He was a fine-looking old man, covered with medals and iron crosses, a veteran of the 1866 and 1870 wars. He loved being saluted, and complained that the British did not salute him enough. He was told that our officers do not salute when they are not wearing hats, and that many had got no military caps since theirs had been taken from them by the Germans at the time of their capture. [Illustration: SECTION OF A GERMAN CAMP (_page 97_).] He promptly ordered the canteen to get caps and sell them to us. When they arrived they were very comic to look at, dark blue with a stiff peak. Before describing my actual exit from the camp it is necessary that the general plan of the enclosure and its adjacent buildings be understood. The camp was oblong in shape, and was surrounded on all sides by a barbed-wire fence some eleven feet high. At every fifty yards there was posted a sentry, whose orders included the shooting of any hapless wretch found cutting his way through the fence, or climbing over it. Opposite one of the corners of the camp, and outside of it, was situated the parcel office. Here the prisoners' parcels were censored by the Germans in front of them. There was also a tin office here, where all tinned food not immediately required by the prisoners was kept until it was needed, when it could be taken away after being opened by a German. We often used to try and make the German soldier jump by saying "Bomben" or "Handgranaten" just at the moment when he punctured the tin with his opener. These two offices were open until 6 o'clock in the evening, and the Germans had put up a barbed-wire passage from a gate in the wire wall of the camp enclosure to the door of this office, thus enabling them to permit the prisoners free access to these two rooms until this hour. At 6 o'clock the offices were cleared of prisoners by the numerous Germans employed there and cut off from the prisoners' part of the camp by closing the iron gate in the main wire wall of the camp. It occurred to me that if I could hide in the parcel office or tin room before 6 o'clock, and be locked in when the work of the day ceased, I should naturally find myself outside the wire enclosure, which was the first and principal difficulty to be overcome by a would-be escaper. It would then remain to be seen whether it was feasible to get out of these offices by way of the skylights or other windows at a late hour. The risk was worth taking, but another difficulty presented itself. How was I to get my pack, full of food, boots, civilian clothes, etc., and all the rest of my paraphernalia, weighing fully fifty pounds, into the parcel office without making the numerous Germans I should have to pass suspicious. The solution to this question came two days after I was ready. At about 5.30 p.m. on Tuesday, June 19th, a tremendous wind came down on the camp, and the sandy dust rose in a huge cloud filling everybody's eyes, noses, and mouths with fine particles.