ii_^^^g^^i^
ir^^zzQ
mouths were made fur tank-ards and for suck-ing at the bung, said the
SPECIIMEN DAY
79
Chorus.
i
m^.
old bold mate of Hen - ry
f^-
-G-
SLt.
Izrlz:
=i)z::::=p:
Mor gan, Said the
— ©I-
old bold mate, said the old bold mate. But
!^gS^? I ^^^Ef?g ^^R:^
mouths were made fortank-ards and for suck-ing at the bung, said the
i^^.
^m
old bold mate of Hen - ry
-r-
Mor
gan.
" ' There be good and godly ones as thinks it is a sin
To troll the jolly bowl around and let the dollars spin,
But I'm for toleration and for drinking at an inn,'
Said the old bold mate of Henry Morgan.
"â– There be sad and wretched folk as goes in silken suits,
And there be mort o' wicked rogues as lives in good reputes;
So I'm for drinking honestly, and dying in my boots.
Like the old bold mate of Henry Morgan."
The sentry appears, shouting : " Lichts aus !"
He refuses to sing the Hymn of Hate. We give
him glasses three to drive him home, and chant the
tune on page 80 till he goes.
In five minutes he will reappear with a guard.
Then we shall disperse to our rooms. . . . Silence
will creep over the barrack. The P.T. (still on night
shifts) will recommence work.
8o
COMRADES IN CAPTIVITY
DRIVE HIM HOME.
-*^
'-^'-
-€>^
jizi&ii-ri— P=
^i^^^m
The picture drawn by Mr. Bernard for this
page will show what is happening in other rooms.
" Lights out " is the signal for temporarily covering
such lights as are made possible after hours by the
use of candles sent out from home, or tapped German
electricity.
" LIGHT AUS ! " A NIGHTLY PERFORMANCE COMMENCING
AT 10 P.M.
CHAPTER VII
PRISON MUSIC
Perhaps what I missed most at the front, and cer-
tainly what most I craved in captivity, was good
music. Books, thank God ! can be carried in the
pocket.
To suppose that the British are unmusical is
wrong. I have never been in a prison camp where
there was not made an attempt, generally successful,
to form an orchestra and perform good music. Nor
was this interest in music the work of a few en-
thusiasts (though they are always necessary what-
ever the object), as is proved by the fact that when
at Holzminden I delivered a lecture on so technical
a subject as " The Relations of Music to Poetry," a
dining-hall large enough to accommodate two
hundred people was packed, and people turned
away, so that the lecture had to be repeated: —
this in spite of the fact that I was by no means an
authority.
In large mixed camps like Giitersloh and Crefeld
the orchestras were very good, and I do not need
the old programme now before me to remind myself
83
84 COMRADES IN CAPTIVITY
of the burst of sweetness and light which fell upon
me at the hearing of four 'cellos playing together
very softly that aria of Bach for strings; and the
strange, sudden sense of exultation over circum-
stance called up by Schubert's " Unfinished Sym-
phony."
Nothing has the power of music to lift one out of
one's surroundings; and to none more poignantly
than to prisoners-of-war does Music bring her valiant
reminder of things " outside," the refreshing com-
fort of a world of realities transcending human
chance.
It was kind of the Germans to allow us to buy
musical instruments, and to hire a piano on which
Chopin could be played. The folk-songs of France
and of Russia, and that divine prelude and fugue of
Bach in E Major (surely the talking of angels over-
heard), was a joy hard to overrate. A very old
carol, sung to a fine tune which I had never heard
before my first Christmas in captivity, is this :
" Le petit Jesus,
Sauveur adorable,
La nuit dc Noel
Naquit dans I'etable;
Des bergers vinrent bient6t
L'adorer dans son berceau.
Et Ton vit trois mages
Offrir pour hommages
La myrrhe, Tor et I'encens,
Ah ! quels beaux presents !
Car J^3U9 k leurs yeux '
Est vraiment le roi des cieux.
PRISON MUSIC 85
" Les choeurs angeliques
Ont chante Noel !
Melons nos cantiques
Aux accents du ciel !
Noel, Noel, Noel !
Chantons tous Noel !
" Le dieu tout aimable
Est nc dans I'dtable
Gracieux et beau !
Sur la paille humide
Charmant et candide
Comme un doux agneau.
** Le petit Jesus
Disait le rosaire,
Penche sur le coeur
De sa tendre mere:
C'est lui qui fit le Pater,
Le divin Pater noster,
Et sa voix benie,
Saluant Marie,
Disait ' Ave Maria '
Et puis ' Gloria.'
