of
necessity be very curtailed, this book not being originally written
for the benefit of the "Bosch." The most usual way is to cut the wire,
but where sentries are numerous the undertaking is both difficult and
dangerous. It is most natural to try stunts of the sort under cover of
darkness. At this camp, however, the paraffin arc lamps were
particularly brilliant, and when star-gazing on several occasions I
have seen rats and mice scuttle across the white sand some distance
away. Though storms often raged during the day, the wind almost
invariably blew itself out towards night, leaving a dead calm, broken
only by the tramp of sentries or the distant rattling hum of a
nightjar. It is a brave man who, having determined this mode of exit,
leaves his hut when others are sleeping, and vanishes. Presently, if
he gets safely across the intervening ground, the faint yet feverish
snipping of wire-cutters is heard, each time being followed perhaps
by a slight "ping" as the strained wire separates. The ensuing silence
is almost heart-breaking, for in contrast something else may at any
instant be increasing its tension, a sentry's trigger-finger. One
stormy night, when in hospital, I had reason to believe that an
officer would make an attempt in that part of the camp at a given
hour, so had an excellent chance of watching operations, which was not
wasted. I went to the window and settled down for a long wait. Outside
it was still raining, the sentries being in their boxes. A little
before the time I caught sight of a dark figure which clambered out of
the orderlies' hut and crawled into the neutral zone up to the outside
wire, which he lay parallel to and commenced to cut. To my surprise,
another figure joined him from the hut and lay there waiting; this was
an orderly who had decided to join at the last instant. In about one
and a half minutes a large enough gap had been cut, and the
adventurers crawled through it, and were preparing to make a dash into
the darkness when a sentry spotted them and stepped out of his box.
Having burned their boats, off they went. The sentry ran a few steps,
then, stopping abruptly, raised his rifle and fired. It was an anxious
moment for the onlookers; the fugitives already knew the result,
while, as yet, we did not. However, to our relief, the ghost-like
figures continued their flight until they were swallowed up in the
darkness, and the reflection of the artificial light on their wet
rain-coats b