Escapes! (2 page)

Imagine for a moment that you have been taken prisoner. You and your fellow captives are marched in a long line toward barracks behind barbed wire. As you file along the winding path leading to the compound, the guards at the head of the line suddenly disappear around a corner. You twist your head around. The guards bringing up the rear are also momentarily out of sight as you round the bend. For this one instant, you won't be spotted if you dive out of line and roll under the bushes along the path. You have mere seconds to make up your mind. What do you do? Stay in line and face the misery — but safety — of captivity? Or seize the moment and make a break for it?

Anyone in your place will dream of escape, but only a few will act on the impulse. MI9 estimated that far fewer than one percent of Allied prisoners of war took the plunge and escaped in World War II. But who? What kind of person?

Psychologists have found that people who escape often share the same character traits. They're not necessarily the strongest or the boldest, but they are open-minded and flexible — people who can improvise on the spot and adapt quickly to changes. If one tactic fails, they try another. They are willing to take risks and learn from mistakes. Often they are good actors, able to blend in with locals and to hide their fear or their intentions. And they're not the type to freeze when placed in a difficult situation, as many people do. They can keep a clear head and not panic. Perhaps most importantly, they firmly believe that their future survival depends on themselves, and no one else.

Pierre Mairesse Lebrun, a French cavalry lieutenant imprisoned by the Germans in World War II, felt that in some ways the personal bravery needed for an escape was even greater than that needed for the battlefield: “I think it's easy to be brave in war, unless you are a complete coward. Escaping is a voluntary act of bravery, which is very difficult. Very difficult when you are risking your life.”

Lebrun himself certainly had his share of courage. Using his friend's cupped hands as a stirrup, he vaulted over his prison camp's barbed wire fence in plain view of the guards. Under fire, Lebrun dashed for the outer wall, bobbing and weaving like a hunted rabbit. He waited until the guards stopped to reload their guns, then scrambled over the second wall. Even his enemies had to admire his nerve: “For sheer mad and calculated daring,” wrote the camp's German security officer, “the successful escape of … Pierre Mairesse Lebrun, will not, I think, ever be beaten.”

Perhaps not, but it certainly faces some tough competition. What follows are ten stories of real people who refused to give up their dreams of escape, no matter how huge the struggle.

Some are stories of people born into slavery, but who dreamed of freedom. And of those whose freedom was taken away from them, but who fought to win it back. Sailors kidnapped by slave-traders and dragged across the Sahara. A man captured in his homeland by the army of ancient Rome and condemned to fight to the death as a gladiator. A family that took to the air to cross a wall that seemed to have sprung up overnight, dividing their country in half and holding them prisoners in their own land.

These are dramas from across time and around the globe. From medieval knights trapped with their lady in a castle under siege, to modern diplomats who slipped through the fingers of captors in an embassy hostage-taking that shocked the world. From political prisoners who found ingenious ways out of some of history's most feared prisons, to soldiers who hatched a bold plan to break out of Germany's “escape-proof” camp, and a fighter pilot who faced every airman's worst nightmare — being trapped alive in a crashing plane.

All true stories of human courage, but also stories of hope — because hope is what kept these remarkable people going in the face of the most overwhelming obstacles and dangers.

Breakout from the Bastille

Paris, France, 1754

A
GUARD PEERED THROUGH THE SMALL HOLE
in the heavy wood door. With a sigh he watched the prisoner inside — writing again! This flood of letters, begging for his case to be reviewed, was a nuisance. The guard let the metal flap slam over the hole and walked away, shaking his head. Henri Latude could write until doomsday, he thought. It would come to nothing.

Inside the cold cell, the prisoner rubbed his ink-stained fingers to warm them. Blinking wearily, he angled his sheet of paper into the shaft of light streaming from a small chink in the stone wall. He had been locked up in the Bastille for five years without a trial, put away by a
lettre de cachet
— a piece of paper that let officials arrest someone in the King's name and keep him in prison for as long as they liked.

A foolish prank had landed him here. Like countless young men, Latude had left the countryside to seek a career in Paris. But that expensive city soon gobbled up his savings, and he could barely pay the rent on his tiny room. Favor at the royal court must be the key to success, Latude brooded. Why, people from backgrounds humbler than his had been raised to positions of honor by making the right impression there!

Latude came up with a scheme to gain favor with Madame de Pompadour, the close friend of King Louis XV. People said she was the real power behind the throne. They also said that she was terribly afraid of being poisoned or attacked by her enemies. Day and night she kept doctors and antidotes to poison at her side. She would never be the first to taste any dish.

That gave Latude an idea. What if he were to warn her of an attempt on her life and save her? She would be so grateful — surely she would promote him to some high office for his actions!

Latude bought four glass toys that would break with a bang when the ends were snapped. He sprinkled them with talcum powder and bundled them in a package. The outer wrapper was addressed to Madame de Pompadour. On the package inside he wrote, “Madame, I beg you to open this in secret.” Smiling excitedly, Latude put his harmless toy bomb in the mail.

Then he rushed to court and begged to be allowed to see Madame. He had overheard a plot to send her a bomb!

