The Great Escape (10 page)

The duty pilot checked the Keen Type into the compound just after appell the next morning, and the runner slid off to warn Axel. Then he saw that the Keen Type seemed to be following him so he shied off. The ferret went straight into 105, knocked on Axel’s door, and put his head around the corner. “Keen Type here,” he said with a friendly grin. “Can I come in?”

He stayed a couple of hours, and then he excused himself, saying he’d better put in an appearance in the compound or Glemnitz would be wondering what he was doing. He was much more leisurely this time in his patrolling. He reported to Axel’s room every day after that for a brew, and when he reluctantly went out into the compound again he had a new benevolence. After a while Roger took him off the danger list.

Valenta had detailed a German-speaking contact to every ferret and administrative German who came into the compound. The contact made friends with his man, fed him biscuits, brews, and cigarettes, and listened sympathetically to his grumbles and worries.

Funny people, the Germans. When you got them in a bunch they were all Nazis (they had to be), but when you got the little people by themselves and worked on them for a while they didn’t have any morale underneath. Inside they seemed naked and defenseless. You could bribe 90 percent of them — including the officers — with a little coffee or chocolate.

In a way, I don’t think you could blame them. Valenta’s contacts were like white ants, nibbling away a little at a time at the German faith in victory. Hitler had said that if you tell a big enough lie, people will believe it, but he rather overlooked the fact that once the lie is exposed, everything else you’ve said is also disbelieved. It wasn’t hard to get a German thinking that Hitler wasn’t the angel of virtue, and then the rest of his edifice of wishful faith came tumbling down.

The contacts sympathized with their Germans that they had to fight Hitler’s war, lamented with them about Gestapo persecution, and poured out a stream of irresistible logic to show that Germany could never win.

“Why then,” they said, “regard us as enemies? Soon, you will want us as friends.”

The talking wasn’t only one-way. Delicate steering had the ferrets talking about the security measures they planned, about conditions in Germany, details of the area around the camp. Dozens of little snippets were picked up, and Valenta, who had done an intelligence course at Prague Staff College, put them all together with Roger.

Soon they knew all the paths around the camp, how far the woods stretched, and the layout of Sagan town. They had timetables of all trains out of Sagan Station and the prices of all tickets. They knew what foods were ration-free, where the Swedish ships lay in Stettin and Danzig, what guards were around them, what guards covered the Swiss frontier and the Danish frontier, and a thousand other handy hints on how to get out of the Third Reich.

Some of the most useful information was gathered by Bill Webster from the German officers. Webster was an American, though born in South Africa and educated there and in England. He was always impeccably dressed and had a man-of-the-world air about him that encouraged the Germans to believe that he would never do anything so vulgar as to engage in escape activities.

Bill did nothing to disabuse them of this belief. Whenever one of them dropped in on him he would graciously make his visitor welcome, and a pleasant chat would follow. Ultimately they would get around to lamenting the disruptions the war had caused — disruptions especially galling to men of the world like themselves.

“It is all so insufferable,” the German would say.

Bill would give a heart-felt sigh and nod his head.

“Even I must now have a special pass to visit Berlin,” the German would continue.

This, Bill would say politely, was an outrage.

And so on. By the time the tête-à-tête was over, Bill would know all about the special pass, the trains to Berlin, and conditions in the city.

Bill also interrogated all the newly-arrived prisoners to get from them every scrap of information about conditions outside that would be useful in an escape. This sort of work was going on in all the compounds, and we were pretty successful in exchanging the information.

“Why do you make such a bloody mess when you search the huts?” Axel asked the Keen Type.

“We have to be thorough,” said the ferret. “Germans are always thorough. We have to take everything apart or we are in trouble with Glemnitz. And if we waste time putting everything together again, we are in more trouble with Glemnitz.”

“You never find anything.”

“Orders,” said Keen Type virtuously, “are orders.”