II faut done chaque jour
Imiter ce Dieu d'amour.
" Les choeurs angeliques, etc
" AUons, ma pauvre ame,
Que I'amour t'enflamme,
Et nepleureplus !
Marie est ta m^re,
Et ton nouveau p^re
S'appele Jesus. '
The British also contributed their share; and the
Church of England choir sang another quaint little
carol, which begins thus :
7
86
COMRADES IN CAPTIVITY
se
^1
— * a » * \ -^ \
^
As
it fell out one bright morn-ing, All
±]?=Z=1=
'^
in the month of May; Child Je - sus asked of
^^S^^
^*E^
His dear mo - ther If
He might go and
1^^^=^
=F^=^
^
ifjzi:
1 r
play. "To play, to play, swe - et Je-sus shall go, And to
$ b P
5
id:
^
i^^l^
play now get you gone; And let me hear of
fI5?3^
^^^^m^
X
no com-plaints at night when you come home!"
It goes on to relate how the child Jesus was slighted
by the proud children of rich neighbours, and of
His refusal to take vengeance on them in spite of
His mother's urging, and the request of the angel
Gabriel that he might
" Take away their sinful souls
And dip them deep in hell,
PRISON MUSIC 87
" But '' No !' but ' No !' sweet Jesus said,
And ' No, that may not be.
'There are too many sinful souls
That yet have need of Mc.'
Then spake the angel Gabriel
Upon a good set steven,
' Though Thou art but a maiden's son,
Thou art the King of Heaven !' "
But the Russians were, taken all round, the acknow-
ledged musicians of the camp. It was not one or
two, but all of them that sang, and nearly all played
an instrument, if only the balalaika. It was in-
spiring to hear an excited crowd of them after some
mad escape marching round the camp, singing
national songs, several hundred voices blended
together in " Volga, Volga," the tale of one Stenka
Rasin, who sacrificed his bride to keep peace among
the " bold free men " of his army.
Sailing homeward with a Persian princess, the
hero at the head of his fleet in a coloured ship " cele-
brates his wedding merry and drunken."
" Now a rumour runs around him
Like a roll of sudden drums :
* One night to this slim girl wedded.
He himself a girl becomes !' "
Stenka Rasin hears the taunt, and his black brows,
says the song, " move together like thunder-clouds ";
" with dark blood are filled the eyes of the ataman."
The princess, who may be pardoned for having
fallen into some sort of fainting fit, silently hears
his impetuous and frenzied words : " I regret nothing,
but I will give you my all !" and his address to the
88
COMRADES IN CAPTIVITY
river, which was the Russians' favourite verse, and
often sung, like one verse of " God save the King,"
to do instead of the whole thing.
VOLGA, VOLGA.
Cos - sack of the
Don, Bringfs thee now the rich - est
Chorus.
^^EEBm
pre - sent Kv-er mo - ther took from son. Brings thee
now the rich-est pre - sent ev - er mo - ther took from son.
" To avoid a quarrel amid the bold free men "
(so runs a literal translation), " Volga, Volga, dear
Mother, let you take this beautiful thing !"
" Then the Persian girl he raises
High, and in one giant sweep
Swings her overboard and headlong
Down into the billowy deep."
" Dance now, you devils, and sing !" he shouts.
" Give her a merry requiem !"
This old song, but particularly the address to the
river, was sung by the Russians twenty times for every
one time they sang their national hymn. It was
PRISON MUSIC
89
their equivalent of our " Old Bold Mate " — whom
I hold to have been a much pleasanter fellow.
Here is " The Workmen's Song " (later referred
to in an account of the Russian concert), so far as
I have been able to squeeze verse out of a very rough
translation to fit the memory of its fine melancholy
tune. It was one of the songs forbidden in Russia
before the war, but everyone seemed to know it.
SONG OF THE SERF.
i
&1
^~^-
=LL p^ZJ 1 <_ \ 1
, \_^^.-n^=:Js3
-9—4ZDt
Oh, man-y and man-y a song^ did I hear in my
fcA=i-^
Kii
KJ
•-itlif
&'
home-land of joy and of pain. I re-mem-ber them not, for
ifzit
^m
al-\vays the song' of the serf is haunt-ing- my brain.
Chorus.
p.
y-^- -^ — •- * — • — m — j-
Woe to it, the big
log!
Curse it !
mf
f
iii^^^lSf:!!^^
?-
k - i=j
On - ly song can help us
ff_-
roll It. To-
f^
3^
H
-n— {^
gcth - er I To - geth - er I Heave all ! l^h 1
I
90 COMRADES IN CAPTIVITY
" Oh, wise are the English who harness their loads on machines
which are tireless and strong !
