found him.

'What happened then, we can't exactly trace. He must have been there all
the winter. He was deaf and dumb, from nerve-shock, and could give no
account of himself at all. The men of the farm, two unmarried sons, were
good to him, but their old mother, whose family was German, always hated
his being there. She was in terror of the German military police who
used to ride over the farm, and one day, when her sons were away, she
took Mr. Sarratt's uniform, his identification disk, and all the
personal belongings she could find, and either burned or buried them.
The sons, who were patriotic Belgians, were however determined to
protect him, and no doubt there may have been some idea of a reward, if
they could find his friends. But they were afraid of their tyrannical
old mother, and of what she might do. So at last they made up their
minds to try somehow and get him over the French frontier, which was
not far off, and through the German lines. One of the brothers, whose
name was Benoit Desalles, to whom they say poor Mr. Sarratt was much
attached, went with him. They must have had an awful time, walking by
night, and hiding by day. Mr. Sarratt's wounds must have been in a bad
state, for they were only half healed when he escaped, and they had been
neglected all the winter. So how he dragged himself the distance he did,
the doctors can't imagine. And the peasants near the frontier from whom
we have got what information we have, have no knowledge at all of how he
and his Belgian guide finally got through the German lines. But when
they reached our lines, they were both, as Dr. Howson wrote to Miss
Cookson, in German uniforms. His people suppose that Benoit had stripped
some German dead, and that in the confusion caused in the German
line--at a point where it ran through a Belgian village--by a British
raid, at night, they got across the enemy trenches. And no doubt Benoit
had local knowledge which helped.

'Then in the No Man's Land, between the lines, they were under both
shell and rifle-fire, till it was seen by our men that Benoit had his
hands up, and that the other was wounded. The poor Belgian was dragging
Mr. Sarratt who was unconscious, and at last--wasn't it ill-luck?--just
as our men were pulling them into the trench, Benoit was shot through
the head by a German sniper. That, at least, is how we now reconstruct
the story. As far as Mr. Sarratt is concerned, we let it alone. We have
no heart to worry him.