him everything, and he walked with us until we got almost to
Neda. Then he mounted his wheel and rode into town, telling every one
in sight that we were coming. So when we arrived the streets were
lined with people; men, women, and children turned out to welcome us.
They finally conducted us to a store where the proprietor spoke
English. We sat and chatted for a few minutes, and then his wife came
out with a lunch. She brought bread and butter, cake and tea, and I
leave you to imagine how good it tasted.

But our friend on the wheel had left us at the store, and had reported
our coming to the police headquarters. So while we were at our lunch
the chief of police and an attendant arrived and asked us to go with
them. This didn't look good to us--it seemed too much like what we had
been getting for the past year. I said, "By golly!! Mac, I don't like
this." He said, "Neither do I, but I guess we have to go," so we went
along; but instead of landing in the police station, the chief took us
to his own house. Here we were made to understand we were _guests_;
and we were given water, soap, clean towels, and fresh shirts to
replace the ones that were torn to pieces. After we got cleaned up we
felt like new men, and our host took us out where a table was set under
the trees and we had our first properly served meal since leaving
England--a year and nine months.

Of course we were not given a regular dinner--our friends were too wise
for that--heavy food would have killed us. All we had was bread and
butter, cake, and strawberries with cream; but oh, they were scrummy.
The next thing we needed was sleep, and our host wished to put us to
bed in the house. But we felt much too dirty to get into his clean
beds, and we made him understand we much preferred going into the
hayloft. So he brought us some blankets, and we turned in. We slept
for fourteen hours without waking; that's how badly we needed it. We
wakened at 2 A.M., and at first we didn't know where we were. But
after we got our bearings we went to sleep again and didn't wake until
nine in the morning. Then we got up and had another light meal. We
lay around and rested all that day, but as their English was as limited
as our Dutch, conversation lagged. That night we had our first taste
of meat since entering Germany--and maybe we didn't enjoy it!

Early next morning we took the train for Rotterdam, the chief sending
an escort with us. Once there, we we