Casper Daily Tribune Newspaper, November 9, 1918, Page 5

syererese ————eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee | e in, but no one, except those who cat at my own table, would ‘hotice me uniess they deliberately turned around to look. The place began to fill up rapidly. ry second person who came in the ice seemed to me to be a German bles and I got a chance later on to make a rough count, I found that in all there were not more than.a hun- dred soldiers in th® place and there must have been several hundred civil- the 1e first people to Sit at my table to I was hoping that other civil- ians would oceupy the remaining two seats at my table, because I did not relish the idea of having to sit through the show with German soldiers within a few feet of me, That would certainly have spoiled my pleasure for the even- ery uniform that came in the door me cause to worry until I was sure it was not coming in my direction. I don’t suppose there was a single sol- dier who came in the door whom IL didn’t follow to his seat—with my ae. "Sh Just before they lowered the lights, two German officers entered. They stood at the door for a moment look- he place over, Then they made a ne in my direction and I must confess my heart stanted to beat a it Seemed Better to Parrot the Belgian. little faster, I hoped that they would fine other 8 before they came to my vicinity, but they were getting hearer and nearer and I realized with a sickening sensation that they were headed directly fer the two seats at table, and that was indeed the my case, e two seats were in front of the jug their backs were toward me, and there was considerable consolation in tha Krom my seat I cqild haye reached right over and touched one of them on his bald head. It would have been more than a touch, I am afraid, if I could have gotten away with it the officers seated themselves, iter came to us with a printed ited on the others first and I 1ed intently to their ¢ The : f “Appolina: r, but when they were seated at | re a Belgian and his wife. The Bel-| gian sat next to me and his wife next ing the stage and except when | 's would be eating or drink- | bomocrs ordered» some: light : ine, but my Belgian neighbor ordered “Bock” for himself and his wife, which was what I had decided to orde® Rnyway, as that was the only thing " : : T cou e Baie ‘There were a number of drinks listed j Which might safely. enough have of | Por i T noticed “Lemon i Squash, 1.50,” “Ginger Beer, 1.—” | ‘Sparkling Dry Gi er Ale, 1—" | 1? and “Schweppes | Soda, 0.80," but it occurred to me that | \\the mere fact. that 1 ef somje> | | thing that was listed in English might attract attention to me and somethii 4 iu my pronuatiation might give tur | ther causk for suspicion. It seemed better to parrot the Bél- | gian and order “Boek” and that was | what I decided to do, | One item on the bill of fare tanta- lized me considerably. Although it was listed among the “Prizzen der! dranken,” which I took to mean “Prices of drinks,” it sounded very much to me like something to eat, | and Heaven knows I would rather | have had one- honest mouthful of | food than all the drinks in the world. The item I refer to was “Dubbel Ger stein de Flesch (Michaux).” A double | portion of anything would have been mighty. welcome to me, but I would have been content with a single “ger- sten” if I had only had the courage | to ask for it. To keep myself as composed as pos- | sible I devoted a lot of attention to | that bill-of-fare, and I think by the time the waiter came around I almost | knew it by heart. One drink that al- most made me laugh gloud was listed as “Lemonades gazeuses,” but I might | as well have introduted myself to the German officers by my right name and | rank as attempt to pronounce it. | When the waiter came to me, there- fore, I said “Bock” as casually as I could, and I felt somewhat relieved that I had gotten through that part of | the ordeal so easily. While the waiter was away I had chance to examine the bill-of-fare 1: I observed that a glass of beer cost 80 | centimes. The smallest change I hai | was a two-mark paper bill, ? Apparently the German officers were similarly fixed and when they offered | their bill to the waiter, he handed it | back to them with a remark which 1 | took to mean tha: he couldn't make | change, | Right there I was in a quandary. To | offer him my bill after he had just told the officers he didn’t have change | Would have seemed strange, and yet I | couldn’t explain to him that I was in | -the same boat and he would have to come to me again later. The only thing tp do, therefore, was to offer him the bill as though I hadn't heard or noticed what had huppened with the