"Down there in the dark, of course, I’d no notion of how time was going. I heard guns booming every now and again, and sounds in the house above, and being pretty easy in my mind, as I say, I dropped off to sleep. When I woke I finished off my grub, waiting as patient as a monument for the word to clear. Whether it was night or day I couldn’t tell: there seemed to be someone moving about the house all the time. At last I got hungry and mortal sick of being alone in the dark, and began to wonder what I’d do if she didn’t come back. Thought I’d try and have a look round. I felt my way to the door, and came to the bottom of the staircase. It was light up above, and I heard the Germans talking overhead, and didn’t dare go up. I decided to wait till night and try again. I went to that staircase a dozen times, I should think, before night; the day seemed extra long; and even when night came I was dished, for a lamp was burning, and there were more voices than ever, and I heard someone playing a flute. I guessed they’d sacked the woman for letting me go, and smiled to myself at their hunting like mad for me all over the place. "But it was no smiling matter there, I can tell you. I didn’t sleep a wink that night, but kept on going to the staircase on the chance they were napping above. Not they! And I was getting hungrier and hungrier, and thirsty!--I never knew before what thirst was. I felt seedy, and a banging in my head, and couldn’t keep still, going round and round that cellar till I was nearly mad." "Why didn’t you break out when we stormed the village?" asked Kenneth. "How was I to know about that?" "There must have been a terrific row," said Harry. "Close by, too." "If I’d known I’d have been out like a shot, you bet. But I guess how it was. I must have got fair worn out with traipsing round and round, and fallen asleep at last, and when you go to sleep like that, nothing on earth ’ud wake you. ’Specially being used to the sound of guns in the trenches. Anyway, when I woke up, I was so mad for food that I said to myself I’d get out somehow and chance it. I went to the staircase; there was a light above, so I knew it was night, and I began to crawl up. But there was a footstep on the passage, and down I went again, but not into the cellar; that gave me the horrors. I sat in the dark at the foot of the staircase, in the hope there’d be quiet above in time. "Well, I waited hours, it seemed. I heard laughing and talking, and knives and forks going, and that made me mad. I was just going to make a dash for it when I heard the Germans going along to the door. I didn’t hardly dare to hope they’d all clear out, but I waited a bit, and all was quite still, and I crawled up on hands and knees so the stairs shouldn’t creak. What I was afraid was that the servants were in the kitchen, but there wasn’t a sound; and I crept along the passage.