.
One lived every second of that waiting.
Their plan now depended on the aid of Pat.
Although debarred from escaping himself, he was willing to help others to liberty at considerable risk to himself.
Punctually at 9. 15, the hour at which the parties in the different houses were allowed to start, Pat's clear tones could be heard calling to the sentry on the alley-way-- "Nebuchi, nebuchi, jigara dushdu."
("Sentry, sentry, I've dropped my cigarettes."
) And indeed he had: a hundred scattered about a cabbage-bed should keep the sentry busy for some time.
But the wretched man nearly upset all calculations.
Wearied with a quarter of an hour's duty, he was already almost asleep.
It was a moment of terrible suspense for the six officers waiting, ready loaded up with their kits, in the ground-floor room opposite to the kitchen.
The door of this led on to the alley-way; normally it was disused and kept locked, but the lock had now been picked and the door could be opened in a moment.
Would the sentry hear Pat calling?
And would he desert his post even if he did hear?
They had heard Pat's first sentence.
No reply.
It was repeated, then again and again.
After they had heard him shouting for many hours (perhaps thirty seconds, as time is reckoned by a watch), the sentry answered.
His form was just visible as he passed by a small iron-barred window, and now was the opportunity.
They could cross unobserved to the kitchen.
An open door, three steps across the alley-way, a fumble with the kitchen door staple; another open door, a turn to the left, bend down or you'll knock your head off getting into the fowl-house, starlight showing in a black wall, through head first and almost on your face into long grass, and there you are--a free man.
Meanwhile Pat was no doubt explaining to the delighted old sentry from the upper window how he could have a few cigarettes himself and return the remainder next morning.
We sometimes wonder whether the sentry was foolish enough to mention to his relief about the cigarettes he had been given.
At the time of writing we are still ignorant how long it was before our departure was discovered.
[9] Looney and Old Man, being already on the spot, had been granted the privilege of leading through the hole, the remainder following in an order arranged by lot, since ours was not the only party represented.
It so happened that the two of the other party were sandwiched between the other four of ours.
This caused a temporary separation; for at the best it took an appreciable time to crawl through the wall and pick oneself up on the other side, but these two were especially slow.
Grunt too had lost time when it came to his turn.
Impatiently waiting to see the starry sky once more when the then broad form of Johnny should have ceased to obscure the hole, he eventually discovered that the cause of the darkness was not that Johnny had jammed, but that the canvas flap had fallen, and was covering the hole all too effectively.
Our main object at this stage was to avoid disturbing the garden chowkidars, and therefore each as he emerged lost no time in creeping along the high garden wall, and dropping down into the friendly shelter of the river bed.
For all its "hundred springs"--the meaning of the name "Yozgad"--the river for the greater part of the year consisted merely of a shallow and dirty stream, not more than ten feet broad, although its banks were as many yards apart, and from five to eight feet in height.
It was along this that we all turned down-stream, Johnny now taking the lead.
A few days previously he had suddenly developed a passionate interest in natural history.
A polite letter, in which the word "ornithological" played a great part, was written to the commandant, and Johnny was permitted to join two real naturalists in an expedition starting at 4 A. M.
on our last Sunday morning at Yozgad.
These two had been at Changri with us, and knew we had intentions of escaping, so Johnny told them in which direction his party wished to start off, and this direction was now taken.
Johnny counted his steps, noted landmarks which would be visible by starlight, and was able to draw a rough map of the country.
All three dug at intervals for imaginary field-mice, until the sentry with them thought they were more insane than even the average Englishman, and said so.
In the end, however, the strain of this great thought overpowered him and he fell asleep, giving Johnny the opportunity he required.
He climbed a hill, took bearings, and was able to see our future route to within half a mile of a rugged piece of country known to the local hunt club as "Hades."
On the return journey the three came back along the edge of the stream which ran past the bottom of our garden wall, and in which we have just left the six of our party.
