ceeded in cutting the outside wire in broad
daylight and getting into the woods unobserved. Seeing his opportunity
a tall Canadian, named Colquhoun, hastily gathered up his valuables
and dived through the inviting gap in the wire (which had been
cleverly cut behind some young fir trees and up beside a post). He was
just disappearing into the woods at record speed (the sentry's back
being still turned) when he was seen by some children playing on a
hillock a little way off. They at once made a noise, and several of
them rushed down to tell the sentry. That man, however, was much too
grand to listen to "kids" talking nonsense, so drove them off with
many threats and violent gestures. When the escape was discovered,
green-uniformed soldiers of Jaeger regiments and mounted foresters
scoured the woods for nearly two days without any success. Shortly
after a notice was posted up stating that when the escaped officers
were recaptured, they would in all probability be tried by
court-martial for breaking their parole in looking for hiding places
when out for walks; this, needless to say, was all nonsense, the
officers in question being miles away by that time.

This notice could not be regarded in any other light than that of an
insult to British officers in general, causing much resentment. All
future walks were voluntarily given up, and at evening "_appel_" all
parole cards, without exception, were returned to the Huns by mutual
consent, to avoid any insinuations of this sort in the future. After
being out for about a fortnight the outlaws were all recaptured and
taken to Stroehen, where I afterwards met them. The first two put up a
very good show, being recaptured in an exhausted condition by a road
guard, twenty odd kilometres from the frontier, much to their disgust.
My friend, the Canadian, fought a good fight against an unkind fate.
While washing in a stream one night he was taken by a man with a
revolver looking for an escaped Russian prisoner. He was then put into
prison at a men's camp, where he succeeded in obtaining some
wire-cutters from other Britishers. Forcing his way through the
skylight into a dark and rainy night, he dropped to earth, cut the
wire and was again free. The drop previous to cutting the wire had,
however, damaged his compass, which stuck and led him south instead of
west. Three days later he was taken near a bridge over a river by men
and trained dogs, and transferred to a town prison. There I bel