ot do. Often, when we could see our course lying
straight ahead on the road, we put about and tacked off and away from
it because a parallel course was impossible on account of the swampy
nature of the ground. With these bad places passed we could perhaps
pull back to our true course again, but only after double the travel
that should have been necessary.

However, we did not mind that so much. Nor did we greatly mind the
short rations we were on. The other privations were too severe for us
to notice these minor ones.

The worst was the continual state of wetness and the resultant
coldness of our bodies. It was not so bad at night when we were
walking and so kept our blood circulating, but by day it was very bad.
We used to pray for night and the end of our enforced rest. We were
never dry or warm but were always very cold and miserable. The sun, on
those rare occasions when it came forth, did not appear until ten or
eleven in the morning. By mid-afternoon it was again a thing of the
past. At best it was very weak and we had to hide in the bushes where
it could not reach us. All we could do was to take off one garment at
a time and thrust it cautiously out near the edge of our hiding-place
to some spot on which the sun shone. Under these conditions we grew
steadily weaker on our allowance of two biscuits a day; for the time
of year precluded the possibility of there being any crops for us to
fall back upon for food, and it was too risky a proceeding to attempt
to steal from the householders.

[Illustration: GERMAN PRISONERS MARCHING THROUGH GOOD NATURED
ENGLISH CROWDS AT SOUTHAMPTON.]

[Illustration: HIGH EXPLOSIVES BURSTING OVER GERMAN TRENCHES.
BRITISH DEAD IN FOREGROUND.]

On the eighth day we reached the River Ems. We had no difficulty in
recognising it, as it was the only large one on our map that lay on
the route we had chosen, and we had passed nothing even faintly
resembling it, with the exception of some large canals, which were
easily recognizable as such and which we had swum. We made out trees
which appeared to be on the other shore.

We regretfully decided that it was too late to attempt the crossing
that night. The daylight proved the line of trees to be merely the
tops of a flooded woodland. The shore was a good quarter of a mile
away. It was January; the water was cold and full of floating ice, and
very swift. Fording was out of the question. For two days and nights
we wandered up