Chapter III

Those unfortunates who endured the lonely monotonous horror of prison life in Germany will tell you what "barbed-wire madness" was. They will tell you of men who got the disease; and of that furtive, piteous look that haunted the tragic sunken eyes of weary creatures who became frenzied with the longing for freedom. It is perhaps difficult to appreciate from the depths of an arm-chair the terrible gnawing pain of this consuming passion to which some natures were so very susceptible. But strong men who have lived, if only just lived, for three long ghastly months, without letters or parcels, on a diet of turnip-soup and small lumps of black bread, till the skin was stretched tight over their protruding cheek-bones like yellow parchment, their filthy, ragged clothes hanging like mildewed sacks on their emaciated bodies, and their hollow eyes gleaming like the eyes of famished beasts--they understand how easy it was to fall a prey to "barbed-wire madness."

Gordon Niall got it, and got it badly. It was inevitable. The restless Celtic spirit was the first to fall a victim to the mania for escape. Five times he eluded his watchful guard, and five times was recaptured, sullen and still determined, taking his punishment of solitary confinement as a matter of course, with a purpose dogged and unbroken. For solitary confinement in cells was no cure for the disease: it was like malaria, once in the system it was ineradicable. The weeks dragged on. Parcels and letters arrived from home and conditions gradually improved, but Niall remained obsessed with his yearning for liberty. Other men who had escaped and been recaptured began to realise the futility of it, and the news which filtered through the German newspapers of the turn of the tide and the progress of the Allied forces tended to encourage them to settle down to await developments. And one night the camp was electrified with the announcement of the defection of Bulgaria. It was the beginning of the end, and the star of hope shone clear in the firmament. Yet it had no effect on Gordon Niall, for the following night he made yet another attempt to escape.

He had thought it out carefully; and at midnight, three friends, strenuously protesting at his foolishness, hoisted him up to the little window of their hut which overlooked the prison yard. It was not more than twelve yards from the wire enclosure, and within four feet of it rose a telegraph pole. The window had been very carefully prepared, and it did not take Niall many minutes to remove the glass, drop the panes into the keeping of his friends below, and wriggle on to the narrow ledge. He listened carefully, and looked up and down the yard, white in the searching glare of the great electric lamps which turned night into day. A high wind and a driving sleet favoured him, for the sentry who passed shortly afterwards on his beat by the barbed wire was walking quickly with his chin sunk in the collar of his coat. Niall waited till he had gone, then, crouching for a moment on the window ledge, he sprang forward, clutched at the telegraph pole, clung to it for a few seconds, then laboriously hauled himself up to the cross-bars. Here he rested for a while and allowed the sentry once more to pass. Then, judging that he would just have time to reach the further pole, which was a few feet on the far side of the wire, before the man returned, he commenced his perilous journey. Painfully and cautiously he straddled across the wires and began to work himself along. The swirling blasts of the strong wind more than once almost swept him from his precarious hold, and the icy rain numbed his cut and bleeding hands. Beneath his weight the wires swayed and sagged ... yet he struggled on his desperate way. It was more difficult than he had supposed, and sick, with nervous strain and physical exhaustion, he determined to risk discovery and hang where he was, halfway across, until the sentry passed again. The minutes dragged, and then round the corner of the next hut the man appeared, his shoulders hunched in the driving rain, his eyes on the ground. Above him, clinging frantically to the wire, Niall waited, his heart in his mouth. The man walked almost beneath him, seeing nothing; and in a few seconds the prisoner again began to toil along the wires. At length, almost fainting with fatigue and strain, he clutched his goal and drew himself across the cross-bars, and waited, panting, his heart throbbing as if it would burst, until the sentry should repass him. He soon approached. Nearer and nearer he came. He tramped beneath the crouching figure on the top of the telegraph pole. Niall muttered a prayer of thankfulness for the fierce wind and the torrential rain.

The blood suddenly roared in his ears with excitement ... the man had stopped ... was he going to look up?... he stamped his feet for a minute or two, then resumed his monotonous beat.

Niall quickly clutched the pole with his arms and knees and slithered to the ground. Bending low he ran swiftly across the area illumined by the glare from the prison yard, and found himself in the enveloping darkness of the night.

* * * * *

The fugitive had a roughly accurate knowledge of the immediate countryside, gained by constant observation during the occasional walks which had been permitted the prisoners, under escort. He purposed making for a thick wood which lay about two miles to the westward, and there concealing himself during the following day when the hue and cry would be in full swing. When night again came round he would push ahead; if possible, keeping a general course to the north-west, which, he anticipated, would in time bring him to some point on the Dutch frontier. He had saved up a quantity of food, which, with strict economy, he hoped might last him at a pinch for a fortnight. If, by that time, he had not reached the frontier, things might become awkward; but this was an eventuality too distant to be considered at the moment.

