At the next village, Goldbach by name, there were sounds of shouting and singing, so we made a long and difficult detour and most unfortunately came back on the wrong road on the far side—a very easy thing to do. We only discovered this an hour later, when the compass bearing of the road was found to be wrong. This necessitated a long and tiring cross-country march to reach the right road; and, very wet and tired, we got into an excellent hiding-place in a small spruce fir wood just after dawn. If ever we had to walk through standing crops—and this was unavoidable in any detour of cross-country march—we were always wet through to the waist from the dew. One notable thing happened just before we got into our hiding-place, which was to prove our salvation. We came across a field of potatoes. The haulm was on the average only 6 to 8 inches high, and no potatoes were as yet formed; but in most cases the old seed potato had not yet gone rotten, so we used to pick these out and replant the haulm. Much cheered by this addition to our rations, Buckley and I tramped on for another mile or so before selecting our hiding-place for the day. We ran little risk, as up the hill to our left were thick woods, on the edge of which we were walking, while on our right the ground sloped away over ploughed fields to a rich valley. Soon after dawn we found an almost ideal place in which to spend the day. It was a thick copse of small pine trees with thickish undergrowth, about a mile northeast of the village of Billenhausen—on the whole, about the pleasantest place we found during the expedition. Here Buckley, who has something of the boy scout in him, started to make a fire without smoke. I went outside to veto the fire if much smoke appeared above the tree-tops. It was most exasperating. On that still morning a thin column of smoke rose perpendicularly high above the trees. Buckley came out and had a look at it and agreed to abandon the fire, and to eat our potatoes raw. It was a warm, sunny day, and we remained quite undisturbed; so, at the usual hour, feeling much fresher and cheerier, and thanking God for the raw potatoes, we started off on our eleventh night's walk.
Eleventh Night.—We had another reason for feeling more hopeful, for the last two nights we had been walking south, and this night we expected to cut into the direct route from Ingolstadt to the frontier—a route which we had studied for months with the greatest care and almost knew by heart. Many other escaping prisoners had passed that way, and those who had been recaught (much the greater part of them, unfortunately) had given us the benefit of their experiences. After a short walk we came to Billenhausen, where many lights were showing, but through which it was necessary to pass, as we wished to cross the stream to the west bank, and the only bridge was in the middle of the village. After a council of war we decided to march boldly through at 10.30. This we did without attracting undue attention. It was always nervous work walking through a village when lights were showing and dogs barking. The risk, however, was not so great as it seemed, so long—and here was the danger—as we did not lose our way in the village and turn into a blind alley. After an hour or more along a good road we came on a light railway and followed that for some time, standing aside, I remember, at one place, to let a train pass. About midnight we saw the town of Krumbach ahead of us.
Krumbach was on the route that we knew, so, leaving it on our left, we cut across country to our right, through some extremely wet crops, and hit the main road west of Krumbach. For the rest of the night, after crossing the river at Breitenthal, we made excellent progress, the road leading us through huge pine forests, and it was not until half an hour before dawn that we came out into more open country. It was then somewhat after 4.30. There was a steep hill in front of us with the village of Nordholz on a river at the bottom of it. There was an excellent hiding-place where we were, but on the far side of the village my map showed that there should be extensive woods. A village close in front of your hiding-place means a late start on the next night; but then we might find no suitable hiding-place on the far side—for not only had we little time to spare before people would be about, but also there was a thick mist, which, as we knew from our experience just before crossing the Danube, added greatly to the difficulties of finding a hiding-place. Buckley was for going on. I was for staying where we were, my vote being influenced by the fact that my feet had been more than usually painful that night. However, we went on, and half an hour later saw large woods through the mist on our left. On investigation they proved quite useless for hiding-place purposes. It was now becoming dangerously late, and when we had spent another ten minutes in a futile search we decided that we must return to the first place. At this hour in the morning it would be most dangerous to go back through the village, so we tried to go round it. After getting wet to the waist going through some meadows, we came to a river 5 yards broad, which looked very deep. Swimming was not to be thought of, as it was a very cold morning and we were exhausted, so we went back through the village the way we had come. It was 5.30 when we passed through and several people were about, but we met no one, and the mist hid us to a certain extent. At last, very tired indeed (for an hour we had been walking at high pressure), we threw ourselves down in our hiding-place.
We were awfully wet and cold, and after we had lain shivering with our teeth chattering for a couple of hours, the sun rose and drove away the mist. No sunlight reached our hiding-place, it was too thick, so we crept out to an open space in the wood and sunned ourselves. A little-used footpath ran close by us, and we soon considered the position we were in to be too dangerous, and retreated to the edge of the wood to a spot which was more or less screened by bushes from the path. I slept and Buckley watched. As we were lying there, a man with a gun, a forester probably, came along the path, and passed without seeing us. He could not have missed us if he had glanced our way. Buckley woke me, and we crept back into the dank wet undergrowth, feeling much annoyed with ourselves for the unnecessary risk we had taken. As the day got warmer we revived, and passed it not unpleasantly, and without further disturbance. Unfortunately, the night before we had been unable to collect potatoes, but we promised ourselves that in future one of our most urgent duties would be to collect a pocketful each. We believed then, but I don't know how true it is, that there were some very savage laws against the stealing of seed potatoes. If we were caught with potatoes on us, we could scarcely expect to be leniently treated, and our reception by the villagers was also doubtful; so we made arrangements to throw our potatoes away immediately if chased.