But we, falling under the weight, find nor help nor relief save
only in song.
Chorus:
" Woe to it, the big log ! Curse it !
Only song can help us roll it.
Together ! Together ! Heave all! {grunt.)
*' And so for our lifetime of toiling and haidship and want, to
our children we grant
But the labour unending which kills us, and this immemorial
labouring chant.
Chorus :
" Woe to It, the big log ! Curse it !
Only song can help us roll it.
Together ! Together ! Heave all ! {grunt.)
*' From father to son and to grandson, again runs this heritage
down through the years :
A song for the solace of sorrow, and only a song, for the comfort
of tears.
Chorus :
" Woe to it, the big log ! Curse it !
Only song can help us roll it.
Together ! Together* ! Heave all ! (grunt.)
*' But my father, now stark on his board, bade me go to the forest
to find, not a song,
But a club, and he bade me to break it on tyranny's back for our
servitude's wrong.
Chorus :
" Woe to it, the big log ! Curse it !
Only song can help us roll it.
Together ! Together ! Heave all !" (grunt.)
PRISON MUSIC 91
The Russian Concert.
An Impressmi.
" Beauty has as many meanings as a man lias moods."
" Withinside of a rich great garden — in what
country I could not know, since luxury is much the
same all the world over — the morning dew was
scarce dry on close-shaven sunny lawns, and within
the shadows of tall trees flowers as yet unnoticed
by the sun stood in rows, begemmed, and swaying
a little to the breeze like impatient, pretty, dancing
girls. Bird-song was in the air, and the plash of
playing fountains. Terribly close to earth, con-
stellations of green stars shone in the foliage of
trees, changing colour as the wind's fingers adjusted
leaves to the light, or in a silver flash turned them
upside down.
" Out of the shadow of these bright things stepped
presently the forms of human beings. Men and
women they were, and by their dress foreigners,
but of what century I know not, since elegance
remains almost unaltered by the flight of Time.
So, stately as trees and brightly clad as the flowers,
these men and women came with laughter and the
sound of lutes from out the chequered shadow, and
on the smooth lawn ranged themselves in the order
of a dance.
*' ' Was a lady such a lady,
Eyes so bright, and lips so red,
And the breast's superb abundance where a man
might base his head !*
92 COMRADES IN CAPTIVITY
" They danced; and with bird-song and the sound
of their dancing, the walled garden was brimmed
with sweetness as a great cup with wine. Shorn
of the blare of brass was their music, uttered sweetly
by curious shapely instruments of polished wood
beneath the caresses of the musicians, and so mingled
it was with the movement of the dance that one
looked at the feet of the dancers, expecting a breath
of sound to rise glittering in visible mist of music.
" It seemed that the earth was but a sweet unsteady
bell, to be set a-ringing by the beat and rhythm
of those twinkling feet.
" And after they had danced, they laughed to-
gether and sat down on banks and sunny patches of
the ground. . . .
" Then arose a dark man of melancholy features —
a singer. Tall and handsome he was, but with
always-hungering eyes; in the company but not of
it; and from his songs I learned how impossible it
is that adventure and passionate longing should ever
be put to sleep in the unquiet heart of a man; how
beneath the glitter of all bright things lurks sadness ;
that a walled garden, howso lovely, is a prison, and
the dancers within it exiles.
" And upon that note of sadness (since sorrow is
ever soaring) I took flight, and was borne without
the walls of the garden. The shimmer of satin
and of pearls gave way to that of snow. Brows of
men and women shone no more with jewels, but
PRISON MUSIC 93
with a nobler crown and tiara — sweat. The century
was my own. Out of that song-sweet place of flowers
I had come at last to Holy Russia. The gypsies'
song floats free on the frosty air, as they wander
under heaven, poor yet wanting nothing, homeless
but with the horizon for walls and the changing
sky for a ceiling. I watch them tramping, tired,
to the evening. I see them dancing about their fires.
" Meanwhile (for in music this miracle is wrought)
sounds on my ear the ' Song of the Workmen.'
Its sombre loveliness breaks over the heart in a wave
of feeling so tragic that (this is the test of great
tragedy) the result is sheer exaltation.
" On such a cry a soul is lifted to see (as Moses
saw from the mountain) the far-off destiny of man.
" The music stops. Again I am in the garden.
Darkness has fallen like a garment, and delight of
nightingales embroiders it with faint stars. Lovers
serenade with sweet melancholy their own desires.
" ' There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass:
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies
Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes,
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful
skies.'
Save this there is silence beneath the moon.