Germans, and I did so. He said the same thing to me as had said | sharply, and gaye me back the bill. Later on, he returned to the table with a handful of change and we closed the transaction. I gave him 25 centimes as a tip—I had never yet been to a Place where it was necessary to talk “to do that. During my frst half ‘hour in that theatre, to say I wags on pins and needles is to express my feelings mildly. Phe truth of the matter is I Was never so uneasy in my life. Every minute seemed like an hour, and a dozen times I was on the point of get- ting up und leaving. There were al- together too many soldiers in the place to sult me, and when the German of- ficers sented themselves right ‘at my table I thought that was about all-I could stund, As it was, however, the lights went out shortly afterwards and dn the dark T felt considerably easier. | After the first picture, when the hts went tp again, I had regained iny compe e considerably and I took | udvantage of the opportunity to study | the yarlous types of people in the place. | From my seat I had a splendid chance to see them all. At one table there was a German medical corps of- | ficer with three Red Cross nurses. | That was the only time I had ever | Seen a German nurse, for when I was ig the hospital I had seen only men | orderlies, Nurses didn’t work so near | | the first line trenches. | ‘he German soldiers at the different | sented the following week which was \¢ ‘our airmen raided the place. to the officers, perhaps ee more ; | diers at_my side looking at the same | things, to think how close I was to} | them and they had no way of knowing. | } j und T got a chances | authorities have picked out. | diers had not gone more thun a few | frequently glanced in the cafe win- ) Were usually dining»there, but \atively «scare this: tables were very ‘They drank bock among themset hilarity or re sing & As T sat there, within a of those German offi u iz what they, Would’ have given’ to’ know what 9 chance they had te capture: escaped British office could hardly help smiling to myself, but’ when I thought of the big risk I was 4 nore or less unnecessarily, I began to | wonder whether Thad not acted fool- ishly In undertaking it. Nevertheless; the evenin; f andeaePally and when the pepe | Wed and dis- over \T thixed with the appeared, fects very proud and with a good deal more confidence than Thad enjoyed nt the start. Thad passed a night which will live in my lifé as long as I live. The bill of fare nnd program and a “throw- away” pill advertising the name of the attraction whieh was to be pre- handed to me as’f came out, [ still |have and they are among the most valued souvenirs of my adventure, CHAPTER XV. Observations in a Belgian City. e night shortly before I left this T « ¢ venture out of the house at the but the next night I thougkt FE would go out and see what damage had been done. cs When it became dark I left the house accordingly and mixed with the crowd, which consisted largely of Ger- mans. I went from one place to an- other to see what our “straffing” had accomplished, Naturally I avoided speaking to anyone. If a man or woman appeared about to speak to me, I just turned my head and looked or walked away in some other direction. I must have been taken for an un- social sort of individual a good many times, and if I had encountered the same person twice I suppose my con- duct might have aroused suspicion. 1 had a first-class observation of the damage that was really done by our bombs. One bomb had landed very { | near the main railroad station and if it had been only thirty yards nearer | would have completely demolished it, As the station was undoubtedly our | airman’s objective I was very much impressed with the accuracy of his aim. It is by no means an exsy thing to hit a building from the air when | you are going at anywhere from fifty | to one hundred miles an hour and are | being shot at from beneath from a | dozen different angles—unless, of | course, you are taking one of those | | desperate chances and flying so low that you cannot very well miss your | | mark and the Huns. can’t very well | miss you either! 