[Ill.u.s.tration: "FACE TO FACE WITH A FLAPPER ON HER WAY TO BATHE"

(_page 120_).]

The one disadvantage to this joining-up of parties lay in its greater visibility and the loss of its elasticity, owing to the fact that we were now three whereas two is the ideal number. It is naturally more difficult for three to dive into hiding immediately on sighting a German than it is for one or two.

However, the pros easily outweighed the cons. While we were thus talking we got rather a scare. A man on a horse came along the road and stopped immediately opposite the patch of brambles in the midst of which we lay. The horse began tearing at the leaves of a small tree, thereby making a noise which seemed to us, cowering under cover, as if it might be caused by the man trying to force his way into our hiding-place.

We lay absolutely still, but we felt very uncomfortable, especially as the contents of our bags were mostly strewn about the ground drying.

We should never have had time to collect our belongings together and bolt if an intrusion resulted in our hiding-place being exposed.

However, after two or three minutes of suspense on our part the horse moved on down the road and we breathed again.

Up to this time I had been exceedingly sparing in what I had eaten. In fact I had overdone my economy in this respect, as I had felt a bit weak once or twice that day. The other two had fed well up till then, and when I saw what they intended to eat that evening I also increased my ration. From this time onwards we usually had a pound of food each per day.

This we intended to augment when possible.

The details of Fox and his companion's adventures are outside the scope of this narrative, but the broad facts which must be included in order to account for their presence in the hedge are as follows.

On Wednesday afternoon, 20th June, they had left Schwarmstedt camp with a fatigue party detailed for tree-felling, disguised as British soldiers. The Germans of course did not realise that two of the party were really officers, but they were naturally bound to find out the deception which had been practised on them on the return of the fatigue party to camp. The fatigue party broke up and scattered about while working at their tree-felling job, and it was not possible for the German escort to keep a watch on all and every soldier at the same time.

Accordingly these two, nicely judging their chance, slipped away when the Boches were looking in the other direction.

It did not take them long to get some distance away, and that night they approached the river Aller with the object of effecting a crossing.

On nearing the railway bridge they had discovered an ambush waiting for them, and consequently cleared away from that area.

Striking the river some distance up-stream, they made a rough raft from wooden palings, and putting their food and clothes on it swam it across. It was here that Fox discovered that his companion was far from being a strong swimmer. Therefore Fox, who had not entirely recovered from the injuries he had received in a previous attempt to escape by jumping from a train, had to swim the raft backwards and forwards several times by himself until all the food and clothing had been transported across. The raft was not a large one or very buoyant, which resulted in much of the food being destroyed. Fox also a.s.sisted Blank to cross, so had plenty of swimming to do.

After crossing this river, they had pushed rapidly on and crossed another by a bridge, without apparently getting into any trouble.

They reached their hiding-place during the early hours of Thursday morning and had remained there all day, drying their goods and chattels.

CHAPTER VII

THE CROSSING OF THE WESER

We had decided to begin the night's march at 10 o'clock should it be possible to do so. When we started it was not far off that hour, and in consequence was still fairly light.

As there was an old well in the field at the side of which we had been hidden all day, we went to it in hopes of finding water. This we were fortunate enough to get. It was the kind of water that would only be drunk by cattle and escaped prisoners.

After filling our water bottles we commenced our march westwards. Very soon we struck a rather wild stretch of country and were startled by the sight of fireworks not far from us. After various rockets and Roman candles had fizzled themselves out, we came to the conclusion that this display const.i.tuted no additional risk to us, and pushed ahead. This stretch of rough country began to take a slope, and not long after we began the ascent of this incline we debouched on to an open plain. The weather had begun to look threatening about half an hour previously. Now it was clear to us that we were in for a wetting.

Striking westwards across this plateau we soon got into difficulties.

Parts of it were decidedly boggy even after the great drought. Several streams and d.y.k.es intersected the country and barbed-wire fences were common and difficult to climb.

We had covered about four miles since our start, when suddenly the rain began to descend. Mutterings of thunder and odd flickers of lightning in the west boded ill for the coming hours. Soon the rain, which had begun falling fairly gently, increased its unwelcome efforts.

The thunderstorm very quickly established itself right over our heads and lightning flashed every second or so. It had got exceedingly dark, and in addition the rain, now descending in torrents, had made the hitherto dry ground into a mora.s.s. We were absolutely unable to make headway in the inky blackness which now reigned, so we got under some thick trees and sat down. These trees did not shelter us much, and it was not long before we were all soaked to the skin and shivering from head to foot. It was an ideal moment for discussing our future and its chances, and we did it, in a thoroughly depressed and miserable way. We quite envied our late companions their warm if hard apologies for beds at Schwarmstedt. However, all things have an end, and the rain eventually ceased and the darkness lifted somewhat.

Owing to the sodden state of the ground now the swampy bits had become really things of awe-inspiring proportions, which made us return eastwards for a mile or so in search of a road or track along which we could travel in the right direction. This we found and took, doing some three miles or so before the storm returned once more and we were again handicapped by the darkness. So dark was it in fact that we never noticed a bend in the road, and we continued in the same direction only to walk slap into a ditch bristling with barbed-wire.

This decided us to halt again for a time. The same misery repeated itself, but this time tired nature a.s.serted itself in the case of Blank, who slept like a log in the soaking ditch. We waited in this pretty state till the grey light of dawn gave us sufficient seeing-power to enable us to continue without risk of falling into ditches.

