During our rapid march we passed a few houses, and shortly afterwards began to cross an open moor which spread flat and wide in front of us. Our map showed a canal bordering the frontier itself, and it was along this canal that we anticipated having to avoid the line of actual frontier watchers.

We were desperately anxious to make the frontier line within the next half-hour, in order to avoid having to lie waiting for the next night within a mile or so of it, as so many unfortunate escaped prisoners have been caught while hiding near the frontier itself. This anxiety on our part was now the cause of our making an appalling [210]error, which nearly ended disastrously for us both. When within a mile of a line of trees, which we decided must be along the canal bank and must practically define the frontier line, we suddenly saw two German soldiers advancing some thousand yards in front of us. Had they seen us? We dived to the ground and lay still, in the hope that we had not been seen. Soon there was no doubt whatever that we had been observed, as the two Boches came straight towards us at a steady walk.

We decided that by separating one or both of us might succeed in getting away from them, and so I crawled towards the north while Fox went off southwards towards a peat observation hut.

Fox was dressed in his dark blue suit still, and I had now got my khaki coat as my outside garment. The value of the khaki coat now came out.

They evidently saw Fox crawling and not me, as they very soon changed their direction [211]slightly in order to go after him. Fox and I had crawled two hundred yards apart when he must have had no doubt that they were definitely after him, and I suddenly saw him get up and run off, away from the frontier direction.

He seemed to me to be keeping the hut between him and his German pursuers. The latter, probably oldish men, or wounded and not absolutely recovered, had no idea of running after him, and I suppose they knew that their shooting was not good enough to score a hit at a running-man four hundred yards from them. However, they followed his course at a brisk walk, passing me at some hundred to two hundred yards distance.

I saw them go to the hut, look in, and not finding anything in it of interest to them, continue their pursuit. Fox led them over the worst pieces of boggy ground he could find. Having no boots and very light footwear, by reason of the two pairs of socks [212]being his all, he was able to do excellent "time" over the peaty soil.

The Germans got others to help them, and eventually had quite a number of Boches after him. Finding a hole in the ground which satisfied his requirements, Fox got into it and covered himself over with peat and heather.

The "field" now included dogs and cyclists. When the dogs had got sufficiently near him to cause real alarm a marvellous stroke of luck came to his assistance. A flock of sheep, grazing on the moor, wandered right across his track, drowning all scent and completely defeating all the efforts of the dogs to follow his line.

After lying shivering in his hole all day he commenced his final dash for the frontier at about 11 p.m., and crossed a mile or so to the north of the place at which I passed through the German frontier line, without seeing any sentries.

After the Germans had gone well past me [213]in their hunt after Fox, I began to crawl again; but I made slow progress, as going on all-fours was out of the question, the vegetation being seldom more than eighteen inches high and in places considerably less. It was a most tiring game this sort of land-swimming, and I continued as long as I could each time I did a crawl, and then rested a space. In three hours I covered five hundred yards and then considered that I was far enough from the scene of our discovery to be safe, should the Germans return to see if anything of interest had been left at the place where they had first remarked Fox crawling.

I then lay still and began to feel fearfully cold on account of the soaking wet clothes clinging to me. I had a meagre meal. I had no water, so soon began to feel thirsty as the day began to warm up.

Sleep was out of the question, firstly on account of the cold and afterwards on account of the great heat when the sun got high.

[214]I lay and thought of many things, mostly of that line of trees I could see ahead of me which I knew must be practically along the frontier line. The fear of recapture now became haunting. Up till then I had been fully prepared to find myself rounded up and then taken back to five months' solitary confinement, and I had managed to think of that probability with complete calm, as so few of the many who try to escape have the luck to get right through with it.

But now it was different, to be so near and know that twelve or fourteen hours of inactivity lay in front of one before the last great effort could be attempted, in which time one was powerless to move in the midst of this "Frontier" zone, was a nerve-shattering experience.

It would have been much better with a companion, as a whispered exchange of thoughts makes all the difference.

I wondered whether Fox had been caught [215]and whether either of us would get over, but never dreamt that we should both have the marvellous luck to do so. While lying there waiting for night good luck again came to my assistance. The German relief for their posts actually o............