Almost a Great Escape Page 12
. . . Apparently the length of the tunnel had been miscalculated to the extent that the exit shaft had surfaced just short of the tree line and not well into the woods as intended. Therefore each man would be plainly visible as he emerged and ran across the open bit which separated him from the shelter of the trees.
This danger made it necessary to post a marshal outside to tell each escapee when the coast was clear. The marshal was posted just within the trees. He could signal to the tunnel exit by means of a thin rope laid out on the ground. Each escapee would without emerging from the shaft tell the marshal: “I’m here” by one pull on the rope. The marshal would then signal back “wait” or “come” whatever would fit the movements of the Germans.
I lifted the suitcase onto my shoulder and began climbing up the ladder. This shaft was narrower than the descent in the barrack but I managed to get out of it without a hitch. Just before reaching the top I recognized the signalling rope which was fastened to one of the top rungs. I grabbed the rope and pulled it. Waited for an answer but got none. I pulled again and this time received a reply: “All clear.”
I could see the clear sky above me and small stars indistinctly through the night mist. I climbed up and found my head above the ground. I turned towards the camp and was startled: one of the watch-towers was not more than thirty meters away. The watchman up there was apparently very keen, because he kept on looking in the direction of the camp. As long as he did this we could feel safe. I crawled right up onto the snow-covered ground, and with the guiding rope in my hand walked quickly into the woods.
AN ALICE STORY
DAY 21. MARCH 29, 1944
Marjorie questions you.
Yes. I accepted.
Good. Sya and I have agreed a three-month engagement will be appropriate.
A MESSAGE FROM JENS'S GRAVE
DAY 21. MARCH 29, 1944
Jens and Per have arrived by train in Stettin, a German-held port where Swedish sailors helped them stowaway on their ship sailing the next day for neutral Sweden. They had one dangerous trial left to pass — the ship would be searched by German patrols before it left the harbour. “Cold sweat poured out of me.”
We heard the hatch open and someone coming down the ladder. Voices, German voices. Now we heard the German say: “Was ist dar?” A loud, angry voice. And we heard our friend answer; — “Nothing.” The German mumbled: “Na, ich will nach sehmn.” (I will see.) After which we heard him climbing over the bulkhead to the chain case. All we could do was hold our breath. Cold sweat poured out of me. I heard him swear under his breath as he crawled over the slippery chain and over to the bulkhead of the rubbish case. I heard him breathing and growling as he came nearer. Then his torch touched the iron bulkhead which separated him from us. Then he bent down and felt something we had over us. I lay between two rolls of netting and suddenly felt his hand on my shoulder. I held my breath, tried not to tremble, and was sure he could hear my heart beating. Then he let go with a: “Na gut” and the light disappeared.
I heard him climb back over the chain and soon afterwards they both went up the ladder again. The hatch was closed and we thought we were alone once more, but could not be quite certain, so waited awhile before whispering to each other and discussing what to do next. We agreed to lie low for some time yet, because the Swede had told us that the ships had another inspection at the outlet of the harbour.
Five or six hours later:
We peeped out of the porthole and saw light.
“Light!” — “lots of light!” Sweden!
I felt like shouting with joy but would probably have disturbed the police who were checking our papers.
In 1951, six years after the war ended, Paul Brickhill would write of Jens and Per’s accomplishment: “It was the perfect escape.”
AN ALICE STORY
DAY 22. MARCH 30, 1944
The Alpine Inn
Friends phone the Alpine Inn. Congratulations. Ted’s sooooo right for you. We just loooove his British accent. We heard he’s going to take you to Venezuela. How terribly exciting.
Thank you. And you do not say, I will continue my writing. And you do not ask, will there be time for that in Venezuela? Away from Big Marjorie there will be time. You believe.
Betty Goodfellow phones: “Be careful. Ted won’t be good for you.” She does not know about Jens. Nobody does.
Sweden
Jens and Per are free men! In Stockholm, they are interrogated by the British Counsel before arrangements are made for their return to England.
AN ALICE AND TED STORY
DAY 24. APRIL 1, 1944. NEW YORK
The engagement settled, Ted leaves for the Shell Oil offices in New York where he attends a friend’s wedding and writes:
Dear Alice,
. . . Feel a bit better now after about 10 hours sleep and a bath! That’s the trouble with wedding parties and receptions. They made me be an usher so I got the low down on everything. All those things you have to promise in the service are pretty grim! Have you ever listened carefully to a wedding service? I was quite scared! Hope you and I will be able to live up to it all when our turn comes!
. . . All my love and see you soon, my sweetheart,
Ted
Didn’t you wonder? Why would he warn his fiancée that he might have trouble keeping the “pretty grim” marriage vows? Did Jens ever falter?
AN ALICE STORY
HESITATION
Day 31. April 8, 1944. London
Jens and Per are flown to England. He sends telegrams. “I am longing to see you Alice. Love your Jens Müller.”