5 | I walked by the station and mingled with the crowds which stedd in the entrances. They paid no more at- tention to me than they did to real Bel- giuns, and the fact that the lights were all out in this city at night made | | it impossible anyway for anyone to | get as good a lool at me as if it) had During the time that I was in this | elty I suppose I wandered from one end of it to the other, In one place, | where the German staff had {ts head- | quarters, a luge German flag hung | from the window, and I think I would | | have given ten years of my life to have stolen it. Even if I could have | | pulled it down, however, it would have | been impossible for me to have con- eealed it, and to have carried it away with me ns a souvenir, therefore would | haye been out of the question. | As I went along the street one night} a lady standing on the cqrner stopped me and spoke to me, My first impulse, of course, was to answer her, explain- ing that I could not understand, but 1 Stopped myself in time, pointed to my) ears and mouth and shook my head, indicating that I was deaf and dumb, | and she nodded understandingly and) walked on. Incidents of that kind were hot unusual, and I was always in fear that the time would come when some inquisitive and suspicious German would encounter mo and not be so easily satisfied. There are many things that I saw in this city which, for various reasons, it is Impossible for me to relate until after the war Is over. Some of them, I think, will create more surprise than the incidents J am free to reveal now. It used to amuse me as I went along the streets of this town, looking in the shop windows with German sol-| I was quite convinced that if I were discovered my fate would have been | deuth because I not only had the} forged passport on.ne, but I had: been | s0 many days behind the German lines after IT had escaped that they couldn't sufely let me live with the informa! tion I possessed. One night I walked boldly across a park. I heard footsteps behind me and } turning round saw two German sol- diers. I slowed up a trifle to let them get aheud of me. It was rather dark to see what a won- the German miligfary The sol- defful uniform feet ahend of me When they) disup- Peured in the darkness like one of those melting pictures on the moving picture sereen, | As I wandered through the streets 1) dow us I passes German aliicers | they n't-conduct themselves with any- Fike the light-heartedness which t mares the allied 9) in nomad Baris, I was ray sur- prised™ at tits Because in this, part of Belgium they were much freer than they would “‘huvé heen» fh rin, whore, T understund) f ts compar- and. thearveldietions % axe very strict, As I have said, my o: mak Log oo showed! itself Oh me, I had regained ‘to the city limits with the idea of been light. | |'to be out of the Question because of ; foot barbed wire barrier. | 4s easily as possible in that way, but | to steal a bicycle this avenue of es- Were no longer constantly %, my opportunities for getting i the tine was ‘aga T deelded’ that I i out-of there at once, since peer: r with Huyliger. 1 adition was greatly ed. While the lack of food some of my strength, my wounds were healed, apd my ankle was stronger, and although my knees were still considerably enlarged, I felt that I was in better shape than I had been at any time since my leap from the train, and I was ready to go through whatever was in store for me, CHAPTER XVI, 1 Leave for the Frontier. To get out of the city, it would be necessary te pass two guards. This I had learned in the course of my walks at night, having frequently traveled finding out just what conditions I would have to meet when the time came for me to leave. A German soldier’s uniform, how- ever, no longer worried me as it had at first. I had mingled with the Huns so much in the city that I began to feel that I was really a Belgian, and I assumed the indifference that they Seemed to feel. I decided, therefore, to walk out of the city in the daytime, when the sen- tries would be less apt to be on the} watch. It worked fine. I was not held up a moment, the sentries evi- dently taking me for a Belgian peas- ant on his way to work. Traveling “faster than I had ever done before since my escape, I was Soon out in the open country, and the first Belgian I came to I approached fom food. He gave me half of his! lunch and we'sat down on the side of | the road to eat it.» Of course, he tried to talk to me, but I used the old ruse of pretending I was deaf and dumb and he was quite convinced that it was so.~He made various efforts to talk te me in pantomime, but I could not make out what he was getting at, and I think he must have concluded that I| was not only half starved, deaf and | dumb, but “looney” in the bargain. When night came I looked around for a place to rest. I had decided to travel in the daytime as well as night, because I-understood that it was only a few miles from the frontier, and I Was naturally anxious to get there at the earliest possible moment, although I realized that there I would encounter the most hazardous part of my whole adyenture, To get through the heavily guarded barbed wire and electrically charged barrier was a problem that I hated to think of gyen, although the | hours I spent endeavoring to devise | someway of outwWitting the Huns | Were many. . It had occurred to me, for instance, | that it would not be such a difficult | matter to vault over the electric fence, which was only nine feet high. In colr lege, I knew a ten-foot yault is consid- ered a high-school boy's accomplish ment, but there were two great dif- ficulties in the way of this solution. | in the first place it would be no easy | | matter to get a pole of the right length, weight and strength to serve the purpose. More particularly, how- ever, the pole-vault*tdea seemed to me the fact that on either side of the elec- tric fence, six feet from it, was a six- To vault safely over a nine-foot electrically charged fence was one thing, but combine with it a twelve-foot broad | vault was a feat which even a college athlete in the pink of conditiqn would be apt to flunk. Indeed, I don’t be lieve it is possible: . Another plan that seamed half-way Teasonable was to build a pair of stilts about twelve or fourteen feet high and walk over the barriers one by one. As a youngster I had acquired consider- able skill in stilt-walking and I have no doubt that with the proper equip- ment it wonyl have been quite feas- ible to have walked out of Belgium whether or not I was going to have a chance to construct the unecessary stilts remained to be seen, There were a good many bicycles in use by the German soldiers in Belgium and it had often occurred to me that | if I couldghave stolen one, the tires | would have made exg¢ellent gloves and | insulated coverings for my feet in case jt "was necessary for me to at- tempt to climb over the electric fence | bodily. But as I had never been able | cape was closed to me. I decided to wait yntil I arrived at | the barrier and then make up my mind how to proceed, To find a decent place to sleep that | night, I crawled under a barbed wire | fence, thinking it led into some field. As I passed under, one 6f the barbs | caught in my coat and in trying to} pull myself from it I shook the fence | for several yards. Instantly there came out of the night the nerve-racking command: “Halt!” | Again I feared L.was done for. I crouched close down on the ground in the darkness, not knowing whether to tuke to my legs and trust to the Hun’s missing me in the darkness if he fired, or stay where I was. It was foggy | a8 well as dark, and although I knew | the sentry was only a few feet away from me I decided to gtand, or rather | lie, pat.’ I think my heart made almost 4s much noise a5 the rattling of the} wire in the first place, and it was a tense tew Dipsoep be to. me. T heard the German say a few words | to himself, but didn’t understand them, | somewhat smaller, about fourteen feet i out of which I eould ¢ of Course, and théi’ he made a sound | asi to call a dog; and T Fealized that his theory of the"ndise "he had heard | was that a dog had made’ its* way through the fence. » For perhaps five milnttes T “didn't | stir, and thén fignejng that the German ‘had probably continued on his beat I crept quietly under the wire again, | 66) try. | th time being » ty careful to hug! cows, were. kent. and. this. wel have ie time belng salenty. careful to hug ne in ft bread a | finally got through. s se that I wouldn't touch the wire, and made off in ors | ferent direction. Evidenily the ba’ wire fence had bees Uwesn afoupd an ig of the r gowey c kind, and {it NS nat ancy at all that Thad trina i fcet Jnth. § 97 Fo T figured ti other ‘sentries wi probably in 1,e neighborhood. add T proceeded. very gingerly.’ AES Sees After I had got ubout a mile away from ‘this spot I éaiie fo" ari “hifnble Belgian house and If Knp it th door aad applied for topd hn fi us' to @y ‘mouth; for indi- gry and &o img ‘ and mouth to imply that | was deaf and _ The Belg womah;who liyed (Bauke brought me 4 ‘piécbj of nd iwo did potatoes and I sat “there, catjng them she eyed me very keenly., |. | T hayer't the ‘sligitest doubt jthat she realized I was a fugitive. She lived so near the border that it was more for that reason, I appreciated more fully the extent of the risk she ran, for no doubt the Germa were constantly watching the conduct of these Bel-| gians who lived near the line. | My theory that she realized that I} was not a Belgian at all, but prob- aby some English fugitive, was’ con- firmed a moment later, when, as 1 made ready to go, she touched me on the arm and indicated that I was to} wait a moment. She went to a bureau and brought out two pieces of fancy Belgian luce which she insisted upon my taking y, although at that par- ticular moment I had as much use for Belgian lace; as an elephant for a safety razor, but 1 was touched with her thoughtfulne: and pressed her hand to show my gratitude. She would not A ot the money I offered her, T varried the lace through my sub- Sequent experiences, feeling that it would be a fine souvenir for my mother, although as a matter of fact if I had known that it was going to de- Iny my final escape for even a single moment, as it did, I am quite sure she would rather I had not seen it. On one piece of lace was the Flem ish word “Charite” and on the other the word erage.” At the time I took th words to mean “Charity” and “Experience” and all I hoped was that I would get as much of the one as I was getting of the other before I I learned subse- quently that what the werds really stood for were “Charity” and “Hope,” and then I was sure that my kind Bel- gian friend had indeed realized my plight and that venir was intended to encourage me in the trials she must have known were before me. I didn’t let the old Belgian lady know, because I did not want to alarm | her unnecessarily, stept in her bac in the morning before it became light. Later in the day I applied at an- other house for food. It was occupied but that night I {by a father and mother and ten cbil- arep. [hesitated to ask them for food without offerfig to pay for ft, as T re- alized what a task it must have been for them to support themselves with- out haying to feed a hungry man, Atc- cordiigly I gave tie tian & mark and then indicated that I wanted some- thing to eat. They were just about to eat, themselves, apparently, and they let me partake of their meal, which consisted of a huge bowl of some kind of soup which T was unable to iden- tify and which" they served in ordinary wash basins, I don’t know that they ever used the busins to wish in as well, but whether they did or not did net worry te very much. The soup was good and I enjoyed it. All the time I was there I could see the father and the eldest son, a boy Again | Feared | Was Done For. about seventeep, were extremely nerv+| ous. I had indicated to them that I) was deaf and dumb, but if they be | lieved me it didn’t seem to make them | any more comfortable. I lingered ut the house for about an | hour ufter the meal and during that tinte a young mun came to call on the | eldest daughter, a’ young woman of, perhaps eighteen. The euller eyed me} very susbiciotsly, although I must! have resembled anything but a British officer, Vhey spoke Flemish and I did not understand a word they sald, but IT think they were discussing my prob- able identify, “During their conversa- tien, I had 4. clithee ta Jook around the. room. There} were; three julto- | gether, two fairly TIarge and one} Jong und six deep. Tn this “Winter | room’ there were two doublé-decked | beds, which were Uppuirently infendéda to house *te*whole family, although how the whole twelve of them could #léep in that*ne room will ever re- maine mystery te men ¥ esl ' From the Kitchen you could walk ditectly into*thy cow-barn, where wwe i | obtained a pair big enough for me— her thoughtful sou- | yard, leaving early | ; Just what I | It was mighty disheartening to real- pointed out before, is the usual éon- struction of the poorer Belgian houses. I could not make out why the caller seemed to be ‘so antagonistic to me, and iz: I am sure he was arguing with ‘amuy Ps the ay ~me. )Perhaps the fact _fha’ yasn't . wearing! wooden | Bhoes—I debt whether I could have | had ecanyinced him that I was not ‘really a Belgian, because there was | ‘VWoMildg abdut~ ‘nic * othérwise Which | Bagg yt given him that idea. * af ‘that! time, and I suppose it is | inf Alay, about 94 per cent of the peoplé' in Belgium ‘were wearing * gn stiveg.) Among ‘the peasants I be FT tehiove I ever saw any other kind pf footwear and they are more common there than they aré in Hol- land. The Dutch wear'them more on | aceount of a lack of leather. I was | toldthet during the coming year prac- | tically ‘ait the peasants and poorer | people in Germany, too, will adopt | wooden shoes for farm work, as that) is one direction in which wood can be substituted for leather without much | loss. When the young man left, I left shortly afterwards, as I was not at alt comfortable about what his inten- tions were regarding me. Wor all I knew he might have gone to notify the German authorities that there was a strange man in the vicinity—more perhaps to protect his friends from | suspicion of having aided me than to | injure me. At any rate, I was not going to take any chances and I got out of that neighborhood as rupidly as I could. | That night found me right on the frontier of Holland. CHAPTER XVII. Getting Through the Lines. Waiting until it was quite dark, qT) made my way! carefully through @ field and eventually came