Land a X d \\- A T E R . 
January 13, iQiG. 
to recognise root principles. Reading and experiences ; 
they clashed in chaos. It was all disopdercd. The world 
knew no laws, oxporiment led to no conclusions. I", very- 
thing seemed haphazard. The atmosphere, damp and 
heavy ; the surroiuidings, the circumstances ; throw 
npon us a cloak of apathy enveloping and stifling. Life 
passes monotonously ; there is little to distinguisii one 
day from another. p:vcr>onc has sunk into his own 
groove, getting up at the same hour, eating the same 
food, playing tennis with tlie same people. It is wonder- 
ful how closely each one knows the habits of the other. 
I suppose our conversation is only so much repetition. 
There are plans of escape ever being discussed. 
During the simimer ten aviators who had been at Gronin- 
gen, where the men of our luckless brigade are interned, 
gave in their parole and were sent here. It was amusing, 
though at the same time rather pathetic to hear them 
turn over and discuss, at first with confidence which 
soon melted away, plans that we had thrashed out and 
rejected long ago". The desire to escape expresses itself 
in very varj-ing degree of intensi"t\'. NVTiile most are ever 
ready to seize or to make opportunities, they do not allow 
the subject to be for ever in their minds and on their lips : 
with a few it has become almost an obsession. Two of 
our number, aided by some luck, managed to get away, 
but since then several weak points have been rendered 
impregnable. There was great activity for some days, 
more lights, more barbed wire, possible cover cut away 
and a doubled patrol on the other side of the moat. 
Schemes of Escape. 
Then a scheme of escape, conceived soon after our 
arrival but abandoned after two abortive attempts, was 
revived and begun on more thorough and better 
organised lines. A tunnel was projected from one of the 
sleeping rooms, under a brick patii outside, through the 
earth rampart to the moat-. \\c dug out a large hole, 
running the whole length of the room, packing the earth 
in a space nine inches high, between the floor and the 
concrete foundation. Into this reser\-oir, we stored the 
earth from the tunnel proper. We picked through the 
brick wall of the foundation and mined six feet deep 
below the path. Lower we could not go for already the 
earth was wet. We had cut nearly half fray through the 
rampart, before by merest chance a Dutch servant dis- 
covered the trap door under the linoleum and found what 
lay beneath. The work in the narrow stuffy tunnel had 
become so hard that no one dug for longer than fifteen 
minutes at a time. The air was so bad that no candle 
would stay ahght and we worked by the light of an electric 
torch. There could be no darkness more blinding and 
more intense, than of that long hole, so narrow that 
one could hardly turn from side to side. There was no 
light from the entrance for we had curved the passage 
to avoid the roots of a tree. The tunnel had meant more 
to us, even than the path to freedom. In a life of idle- 
ness or at the best, of work which could be done when and 
how we wished, this was a definite task, regular and 
insistent. When it was discovered pur one occupation 
was gone. We had only old amusements and hobbies 
to fail back on. 
In the winter we play football in a disused magazme 
with boarded floor. It is a fast, exciting game, in which 
shoes are worn, and the doors at each end are the goals. 
In the spring two cement tennis courts were laid down, 
and they have pro\aded the staple amusement and 
exercise "ever since. Three times a week there are short 
route marches under heavy guard. Occasional leave 
on parole is granted. At "first it was f(»r one day once 
in about six weeks, for it was granted only to one officer 
at a time. Then the Dutch authorities grew gradually 
more generous, and now three days a month are allowed. 
Those days away from the fort', usually spent at the 
Hague, halve the irksomeness of our prison. 
The newspapers arrive every morning, only a day 
late. Monday, when there are no papers, J^undays and 
Tuesdays with no Knglish mail, produce a faint irritation, 
and remind us that all days are not the same. There are 
plenty of books but very little serious reading is done. 
Almost every profession, and more than a dozen public 
schools have contributed to our number. The majority 
has been at one time or another in the Army or Navy 
(chiefly the latter) for we are nominally a naval brigade. 
