It would mean many more men called away from farm work to arrange for the guarding of the crossings of the Leine as well; a fact which hardly recommends itself to the Boche authorities just at present.
CHAPTER VI[ToC]
I MEET FOX AND BLANK
The fact that this bridge was left behind made me feel quite elated, and I continued along a lane in a westerly direction with full confidence in my disguise and my evidently unsuspicious appearance generally.
The lane ending in a field made me take to working across country. There were quite a number of Germans scattered about making hay. I had to go very cautiously so as to avoid meeting anyone face to face, as they might have asked me awkward questions relating to my work, etc. I also could not walk across fields with long grass in them by day without risking causing suspicions in the minds of any farmer who might see me, as the Germans themselves are very careful not to damage any crops in these times.
And now happened the most remarkable thing that could well have fallen to the experience of anyone outside a novel.
I was walking along a hedge very slowly, watching a German in the distance, when suddenly I thought I heard my name being spoken very clearly and distinctly. Again I heard it and this time I was certain, and immediately thought that I was imagining it and that I was really going mad. I was told afterwards that I clutched my head with both hands. It was an awful shock to hear this, after not having seen anyone or been with anyone who knew me for two and a half days, and having crossed two rivers and got miles from the camp in which my only acquaintances and friends in Germany were locked up. I turned round and then I heard it again coming out of the hedge, and not only my name this time but an exceedingly English sentence which told me that I was a something fool, and that I was to come back. I promptly did so and found Major C.V. Fox, D.S.O., and Lieut. Blank lying at the bottom of the hedge. I at once joined them, and I naturally thought that all the officers from the camp had escaped and were spread far and wide over Germany, and that I had found a couple of them without being unduly lucky. However, that was not the case. Fox and Blank had escaped sixteen hours after I did, but while I had been hung up between the ambush and the first bridge for four hours, they had pushed ahead and crossed both rivers and got to their present hiding-place at daybreak.