When I got to the end of the ditch, I struck out across the flat country toward the light. It took me some time to extricate myself from a swamp. In trying to work around it, with an idea of edging in toward a railway line which I knew to be entering Holland somewhere on my left, I suddenly came upon a road running northwest. I left it quicker than I had got on it, walking parallel to it over plowed land and keeping it in sight. Shortly after, I passed between two houses, to see another road in front of me running at right angles to the former. I crouched in the angle between the two roads, trying to penetrate the darkness, and listening with all my might. I could see no living thing, and all was silent. Just across from me a structure, the nature of which I could not make out, held my gaze. I waited, then jumped across the road into its shadow. It now resolved itself into an open shed, with a wagon underneath. Again I listened and looked, with my back toward Holland, watching the two houses I had passed, and nervously scanning the road. Far down it a small dog began to bark. Not taking any notice of it at first, I was in the act of starting across a field covered knee-high with some stiff growth, when it occurred to me that the barking sounded like an alarm, of which I could not be the cause. Gaining the shelter of the shed again, and straining my ears, I became aware of distant and approaching footsteps, regular and ominous. I ducked into the ditch, crawling half under the floor of the shed, and waited. When the sound was only about a yard from me, the helmet, the head, the up-slanting rifle muzzle, and the shoulders of a patrol became outlined against the sky. He walked on and was swallowed up by the darkness. His footsteps grew fainter, died away. “Splendid!” I thought. “This road must be close to the border. It runs parallel to it. Maybe I am through the sentry lines.” I pushed on, very much excited, yet going as carefully as I could. A barbed wire and ditch were negotiated. A patch of woodland engulfed me. Going was bad on account of holes in the ground; my instinct was for rushing it, and difficult to curb. Three shallow ditches side by side! I felt them with my hand to make sure they were not merely deeply trodden paths. “This must be the frontier!” I was shaking with excitement and exultation when I started forward again. My leg went into a hole, and I fell forward across a dry piece of wood, which exploded underneath me with a noise like a pistol shot. I scrambled to my feet, listened, and walked on. CHAPTER X CAUGHT AGAIN! “Halt!” The command came like a thunderclap and shook me from head to foot. Yet I did not believe that it could mean anything but a Dutch sentry. I stopped and tried to locate the man, who, from the sound of his voice, must be very close. I could not see him. “Come here, and hold up your hands!” I did so and stepped forward.