“Orders don’t say you have to make a bloody mess wherever you go,” said Axel, who’d reached the stage where he could be a little stern with the Keen Type. “Last time you people went through my room, you pinched half the wood-shavings out of my paillasse, and it was spread all over the floor. It took me half an hour to clear up.”

“It wasn’t me,” the Keen Type said apologetically. “I will do your room myself next time.” He added reproachfully, “You must not forget that you are our prisoners. Do not expect too much.”

“Don’t forget you’ll be our prisoners one day,” Axel said, with flippant menace, though the Keen Type did not need much reminding. Axel had been wedging the thought into his mind for a couple of weeks.

“It’d help us all,” Axel went on, “if we knew when we were going to be searched. We could have things a little more orderly, and you wouldn’t have to waste so much time going through all the mess. Be a help to you too.”

“You ask too much,” said Keen Type, shaking his head in fright at the thought.

Axel carefully brought up the subject again the next day, but it was a fortnight before he got Keen Type to tell him what huts were to be searched in the next few days, and after that it was easy. Roger nearly always got at least a day’s notice of searches, and it was just a question of smuggling verboten stuff out of the hut next on the list, usually to the hut that was last searched. That was the safest spot of all. Once the ferrets had searched a hut it was usually immune till all the other huts had been searched and its turn came up again. It suited us.

“There’s madness in their method,” said Roger with satisfaction.

The contacts got more than information out of their German friends. There were a lot of things we wanted, and a prisoner’s opportunities for shopping are limited. If Plunkett wanted maps or Travis wanted some tool, Roger passed it on to Valenta, and Valenta told his contact men. Once a contact had his German well trained, it wasn’t difficult.

A bearded young man called Thompson worked in the kitchen block and was practically blood brothers with the little German clerk who checked the rations there. He was a nice little German who’d been a juggler in a circus before the war and traveled around the world a couple of times as a steward on boats and had no illusions about any nation, including his own.

Sitting over a brew one day, Thompson had a tantrum and smashed his cup on the floor.

“I’m going nuts in this place,” he moaned. “I’ll be no bloody good when the war’s over. I’ll be wire-happy in a strait jacket.”

“I would rather be here in your shoes than at the Russian Front,” said the little German philosophically. “You are better off than some. There’s an old Arabic proverb that says, ‘I cried because I had no boots till I saw a man who had no feet.’”

“I’d rather be flying again,” Thompson said dolefully, “even if I did get the chop. At least I wouldn’t be sitting on my arse all day being useless and thinking too much. I want something to do.”

“You can study your German,” said the little clerk grinning. “Your grammar sometimes amazes me.”

“Reminds me too much of being in here,” said Thompson. “I’d like to take up drawing again. I used to do it at school, and it was very soothing.”

The little German nodded approvingly.

“Only I haven’t got anything to draw with,” said Thompson plaintively. “Look, could you get me some drawing paper and nibs and Indian ink?”

The German looked doubtful. “You’re not allowed to have pens,” he said.

“They’ll never know. I won’t leave them around, and if the ferrets did find them, they’d only confiscate them. They only cost a couple of marks, and I could pay you with some coffee and chocolate.”

The German promised to think it over, and Thompson prodded him for a couple of days till one day the little clerk produced three drawing nibs, a little bottle of ink, and a dozen sheets of cartridge paper. He was nervous about it but went off happily with some cigarettes and coffee stuffed in his pockets. Thompson delivered the drawing materials to Tim Walenn in his forgery factory.

“It was a piece of cake,” he said. “I’ll get him to bring in some more in a couple of weeks.”

The first time was always the hardest, but once a man had done it, overcome his scruples, and found it easy and profitable, he did it fairly readily the next time until it became a habit.

There was a very young
Obergefreiter
(private) who was persuaded to bring in a pair of pliers and was paid very generously in chocolate. His contact explained apologetically that he had to draw the chocolate from his room mess and had to accound for it. Would the obergefreiter mind signing a receipt for it. Just a formality. Why no, the obergefreiter wouldn’t really mind at all, pocketed the chocolate, and signed on the dotted line.

