an hour off for
lunch, and as it didn't take long to eat a small piece of bread and sup
a bowl of soup, we usually had a good sleep, but now we were too
excited to either sleep or eat, and sat together and made our plans.

The platform on which we worked was situated in the centre of the
railway yards and was as brightly lighted as the main street of a city.
But this night we noticed two box-cars on a track about two hundred
yards away, and Mac said, "If we can make them, we are safe." So when
our hour was up and they marched us back, Mac and I were the first two
up the ladder. We followed about three feet behind the first sentry
until we got halfway down the platform, and while he went dreaming on
his way to the end of the platform we dropped quietly to the ground.
We were running when we struck, and we certainly beat the record in our
two-hundred-yard dash to the box-cars, and from there to a small bush
another two hundred yards away. Evidently no one noticed us, for there
was not a shot fired. Once in the cover of the bush we felt safe, and
we congratulated one another on having made at least a successful
start. We carried our prison overalls with us, as we planned to make
use of them later on.

Of course our first job was to get rid of our prison clothes, and while
we were doing this we heard a great commotion in the camp. The
prisoners were being lined up and counted, and we knew that we had been
missed. The German rule was that if any prisoners escaped the officer
in charge of the guard at that time was sent to the front lines, and
this was the most dreaded of all punishments. This night a big bully
was in charge, and he was hated by all the men. One of the prisoners
had said early in the night, "Now, Jack, if you intend to get away, for
goodness' sake go while this brute is in charge, for we want to get rid
of him." We thought of this while we listened to him shouting out his
orders in a voice that could be heard a mile. We knew the first thing
they would do would be to put the bloodhounds on our track. They took
them to our bunkhouse and let them get the scent from there. But we
had a little plan to get rid of them; as soon as we heard them coming
we scattered some pepper on our trail. We walked all that night, and
although we heard the hounds occasionally we saw nothing of our
pursuers. Morning found us on the edge of about two acres of scrub.
The bushes were only about five feet high, but they