Gutersloh and Clausthal

I believe the camp at Gütersloh had formerly been a lunatic asylum. It was composed of six or seven large
independent barrack-like buildings. One of these buildings was a civilian camp, and one was a quarantine,
used also as a solitary confinement or Stubenarrest prison; another was used as the quarters of the
commandant. The ground was sandy, and I should think comparatively healthy and dry even in the wettest
weather. In hot weather the heat was much accentuated, but there were patches of small pine trees in the camp
which gave a pleasant shade. The camp area could not have been less than eight acres altogether, enclosed by

two rows of barbed wire, with arc lamps every seventy yards or so. The prisoners comprised some 1200
officers--800 Russians, over 100 English, and the rest French or Belgians. We were marched up to the camp
through a quiet village, and were put into the quarantine, where we remained for about a week. The morning
after our arrival, we were medically inspected and questioned as to our name, rank, regiment, place of capture,
age, where taught to fly, etc., all of which questions evoked a variety of mendacious and romantic answers.
We were then put to bed in the quarantine and treated with some beastly anti-lice powder--most disagreeable!
The food was insufficient in quarantine. We had no opportunity of taking exercise, and were all much bored
and longed to be sent into the main camp, which we were told was the best in Germany. This was not far off
the truth, as subsequent experience proved the administration and internal arrangements of this camp to be
admirable.
Originally English, Russian, and French prisoners had lived all mixed up together, but now the nationalities
were mainly in separate buildings, and always in separate rooms. In the English building there was a common
room in which there was a daily English paper and two monthly magazines, all typewritten in the camp. From
an artistic point of view the magazines were excellent, rather after the style of Printer's Pie, and the daily
paper consisted of leading articles, correspondence, and translations out of German papers.
The canteen was very well run by a Russian on the co-operative share system, but when I was there it was
becoming more and more difficult to buy goods in Germany. I don't think any food could be bought in the
canteen, but wine, and, I think, whisky also, could be obtained, as well as tennis racquets, knives, books,
pencils, boxes, and tobacco of all sorts.
The feeding in the camp was very bad indeed, the quantity quite insufficient, and most of it almost uneatable.
However, we were hungry enough to eat it with avidity when we first came in.
Most wisely the Germans gave us ample facilities for playing games in the camp. There were ten tennis
courts, and two grounds large enough for hockey and football, so we spent our time in playing tennis and
exchanging lessons in modern languages, for which of course there were unique opportunities. We had two
roll-calls a day, which lasted about ten minutes each, but otherwise the Germans interfered with us very little,
and I think most of us found the first month or two of captivity a real rest cure after the strain and excitement
of the Somme battle. I did, at any rate.
Long and I had been less than three weeks in this place when all those flying officers who had been captured
on the Somme were removed from Gütersloh to Clausthal. Looking back on the life at Gütersloh, one thing
strikes me more now than it did whilst I was there, and that is the fact that all the officers, with the exception
of a small section of the Russians, had apparently abandoned all hope of escaping. The defenses of the camp
were not strong enough to be any reason for this lack of enterprise, and I can only attribute it to the
encouragement and opportunities given by the Germans for game-playing, which successfully turned the
thoughts of the prisoners from escaping.
Of the journey to Clausthal, in the Harz Mountains, I only remember that it was quite comfortable, and that
we arrived at night. The camp was about a mile up from the station, and we were let through a barbed wire fence and into a wooden barrack. For the next eight days we remained shut up in this place, and it was only
with difficulty that we were allowed to have the windows open. There were three of these wooden barracks
and a hotel or Kurhaus inside the barbed wire. This was the best German camp for food that I was in, and I
think it would be possible to live on the food the Germans gave us. After eight days' quarantine we were let
out into the camp. Long and I, and a captain in the R.F.C. who had been lately captured, called Nichol, had a
little room together in the wooden barrack. On the whole, life was pleasant at Clausthal. The Germans were
very polite, and the sentries were generally friendly.
We passed the time at Clausthal in much the same way as we had done at Gütersloh. If anything, it was more
peaceful and pleasant, and the country surrounding the camp, where we sometimes went for walks, was
beautiful. The Harz Mountains are a well-known German health resort, so that by the middle of September I
was feeling so remarkably fit, and was getting such an overpowering aversion to being ordered about by the
Germans, that, encouraged by a young Belgian called Kicq, I began to think very seriously of escaping. When
I had been about six weeks at Clausthal I was given details by one of the conspirators of a scheme for
escaping from the camp by a tunnel. Apparently two of the party had struck work, and owing to this I was
offered a place. I was not surprised that some one had downed tools, when I saw the unpleasant and
water-logged hole which was to be our path of freedom. The idea was rather a good one, but it was too widely
known in the camp for the scheme to have any chance of success, and after working it for three weeks we
abandoned it. In the first place because the tunnel became half full of water, and secondly, because we had
reason to believe the Germans had learnt of its existence and were waiting to catch us red-handed--a suspicion
which was afterwards confirmed. I was very glad, for there were never less than two inches of water when I
worked there, and it was a horrible job, as all tunneling is.
