ips, carrots, apples and peas."

"September third: Fine weather. Good going last night. Feet still
pretty bad. Had to cut my boots. Fine cover in the wood. Meals: baked
potatoes. Feel fuller." This was our first cooked meal and the
pleasure it gave us was beyond all words. We lit it under cover of
night so that by the time day had come there was nothing but glowing
coals in which the potatoes roasted while we slept.

My feet were badly swollen by this time so that I was faint with the
pain of them.

The Zeppelin, strange though it was under the circumstances, was only
a small incident in many others of vaster importance which were
happening daily to us but it was flying so low that we deemed it best
not to move until it had passed. We wondered if it were going to
England, and envied it.

"September fourth: More rain. Hard going half the night. Crossed large
peat bog and wet to the waist. Very cold. Cover in wood. None too
good. Got scared out of our first cover. Meals: Milk, apples and peas.
Feet not so sore. Still raining and cold. We should soon be at the
River Ems."

On the evening of this day we walked out to the edge of the wood we
were in and stood there sizing up the near-by village. It was about
seven o'clock and wanted about an hour to darkness and our usual time
for hitting the trail. Without any warning, a burly farmer confronted
us. He was as badly startled as we were. Our remnants of painted
uniforms and our ragged, soaked and generally filthy condition no
doubt added to our terrible appearance. We had long since lost our
caps and our hair was matted like a dog's. The German was armed with a
double-barreled shotgun, and at his heels a powerful-looking dog
showed his teeth to us, so that I marked the red of his tongue. If he
raised the alarm we were done for. We still had our cudgels.

I do not know whose was the offensive. But I do know that the three of
us came together with one accord in a wild and terrible medley of
oaths in two languages and of murderous blows that beat like flails at
the threshing. Simmons and I struggled for the gun which he tried so
hard to turn on us, the dog meanwhile sinking its teeth deep in our
unprotected legs and leaping vainly at our throats; while we felt with
clutching fingers for his master's, intent only that he should not
shout.

In those mad moments there sped through our brains the reel of that
whole horrid film of fifteen months' torture of mind and body; the