The detective assigned to the strange case had his doubts about this loyal informer. He asked Latude to write down what had happened. Sure enough, the handwriting on Latude's statement matched the writing on the package.

No one laughed at Latude's prank. Perhaps he really had meant to hurt Madame, but was too foolish to do it properly. And surely he hadn't acted alone — this must be part of a larger plot. When Latude finally confessed to his little plan, no one believed him. The
lettre de cachet
did the rest.

Once the Bastille's heavy doors slammed behind him, Latude felt as if he had been buried alive. Since childhood he had heard stories of Paris's notorious prison, and they had filled him with dread. Its eight huge towers, linked by stone walls, cast a gloomy shadow over the Saint-Antoine district. No one seemed to know what went on behind those walls: any prisoner lucky enough to be released was sworn to silence about life inside. But the rumors were enough to terrify Latude's young imagination. It was where dangerous people — traitors, political enemies of the King — were locked away. And never heard from again.

And so he wrote letter after letter, asking for mercy, for justice. Most importantly, he begged those on the outside — Don't forget me! He wrote to the prison governor, to the chief of police, to ministers, to Madame de Pompadour herself. Letters were his lifeline to the outside world, and he clung to them.

At first prison officials mailed his letters. Then as time passed — and no one answered him — Latude's letters got stranger. He sent one minister an envelope full of cut-out letters of the alphabet, asking him to put them together himself in whatever words would move him to pity. Prison censors wondered, Is Latude going mad?

The governor of the prison ordered that Latude's ink and paper be taken from him. To the governor's horror, Latude kept writing — on a torn piece of his shirt, in his own blood.

Everything changed when Latude was given a roommate — Antoine Allègre, another troublemaker. The police hoped that putting the two men together would get them talking. Maybe they would let slip some new information about their crimes.

The result was surprising: Allègre and Latude started behaving themselves. The flood of letters stopped, as did Allègre's shouts and violent outbursts. Bastille officials sighed with relief.

What they never suspected was that Latude and Allègre had given up on letter-writing and screaming at the guards for a reason. They had a new idea now, and it filled all their thoughts. Escape.

A spark of hope Latude hadn't felt in years took hold of him. All the same, doubts preyed on his mind. Everyone knew that escape from the Bastille was impossible — wasn't it? Maybe I'm going mad after all, he thought.

He kept his fears to himself, as he and Allègre went over all the possible exits. Their room was on the fourth floor of one of the Bastille's eight towers. There was no getting out through the cell's heavy double door. It was locked with iron bars, and guards were right outside, day and night. They had one tiny window, but it was too small for a child to squeeze through, never mind a grown man.

And even if they could fit inside the window opening, four sets of iron grids barred their way through the six feet of stone wall. What's more, guards constantly checked the grids to make sure they were solid.

“The only way left is up,” Latude said, half-joking.

Latude and Allègre raised their eyes to the chimney over their fireplace — in winter it barely kept the prisoners warm in the damp tower. Guards didn't search it often, since it was always filthy and smoke-filled.

Allègre stuck his head in the fireplace and peeked up the chimney. He quickly ducked back out and, brushing the soot off himself, shook his head. It was at least 30 feet to the top, and high up he could see layers of iron gratings, blocking the way.

“We could pry them out, one by one,” Latude suggested.

“With what? We have no tools,” Allègre answered. “And say we did, and could climb all the way up. We'd be at the top of the tower. How would we get down? It's at least an 80-foot drop — straight into a moat! Not to mention the huge wall on the other side of that.”

Latude counted off the obstacles on his fingers. They would need to make tools to remove the gratings. Plus ladders and ropes to climb up the chimney and down the tower wall, then to climb over the wall on the far side of the moat.

And guards were always listening in at the door, surprising them with searches. They'd have to build everything in total silence, then hide it in a flash. Latude and Allègre looked around the nearly empty room and at its meager furniture. All of it was regularly searched.

“Where would we hide everything?” Allègre asked.

They both fell silent. That was where their talk of escape always ended. They had no answer.

Latude and Allègre lay on their cots, staring at the ceiling. Latude listened to the prisoner above pace back and forth, the floor creaking with every step. “What a racket,” he grumbled. “Why doesn't he just sit down?”

Allègre didn't answer at first. Then his eyes widened. He sat up. “But listen to the prisoner below.”

Latude shook his head. “I can't hear a thing.”

“Neither can I,” answered Allègre. He paused. “But in my last cell, I could hear the man above me
and
the man below me.”

“But there's someone down there,” said Latude, sitting up. “I saw him myself on the way back from chapel.”

So why couldn't they hear him?

“There's only one explanation!” Allègre whispered excitedly.

“There's a space between the ceiling of the cell below and our own floor!” They both knew what that meant. A hiding place!

At 6:30 p.m. the guard brought their supper. The prisoners lowered the hinged table from the wall and ate in silence. As the food was taken away, Latude and Allègre exchanged glances. They knew no one would disturb them until morning. The guards were settled in their routine, and the two men were model prisoners now.