About this time Kicq suggested that we should escape by train, which he felt sure was possible if we were
suitably dressed. I was of the opinion that there were too many difficulties in the way to make it worth while
trying, but he eventually talked me over and told me that long train journeys had already been done by
Frenchmen. We then decided that we would go for Switzerland, the general opinion being that it was
impossible to cross the Dutch border, as it was guarded by electric wire, dogs, and several lines of sentries. It
was absolutely necessary to our plans to have a clear start of seven or eight hours without an alarm, and when
our tunnel had to be abandoned I despaired of getting out without being seen or heard. Kicq, as always, was
ready to try anything, and produced scheme after scheme, to all of which I objected. The real difficulty was
the dogs round the camp, and though there were numerous ways of getting out of the camp, in all his schemes
it was heavy odds on our being seen and the alarm being given. We both thought it was too late in the year to
walk (nonsense, of course, but I did not know that then); and where should we walk to, since the Dutch
frontier was impossible? As an English major said to me, "The frontier is guarded against spies who have
friends on both sides and know every inch of the ground; how can you, tired prisoners of war, with no maps
worth having--no knowledge and no friends--hope to cross?" I was further discouraged by a rumor that there
were new railway regulations about showing passes which would make it quite impossible for us to travel by
train. About that time I got into conversation with one of the German sentries, and bribed him with half a pat
of butter to allow me to speak to a prisoner who was supposed to be in solitary confinement. At the end of a
week the sentry had agreed to help me to escape, as long as the plan did not in any way implicate him. He told
me that, speaking German as well as I did, I should have no difficulty in going by train, and that there were no
passes to be shown or anything of that sort. I agreed to send 500 marks to his wife if I got away by his help. A
day or two later I suddenly saw the way to get out. I was walking round with one of the tunnel conspirators at
the time, and pointed it out to him. Then I found Kicq and told him we would depart on Monday. He, of
course, was delighted, and ready to fall in with anything I might suggest. For some time our plans and
preparations had been completed as far as possible; money had been no obstacle, as there were many men in
the camp who had 20 or 30 marks, German money, and I managed to collect 80 and Kicq 120 marks. He had
already got a civil outfit, and I had got a cap from an orderly. We decided not to take rücksacks but a
traveling-bag, and I bought just the thing in the canteen. I was going to take an empty rücksack in the bag so
that we could divide the weight afterwards, as we intended to walk the last 40 kilometres. We knew we could
catch a 2.13 a.m. train at Goslar (a small town about 15 kilometres due north of Clausthal), and after that we had to trust to luck to find trains to take us via Cassel to Rotweil, a village near the Swiss frontier. The one
difficulty remaining was a suit of civilian clothes for me. There was an English flying officer in the camp
whose uniform had been badly spoilt when he had been brought down. In consequence, he had been allowed
to buy a suit of civilian clothes in Cambrai. He was still wearing these; in fact, he had nothing else to wear.
The Germans had been most unwilling to let him continue in possession of these clothes, and always had their
eye on them and of course intended to confiscate them as soon as his uniform turned up from England. This
fellow agreed to allow me to steal his clothes. It was a most courageous thing to do, as he would certainly
have got fourteen days' imprisonment for it, in spite of the evidence which would be produced to prove that
the clothes were stolen quite unknown to him. As it happened, this theft was not necessary, as I was able to
buy a new suit in the camp for 20 marks. It was green, and of the cheapest possible material; the jacket was of
the Norfolk type with a belt, and buttoned up high in front at the neck. A black naval mackintosh, some
German boots, a pair of spectacles, and a cloth cap completed my equipment. The suit had been bought over a
year before from a German tailor who had been allowed to come into the camp to do ordinary repairs. This
fellow had brought with him a number of civilian suits, which had been bought up in a very short time. A few
days afterwards the Germans got to hear of this, and gave orders that all civilian suits in the camp were to be
confiscated and the money would be returned. Needless to say, no one owned to having a suit, and a mild
search failed to unearth any of them.
We intended to escape on Monday, because Tuesday morning roll-call was at 11.30 a.m. instead of 9.30 a.m.,
and if we could get out unseen it would give us two hours more time before we were missed. On Friday I
found out that two good fellows, Ding and Nichol, also intended to escape by the same method. We decided
that all four of us would try. Naturally it was necessary to go on the same night, and Monday was selected.
We tossed up who was to cut the wire and go first, and fortune decided for Ding and Nichol.
[Illustration: CLAUSTHAL.]