ecame too weak to give away their position. In their
anxiety to leave the camp behind they tended to separate, but both
fell headlong into a deep ditch, where they met again. In their first
dash one of them dropped most of the provisions, which the Germans
discovered and brought back to the camp in triumph. Six days
afterwards they were recaptured, thirty kilometres from the border.
Two officers cut the wire in broad daylight, when the nearest sentry
was busy opening a gate admitting some orderlies. They left the camp
by way of a ditch without being seen, crawling as they had never
crawled before, their heads showing above the level of the fields,
like two wobbling cabbages going for a hurried evening stroll. Their
success was short-lived, for, only an hour afterwards, they were
spotted and chased by some farmers, being finally brought to a stop by
a man with a shot-gun. Another couple left the camp by the following
ingenious method. A captain, who spoke German like a native, dressed
up in the clothes of a Hun private (somehow acquired). Some of the
essential things were missing, and had been manufactured in secret,
such as a cap and a painted wooden bayonet, with a lovely coloured
tassel. When everything was ready, about ten o'clock one morning, a
perfectly good German private marched an R.F.C. lieutenant, disguised
as an orderly, who carried two buckets (containing their kit), up to a
gate in the wire, which he rattled to signify that it must be unlocked
immediately. The sentry came along, unlocked the gate, and let him
out. They proceeded to the road, which they followed for a short
distance. That afternoon, while crossing a wild bit of country, they
had the misfortune to be recaptured by a shooting party, being first
completely surrounded by the beaters. Two other officers got out
separately in an ingenious way, the first being recaptured crossing a
bridge over the Ems, quite near Holland; the second lost direction,
and was retaken four days after, having got thoroughly lost. One
unlucky person was collared just outside the wire, dressed as an
orderly, and was taken straight to prison to enjoy a period of perfect
rest!

I worked in several tunnels at different times, fitted with air pumps
and perhaps even electric light--who knows? Digging oneself out is, at
the best of times, a slow and difficult proposition, which is almost
invariably discovered sooner or later. The humorous side of tunnelling
is so pronounced th