"Very good, sir." I gave him a smashing good Augen Rechts to cheer him up against the time he should discover that I was well on my way to Scotland.
And I remained there until I received notice that my regimental bones had been officially exhumed; after which I had no difficulty in getting my back pay and three months' furlough for Canada and home!
Author's Note.—An amusing and at the same time gratifying sequel to this story developed immediately upon the heels of its publication in a considerably smaller form in the Saturday Evening Post. Sergeant Edwards, who had not previously been consulted by the authorities, was at once offered his choice between doing "duty" in Canada or taking a discharge from the army, instead of going overseas again. He chose the discharge.
An interesting fact in connection with Brumley, the man who was the first to be recaptured on the second attempt to escape, is that according to a post card received from him by his wife, he has since made two other unsuccessful attempts at escape. Scarfe, who was exchanged to Switzerland, reports that he has married a Swiss girl there. Stamper, another Patricia who was captured at the same time as Edwards, has recently been exchanged and is now in England. Scott, who was captured with the men of an English regiment, was exchanged to Switzerland and recently returned to Toronto and has been in hospital, in a serious condition, ever since. The fate of the others is unknown.
THE EVIDENCE IN THE CASE[ToC]
In order to remove any vestige of doubt in the reader's mind as to the authenticity of Corporal Edwards' tale, it has been deemed advisable to present reproductions of certain newspaper articles and correspondence which bear directly on some of the points touched upon in the story.
It will be noticed that quite aside from the major fact of the escape itself having been brought out here, there is the equally important one of the bringing out of a great number of lesser points which tally to a hair with such references to them as are made in the story, such for instance as the references to the delay in England, the references in their post cards of those fellow-prisoners who remain in Germany and other facts of a similar nature.