Escape (5 page)

“Have some brandy,” suggested Bourke, “that'll sort you out!”

After finishing their steaks, Bourke and Blake talked about the escape.

“The trouble we've had getting you out of there,” Bourke said.

He told his friend all about how he, Pottle and Randle had tried to contact Blake's family to raise funds for the escape, and how they had fallen out over Bourke's inability to provide receipts for everything he bought.

“I mean, how do you get a receipt for a forged passport?” Bourke snorted.

He told Blake how they had planned everything, from getaway car to radio sets, knitting needle rope to false passports. The whole escape had come to £700, money which the three had put up themselves and borrowed from friends.

In between drinks they ate strawberries and cream. But while they were eating, a television show they were watching was interrupted by a news flash. A serious looking man announced:

“Soviet spy, George Blake, has escaped from Wormwood Scrubs prison, in London. The escape happened at around 6:30pm this evening. Blake climbed over the prison wall using a ladder thrown to him by an accomplice. The two men are believed to have driven off in a small blue car, heading west out of London.”

A recent picture of Blake appeared on the screen, a prison mug shot of him looking stern and distant.

“A news flash!” said Bourke. “They didn't even wait for the main bulletin. You're Britain's most wanted man!”

Bourke laughed. But Blake looked more serious.

“I hope no one saw us come into the house,” he said. “Every policeman in London will be looking for me.”

The next day Bourke went out to find a doctor. Blake knew Bourke had a network of sympathetic friends, but his own background in espionage taught him that no one could really be trusted. Every contact they made like this laid them open to the possibility of betrayal.

Around noon, Bourke returned with a doctor, and a bundle of newspapers. The doctor was a serious young man who greeted Blake coolly, then treated his broken wrist. It was agonizing, and Blake drank the last of Bourke's whisky to deaden the pain.

After the doctor had gone, Blake said:

“Are you sure he won't betray us? He didn't seem very friendly.”

“Don't worry,” said Bourke. “He's on our side. He was probably just worried about helping a runaway convict! Now look at this…”

Bourke showed Blake the day's papers. They were full of stories of the escape. One paper had made much of the chrysanthemums Bourke had left behind in his hurry to get away. The paper painted a picture of him as a shadowy criminal mastermind, and wrote that his chrysanthemums were a mysterious calling card.

The two men laughed at the way their escape had been presented to the British public. They were particularly amused by one newspaper's theory that a substitute had been sent to prison in his place and allowed to escape, while the real Blake had returned to Moscow as a double agent.

But all this publicity was bad news. Blake's face was on the front page of every newspaper, and flashed on television at every news broadcast. They were going to have to be extremely careful. Although the doctor who treated Blake's wrist never did give them away, they still thought it best to move to a nearby house to stay with a man who was a friend of Randle and Pottle. This proved to be a disaster. The man's wife told her psychiatrist that they were hiding two men from the police, so another bolt hole was needed urgently.

Bourke too had made a silly mistake. Despite all his careful planning for the escape, he had bought the getaway car they used in his own name, and the police had traced it. Now his photograph was appearing alongside Blake's on every newspaper front page, and his name was being mentioned on every radio and television news bulletin.

By early November they had moved to Pat Pottle's house, which was also in London. Tired of all this hiding, Blake was now desperate to leave the country. But, two weeks after the escape, his name and photograph were still all over the papers and television. It would be too risky to try to leave the country in the normal way, via a ferry or plane, even using a false passport.

Pottle and Randle tried to alter Blake's appearance dramatically. They gave him a drug called Meladinin which was supposed to make skin much darker, and also put him under a sun-lamp for several tanning sessions. The experiment was a miserable failure. Blake still looked instantly recognizable. But Randle came to the rescue with another ruse.

He had a large Volkswagen camper van, and Blake was hidden in its blanket compartment. Randle and his family drove to Europe, telling border police they were going sight-seeing in East Germany. At the time, this country was controlled by the Soviet Union so Blake would be safe there.

The trip went without a hitch, and a very stiff and slightly carsick Blake was dropped off just outside Berlin. He introduced himself to the first East German soldier he could find, but no one believed his story. He was taken to Berlin, and a Soviet secret service officer who knew him personally was flown over to see him. When this officer walked in, hugged him and started to shout “It's him! It's him!” Blake knew his troubles were over.

After the escape

Blake was handsomely rewarded by his Soviet allies. He was made a colonel in the KGB (the Soviet security service) and put up in a comfortable apartment in Moscow. He had left behind a wife and three sons in England, but remarried a Russian woman and had another daughter. He was found work as a researcher in international politics and economics for Moscow University. Still alive today, he has no regrets about his past. When recently asked if he felt the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union had meant that all his efforts had been wasted, he said:

“I think it is never wrong to give your life to a noble ideal, and to a noble experiment, even if it doesn't succeed.”

