Passing through one village I met some French prisoners. I gave them good day and told them who I was. They invited me to come into their room in the farm where they were working. They were able to tell me what village I was in, Dollderup, and this was a great assistance. I thanked them in execrable French, gave them one of my remaining cigarettes, and told them what news I could—they had heard nothing for months. I don’t think anything on the whole journey was more difficult than framing those few simple French sentences.
The signposts made the journey easy after that. At 3 p.m. I had 18 kilometres to go to Lügumkloster. I turned off the road, lay down in some young fir trees, took off my boots, ate some chocolate, and had half an hour or more’s sleep.
I started again towards dusk. I was feeling very fit now and full of hope. If only I didn’t muck it on the frontier....
The signposts did their duty nobly. There was a keen wind from the north and the road was good. I had been out just two complete days.
In one village a soldier with a rifle came out of a house just as I passed it. He replied to my “Guten Abend” courteously.
I reached Lügumkloster, I suppose, about half-past nine or ten. It is a big rambling village, and I made a bad mistake here on leaving it. I meant to take the Arrip-Arnum road, which runs roughly north-east. I took a road running north-east, but after about an hour’s walking I found it was leading me gradually more east than north—I had not noticed that the wind had shifted from north to east. I decided to leave the road and make due north on the compass, trusting to pick up the right road later on. Then began a trying time. The ground was terribly wet and intersected with continual wired ditches. I tore my clothes rather badly here and I don’t think my trousers at the end of my journey would have stood another rip. However, I kept due north, tacking as little as possible to avoid the ditches, and eventually reached the road. It was, I supposed, about 2 a.m. I estimated I was still quite ten miles from the frontier. There was a strong wind, and I had not enough matches to spare to look more than once or twice at my map. Added to this, the signposts, previously so well-behaved, became infuriating. They only mentioned names which I had never heard of, or at least had not committed to memory.
Slog! Slog! Slog! I was getting tired. A man passed me with a cart. What on earth did he think he was doing at that time of night?
There was lots of water about and I did not go thirsty. My cap made an effective cup.
A light railway running parallel to the road—this was the Klein Bahn (light railway) the fellow had told us of.
Slog! Slog! Sl—. What on earth was that? A sentry box on the roadside, and in the box a sentry yawning and stretching himself. On each side of the road a belt of barbed wire running east and west.