I spent long hours, by day and night, studying the camp enclosure, the coming and going of the men on fatigue duty, the manner and uniform of the sentinels, and the change of guard. I thought over a hundred ways of escape, each more ingenious than the others; but finally, in spite of the few cases I had heard of, I came to the conclusion that it was practically impossible to get away from the camp, and that it would be unwise to be waiting there in culpable idleness for a chance of flight that would perhaps not come for months. The gate of the camp was, in fact, strictly guarded during the day by a group of sentinels. At night it was closed, and was charged by an electric current. Sentries were always on the watch. Even supposing that, by some fortunate stratagem, a fugitive succeeded in deceiving for an instant the vigilance of the soldiers, he would still have to pass in front of huts occupied by German infantry. These would not fail to arrest on suspicion any man not in German uniform. It was best not to cherish false hopes, but to give up all idea of getting out through the gate. As for getting over the barricades, it would have been mad to think of it. Only rats and birds could have done it. The camp was surrounded not only by a trellis of barbed wire two metres high, but also by an electric current of 5000 volts, and again was guarded by a network of barbed wire. Behind this wicked arrangement sentries were placed fifty metres apart. They kept strict watch. Beyond the line of sentinels a deep ditch, four metres deep and five wide, encircled the camp, and beyond that again, running parallel with it, was a mound five metres high and six wide at its base. It was consequently useless to dream of crossing this organisation of defence. There remained the fatigue duty! Every day some hundreds of men were taken into neighbouring districts to work either in the fields or in industrial enterprises of various kinds. I went several times instead of one of the others, and that gave me the opportunity of getting familiar with the neighbourhood and the habits of the civil and military population. I discovered that there were no able-bodied men under about fifty years of age left in the district. The railway lines and the bridges were guarded by the military. Several plans came into my mind. I thought of disguising myself as an old woman, then as a Boche soldier, after having relieved one of my keepers of his uniform by a process that still remained to be discovered. But all was idle fancy! The men on fatigue duty were carefully watched, and remained absent from the camp too short a time for a fugitive to get far enough away before his disappearance was noticed. Still, as I had no choice, I resolved to turn my efforts in that direction, and I tried to obtain civilian clothes.