Later on, in another camp, where there was full latitude to mature one’s scheme and the Germans interfered hardly at all with one’s daily doings, I experienced the complete escape fever. But that is another story. The actual night of the escape was the 24th July. I was warned just before evening _appel_, at 6 o’clock, that if B house harboured no aliens that night, the escape would take place. I got hold of Grieve during the evening and we held a long confabulation as to how the policing had best be done. It was arranged that I should do all the warning and escort people to the rendezvous in the attic, and that he should do the actual controlling and keep in communication with the orderlies. The evening passed away and I don’t think anybody outside the working-party was aware that anything was actually in the wind. The doors in B house were safely locked at 9.0 p.m. without a single intruder from A house. Several people had been keenly on the watch to see to this point. We went off quietly to our respective rooms to have our names called. After the Feldwebel and his minions had finally left the building, there was still another hour or so to wait before the coast was clear for action. A German sentry used to come round some time after 10 o’clock to close all the windows in the corridors and incidentally remove anything that he saw to his liking which might be lying about. Until he had gone it would be unsafe to have any undue movement, and only the cutting-out man—i.e. the first officer to go through the tunnel—and the two next on the list would go down to the chamber before he was well clear. During this period of waiting the senior British officer paid me a visit in his dressing-gown and said good-bye. I wished him good luck. We had worked together for two months or more and had discussed the tunnel and his particular plan to escape countless times. He had a very good disguise and, without wishing to disparage his features, they were—with the aid of glasses—wonderfully Teutonic. He was, so far as I knew, the only one who was proposing to travel all the way to the frontier by train, and with his excellent knowledge of German and forged papers he looked to have a very good chance.