The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-03-01
Rallied by Hard Luck


 About this time we were joined by three South Africans and a man of the Ministers, who told us a thrilling story of an attempted escape. They 1 'went'' on the Kaiser's birthday. They trekl1ed all the first night, but owing to having to cross a river, they lost a lot of valuable time. When day light came they forced themselves in to the middle of a haystack. One of the boys told me that even in the stack they were so cold that they could not speak, and when the sun came out they were obliged to creep out of the hay and try to find warmth in the sun. Driven to desperation through the intense cold, the lads made a fire, and by melting down a tinfull of snow they were able to get drink of warm water, which revived them. When darkness came o1 they continued their weary trek for the frontier. It was too cold to allow the fugitives any chance to sleep, so they made their way along a road which they thought would take them a good way over the marshes.
 Unfortunately, however, the road merely led into the center of the marsh and then finished. There was nothing else for them to do but to retrace their steps and start over again. This meant a further loss of valuable time. The men had to work their way round the marsh, and be- fore they had found their way day. light broke. Lucky they came across an old paper mill, inside of which | they found a little cabin in which they decided to remain until darkness set | in. The boys managed to get a sleep | here, and kept themselves warm by wrapping themselves up in paper. This being an unsuitable hiding place the boys had to seek for a more secure one, and they fell in lucky. They went into an ola hut in the mid ale of the field, where lucky there was a nice supply of straw. Owing to the continued cold weather, the lads were forced to make a fire inside and chance the consequences. A good drink of hot water revived them, but they made the mistake of starting their next trek too soon. After look ing round they decided to take to a road in the distance, but apparently
 whilst making through the fields to l
 detected. However, later on they
 banged" into a young woman, who
 must have given Information to the Igendarmes- They made every effort
 to throw the gendarmes off their track. With only about eight kilo- metres to go the boys still hoped for the best, but the whole countryside knew of their escape, and eventually nd and were afterwards sentenced to fourteen days without blankets.
 One of these lads escaped later on;
 in fact, when I got to London was lasked if I knew him, and on my tell
 ing the officials there that he was
 one of my comrades, they told me
 that he was the last man, bar myself,
 to get away.
 It was while at this camp that l
 realized what the familiar term O.
 a month of Sundays meant. had of- : ten heard the remark, and 1t was not
 until got to Germany that l saw 1t !, put into effect.
 . Owing to the shortage of labor in : the Fatherland the ma gistrates were somewhat 10th to send workmen to } prison, because by doing so they were taking them from work or national . importance. Therefore, instead of giv- } ing them a months imprisonment, they were sentenced to this penalty, l which had to be served on Sundays. l This remarkable, revelation is no } hearsay, for I was told by civilian, 2 who was one of the sensible sort that he had actually served 2s Sundays in } prison, whilst during the week he had to work.
 5 Qn the next instalment Private Robson has more thrilling stories to