Sean Bourke's future turned out bleaker. Not as well-known as Blake, he was able to slip out of the country on a false passport. He flew to Berlin, and was then sent on to Moscow and reunited with Blake. The two men got along so well, the Soviet authorities put them up in an apartment together. But they soon fell out. Blake had been charming when it suited him, but he could also be arrogant and ill-mannered. Bourke related that Blake had even hinted to the KGB that they should have him eliminated.

Bourke eventually returned to his native Ireland and wrote a book about the escape called
The Springing of George Blake
. His account disguised the part Pottle and Randle played, to protect them from arrest. The book became a best seller and he turned full time to writing, but with no further success. He became an alcoholic and died alone in a mobile home in Ireland, in 1982.

Pat Pottle and Michael Randle's role in Blake's getaway became public knowledge in 1989, when British newspapers published sensational accounts of the escape. The two men were prosecuted and brought to trial. Despite the fact that they had clearly broken the law, the jury was sympathetic to them and they were acquitted. Pat Pottle died in 2000, but Michael Randle is still a campaigning writer and journalist, and a research fellow at the Department of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford.

If the guards at Donington Hall Prisoner of War Camp had known a bit more about Kapitänleutnant Gunther Plüschow, they might have kept a closer eye on him. To the men who watched over him, he was a genial, well-dressed fellow, who spoke very good English. He had a friendly smile, and was good at hockey, which he played at every opportunity. He was really quite charming.

He was also extremely clever and, if he had anything to do with it, he was not going to be staying in Donington Hall for long.

Plüschow's background was exceptional. A cadet at Munich's Military School from the age of 10, he excelled in everything he did. After an outstanding career as a marine in the German Imperial Army, he volunteered to become one of Germany's first airforce pilots. After learning to fly he was sent to Tsingtao in China, which was a German colony. When the First World War broke out in 1914 Tsingtao was attacked by British and Japanese forces, and Plüschow gained a reputation as a daring flyer. While in China, he had had a dragon tattooed to his left arm, and his men took to calling him “The Dragon Master”.

When it seemed certain that Tsingtao would fall, Plüschow was ordered to make his way back to Germany. He was captured by Chinese troops, but soon gave them the slip, and took a boat from Shanghai to San Francisco, USA. After making his way to New York, he took a boat to Italy. Unfortunately for him, the boat stopped at Gibraltar – a British port on the Mediterranean. Plüschow was arrested as a prisoner of war, and taken to England.

He was taken to Donington Hall, an old stately home which had been turned into a prison camp. Life there was actually quite pleasant. Plüschow, who had arrived with all his luggage, was allowed to receive packages and letters from his family, and spent most of his time chatting to other officers and playing sports.

The camp routine was very relaxed. Twice a day there was a parade for a roll call – a register to check on all the inmates. There was also a rule the men had to follow about a day boundary and a night boundary. The day boundary took in much of the grounds of the home, including a pleasant park, and had a high barbed wire fence around it. During the day the men were allowed to wander freely here. But after dark, prisoners were expected to keep within the area around their huts, which was called the night boundary.

One of Plüschow's companions was another officer named Oberleutnant Trefftz. Like Plüschow he spoke excellent English. He also knew the country well, having visited several times. They became friends and Plüschow suggested they escape together. Trefftz agreed and the two men set about planning their getaway.

Both men knew that getting out of the camp would be fairly easy, but what came after would be difficult. Donington was near the town of Derby, which lay a few miles to the north. Here they could catch a train to London, and then stowaway on board a boat heading for Holland – a neutral country where they could make their way to Germany.

Plüschow and Trefftz hatched a simple but ingenious plan based on their knowledge of the guards' routine. They also asked their fellow prisoners to help them with their escape and to give them money to buy food and pay for their journey. On July 4th, 1915 the two men claimed to be ill, and the camp doctor placed them on the official sick list. This meant they were excused from the daily roll call parades.

At 4:00pm that afternoon, after a day resting in bed, they both got up and dressed in civilian clothes. Plüschow had brought a stylish suit from China, a blue sweater and a smart grey overcoat. The men were supposed to wear their uniforms at the camp, so they put on their officer's caps and coats as well.

After they dressed, they gobbled down all the buttered rolls that had been left in the hut for the prisoners' afternoon snack. It could be several days before they ate again. Then they prepared to leave. Outside it was raining cats and dogs. Normally they would curse such dull British weather, but as Plüschow pointed out, this was perfect for their escape.