Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 January 1916 — IN DARING ESCAPE [ARTICLE]

IN DARING ESCAPE

Interned British Naval Officer Flees From Denmark. Takes Back Promise Not to Try to Escape, Then Makes Get-Away While Doubly Guarded Day and Night. London. Lieutenant Commander Layton, a British naval officer who was interned at Copenhagen, has just made his escape in exciting circumstances, and arrived here. At first he was allowed by the Danes a fair amount of liberty on parole, but a few days after his internment began he went to the commandant of the barracks and told him he wished to take back the word of honor he had given not to try to escape. The commandant, interpreting this as an intimation that he would endeavor to escape, told Layton that he would have to have him very closely watched. His quarters were placed under double guard, and there always seemed to be three or four sentries watching his movements. The prospect of escape seemed small, and, to make matters worse, Dayton was seized with a violent influenza cold, which prostrated him for the time being. Two sentries stood at the door of his room, and they never seemed to relax their vigilance. They were constantly looking through the peephole in the door of Layton's room, to see that matters were all right. They did it as usual on the particular evening that he escaped. Things were apparently -quite- in order;- and their prisoner was apparently lying on the bed. As a matter of fact, he was not, and at a moment when the attention of one of the sentries was engaged and the other had been sent on an errand, Layton opened the door and slipped into another room, where he found a thick serge civilian suit. In due course he found himself at a window overlooking the street, and with a rope which he had discovered he lowered himself into a street. The barracks were on an Island, and for better security patrols had been placed everywhere. The escaping officer met two of them, but succeeded by a ruse in passing them. His next obstacle was the canaL The night was dark and bitterly cold, there being several degrees of frost, but, clothed as he was, Layton took the most direct course, and swam for it. In spite of the fact that he was still suffering from influenza he did this successfully, and having got to land, he took off his clothes and wrung them out, so as to show no obvious signs of water. On the ferry boat he turned himself into a porter, and managed to get a job of carrying a passenger’s bag to the station. There he boarded a train, and in due course reached the dockside, where he caught a train to Christiania. He used several disguises during the remainder of his voyage to Christiania, just succeeded in escaping detection, and finally sailed from Bergen to England. On the boat to England a passenger asked him if it was true that he was an American. He replied that he was, whereupon his fellowtraveler remarked: “If you were not so darned sure about it, I should say you were a British naval officer." When the travei-statnect young Englishman, without money, presented himself before a transport officer at the British port, he was not unnaturally looked upon with suspicion, but he was soon able to establish his iden-. tity.