uld be impossible to get out of St. Die by any conveyance after
dark.

I had the luck to find a man with a sledge, who was returning to a
distant village, some way behind the war zone, and he agreed for a
substantial consideration to take me. We drove for many hours through
the night, and it was very late when at last, in a peasant's cottage, I
flung myself fully dressed on a sofa, for there was no spare bed, and
slept like a log for several hours.

It was by many odd conveyances that I made my way to Besancon, and
thence to Dijon. I had managed to clean myself up, and looked less like
an escaped convict than I had done; but I was very wary all the way to
Paris, where I communicated with headquarters, and received orders to
rush the films across to London as fast as ever I could.

Having overcome the perils of the land, I had to face those of the sea,
for the German submarines were just beginning their campaign against
merchant shipping, and cross-Channel steamers were an almost certain
mark. So the boat service was suspended for a day or two, and there was
I stranded in Dieppe with my precious films, as utterly shut off from
London as the German army.

I was held up there for three days, during which time I secured pictures
of the steamer _Dinorah_, which limped into port after being torpedoed,
of a sailing vessel which had struck a mine, and some interesting scenes
on board French torpedo boat destroyers as they returned from patrolling
the Channel.

I spent most of my time hanging around the docks, ready to rush on board
any steamer that touched at an English port. At last I heard of one that
would start at midnight. My films were all packed in tins, sealed with
rubber solution to make them absolutely watertight, and the tins were
strung together, so that in the event of the ship going down I could
have slipped them round my waist. If they went to the bottom I should go
too, but if I was saved I was determined not to reach London without
them.

As it happened, my adventures were at an end. We saw nothing of any
under-water pirates, and my trip to the fighting line ended in a prosaic
taxi-cab through London streets that seemed to know nothing of war.

PART II

CHAPTER I

HOW I CAME TO MAKE OFFICIAL WAR PICTURES

I am Appointed an Official War Office Kinematographer--And
Start for the Front Line Trenches--Filming the German Guns
in Action--With the Canadians--Picturesque Hut Sett