He came to regret it. Later he brought in passes, money, files, maps, tools, and even some German uniform buttons and badges. It was much better than having his receipt handed over to the
Lageroffizer
and getting a bullet for trading with the enemy.

Bit by bit the stuff came in through all the contacts — pliers and hacksaw blades for Travis, inks and nibs and pens for the forgers, a magnet for Al Hake and his compass factory, bits of cloth and thread and buttons for the tailors, two prismatic compasses so the tunnels would go straight, German marks in dribs and drabs till “X” had quite a bank roll socked away. Also radio parts.

German news was a wee bit angled in their favor, and it was nice to hear from home. A couple of radio operator-air gunners assembled a compact and very powerful receiver. Travis made a hide-hole for it in Hut 101 by ripping a lavatory off its base and sinking the set in the floor below. The lavatory was set back on its base and looked as respectable as any lavatory can look, but the bolt heads holding it down were dummies. A couple of shorthand writers listened to the B.B.C. every day and took it all down. With stooges posted, it was read in all huts. The B.B.C. has never had a more appreciative audience. Nor, I imagine, will they ever have again.

But you couldn’t bribe all Germans. Glemnitz and Rubberneck were so obviously incorruptible that I don’t think anyone ever tried them. I don’t think I ever heard anyone ever refer to Glemnitz without saying “That bastard Glemnitz,” but there was no hatred in the term; it was almost an expression of respect because he was a good soldier, even if he was a German. Rubberneck was always called a bastard too, but with Rubberneck we meant it. For all the sinuous length between his head and his shoulders, he was a stiffneck, rank-conscious and with a dangerous temper.

There were a lot of good Germans in the camp. They were all Luftwaffe, just ordinary
Soldaten
, with wives and families and homes, and when you take the nationality tag off ordinary people they’re pretty much the same all over the world. It wasn’t till later that the Gestapo and S.S. came into the picture.

The Kommandant had been wounded seven times in the 1914 war, and now he was just over sixty, still as straight as a young lad. He was an
Oberst
(colonel), and his name was Von Lindeiner. He was a lean, good-looking man with composure in his face, always immaculate in the Prussian tradition, the Iron Cross on his left pocket, tailored tunic, extravagantly cut riding breeches and black riding boots.

Within the limitations of war, he and Massey were friends. Even if Von Lindeiner had been a petty tyrant, Massey would have tried to keep on reasonable terms for the concessions he could worm out of him for the camp; but as it was, it was an association based on mutual respect.

Von Lindeiner had once been a personal assistant to Goering, and Goering had put him in command of the camp because he knew him to be firm but humane. There wasn’t much that was humane about Goering, but he had been a brilliant operational pilot in the 1914 war, and we gathered he had a soft spot in his heart for Air Force prisoners. I can’t say any of us returned the feeling, and in any case Goering himself lost it when the bombing got under way.

Von Lindeiner was very correct. It is military etiquette in a prison camp for a captive officer to salute a captor officer and be saluted in return. But you must never salute without a cap on (except in the U.S.), and there were only a few caps in the whole of North Camp. So whenever Lindeiner came into the compound, the bare-headed prisoners who passed him would nod politely, and the impeccable Prussian would salute the scruffy prisoner who, like as not, had a great hole in the seat of his pants and a two days’ stubble because he’d been using the same razor blade for a month. It was intriguing situation, a touch of ritual and civilized sanity.

And next day the Kommandant would issue a routine order emphasizing to all guards the necessity to shoot anyone who poked his nose over the warning wire. (Not many of the guards needed prompting. The bombing was hurting them too much.)

Pieber was another good German. Actually he was Austrian, but that didn’t count. A lot of people said Pieber was two-faced, and perhaps he was. His brotherly love was half opportunism, but the other half was due to a kind, if not very stout, heart. He liked to be on good terms with everyone.