This was the first instance of many in which I did not allow myself to be guided by my instinct, as I should have done if I had been alone. I felt so strongly my responsibility toward my friends that I disliked taking any move I could not fully explain by cold reasoning. Instinct is generally unreasonable. Besides, it does sometimes lead one astray. In our case it might compel us to walk across-country, and the cross-country stretches in this part of Germany looked forbidding on the map, being mostly marked as heather, moors, and swamps. Having regained the former road, I discovered after a while that it was turning too much to the south. I was still musing about this when we entered a smooth, broad, first-class highway. “Let’s rest for a spell,” I suggested. We sat down, with our feet in the ditch, close to the trunk of one of the enormous trees lining the roadside. “Do you know where we are?” asked Kent, after I had consulted the map and sat blinking again to accustom my eyes to the night. “Of course I do,” I snorted irritably. “We’re on that beastly southern highway I wanted to avoid. I wish I hadn’t been such a fool as to abandon the other road. I don’t know how we got here. The map shows no connecting road down to here at all. The only damage done, as far as I can see, is that we have increased our distance from water. We can hit the by-road leading north, if we follow the _chaussée_. Oh, I’m thirsty! I’ll try a cigarette.” We all lit up. Three abreast we started again. “There’s a sign-post,” said Kent, whose eyes were exceptionally good. “To Molbergen,” it read, pointing along a straight by-road at right angles to our direction. “This is the one we are looking for,” I announced. “How do you feel, Tynsdale?” “I can hardly keep my eyes open,” he made answer. “Well, we’ll soon get water,” I said, to console him. “I’ll walk ahead as a pace-maker,” suggested Kent. “Good!” It appeared a splendid idea. “I’ll take the rear. Tynsdale had better follow you close, to get the benefit of your pace-making.” Kent led with a swinging pace along the sandy, rutted road for an hour and a half. The country stretched flat on each hand, often broken by patches of forest. A telephone line on our left irritated me with the monotony of its ever-recurring, never-ending succession of poles. I had the old sensation of walking up-hill. We found no water. Then we came to the northern highway, into which we swung by a turn to the left. By this time my tongue was sticky. I had the feeling of a crust having formed at the corners of my mouth. Neither Tynsdale nor Kent felt thirst so acutely. A little way down the _chaussée_ I stopped. “There is a house over there. I’ll see whether or not there’s a well. They must have a water-supply,” I remarked.