_Friday, 22nd June._ We naturally put on the pace after all this delay, and we soon got warm from hard walking.

Pa.s.sing through a village and striking across country afterwards for lack of a track to follow, we hit a small river. This we waded through and got to rough heath country on the other side.

It was drizzling at intervals now, and we very much wished to find a dry and sheltered spot in which to lie up during the day.

We thought we had found something suitable in this line and called a halt at a dense clump of bushes and undergrowth of all kinds. We were disappointed in our place very soon, as the rain came through freely.

After boiling some water and drinking the coffee we made with it, we decided to continue our trek, reasoning that an atrocious day like this would effectually keep early risers in-doors until a later hour at any rate. We were right in our conjecture, as, although we walked along the roads which are not safe places at 6 o'clock in the morning, we neither saw anyone nor any tracks in the mud which abounded everywhere.

Striking more north-west after an hour or so, we again hit a wild trackless moor. This we began to cross and soon came upon peat-cuttings.

Shortly after this we spied three huts. These at first interested and then fascinated us. At last, plucking up courage, we examined them.

Their dry interiors and the lack of all traces of recent visits from human beings, decided us to do rather a risky thing, namely, to use them. Having begun risking we went the whole way and made a wood fire in the huts, from splinters torn from the benches, etc. Drying our clothes and cooking hot food of the oxo variety occupied considerable time. We took it in turns to sleep on the floor. This involved practically lying in the fire, but it had the advantage of allowing one to become thoroughly warm. There was a pond of excellent water by the hut we had chosen, so we had quite a number of drinks of coffee and beef tea, etc.

In the afternoon the sun came out to cheer us up a bit, but the scudding clouds did not give us much hope of a dry night. We intended to start at 10 o'clock, all being well. At about six I was suddenly taken ill, and for half an hour or so felt extremely miserable. I suppose it was a chill I had got, but fortunately it pa.s.sed off fairly soon and I was able to eat and have some oxo two hours later. At ten o'clock we actually did start, but we were unfortunate in having pitch-darkness again in which to negotiate extremely difficult ground, as it had set in to rain once more in a thoroughly steady, lasting manner.

We had a bad fright over my compa.s.s--the best one. When I was ill the compa.s.s must have fallen out of my pocket, and although we searched diligently everywhere, it was only by the merest chance that I saw a piece of it showing up in the heather in which it was lost. Truly, a marvellous stroke of luck.

We had done about an hour's hard work ploughing through the rough boggy land, when we decided that we had better return to our hut once more, and tackle the bog next morning.

This delay meant that we should lose the night's march, a serious affair when food reserves are limited and long distances remain to be covered. However, the night's rest we got as the result of this delay was extremely valuable as a matter of fact, as we woke up in a much fresher state after sleeping till 7 a.m.

_Sat.u.r.day, 23rd June._ Comfortably smoking our pipes in the dry warmth of our hut, after a breakfast of tinned beef, biscuit, and hot oxo, we were able to look on the bright side of things, and our fears on the subject of the crossing of the river Weser, to be undertaken within the next twenty-four hours, dwindled in strength until we were able to imagine it a trifling obstacle. We intended to make a raft and swim it over, should no boat be forthcoming during a short search.

While we were discussing these and sundry other matters, Fox suddenly saw two men in dark clothes running across the heath some thousand yards away from us. Who could they be? On they ran, one about thirty yards behind the other, until they both disappeared into a clump of stunted pine trees.

After a minute or two's discussion we agreed that probably they were also escaped prisoners.

If so, from what were they running? This question was answered shortly afterwards. A cart driven by two men suddenly came into sight not very far from the place where we had first seen the two running men.

This cart was coming towards our hut, and soon began to fill us with something stronger than mere interest in its movements.

It came to within 150 yards of us and then stopped. The men got out and began filling the cart with peat from the piles of this commodity lying about.

We by this time were lying on the bottom of the hut, or squashed up against the back of the door, not daring to move. We prayed that it would not come on to rain heavily, as the men would be certain then to take shelter in one of the huts, and ours was the nearest to them.

This suspense continued for about half an hour, and then, with the cart filled, the two men departed the way they had come.

At about noon we made up our minds that we could safely attempt the crossing of the moor by day. Accordingly, after clearing the hut of all traces of our occupation we packed up our kit, shouldered our packs and set off. We had torn up the benches and taken planks off the back of one of the other huts, intending to carry them with us to serve as material for our raft for the crossing of the Weser, but now that we actually began our march we found that the weight of all this wood was very considerable and so at the last moment left the whole lot behind. We were fortunate in so doing, as the distance was much greater than we had realised, and, as it turned out, it would have been a case of carrying coals to Newcastle.

We proceeded to negotiate the same ground as that which we had attempted to cross and failed over the night before, and now realised how impossible a task it would have been in the inky blackness of the night, proving as it did a sufficiently difficult task even by daylight.

Two or three miles of boggy rough ground had to be covered, and during the last few hundred yards of this, before we reached the lowest slopes of a range of hills, we were continually going through the spongy soil up to our knees.

Fox, who was brought up amidst Irish bogs, chose the line, and we followed as nearly in his tracks as we possibly could. We were not sorry to get off this bit of difficult country, and we wondered what would have happened if we had continued our attempt the night before.