Realising this we were desirous of finding a particularly safe retreat for the hours of daylight.
Leaving the flat country immediately west of the river, we began crossing an undulating stretch of heath-land, which gave place after two or three miles to pastureland and corn.
Here it was that Blank, who had been in a prison camp situated in this district, declared that he knew of a railway running from somewhere close to our position at that moment.
We decided to try to find it before we hid for the day, in order to know its exact whereabouts when we moved off that night.
Sure enough we came to a large cutting, and were able to get on to the convenient road we found waiting for us at the bottom of it without any great difficulty.
It was high time now to think seriously of a hiding-place. This was not forthcoming. Instead we seem to have entered a district packed with farms. This railway track had evidently been made with the express object of tapping this rich farming district.
At about 4.45 we suddenly became aware of a man behind us, following along the railway track some four hundred yards off. This drove us up the southern side of the cutting we were traversing at the moment, and away across country in a rapid search for good cover. Nothing turned up to suit us for some time and we were beginning to feel fairly desperate, as the Germans usually begin to milk their cows somewhere about 5 o'clock.
At last, after travelling at top speed for nearly half an hour, we found a thick plantation situated between two farms. Into this we crawled not feeling at all satisfied with the cover. It proved to be really dense, which was a blessing, and despite the cold, two out the three of us were very soon asleep after a hot drink.
We took it in turns to watch here, each doing a two hour stretch of sentry-go, and then four hours off. These hours of waiting were fearfully long and tedious, one could not sleep for very many hours, and then it was a case of sitting still till darkness fell, when further desire to rest had been killed.
Towards the evening of this Sunday we were again badly scared, by hearing dogs barking and the reports of shot-guns quite close to us.