“Ach Gott!” The sentinel goes off with his head bent. His pipe had gone out, his cheeks had still a little colour, but his eyes were mournful, full of unspeakable sadness. Twelve million Hindoos, negroes, the 75’s, and the typhus! Certainly he would never return. The Hindoos were already a nightmare to him, he saw them creeping over the soil from which they were not to be distinguished, standing up, threatening, behind trees. It was horrible! He was going off that night never to come back. He would fall a victim to the Hindoos before he had time to say a last prayer for his family. Ah, why had he not died in Poland? It was terrible to go and meet this death, which he felt was coming and yet which would take him by surprise. Ah, it was a bad war! * * * * * The sentinel who came to relieve his comrade had to strike him twice on the shoulder before he roused him to tell him to go and eat. He jumped as though he had been in a dream; he looked at his colleague without understanding, mute and terrified, for between the speaker and himself he saw standing the fatal Hindoo in whose hands lay his destiny. * * * * * When he sat down to his frugal meal the Boche had to own that he had no appetite. [Illustration] [Illustration: MY ESCAPE] CHAPTER XIII I had been transferred in April from a camp 150 kilometres from the frontier to another much nearer to it. I had scarcely arrived at my new abode when the idea of escaping took firm hold of me, and from that moment I was careful to neglect nothing that might be useful to me later on. I soon got to know some of the men who had been at the camp from its start, and made them tell me about the escapes that had been attempted, whether successful or otherwise. In all the stories I heard I found matter for reflection, and I gained from them hints and details of information that helped to swell the stock that I possessed, and should be able to use when need arose. I heard about the famous attempts of some ingenious fellows who, under the noses of their keepers, dug in closets they had condemned as insanitary on their own authority a tunnel about forty metres long. This tunnel passed under the protecting network, and beneath the very feet of the sentinels, to a place outside the camp. Everything failed at the last moment. I learned of the happy success of some, of the lamentable death or weary imprisonment of most of those who had endeavoured to escape. These stories tended to keep my impatience within bounds, and caused me to make up my mind not to attempt anything until I had the best possible chance of success.