" Then suddenly, both stars and moon are
quenched in the blaze of lanterns carried by gallant
94 COMRADES IN CAPTIVITY
gentlemen and fair ladies. Laughter and music
break like a flood upon the garden. The dance
recommences. Gayer and yet more gay becomes
the tune.
" Gaiety, a coloured moon-bright bubble, is born,
and grows; swims gigantic, opalescent, wonderful,
upon the dark waters, . . . grows, . . . grows, , . .
yet more wonderful ! . . . Ah ! will it ever break? . . .
# # # #
" The Russian Concert is ended. My wan-
dering is done. Again at Giitersloh, and in room
65, I sit to write this review of the evening's enjoy-
ment.
"After an exhaustive study of Wagner's music,
Mark Twain came to the conclusion that it was
' better than it sounded.'
" All I can say about Russian music in general,
and about this concert in particular, is that it was
as good as it sounded — and that is the highest
praise.
" Music was to Dr. Johnson ' the least objec-
tionable of noises.' To me it is not less than a
passion. If the gods were moved by such human
prayer I should certainly be a musician. Alas !
the arts are not chosen. Creation of music is denied
me. But not, thank Heaven ! appreciation. From
a Queen's Hall concert or such evening as this
last, I come away literally crammed with new
experiences — richer by so much life.
PRISON MUSIC 95
" Why has this Russian music so much power to
affect me r I think the answer is :
" I. Because it is Music.
" 2. Because it is Russian.
" The chief interest of life is other men and women.
The chief interest of our prison life is other nations.
But the particular interest of each nation is its
nationality, just as individuality is the interest of a
man. These are truisms, but like most truisms they
are very little realized. Therefore I say: 'Oh,
you Russians, Caucasians, French, and you Irish,
English, Canadians, and Scots, give us of yourselves.'
" It is important to remember that we are all
the same. It is equally important to remember that
we are all different. That is our most interesting
quality."
* * * *
When the Russian revolution broke out most of
the Russian officers were overjoyed. " Now," they
said, " the army will no longer be betrayed by the
Court-hirelings of Germany. Russia will be Russian,
and victory must soon reward her !"
To-day a chill comes over me wondering how many
of those true-hearted patriots, whose whole thought
was for Russia, lie callously murdered because (dis-
regarding the invitations of their English friends)
they bravely and foolishly insisted on returning to
their own country in 191 8 after the Armistice.
CHAPTER VIII
GUTERSLOH: THE P.T. AGAIN
A FEW chapters ago I was bewailing the fact that
there was no available diary through which I might
give the reader a keyhole- view of the working of
the most important Giitersloh timnelHng party —
the P.T.
That it is better to be born lucky than rich is
shown by the fact that a week or two after that
chapter was written, I was standing with several
thousand more people in Trafalgar Square, to see
(one certainly could not hear it) a proclamation
about peace read by a gentleman who resembled
Oliver Goldsmith, when my eye was caught by a
sphinx-like familiar profile, and there, within reach
of my boot, stood " Mossy," a prime mover in the
P.T. He was, it appeared, loitering about on his
way to India, but before he went he promised to
send me his notebook of the history of the Giitersloh
tunnel. And here are some extracts.
" On July 7 " (this was about three weeks after the
sap had been started in the cellar) " we discovered
the doors of our cellar locked with enormous pad-
locks. We had now to find a way into the cellar.
96
GtiTERSLOH: THE P.T. AGAIN
97
P. suggested cutting a way in through the floor.
This would have meant a trap-door in the cellar
roof. My idea was to cut a panel (a la Ars^ne Lupin)
in the cellar door. To prove its possibilities I cut
out a panel of the door in Humf's room, and swung
it on hinges, sealing up the cut wth plasticine.
It wasn't my door, anyway.
T)oor p^mil
jbivoted here
OS
\X U^*J»•«^>r -nvA»j "^ «-«r*>. <x>%v>^w^^-►^^
" These suggestions were rejected, and D. was
put to work making keys for the padlocks.
" He did his job extraordinarily well, and within
a fortnight we were free to enter the cellar again.
The Making of the Keys. — An orderly worked
((
•vp'
98 COMRADES IN CAPTIVITY
in the Hun porters' room. We gave him a piece
of plasticine, and told him to take an impression
of the cellar keys. This he managed easily, and so
we had fine impressions of both keys to work from.
D. had got hold of a trench
ij looking-glass, a strong metal
^^ . . affair, and this he bent
round a steel rod the same
size as the keyhole.
"The measurements
from the impressions were
-JisccofA scratched on and the key
Imncb looking ^IMS ^ ^
shaped out with the stolen
chisel and file.
