the Bojah Case

Soon after the failure of our tunnel scheme several Englishmen, among whom were Gilliland, Unett, and
Batty Smith, who had not been convicted by the Germans of any evil deeds during the last four or five
months, were warned that they were going to be removed to Crefeld. Great preparations were made for
escaping on the way, and Gaskell and de Goys seized the opportunity to try on the basket trick. Officers who
have been prisoners for two or three years accumulate quite a considerable amount of luggage, and it was
thought to be more than possible that the Germans would not trouble to search all of it as it left the fort, as it
was quite certain to be searched carefully before it entered any new camp. Two large clothes-baskets were
procured, of which the fastenings were so altered that they could be opened from the inside. Gaskell and de
Goys packed themselves into these, and were carried by the orderlies into the parcel office in the fort with the

rest of the heavy luggage. Unfortunately a week or two before this someone had been caught entering this
room by means of a false key, and since then a sentry had been posted permanently outside the door. When
Gaskell and de Goys, who had already spent nearly four hours in an extremely cramped position, attempted to
get out of their baskets to stretch their legs, the wickerwork creaked so much that the suspicion of the sentry
outside the door was roused. He called an N.C.O., and the culprits were discovered and led, rather
ignominiously, back to their rooms.
From Fort 9, where the Germans were so very suspicious, this method of escaping would need, I think, more
than an average amount of luck to be successful, though from a normal prison camp it was to my knowledge
successfully employed on several occasions.
The party under orders for another camp left the next day and without further incident, and some weeks later
we heard that six or eight of them got out of the train in the neighborhood of Crefeld, and four of
them--Gilliland, Briggs, and two others--crossed the Dutch frontier after three or four nights' march and after
overcoming considerable difficulties and hardships. Gaskell and I applied personally to the General to be
transferred to another camp, and I think most of the remaining Englishmen did the same, but our request was
received with derision.
The two officers who escaped gave, I think, rather an unnecessarily harrowing description of the life at Fort 9;
for if in what I have written I have given a true picture, I think it will be realized that the feeling of bitterness
was, under the circumstances, except in particular instances and with certain individuals, remarkably small.
Attempts to escape, although thoroughly earnest and whole-hearted, were undertaken with a sort of childish
exuberance, in which the comic element was seldom absent for long. However, the feeling between the
prisoners and their guard gradually grew worse, and several incidents intensified this bitterness to such an
extent that towards the end of my time at Fort 9 it seemed scarcely possible that we could continue for much
longer without bloodshed, which up to that time, by pure good fortune, had been avoided.
The Germans had been very irritated when we tore down and burnt in our stoves nearly all the woodwork of
the fort, and the repeated attempts to escape got on their nerves. In addition to this, a store of blankets and
bedding caught fire--or perhaps was set on fire by the prisoners, as the Germans believed. The place burnt for
three days, and numerous fire-engines had to be sent out from Ingolstadt. Also a large pile of paper and boxes
from our parcels, of considerable commercial value at that time in Germany, was deliberately set on fire by a
squib manufactured for that purpose, although the pile was guarded by a sentry. These and other pinpricks
undoubtedly led the Germans, as we learnt from one of the sentries, to issue most stringent orders to the guard
to use their rifles against us whenever possible.
I have already recorded some of the occasions, mostly justifiable, when shots were fired at prisoners in the
fort, but now there occurred an incident which roused the most bitter feelings amongst the prisoners. We were allowed to walk on the broad path along the ramparts, but we were not allowed on the grass on the
far side. Two Russian officers, newly arrived at the camp I believe and ignorant of this rule (for there were no
boundary marks of any sort), lay on the grass one hot afternoon in the forbidden area. Without a moment's
hesitation a sentry about 100 yards from them fired two deliberately aimed shots without giving them any
warning whatever. Fortunately he missed them, though they presented an enormous target. But the fact that he
was an exceedingly bad shot did not in any way detract from the damnableness of this wholly unjustifiable
attempt at murder--for that is the way we looked at it.
About a month before this last event, Buckley, Medlicott, and Batty Smith finished their spell of "two months'
solitary" and were welcomed back to the society and comparative freedom of Fort 9. The Germans said that
they had only been under arrest (Stubenarrest) pending investigations, and indeed ever since the row which I
have called the "Bojah" case the most searching inquiries had been carried out by the Germans.
Every one who had been in any way concerned or had been a spectator of the scene was summoned to
Ingolstadt to be cross-questioned and his evidence taken down in writing. The Germans took the matter very
seriously and did their utmost to establish a charge of organized mutiny against us. We, on the other hand,
took the whole business as a joke and laid the blame for the affair on the fact that the Commandant lost his
temper; and we brought, or could have brought, if the trial had been a fair one, unlimited evidence to prove
that this was not only possible but an everyday occurrence at Fort 9.
At last the case was brought before a court-martial at Ingolstadt. As a first-hand account by one of the accused
of a German court-martial on prisoners-of-war may be of real interest, I have asked Buckley, who took a
leading part, to give an account of it in his own words.