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Updated: June 3, 2025
A splendid orchestra was organised, a dramatic society which gave plays in French and one which gave plays in English and another one which gave operas. On New Year's day, 1916, I attended at Ruhleben do really wonderful performance of the pantomime of "Cinderella"; and, in January, 1917, a performance of "The Mikado" in a theatre under one of the grand stands.
And once more the Frenchman giggled in the face of the non-commissioned officer. "Why, yes. Now that you mention it, a man's mostly hungry who tramps the country at night, and rushes about the place in search of prisoners. Listen, youngster; you've seen three men crossing this way three men who have broken out of Ruhleben?" Henri looked at him vacantly. "Prisoners?" he asked. "Germans?"
Where's your master, lad; and where are you going?" A big, burly man, a non-commissioned officer, one of the staff at Ruhleben, barred Henri's progress, and, snatching the lantern which one of his men carried, held it over the youth he had accosted and surveyed him closely. "Baskets eh? And full of provender beer and sausages and bread well I never!" gasped the Sergeant. "Who may you be, my lad?
Thus we had been confined to our carriages for 21½ hours, suffering intense discomfort from the stifling atmosphere and our cramped quarters. Our first impression of Ruhleben was by no means inspiriting. The camp had been started some two or three months previous to our arrival on November 14th, 1914, but it was in a terribly chaotic condition.
I do not know whether this arrangement was actually carried out in full. With the lapse of time the mental condition of the older prisoners in Ruhleben had become quite alarming. Soldier prisoners, when they enter the army, are always in good physical condition and enter with the expectation of either being killed or wounded or taken prisoner, and have made their arrangements accordingly.
And here they were, the hale, the young, the sick, and the old, hustled to Ruhleben, and herded there together in such an old shed as the one in this far corner.
We were almost in their clutches now, the arrival at Kiel and transference to Ruhleben were openly talked of, and our captors showed decided inclination to jeer at us and our misfortunes. We were told that all diaries, if we had kept them, must be destroyed, or we should be severely punished when we arrived in Germany.
"And so it is you you, Jules?" cried Henri, as dawn broke on the early morning of the 23rd and discovered his comrade. "Well, I never!" It was typical of the gallant and gay Jules that he grinned in the face of his chum, and repeated the observation. "Well, I never! And what a sight to be sure! We were gentlemen when escaping from Ruhleben compared with our condition now.
The outcome was that when finally the matter had been trotted through the Ruhleben German Circumlocution Office, and my eviction was officially sealed, I warded off the fate by announcing that I was overwhelmed with engraving orders for the military officers of the camp. It was a desperate bluff, but it succeeded.
One glance was sufficient for Henri then, and in a moment his thoughts flew back to Ruhleben, to that little hovel down in the corner of the camp the tool-house which the Germans had considered even too good for their unfortunate prisoners. And outside it; to that scene which he and Jules and Stuart had witnessed on that eventful evening when they made their escape.
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