I cannot imagine what you thought. To me, your reading this telegram must have been like the moment when Santiago saw the marlin’s immensity swimming under the skiff, longer than the skiff. Can a marlin be that big? Never. But he is.
And Jens has escaped from his never and is coming for you.
You hesitate. You delay announcing your engagement on the Society Page. You see the sharks closing in on you. Big Marjorie suspects her plan is in trouble. She presses you. Quit McGill. Get ready for your marriage. We want to see the Trafford Family crest on your little finger.
Day 42. April 19, 1944. Venezuela
Sya presses her son. We’re broke. Marry the rich blonde. Secure our future.
Ted writes from Venezuela. “Why haven’t you announced the engagement yet?”
LETTERS
DAY 53. APRIL 30, 1944. LONDON
Dearest!
Thanks for your answer to my telegram. It took less than a week to reach me, & the distance between us seems quite small again.
Although it makes me feel like a recruit waiting to be examined by a medical board, I agree with you that we shall have to meet again before we make up our minds to marry; I mean: “who to marry.”
It’s all very difficult, isn’t it? With the best years flying past, & nothing happening; & the memories fading, etc.
I only hope Alice, that you do not feel bound by the things you told me when you were seventeen. It is unfair to your-self to wait for a fellow like me, whose future is very uncertain.
Well Alice, I shall end this letter now by telling you that I love you more than ever, & ask you to please send me a big photo of yourself (Ottar says you have changed a lot). You see, I had to leave (in Stalag Luft III) the one you gave me in Canada.
My love to all of you.
Your Jens
Your Jens is a gentleman. All he asks for is a photograph. He will not hold you to the promise you made before he was stationed in England. He will wait and see.
Now he is doing what he promised — he is not wasting any time in coming to you. He is crossing the Atlantic on a troop ship. On board, he hears the terrible news — 50 of his fellow prisoners were executed after the escape, including fellow Norwegian Halldor Espelid. Only he, Per Berglund, and a Dutchman, Bram van der Stok, had made it home.
AN ALICE STORY
DAY 63. MAY 10, 1944. EDEN BROOK
And now I’m he
re, thinking of you 62 years later. Thinking of your blue eyes, your strong hands, and your thick wave of blonde hair and all the things we stopped talking about after our railway station goodbye. Yours was the hardest silence I will ever know. Your blue eyes and thick wave of blonde hair are fine grey ashes buried below two square feet of echoing bronze.
Flight Lieutenant Jens Müller rides his Norton motorcycle into your debutante world. The shot down Spitfire pilot. Escaped from Stalag Luft III. Handsome. Modest. Offering you no future but his love forever.
“I am promised to another,” you tell Your One Good Thing.
Those are your words. Verbatim. You repeated them years later to a close to your hidden heart friend. She gave them to me.
“I am promised to another.”
Sixty years later I attend your funeral not knowing about an album. About The Campbell’s Soup Box you packed for me. Not knowing you were tied to me by this:
“A fisherman like Santiago keeps his truly big fish in his heart, whether he brings it to the shore or not. What or who we love never gets away. We fight the sharks forever to remember that love.”
AN ALICE AND TED STORY
THE HARD FACTS
The Holy Cross Hospital is closed now. Out of date. But a good place for us to talk. Five of your seven children born here. I too often drove you to the entrance in 1977 for your cobalt treatments. One breast. Your womanness under attack by surgeons and infidelity. Your thick blonde hair thin and dry. Slipping a couple of joints into your pack of du Mauriers. Stopped the nausea you said.
I didn’t bring you today to see this sadness vacant parking lot. Only so I could remember the hard muscles along your jaw the day you said it always hurt. You wake up knowing it is going to hurt all day. Nothing can be done about it. Endure. I was enduring but not like you. You were so goddamned strong.
I’ll read this 1977 letter from your suitcase.
Dear ——
I haven’t written you since before Xmas. The effect of the cobalt is wearing off now & I am not feeling so tired and depressed. Also I am in the hands of an excellent cancer doctor. He wants me to use chemotherapy starting the 1st of March but will watch it for a few days after the treatment which takes four days & then stop it if it is too disastrous.
Alice
Your cancer was unavoidable so you endured the pain, fighting back with your fuck you attitude. But with Ted you endured a pain you didn’t have to. Why no fighting back? Was never going back the only way you knew to live?
I cannot reconcile the cancer fighting you with the strange to me hint of acquiescence in the Terms of An Engagement letters you wrote Ted after he had returned to Venezuela for the seemly three-month waiting period.
Or did you already see the black eyes ahead? The marriage deal done, the promise made. Could you guess but not believe what was to come for the Golden Girl? You were now his. To do with as he feudally pleased. Cancer must have seemed of no concern to you.
Your family has plans for a grand Montreal wedding. The demands begin. Ted wants to be married in Trinidad with his mother and father. You write:
May 11, 1944
Ted darling,
Tonight I sent you a cable saying how much Mummy and Daddy wish us to be married up here at our home if possible. Under ordinary circumstances, my mother, and perhaps everyone, might easily have gone down to Trinidad with me, but as you probably know only my father would be able to go down.
