generals were housed. My future companion was named Marchese and was in outward appearance a typical Italian. He was something over forty years of age, slim of figure with agreeable manners and distinctly well-dressed; I was particularly impressed by his physique. At the outset we had difficulties in understanding one another. He spoke no German and I no Italian. We both knew only a minimum of English, so we conversed, with the help of a friend, in halting French. Marchese told me about the war in Abyssinia, and of an earlier attempt he had made to escape from a P.O.W. camp.
Fortunately for him he received the pay of a British general and money was no problem. He was able to procure for our flight things which I could never have obtained. What he needed was a partner familiar with the Himalayas—so we very soon joined forces on the basis that I should be responsible for all the planning, and he for the money and equipment.
Several times every week I used to crawl out to discuss details with Marchese, and by practice became an expert in penetrating barbed wire. Of course there were various possibilities for the escape but the one that seemed to me the most promising was based on one important fact—that every eighty yards along the “chicken-run” enclosing the whole camp was a steep, straw-thatched roof that had been put up to protect the sentries against the tropical sun. If we could climb over one of these roofs we should have crossed the two lines of barbed wire at a single bound. In May 1943 we had completed all our preparations. Money, provisions, compass, watches, shoes and a small mountaineer’s tent were all ready.
One night we decided to make the attempt. I climbed as usual through the fence into Marchese’s wing. There I found a ladder ready, which we had grabbed and hidden after a small fire in the camp. We leaned it against the wall of a hut and waited in the shadow. It was nearly midnight and in ten minutes the guard would change. The sentries, waiting to come off duty, walked slackly up and down. A few minutes passed until they reached the point where we wanted them. Just then the moon came up over the tops of the tea-plantation.
There we were. It was now or never.
Both the sentries had reached their furthest point from us. I got up from my crouching position and hurried to the fence with the ladder. I laid it against the overhanging top of the fence, climbed up, and cut the wires which had been bunched together to prevent access to the thatch. Marchese pushed the thicket of wires on to one side with a long forked stick, enabling me to slip through on to the roof. It was agreed that the Italian should follow me immediately, while I held the wire apart with my hands: but he did not come. He lingered for a few ghastly seconds, thinking that it was too late and that the guards were already returning—and, indeed, I heard their steps. I left him no time for further reflection but caught him under the arms and pulled him on to the roof. He crept across and dropped heavily down into freedom.
But all this had not happened in dead silence. The watch was alarmed and they started shooting; but as their firing broke the stillness of the night, we were swallowed up by the jungle.
The first thing that Marchese did, in expression of his warm southern temperament, was to embrace and kiss me, though this was hardly the moment to give vent to outbursts of joy. Rockets went up and whistles sounded near us showing that pursuers were on our track. We ran for our lives and moved very fast, using short cuts which I had got to know very well during my outings from the camp. We made little use of the roads and skirted round the few villages we found on our way. At the outset we hardly noticed our packs, but later on they began to feel heavy.
In one of the villages the natives beat their drums and we at once fancied they were sounding the alarm. That was one of the difficulties which anyone brought up among our exclusively white population can hardly imagine. In Asia the “Sahib” invariably travels with an escort of servants and never carries the smallest package himself—what could the natives think, therefore, when they saw two heavily laden Europeans plodding on foot through the countryside!
We decided to march by night, knowing that the Indians are afraid to go through the jungle in darkness on account of the wild beasts. We did not particularly enjoy the prospect ourselves, having often read stories of man-eating tigers and leopards in the newspapers available in the camp.
When day dawned we hid ourselves, exhausted, in a wady and spent the whole day there, sleeping and eating in the burning heat. We only saw one person during the day, a cowherd; fortunately he did not see us. The worst thing was that we each of us had only a single water-bottle, which had to suffice for the whole day. It was no wonder that when evening came, after a day spent in keeping quiet, we could hardly control our nerves. We wanted to get on as quickly as possible, and the nights seemed far too short for our progress. We had to find the shortest way through the Himalayas to Tibet, and that would mean weeks of strenuous marching before we could feel ourselves in safety.
We crossed the first ridge on the evening after our escape. At the top we rested for a while and saw 3,000 feet below us the countless twinkling lights of the internment camp. At 10.15 p.m. the lights all went out together and only the searchlights round the camp gave an idea of its enormous extent.
This was the first time in my life that I really understood what it meant to be free. We enjoyed this glorious feeling and thought with sympathy of the two thousand P.O.W.s forced to live down there behind the wall of wire.
But we had not much time for meditation. We had to find our way down to the valley of the Jumna, which was completely unknown to us. In one of the smaller valleys we walked into a cleft so narrow that we could not get on, and had to wait till morning. The place was so lonely and sheltered that I could without misgiving take the opportunity to dye my blond hair and beard black. I also stained my face and hands with a mixture of permanganate, brown paint, and grease, which produced a dark shade. By this means I acquired some resemblance to an Indian; that was important as we had decided, if we were challenged, to say that we were on a pilgrimage to the sacred Ganges. As for my companion he was dark enough not to be noticeable at a distance. Naturally we did not mean to court close inspection.
On this evening we set out before it was dark, but soon had to rue our haste, for crossing a slope we found ourselves in the presence of a number of peasants planting rice. They were wading half-naked in the muddy water and stared in astonishment at the sight of two men carrying packs on their backs. They pointed to the slope high up on which one could see a village, which seemed to mean that this was the only way out of the ravine. To avoid awkward questions we walked straight on, as fast as possible in the direction indicated. After hours of climbing and descending we at last reached the river Jumna.
Meanwhile night had fallen. Our plan was to follow the course of the Jumna until we reached one of its tributaries, the Aglar, and then to follow this stream till we came to the watershed. It could not be far from there to the Ganges, which would lead us to the great Himalayan chain. Most of our route up to this point had been across country, and only here and there along water courses had we found paths used by fishermen. On this morning Marchese was very much exhausted. I prepared cornflakes for him with sugar and water, and on my insisting he ate a little. Unfortunately the place where we found ourselves was most unsuitable for camping. It was swarming with large ants which bit deeply into one’s skin, and we could not sleep because of them. The day seemed endless.
Towards evening my companion’s restlessness increased and I began to hope that his physical condition might have improved. He, too, was full of confidence that he would be able to cope with the fatigue of the next night. However, soon after midnight, he was through. He simply was not up to the enormous physical effort needed of us. My hard training and condition proved a godsend to us both—I often used to carry his pack strapped over my own. I should say that we had covered our rucksacks with Indian jute sacking to avoid arousing suspicion.
During the next two nights we wandered up-stream, frequently having to wade through the Aglar when our way along the bank was blocked by jungle or rocks. Once as we were resting in the bed of the stream between two rocky walls,
