us all the more suspicious was the fact that he
displayed a squared map as an evidence of his official character. I
told him that anybody could get a squared map. "Do you take me for a
spy?" he said. I replied gently that we did, and that he would have to
come to Headquarters and be identified. He had an ugly looking
revolver in his belt, but he submitted very tamely to his temporary
arrest. I was taking him off to our Headquarters, where strange
officers were often brought for purposes of identification, when a
young Highland Captain of diminutive stature, but unbounded dignity,
appeared on the scene with four patrol men. He told me that as he was
patrolling the roads for the capture of spies, he would take over the
custody of my victim. The Canadians were loath to lose their prey. So
we all followed down the road. After going a short distance, the
signallers had to return to their quarters, much to my regret, (p. 084)
for it seemed to me that the safety of the whole British Army depended
on our capturing the spy, and I knew I could depend upon the Canadians.
However I made up my mind that I would follow to the bitter end.

The Highlander put the officer between us and, followed by the four
patrol men, we went off down a lonely road. The moon had now risen.
After walking about half a mile we came to a large barn, outside of
which stood a sentry. It was the billet of a battalion of Highlanders.
I told the man privately, that we had arrested the officer under
suspicion of his being a spy, and if the sentry on duty should see him
coming back along the road, he was to detain him and have him
identified. As we walked along, a number of men who had been concealed
in the ditches on each side of the road rose up and followed us. They
were men of the patrol commanded by the young Highlander on the other
side of our prisoner. It was a delightfully weird experience. There
was the long quiet moonlit road and the desolate fields all around us.
While I was talking to one of the men, the patrol officer, unknown to
me, allowed the spy to go off on his wheel, and to my astonishment
when I turned I saw him going off down the road as hard as he could. I
asked the officer why he had let him go. He said he thought it was all
right and the man would be looked after. Saying this, he called his
patrol about him and marched back again. The thing made me very angry.
It seemed to me that the whole war might depend on our capturing the
spy.