le when a person has time to figure it out. We
make things hard for each other. Here we were, Ted and I, lying all
day inactive, not because we wanted to, but because we had to, to
save our lives. Lying in a patch of scrub, stiff, cold, and hungry,
when we might have been clearing it out and making of it a farm which
would raise crops and help to feed the people! Hunger sharpens a
man's mind and gives him a view of things that will never come when
the stomach is full; and as we lay there under scrub, afraid even
to speak to each other, afraid to move, for a crackling twig might
attract some dog who would bark and give the alarm, I took a short
course in sociology.... The Catholics are right about having the
people come fasting to mass, for that is the time to get spiritual
truths over to them!

Hunger would solve all the capital and labor troubles in the world;
that is, if the employers could be starved for a week--well, not a
whole week--just about as long as we had--say, two biscuits a day for
three days, with nothing better ahead. But hunger is just a word of
two syllables to most people. They know it by sight, they can say it
and write it, but they do not know it.

At these times the thought of liberty became a passion with us.
Still, we never minimized the danger nor allowed ourselves to become
too optimistic. We knew what was ahead of us if we were caught: the
cells and the Strafe-Barrack, with incidentals.

On the fourth day we crossed an open patch of country, lightly
wooded, and then came to a wide moor which offered us no protection
whatever. Our only consolation was that nobody would be likely to
visit such a place. There was not even a rabbit or a bird, and the
silence was like the silence of death.

I knew from my map that we had to cross the river Ems, and I also
knew that this would probably be the deciding factor in our escape.
If we got over the Ems, we should get the rest of the way.

About two o'clock in the morning we reached the Ems. It is a big
river in normal times, but it was now in flood, as we could see by
the trees which stood in the water, as well as by the uprooted ones
that floated down the stream. Swimming was out of the question.

We hunted along the bank that morning, but could find nothing, and as
daylight was coming, we had to take cover.

All day we remained hidden in a clump of spruce and looked out upon
the cruel sweep of water that divided us from liberty. The west wind
ca