The dominant characteristic of the group is the diversity 
of the units. The days do not vary and nothing happens. 
It is lucky that among individuals is variety of outlook, 
interests, experience and temperament. A few senior 
officers have their own rooms, but for most there is no 
privacy possible, except in summer, or at least when it 
is fine — on most days it rains— when one can find a 
sheltered comer of the ramparts. 
Loss of Liberty. 
One feels the loss of liberty when at sunset, or in 
summer time at seven o'clock, the Dutch soldiers, search- 
ing every nook and. cranny, sweep us inside the barbed 
wire fences which enclose our quarters. Ne\er before 
has the shortening of the days meant so much. No one 
realised how rapidly the days of autumn draw in. The 
lights are lit at su'ndown ; their strong rays shining on 
the clustering trees, turn the leaves almost to snow* white, 
and the effect is strangely picturesque. Tor miles round 
can be seen the glare of the blaze of light. 
It is pleasant on warm days to lie on the bank almost 
on a level with tlie moat. A dense forest of marine weed 
grows in the clear water and .shoals of small fish thread 
their way through the dark vegetation. Further out the 
water is "blue as the sky. To the south lie the spires and 
chimneys of Gondar, rising above trees transmuted by 
distance from green to misty grey. To the north there 
is a meadow of vivid pasture, bounded by a bank of silver 
willows and deep coloured poplars. It appears like a 
jagged bar of green shades, light and dark, suspended 
between the blue of water and sky. In April and Ma> 
the flowers turned the fields to sheets of vivid yellow 
and delicate white, covering the green like a thin veil ; 
the orchards in the farms near the fort were a cloud 
of pink blossom. How keenly we enjoyed the first days 
of spring, even in March it was often warm enough to 
lie in the sun, looking forward in expectation of summer. 
Even this life has certain compensations. One can 
wear what one likes ; usually flannels and an old coat 
in the day time and uniform in tht- evening. The absence 
of women and the peculiar frankness of the gun-rooms 
where most of us have served, enables candid and out- 
spoken discussion. It is a Bohemian society, in spite of 
several restraints, some obviously necessary, others 
rather needless, imposed by the Dutch commandant. 
Such long and intimate association is a hard tc'-ting. 
Rumble of Distant Guns. 
It is strange that in this old fort amid peaceful 
meadows, we can hear on still days, faint in the distance, 
the rumble of guns. Very plain was this shadow of 
reality during the great actions of the war ; at the times 
of Neuve Chapelle, the attack on Hill 60 and the advance 
in October. It is little more than a long-drawn murmur, 
a sound which one feels rather than hears, and that only 
when the wind is still. Now winter is again upon us, 
and the days are very short. The leaves fell rapidly in 
the first days of November. They lay all around, wet, 
hectic and battered ; too sodden to be stirred into motion ^ 
by the wind. For long, thin yellow foliage clung to the » 
poplars and elms, but the chestnuts which bloomed early 
in the spring were in autumn withered and bare before 
their time. Sometimes the da\s were brilliantly fine 
and the sun was hot. Then the trees with their golder 
colouring were half-hidden by shimmering mists. Now 
gales of wind and rain sweep for days over the open 
country. It is a drenching rain. The ditches and canals 
rise till they are on a level with tlieir banks. The meadows 
are marshy, the roads rutted and impassable ; the path 
round the ramparts is drenched and slippery. Some- 
times the wind is still and the sky is grey and lowering. 
The sun cannot shine and the horizon is obscured by low 
banks of fog. 
There is a single railway line between Utrecht and 
J.eyden which passes quite close to the fort. The trains 
rattle by every day, well up to time, an irritating reminder 
of the world from which we are shut off. Some of us 
would rather there were in view no roads, no railway, nc 
houses, but only a sweeping expanse of deserted meadow. 
Yet perhaps these things arc good, lest we resign ourselves 
more and more to this tiny island which for the time 
constitutes our world. 1 
Printed bv J. G Hammond & Co., Limitkd, 32 36, Fleet I.,anc. Loiuton. E.C. 
