nd saw another such procession coming into sight.
First went a big river steamer--it can't have been much less than 1,000
tons--and after came a string of barges. I counted no less than six
besides the tug. They were heavily loaded and their draught must have
been considerable, but there was plenty of depth in the flooded river.

A moment's reflection told me what I was looking at. Once Sandy, in
one of the discussions you have in hospital, had told us just how the
Germans munitioned their Balkan campaign. They were pretty certain of
dishing Serbia at the first go, and it was up to them to get through
guns and shells to the old Turk, who was running pretty short in his
first supply. Sandy said that they wanted the railway, but they wanted
still more the river, and they could make certain of that in a week.
He told us how endless strings of barges, loaded up at the big
factories of Westphalia, were moving through the canals from the Rhine
or the Elbe to the Danube. Once the first reached Turkey, there would
be regular delivery, you see--as quick as the Turks could handle the
stuff. And they didn't return empty, Sandy said, but came back full of
Turkish cotton and Bulgarian beef and Rumanian corn. I don't know
where Sandy got the knowledge, but there was the proof of it before my
eyes.

It was a wonderful sight, and I could have gnashed my teeth to see
those loads of munitions going snugly off to the enemy. I calculated
they would give our poor chaps hell in Gallipoli. And then, as I
looked, an idea came into my head and with it an eighth part of a hope.

There was only one way for me to get out of Germany, and that was to
leave in such good company that I would be asked no questions. That
was plain enough. If I travelled to Turkey, for instance, in the
Kaiser's suite, I would be as safe as the mail; but if I went on my own
I was done. I had, so to speak, to get my passport inside Germany, to
join some caravan which had free marching powers. And there was the
kind of caravan before me--the Essen barges.

It sounded lunacy, for I guessed that munitions of war would be as
jealously guarded as old Hindenburg's health. All the safer, I replied
to myself, once I get there. If you are looking for a deserter you
don't seek him at the favourite regimental public-house. If you're
after a thief, among the places you'd be apt to leave unsearched would
be Scotland Yard.

It was sound reasoning, but how was I to g