to the much dreaded barrier. It was all that I had heard about it. Byery foot of the border line between Belgium and Holland is protected In} precisely the same manner. It is there | to serve three purposes: first, to pre- vent the Belgians from escaping into | Holland ; second to ke es, Uke | myself, from making their way to free- | dom; and third, to prevent desertions on the part of Germans themselves, One look was enough to convince any one that it probably accomplished all three objeets about as well as any cone trivance could, and one look was all t got of it that night, for while I Ing on my stomach gazing at the forbid- ding structure I heard the mensured stride of a German sentry advancing | towards me and I crawled away as} | fast as I possibly could, determined | | to spend the night somewhere in the! fields and make another and more careful survey the following night. | | The view I had obtained, however, | was sufficient to convince me that the) pole-vault idea was out of the ques-| tion even if I had a pole and was @ proficient pole-vaulter. The threes | fences covered a span of at least twelve feet and to clear the last barbed wire + fence it would be necessary to vault not only at least ten feet high, but at! | least fourteen feet wide, with the cer- tain knowledge that to touch the elee-| trically charged, fence meant instant death. There would be no second chance if you came a cropper the first | time. | The stilt idea was also impractica-| ble because of the Iuck of suitable timber and tools with which to con- struct the stilts, It seemed to me that the best thing to do was travel up and down the line a bit in the hope that some spot might be discovered where conditions were | more favorable, although I dew’t know expected along those lines, ize that only a few feet away lny cer- tain liberty amd that the only things | preventing me from reuching it were three confounded feuces., I thoyght of my machine and wished that some kind fairy would set it in front of me for just one minute. I spent the night in a elump of bushes and kept in hi most of the next duy, only going abrond for an hour or two in the middle of the day | te intercept some Belgian peasant | and beg for food. The Belgians in this | Section were naturally yery much/ afraid of the Germans and I fared badly. Im nearly every house German soldiers were quartered and lt was out of the question for me to Tipply for food in that direction. 'Vhe prox- imity of the border made cyeryone eye each other with more or less sus- Picion and I goon came to the conclu- sion that the safest thing I could do was to live én raw vegetubles which I) could steal from the fields at night as I had previously done. That night E made another survey of the barrier in that vicinity, but it looked just as hopeless as tt had the night before and I concluded that I} only wasted my time there. 1 spent the night wandering north, guided by the North Star which had served me faithfully in all my tray- eling. Every mile or two I would make my way mrefully to the barrier to see If conditions were any better, but it! seemed to be the same all along. I felt like a wild animal in a cage, with} about as much chance of getting out. The section of the country in which I was now wandering was wooded and there was really no very grent difficulty in keeping myself con- cealed, which I did all day long, striv- ing all the time to think of some way in which I could cireumvent that cursed barrier, The idea of a h stepludder oc curred to me, bud > hed hour after | hour In vuain/ for lumber or fallen trees struct one, It T could only obtain something which would Snaine me to ‘reach a point gbont nine fect inthe wir ie would-be | comparatively simple matter to mp fF it poe over the electric “When T. (hpeghit ittaslorhaps Ceouta construet t simple ladder nnd lean it aginst die of the posts Apon which the glectre wires were itruns. climb to ! | under the barbed wire and the toi and then leap ovér, getting over the barbed wire fences in the e way. oorhis seemed to: be the most likely plan and ail night long I sat construct- 5 4 a Iadder for this purpose. was fortunate enough to find a number of fallen pine trees from .ten to twenty feet long. I selected two of them which seemed sufficiently strong and broke off all the branches, whieh T used as rungs, tying them to the poles with grass and strips from my handkerchef and shirt as best I could. It was not-a very workmanlike lookiag ladder when I fimally got through with it. TI leaned it against a tree to test it and it wobbied constd- erably. It was more like a rope lad- der than a wooden one, but I strength- ened it here and there and decided thit it would