For six weary weeks I worked at my tunnel, and so secretly was the job carried on that only one man in the hut shared the knowledge with myself. I often told this man off to keep watch and ward and give me the signal should any too-inquisitive sentry or guard take it into his head to depart from his wonted custom and visit the place at night. The sharer of my secret decided that when I had burrowed clear of the sentries he would escape with me, but at the last moment his nerve forsook him and he "cried off." As I have said before, I was thoroughly "fed up"; I had reached that condition of mind when we believe the ills we are enduring cannot be equalled by anything that is to follow. Nothing save force, I decided, should deter me from pursuing my plan to the bitter end. Thus, night after night, I dug and delved, distributing the _débris_ as best I could. I took precautions with diabolical cunning, for I was not going to throw away my chances by any eleventh-hour recklessness. Six weeks--forty-two nights, to be exact--I played B'rer Fox in my "dug-out," six feet down, until my tunnel was fifteen or twenty yards long and big enough for me to crawl through. The sounds above and the distance that I knew the wire fence to be from the rear of the hut told me when my burrowing had gone far enough. It was a fortnight before Christmas, 1915, that I broke out from my burrow. I timed my exit for the change of sentries, at seven-thirty in the evening. Of food I had virtually none, with the exception of an odd biscuit or so. I possessed, however, what I deemed to be more important than food--a compass, bought from a Frenchman, which I had guarded far more jealously than Hun ever guarded Englishman. After the preparations I have described, the actual escape seemed as easy as falling off a log. I emerged from the hole, saw that the coast was clear, and made off towards the north-west. Walking throughout the night, keeping to the fields and the woods, and continually crossing ditches and other obstacles, I put as much distance between me and Münster Laager as was humanly possible. It was really very uneventful. In the day-time I kept to the woods, sleeping and resting; at night-time when compelled to cross a road I slung my boots across my shoulder and flitted by like a shadow. The weather was wet, my clothing was well-nigh soaked, hunger gripped me--and then came Nemesis. As a matter of fact, I had met very few people. Three nights I tramped, three days I lay hid. It was during the third night that all my plans went wrong, all my fond visions were dissipated like a pricked bubble. And I believe it was my over-cautiousness in walking a road without boots that proved my undoing. IV--RECAPTURED--"I WAS SENTENCED TO SOLITARY CONFINEMENT"