MY ESCAPE FROM GERMANY

MY ESCAPE
FROM GERMANY

BY
ERIC A. KEITH

NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1919

Copyright, 1920, by
The Century Co.

Published, January, 1920

INTRODUCTION

There is an element of chance and risk about an attempt to escape from an enemy’s country which is bound to appeal to any one with a trace of sporting instinct. Viewed as a sport, though its devotees are naturally few and hope to become fewer, it has a technique of its own, and it may be better, rather than interrupt the course of my narrative, to say here something about this.

As always, appropriate equipment makes for ease. But its lack, since a prisoner of war cannot place an order for an ideal outfit, may be largely compensated for by personal qualities.

In considering the chances of success or failure, it must always be assumed that the route leads through a country entirely unknown to the fugitive. Yet this is not so great a disadvantage as one might suppose. Once free from towns and railways, a man with a certain knowledge of nature and the heavens, and with some powers of observation and deduction, can hardly fail to hit an objective so considerable as a frontier line, even if a hundred miles or so have to be traversed, provided he knows the position of his starting-point and is favored with tolerable weather.

With the sky obscured, he must at least have a pocket compass by which to keep his direction; though when the stars are visible it is easier and safer to walk by their aid.

Next in importance come maps. With fairly good maps, as well as a compass, the chances of evading discovery before approaching the frontier, with its zone of sentries and patrols, are, in my opinion, about even.

Another indispensable requisite is a water-bottle—a good big one. My own belief is that a man in tolerable condition—let us say good internment-camp condition—can keep going for from two to three weeks on no more food than he can pick up in the fields. But thirty hours without water will, in most cases, be too much for him. Under the tortures of thirst his determination will be sapped. I was, therefore, always willing to exchange the most direct route for a longer one which offered good supplies of water. In my final and successful attempt, when I was leader of a party of three and had to traverse a part of Germany where brooks and streams are rare, I always preferred taking the risk of looking for fresh water rather than that of being without it for more than twenty hours between sources, relying in the meantime on what we had in our bottles.

The more clothing one can take along the better—within reason, of course. One is prepared to do without a good deal, but food must, if necessary, be sacrificed for a sweater and an oilsilk. Two sets of underclothing to wear simultaneously when the weather turns cold are a comfort. Beyond this, any one will naturally take such food as can be carried conveniently. Chocolate, hardtack and dripping, with a little salt, is, in my opinion, as much as one wants. Being a deliberate person, I usually managed to have enough of these in readiness before I even thought of other arrangements for the start.

People are very differently gifted with what might be called the out-of-door sense, though it is strong in some who have never really led an out-of-door life. Those who have this gift will know almost instinctively where to turn in an emergency, and will gather from the lie of the land information denied to those without it. This raises the question of companionship. As I am, fortunately, possessed of a fair share of this open-air sense, it was little handicap to me to be alone on my first attempt. In fact, as long as I was using the railways, it was a distinct advantage. At critical moments a man can decide more quickly what to do, if he has only himself to think of, than when he has to consider and possibly to communicate with a companion, who may be contemplating a better but quite different solution. To know that it is only one’s own skin that is at stake gives one that promptness of decision which is itself the seed of success; the thought of involving another man in an error easily clogs the swiftness of one’s action.

On the march these conditions are reversed. One can walk only at night, and the approach of actual danger is best met by falling flat and keeping motionless, or else taking to one’s heels. It is under trying conditions just short of the actual peril of discovery that the soothing influence of a companion is of inestimable advantage. Cross-country walking tries one’s nervous forces to the utmost. Hour after hour passes, and no recognizable landmark appears. At last one gets the feeling of being condemned eternally to tramp over fields, skirt woods, and extricate oneself from an endless succession of morasses. In time the sky seems to reel and the compass-needle to point in all directions but the right one. It is then that the voice of a friend, the touch of his hand, or merely the sound of his footsteps behind one, restores the sense of normality which, if one is alone, can be recovered only by a deliberate effort of will that is often very exhausting.

Before starting I always knew roughly what lay before me, and what I had to expect, until I met either with success or with complete failure by being captured. Even when the chances seemed to suggest it, I would never trust blindly to mere good luck, which I kept in reserve as an absolutely last resource. Once in hiding for the day, I usually worked out a detailed plan for the following night’s walk, and spent hours looking at the maps in order to impress on my mind a picture, as complete as possible, of the country directly in front of me and to each side of my route.

When this book was first published I pointed out, that “It is one of the penalties of an escape that, so long as others remain behind, it is impossible for obvious reasons to give too precise details, and often the moments one would most wish to describe have of necessity to be camouflaged from the observation of the enemy.” Now that the war is over and there is nothing to hinder it, I have been able to augment my original story with certain details originally omitted for reasons mentioned above. In its present form the book has been considerably enlarged and no detail of my escape has been omitted.

E.A.K.

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CONTENTS