I traveled rapidly, considering my difficulties, and swam a couple of canals that night, covering in all perhaps ten miles before daylight. Then I located in some low bushes, lying there all day in my wet clothes and finishing my sausage for food. That was the last of my rations.
That night I made perhaps the same distance, but became very hungry and thirsty before the night was over.
For the next six days I still figured that I was in Germany, and I was living on nothing but cabbage, sugar-beets, and an occasional carrot, always in the raw state, just as I got them out of the fields. The water I drank was often very rank, as I had to get it from canals and pools. One night I lay in a cabbage-patch for an hour lapping the dew from the leaves with my tongue!
During this period I realized that I must avoid meeting any one at all hazards. I was in the enemy's country and my uniform would have been a dead give-away. Any one who captured me or who gave information from which my capture resulted might have been sure of a handsome reward. I knew that it was necessary for me to make progress as fast as possible, but the main consideration was to keep out of sight, even if it took me a year to get to Holland, which was my objective. From my map, I estimated that I was about thirty-five miles from Strassburg when I made my leap from the train, and if I could travel in a straight line I had perhaps one hundred and fifty miles to travel. As it was, however, I was compelled to make many detours, and I figured that two hundred and fifty miles was nearer the extent of the journey ahead of me.
In several parts of this country I had to travel through forests of young pine-trees about twelve feet high. They were very close together and looked almost as if they had been set out. They proved to be a serious obstacle to me, because I could not see the stars through them, and I was relying upon the heavens to guide me to freedom. I am not much of an astronomer, but I know the Pole Star when I see it. But for it I wouldn't be here to-day!
I believe it rained every night and day while I was making my way through Germany to Luxembourg.
My invariable program at this stage of my journey was to travel steadily all night until about six in the morning, when I would commence looking around for a place wherein to hide during the day. Low bushes or woods back from the road, as far as possible from the traveled pathway, usually served me for this purpose. Having found such a spot, I would drop down and try to sleep. My overcoat was my only covering, and that was usually soaked through either from the rain or from swimming.
The only sleep I got during those days was from exhaustion, and it usually came to me toward dusk when it was time for me to start again.
It was a mighty fortunate thing for me that I was not a smoker. Somehow I have never used tobacco in any form and I was now fully repaid for whatever pleasure I had foregone in the past as a result of my habits in that particular, because my sufferings would certainly have been intensified now if in addition to lack of food and rest I had had to endure a craving for tobacco.
About the sixth night I was so drowsy and exhausted when the time came for me to be on the move that I was very much tempted to sleep through the night. I knew, however, that that would be a bad precedent to establish and I wouldn't give in.