Ted darling you must know how much I love all my family and it means more than I can tell you to have them at our wedding. They have all told me it would be a great disappointment to them if they could not be there too.
. . . The date of our wedding will be up to you to decide and since, in all probability, it will take place up here, I hope that it will still be in July or August. We could be married either in Montreal or St. Marguerite’s — would you like to be married in St. Marguerite’s? I think that perhaps that would be the best but that again would be up to you. I know that Mummy would arrange for it to be really lovely up here and that both you and I would have many happy memories in the future. However, there will be no plans made until you let me know what can and cannot be done.
Ted darling, forgive me if I am being selfish in telling you how I feel about this. You must know that the only important part to me is that I love you so very much that I would go to any lengths to make you happy.
. . . I realize that even if you are more to me than anyone else in the world I still owe a great deal to the others I love. But it is not only because my family want us to be married here but also because I want to be with them. And so again darling, forgive me, but may we be married at our home?
. . . All my love
Alice.
The apologetic tone of this letter isn’t like you. Not at all. Ted’s harsh response was undated and without a salutation:
Just received three letters and also a cable about your family suggesting that we be married at your home if suitable. Now for some hard facts re this latter! Between us, darling, there can be no reticence or concealments of the facts of any case; there is no need for me to tell you how much I appreciate the spirit in which your parents make this suggestion, but I do feel that it is impractical for the following reasons: —
1. It is war-time and we are terribly short-staffed and while I could insist on special leave I wouldn’t feel quite right about it just having come back from foreign leave. To Trinidad, as opposed to Canada, is an easy hop. I can wait till you are there first [and settle] the exact date of my leaving until fairly late and be the minimum time travelling and the maximum time honeymooning in Caracas or somewhere! If I take 10 days to go to Canada and back most of the time will be dashing in and out of trains, planes and hotels, and we might be held up for days waiting for priorities.
2. The money position. You get your fares paid by the company, but special leave is for personal account. There and back will cost about $750 for me. Now I could if necessary afford this amount, but it seems to me a lot better to spend such a sum later if for example you want to take a trip back home after being down here a year or so.
I don’t believe I ever told you about the financial situation. You had better know the facts. My salary is $400 (U.S.) a month. We then get a living allowance of about $180 (married). The latter takes care of food and servants o.k. as far as I can gather. Of course, house, gas, light, etc. furniture, medical care, here and any treatment needed abroad, are on the company. Taxes are negligible. After paying your provident fund (10% of your salary to which the company adds 10%) and club bills have been deducted, we will probably receive $250-300 per month in the bank in the USA. One never sees any money here. The accounts department makes all the deductions and you get a piece of paper with your monthly statement. You will begin to understand why often in Canada I never had any change! You just get used to not thinking about cash! So now you have a rough idea of your future financial level. But it is hard to compare with what you’d have at home. The way of living is so different. Afraid I’ve never saved anything. i.e. all spent on leaves except for a few war bonds and my provident fund. Bad, I know, but since I was at school my parents have been comfortably well-off and I never got in the habit of thinking about rainy days!! And in this sort of job, nowadays, you can be reasonably secure, and if you get fired you’d not have much difficulty getting another job, and then always more or less unconsciously at the back of one’s mind is the knowledge that one’s family wouldn’t let one starve. People who have been poor are generally a lot more careful than people like us. I guess it is a question of the fact that these things are only learned the hard way — by experience. Well, you and I will have to start learning together. Open a savings account or something!
That was quite a digression about money, wasn’t it? So back to site of wedding. I know that the reasons I think we ought to get married in Trinidad are rather practical ones. Against those are the feelings and desires of your parents and maybe your own. Also I told you that if y
ou really wanted me to come to Canada, one way or another, I would. That still goes. So in the light of the above let me know if you are happy for it to take place in Trinidad.
I know my parents will make you absolutely at home for the time you will be with them. I don’t quite gather whether all of our parents expect us to wait longer till some time in July. It will be more than three months in mid-July; after all I think that anyone would be convinced by then that we know our minds! My love, my only desire is to be with you. I know you feel the same. For goodness sake don’t let’s have any hold ups unless absolutely unavoidable. Maybe we are being a little selfish, but on the other hand our parents will see us fairly often, and in an emergency it is only a couple of days journey to Canada.
About the ring; I have already written you and to confirm it sent a cable today. Must close as this is from the office and I have a stack of company letters to sign.
All my love, my own Alice, Ted.
And so ends the lesson: 838 words about hard facts, 7 words about love. How many lies are twisted into those facts . . . “my parents have been comfortably well off!”
You agree to be married, without your family, in Trinidad.
As for the engagement ring, Bert took care of it, buying a diamond for you at Birks in Montreal. Ted would later pay half the Birks bill when pressed by Bert. Ted’s parents gave Alice a gold ring with the Trafford family crest.
LETTERS
JENS'S LAST TO ALICE