He found himself at the outskirts of the forest an hour later, and forged ahead through the crowding trees and thick undergrowth until dawn broke, when he searched about for a secure hiding-place. He resolved not to climb a tree as he felt that sleep was a necessity. Fortune favoured him by the discovery of a large fox-hole in a dense thicket; and down this he forced his way feet first, carefully wound up his wrist watch, and in five minutes was fast asleep.

It was one o'clock in the afternoon when he awoke. Scarcely a sound broke the tense silence of the wood. The rain had passed and the sun shone clear above the trees. He ate some biscuits and a meagre slice of tinned meat, washed his face and hands in a neighbouring stream, made some rough calculations on a sheet of paper as to direction, and settled down to wait for nightfall. With the advent of dusk he again set off through the forest.

For twelve long weary days and nights he successfully eluded capture and kept up the same monotonous round--hiding by day and pushing ahead by night. He had been forced on many occasions to retrace his steps or make circuitous rounds owing to coming suddenly on villages or towns, and he had not made the progress he had resolved to make. His food, too, he had miscalculated; and at the close of the twelfth day he found himself with his rations at an end, and hopelessly befogged as to his whereabouts. For another day and night he held out bravely, and then narrowly avoided detection in a fruitless attempt to steal a chicken from a farmyard. At the expiry of a fortnight he was starving and in the throes of a fever.

He came to a final decision. He would start again at dusk and press on. If by daylight there was no sign of the frontier he would give himself up. There was nothing else for it. He was in desperate straits: his clothes were torn to rags and he was almost overcome by the fierce grip of the fever that was rapidly consuming his little remaining strength. He had given up all hope of winning to the haven of neutral territory; it might not be far away, perhaps, but his power of endurance was at an end. However, he would forge ahead that night, whatever happened.

As soon as darkness rendered it safe he emerged from his concealment and struck westward along the edge of a rough country road. For hours he toiled along meeting with nobody, but making poor progress. He was becoming light-headed, and he lurched heavily as he walked. At intervals he burned and shivered and sweated fiercely. Time and again he fell on his face, but on each occasion he staggered to his feet and struggled ahead.

The night wore on, and through the clouds on the eastern skyline a palish light began to filter. The skies grew dull grey and then softer like the wing of a dove. Over the fields and hedgerows the luminous glow grew clearer as the wheels of the Dawn rolled on, touching the bare branches of the trees and silvering the green stagnant water in the ditch, by whose edge reeled and pitched an exhausted atom of humanity.

Niall raised his bloodshot eyes to the heavens.

"Well, this is the end of it," he muttered, "and probably the end of me too. I don't mind ... it's been a good effort, and I'm so tired ... my God, how tired I am!"

A hundred yards ahead a high wall began, evidently the bound of some large country residence, and not much further on was a small iron gate. Inside, a footpath led winding among the trees of a wide parkland. With shaking hands Niall unlatched the gate and followed the path. He could not see now where he was going: a red mist hung like a veil before his eyes. Once he ran against a tree, striking his head violently against the trunk. Dazedly he raised his hand to his forehead and felt it wet.... Shortly afterwards he reached the end of the parkland. Things grew clearer again, and he saw before him, not three hundred yards away, the grey battlemented towers of a stately castle. For a few moments he stared at it in a fuddled manner, then he collapsed into a ditch full of rotting leaves.

* * * * *

When he regained consciousness it was night. He must have lain there all day. Slowly past events came back to him, and he raised himself with difficulty on his elbow and looked at the winking lights in the castle windows. The fever did not trouble him now: all he was conscious of was a fierce, overpowering craving for food and warmth and rest. The twinkle of the lights called to him. It was a German house, certainly, but he would get something to eat there, and they would let him rest--how he wanted rest! His thoughts flew back to his home in the distant western isles. Would they be thinking of him? he wondered. Thank God, they couldn't see him now. His mother, and Eileen his sister ... they would be in the old library where they always sat at night, that vast stone-walled room above the cliff where the moaning of the sea rose eternally. And his father would be asleep in the red leather chair by the gun-room fire. He smiled as the vision rose before him. Would he ever see it again? Great God, why did men want to kill one another?...

His rambling thoughts switched off in another direction ... if they could see him now, perhaps his old father would go to the glass case on the library wall, take from its resting place the black chanter, and blow on it for the last time! He laughed hoarsely--a good joke that! Delirious and cracked, his voice suddenly croaked forth the weird notes of the black chanter's tune. Horrible and broken it rose on the still night air.

In a few moments the delirium passed, and with a mighty effort he got on his hands and knees. Painfully and slowly he began to crawl across the damp grass of the park towards the shadowy mass of the silent castle.

"They'll give me food," he gasped ... "and let me rest."