This last goes without saying. Just as the loyal co-operation of the orderlies was essential to success, so it was imperative that none of them should be implicated. They had all been offered a starting-place if they cared to accept one, but none of them did. The long expected, almost despaired of, head-for-head exchange had at last been arranged at the Hague, and the agreement was now only awaiting ratification. The fact that privates had been up till now excluded from the terms of the exchange had of course been very severely criticised, and it was not until later realised that the arrangements for a general head-for-head repatriation had been frustrated entirely from the German side. But the rule of “women and children first”—as our orderlies, half good naturedly, half cynically, and with that wonderful instinct for the epigrammatic which characterises the British soldier, had summarised the situation—was now obsolete. To have imperilled their chances of exchange by taking a long risk at this stage of their captivity (nearly all of them were 1914 prisoners) would have been very unwise, even had they been as well equipped as the officers as regards disguise, money, reserves of food, and general experience. Moreover, the penalties for attempted escape were for private soldiers infinitely more severe than they were for officers. They would have certainly been sent back to one of the men’s _Lagers_, and their previous experiences reminded them that any officers’ _Lager_—even Holzminden—was considerably better than the former’s best. And there were always the coal and salt mines to be taken into calculation. So they stayed behind, and their share in the night’s work amply crowned their long record of ungrudged service and devotion to the cause. During the last few days, when it was generally known that at any moment the cat might jump and it became a question of concealing “zero” day from your own side, the tension was positively painful. With the best will in the world, the injunctions of the senior British officer came to be overlooked. Even the senior British officer himself was not innocent in this respect. Small parties clustered at the ends of corridors or roamed disconsolately round and round the camp, discussing the eternal question, _When?_ Civilian disguises, maps, and packs were brought out from their hiding-places and set ready for the road. More risks of detection were run during this period in a day than had been run before in a whole month. Maps were studied. An unwise and rather insubordinate eleventh-hour attempt on the part of one or two of the more desperate characters in Kaserne A to effect a transfer of rooms to Kaserne B was fortunately quashed. The senior British officer, who was somewhat square-rigged in shape, was given a trial run down the tunnel to see if he could manage it. It took him an hour to get back!