probably serve the pur- pose. I kept the ladder in the woods all day and could hardly wait until dark to make the supreme test. If it proved successful my troubles were over; | within a few hours I would be in a neutral country out of all danger. If T failed—I dismissed the idea sum- arily. There was no use worrying about failure; the thing to do was to succeed, The few hours that were to pass before night came on seemed endless, but I utilized them to re-enforce my ladder, tying the rungs more securely | with long grass which I picked in the woods. At last night came, and with my ladder in hand I made for the barvier, In front of it there was a cleured space of about one hundred yards, which had been prepared to make the work of the guards easier in watch- ing it. I waited in the neighborhood until I heard the sentry pass the spot where I was in hiding and then I hurried across the clearing, shoved my ladder endeay- ored to follow it. My clothing cawzht In the wire, but I wrenched myself elear'and crawled to the electric bar- tier. My plan was to place the Indder against oue of the posts, climb up to the top and then jump. There wonld be a full of uine or ten feet, and E might possibly spiain an ankle ar break my leg, but If that was all that stood between me and freedom I wasn’t going to stop to consider it. I put my ear to the ground to listen for the coming of the sentry. ‘There Was not a sound, Bagerly but care- fully I placed the ladder against the Post and started up. Only a few feet separated me from Lberty, and my heart beat fast. I had climbed perhaps three rungs of my ladder when I became aware of an unlooked for difficulty. The ladder was slipping. Just as I took the next rung, the ladder slipped, came in contaet with the Jive wire, and the current passed through the wet sticks and into my body. There was a blue flush, my hold on the ladder relaxed and L fell heavily to the ground unconscious. Of course, L had not received the full force of the current or I would not now be here. I must have re- mained unconscious for a few mo- ments, but I came to just in time to hear the German guard coming, aud the thought came to me if I didn’t get that ladder concealed at once he would see it even though, fortunately for me, it was an unusually dark night. I pulled the Indder out of his path and lay Uown flat on the ground not seven feet away from his feet. He passed so close that I could have pushed the ladder out and tripped him up. It oceurred to me that I could have climbed buck under the barbed wise fence and waited for the sentry to re- turn and fhen felled jim with a blow on the head, as he had no idea, of course, that there was anyone in the vicinity. I wouldn’t have hesitated to take life, beecuuse my only thought was to get into Holland, but I thought that as long as he didn’t bother me perhaps the safest thing to do was not to bother him, but to continue my ef- forts during his periodie absence. His bent at this point was apparent- ly fairly long and allowed me more time to work than IF had hoped for. My mishap with the ladder had con- vinced me that my escape in that way Was not feasible. The shock that E had re ed had unnerved me and I was afraid to risk it aguin, partien- larly as I realized that I had fared more fortunately tham [ could hope to again if I met with a similur mis- hap. There was no way of making that ladder hold and I gave up the idea of using it. IT was nqw right In front of this electric barrier and as I studied it I saw another way of getting by. If Tt couldn't get over it, whut was the matter with getting under it? The bottom wire wus only two inches from the ground und, of course, I couldn't touch it, but my plan wus to dig underneath it and then crawl through the hole in the ground, T had only my hands to dig with, but I went at it with a will and fortu- nutely the ground was not very hard. When I hud dug about six inches, making a distance in all of eight inches from the lowest electric’ wire. I came to an underground wire. TI knew enough ubout electricity to real- ize that this wire could not be charged, us it was in contuet with the ground, but still there wus not room between the live wire und this underground wire for ine to erawt through, ar I ether had to go back or dig deep chough under this wire to crawl under it or else pull it up. This underground wire was about as big around as a lead pencil and thove was no chance of breaking {t The jack-knife L had had at the start of my travels 1 had leng since and even if T had had something” to hammer with, the noise would have made the method impracticable, fi (Fo be Continued Tomorrow) Se. Se Try a Tribune wantad. y ‘ hh t , i aaa “eat Pe ie i — i