Norwich bulletin., 1916-07-04

chance when sent with a detachment of French prisoners to clear a piece of woods. Most of the work was simply digging up stumps, and this suggested an idea. q will throw myself into the excavation of one of the stumps,' said to one of my comrades, and when the sentineIs back is turned you will cover me with earth.
 "The morning of April g. I caught the sentinel off his guard blowing at the fire, trying to make it burn, while was working beside Q stump that had just been Uprooted. I slipped into the hole, face downward, with a sack under my chin and a clunp of ferns in front of my face to protect my mouth and serve as sort of a breath ing pad; few seconds later l felt the cold earth falling upon my feet and legs. After the lower part of my body had been covered, my comrades threw roots and branches over my head and shoulders to prevent me from suffocat- ing.
 T remained there until half past eleven, the earth settling all the time and weighing heavier and heavier up- on me. At 9 quarter past eleven one of the German sentinels walked over the earth that covered me.
 When I looked out again, my com rades were marching off to their bar racks; my opportunity had come. I had to be quick for 300 yards away the chief of the detachment of guards was counting the prisoners; in a few min utes my disappearance would be known and the alarm given.
 "The first man I met in crossing the village of Borken was a gendarne who simply gazed at me. A hundred yards from the frontier met a boy on a bi- cyle, who inspired me with more eau ton than any person I had met. I ran into a little wood and concealed myself for @ half hour. When I came out another bicyclist came up behind
 me, jumped to the ground and demand ed, Your papers, I am a Hollander,' I replied. T have no papers, A sec ond bicyclist and a police dog followed, with people searching from all sides, and was soon on the way back to the camp at Sennelager.
 'Once returned to Sennelager, my first idea was to prepare a new plan of escape together with Corporal Brous- set. Besides getting out of the bar racks which was easy. we had this time to get over lines of barbed-Wire two and a half yards m height in three lines, the second of which had sort of metallic treIIis in the middle through which ran an electri ccurrent of 10000 volts. Brousset went aheal on this occasion. We Crept as closely to the ground as we could until we got to the barbed wire Brousset cut the
  electrified obstacle. Nippeds were no use here, but the trellis was fixed upon posts, leaving about a foot of space underneath. Brousset went first and watched him breathlessly until he drew his foot safely from under the wire on the other side. Then I follow ed. still holding my breath, until I al- so had gone under the dangerous bar rier.
 The most difficult work had not El T rE -EN EN,- three barbed wire lines were the sil- houettes of two sentinels scarcely twenty yards away. When we got through the barbed wire, we were in plain view of them and had nothing to do but make a spurt for a clunp of reaching them without being observed. The sentinels went away, and we took up our journey toward the frontier Three peasants chased us in ire morn ing for an hour, until we finally threw them off our tracks in a wood. Near Belefeld two hunters set their dogs upon us. For this eventuality we had provided ourselves with pepper, which proved effective. We avoided the Vil- lage of Rheines by following a route of the woods and marshes, and cross ed Metelen at midnight; then more marshes that seemed interrninable It took us two nights to get over them, sleeping in the day time among the DulruSheS and eating meagrely Of the l little provision that we had calculated might keep up alive ten days.
 After nine days of privat1on and exhaustion we arrived at Ahams to- ward midnight, close to the frontier town of Breden. Again liberty was within few hundred yards of us when we had the misfortune to run straight into a German fronier custom house In our flight I stumbled over a stone at the very instant a customs officer fired at my back. I lay motionless and the officer, thinking had been hit joined his comrades in the pursuit of Brousset. As soon as the officers had disappeared, I got up and went to hide in bushes nearby. At that moment was on Dutch territory, but unfortu- nately I did not suspect it. I thought was safe though until a half hour later I heard the steps of a patrol then the rays of a, strong electric lamp searched the bushes. The Germans remembering where I had fallen, had come back to look for me Suddenly the rays of the electric lamp struck me full in the face and almost blind ed me. Surrender or we'll fire on you, cried one of the subaltern offi- l cers. I rose and advanced towards