Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons: Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben. Frederick Arthur Ambrose Talbot
space being immediately before me.
At this date I often reflect upon the strange and sorry sight I must have presented. I was dressed in a frock coat which was sadly soiled, a white waistcoat extremely dirty and blood-stained, and trousers sadly frayed at the bottom where the searchers had ripped off the turn-ups. I was without a shirt, having torn this up to bandage my head, which even now was swathed in a dirty, blood-stained dressing, while the buttons had become detached from my under-vest so that the soiled ends flapped over my waistcoat. My face was none too clean, being besmirched with smudges, since I had been denied the luxuries of soap and towel, and it was covered with a stubbly growth. Altogether I must have been the most sorry-looking, if not revolting specimen of a spy ever arraigned before that immaculate Tribunal.
It is useless to relate the trial in extenso because there were so many details which were completely void of interest except to me and my judges. Although every word, passage, and scene is burned into my brain I have only committed the most important episodes to paper. The proceedings opened with the chairman holding forth in monotone German. Seeing that I took no notice of his tirade he paused. We were soon to come to grips. He fired at me in English:
"You understand German?"
"No!"
"Well, we think you do!"
"You are at liberty to think what you like, but the fact remains that I don't!"
Seeing that I was not to be over-awed by his arrogance or to be brow-beaten he modified his attitude. This spirited bout sobered the tribunal, and the trial proceeded more smoothly, except for a few outbursts now and again which were sharp and pointed while they lasted.
"Well, we will provide you with an interpreter," he continued in a more placid tone, "but we still hold the opinion that you can speak and understand German!"
There was delay for a few minutes. Then the door opened and a second later my interpreter stood beside me. How it was I did not jump into the air I do not know, because the man summoned to assist me was none other than the mysterious prisoner with whom I had been talking in the mute alphabet.
This dénouement almost unnerved me. I was now more positive than ever that he had been deputed to spy upon me in prison. I looked at him askance, but received not the slightest sign of recognition. I had refused to entrust my cause to counsel and now I was placed in the hands of an interpreter who, if he so desired, could wreak much more damage by twisting the translations from English to suit his own ends.
As events proved, however, I could not have been in better hands. He was highly intelligent, and he interpreted my statements with a fluency and accuracy which were astonishing. Only now and again did he stumble and hesitate. This was when he was presented with an unfamiliar expression or idiomatic sentence.
As the trial proceeded I gained an interesting side-light upon German methods and the mutual distrust which exists. Ostensibly, and so I was led to believe, none of the Tribunal spoke English with any fluency, but when, on one occasion, my interpreter was floored by a particularly difficult colloquialism which I uttered, the Clerk of the Court came to his aid, and in a moment turned the sentence properly to convey my exact meaning. This revelation placed me on my guard more than ever, because it was brought home to me very convincingly that if my interpreter tended to lean unduly towards me, he himself would be in serious jeopardy. Later, during the trial, I discovered that the Clerk spoke and understood English as well as I did. It was a telling illustration of the German practice of spying upon one another.
The first part of the trial was taken up with a repetition of the numerous questions I had already answered times out of number, accompanied by a more searching cross-examination. As the trial proceeded I saw that the authorities had collected every vestige of evidence from every official who had questioned me and with whom I had held any conversation.
There was one exciting moment. An officer, evidently of high rank, entered the room. He looked at me in a manner which I resented. With a sneering grin he enquired,
"Englander? Ha! Ha! Spion? What are you doing here?"
"I have come at the pressing invitation of four gentlemen with four points!" I suavely replied.
This sly allusion to the four soldiers with their bayonets lashed the interrupting officer to fury. The whole court indulged in a wild and loud conversation. The chairman waved his arm wildly. Before I grasped what had happened the soldiers closed round me, I was roughly turned round, and to the accompaniment of liberal buffeting was hustled down the steps to my cell.
A few minutes later my interpreter came to me.
"Listen to me, English friend. You must not annoy the Court. I am trying to do all I can for you. I do not think you guilty. But if you are—what do you call it—h'm——" and he snapped his fingers perplexedly.
"Sarcastic?" I ventured.
"Yes! That's it. If you are sarcastic you make my work very hard!"
"But that officer had nothing to do with the Court, had he? Why did he interfere with a gratuitous insult?"
"Ah! I see. You don't understand. They will do that. But you must remember the uniform!"
Further conversation was prevented by the reappearance of the soldiers. I was to be taken back to the Court. I decided to take my interpreter's advice, and although I was frequently roused intentionally, I bit my lip at the insults and choked down sharp retorts.
"Do you realise the nature of the charge and the gravity of your position?" asked the chairman, after proceedings had been resumed. There was no trace of resentment at the recent incident in his voice.
"I do perfectly."
"Then do you not think it somewhat strange that a man like you should be travelling to Berlin, on the way to Warsaw, on the very day when war was declared against Russia? Is it not strange also that you should be here after Great Britain has declared war?"
"When I set out for Berlin war had not been declared between Germany and Russia. On Monday when I was arrested war had not been declared against Germany by Great Britain. I was arrested on the flimsiest pretext and upon the word of a deliberately lying youth before war had been declared with my country!"
"Ah! we shall see. You do not think it strange to be travelling through Germany at such a perilous time with so much photographic apparatus?"
"No! I was not using it!"
"So you took no photographs in Germany?"
"No!" And the lie flew out in spite of myself. But I felt perfectly secure because I knew exactly where the film, which I had exposed, was. It was beyond their reach!
"Then what is this?" And to my surprise he held up somewhat triumphantly the length of photographic film from the camera with which I had taken the two farewell pictures of my family.
Up to this point I had successfully maintained a stiff upper lip and perfect composure. But at the sight of the film carrying the parting pictures, my thoughts flew to home and its associations. I broke down.
The court was jubilant. My spontaneous outburst of weakness at memories of home was misconstrued into a recognition of the fact that I had been trapped.
Amid a silence which was soul-burning and which caused my voice, quivering at first but rapidly regaining strength and its natural ring, to echo strangely through the room, I narrated the history of that film. As I had expected it provoked a fearful wrangle. The fight was sharp and hot while it lasted, but I thanked my lucky stars that I was not only well skilled in the technics of photography but the chemistry side as well. The film in question was sufficient for six exposures. Three had been made. In addition to the two pictures of my family's farewell which corresponded to exposures two and three there was another picture, of archæological interest, concerning a Sussex church, which was exposure number one. The rest of the film, which would have corresponded to pictures 4, 5 and 6, had never been exposed.
The film which was held up had been developed by order of the court. The unexposed portion