" The two flanges were riveted together with
brass nails.
" When the key was completed it was tried in the
lock, having first been held in a candle-flame and
covered with soot, so that
: ' -"f^ M the marks left on it
^ ^ L^^ showed what additional
filmg was required to
make it work properly.
" We got access to the cellars again about July 24,
but the Germans had been very active, and as if
to make sure that nothing should go on had put down
a floor of cement in the little chamber under the
stairs, thus completely blocking the entrance to our
sap.
GUTERSLOH: THE P.T. AGAIN 99
" So here was another problem.
" The solution was a daring piece of engineering
work planned by R. He decided that if the bottom
step could be moved by sliding it under the others,
it would leave a gap nine inches wide, through which
we could squeeze into the pit which we had already
made. His scheme was, therefore, to cut away the
brickwork immediately in rear of the step, so as to
3id.4,pJTtti faU« mii.aoao«Jbrh: rumowcd
TEUe tndiOnoJbrk
Ttard wood runnar
leave a space for it to slide into. The step had then
to be cut away from the masonry on either side and
underneath. Hard wood runners had to be placed,
and the step to be lowered about half an inch so as
to allow it to slide under the next step.
" The removing of masonry had to be done care-
fully, and patched up each day so that it would stand
German inspection. The mortar was gradually
TOO COMRADES IN CAPTIVITY
cut away with knives, and the bricks removed whole,
and false mason-work was made for each side to
fit into the holes thus made.
"... On July 30 we started to work on the
step, commencing about midnight. . . .
" It was at the end of September that the great
day arrived, and we had everything ready to move
the step. Four of us stood on the step and jumped
high in the air. It sank down on to the runners.
Following a scraping away of loose mortar, etc.,
it was pronounced ready for moving. Six of us
then got down on the floor, two with their feet
against the step, two with their backs supporting
the first two, and a couple more supporting them,
so that a living ram was made stretching from
the far wall to the step. Several good heaves — and
then the step slid smoothly over the greased runners,
leaving a gaping hole; and gazing down into it we
could see dimly the old neatly cut passage and its
supports.
" Again we were free to go a-tunnelling. . . .
" On October 8 we were surprised in the cellar
by the French carpenter. However, we tackled
liim, and he promised he would say nothing. His
words were something like this : ' Sir, I am a Parisian,
and we are accustomed to keeping secrets in Paris.
There are people who talk, but I am the soul of
discretion.' And apparently he was ; but the watcher
who allowed him to enter the cellar got hell.
GUTERSLOH: THE P.T. AGAIN loi
" On October 13, the step being open and the
sandbags lying out in the cellar to be carried away
by the whole P.T., the alarm was given by O., who
was on watch. There was no time to quit or even
to lock the door before the Boche had entered the
house and made straight for the cellar steps. It
was a plummer with tools and some piping. Poor
O. was just about to fling his arms round him and
hold him till we escaped, when he quietly put down
his tools and went upstairs instead of down.
" On October 19 we installed our ventilating
gear. It consisted of a large pair of bellows made
by R. Attached to the bellows was a length of
garden hose, and, acting by suction, it exhausted
the air in the chamber and forced it up a tube which
had an outlet under the outside steps of the house.
The good air came in from the movable step. But
it was found, after tunnelling a yard or two up the
sap, that the candles refused to burn, no matter
how hard the bellows worked.
'' We got out nine bags of sand the first day,
but on the second only four, the party being in
darkness and the air very foul.
" The next day we took down an electric torch
and got out seventeen bags.
" On October 22 we had gone seven feet. The
bellows had been overhauled, and for three days
we averaged forty bags a day. Then (as we got
farther from the pit) the air got worse and worse,
8
102 COMRADES IN CAPTIVITY
so that it was difficult to breathe. Another result
of working in bad air is that people are inclined to
be panicky. In the beginning of November we
were getting out between twenty and thirty bags
a day.
" On November lo there was a big search, which
commenced immediately after Afpel at 9.30 a.m.
This caused a big rush in our room, where the new
ventilating gear was in process of being made.
Sfrut
Boarsi
However, wc got away everything of a suspicious
nature — sandbags, civilian clothes, the fan and the
driving-wheel — into the Church of England chapel,
and stowed them under the altar. The search
passed off satisfactorily.
" The sap continued slowly because of the bad
air, and as the tunnel was pushed out from the house
it had to be timbered.
GUTERSLOH: THE P.T. AGAIN 103
" The timbers were put up in the following way :
You first put down a floor-board, which could be of
light wood, then a top of strong wood, supported