MY ESCAPE 185 



askaris stayed every night, a huge fire being built 

 between us. 



As the storm broke, our friend " Smiler " hurried 

 across to get into the guard shed. Everything 

 outside the fire had become pitch black except 

 when broken by the gleams of lightning. Now 

 was our chance. Rapidly following each other, we 

 slipped through the side of our banda whilst 

 " Smiler " was round the other side, and soon had 

 joined up a little way off in the dark. 



After following a little track for some time, and 

 keeping touch in the blackness and rain only by 

 holding a hand on the leading man's shoulder, it 

 was evident we could not get far by night in that 

 weather. It was a very big storm, and though 

 uncomfortable to be out in, a very good friend to 

 us. My companions were shown that to travel 

 in that storm and in the dark would only leave 

 us completely done up by morning, with but a 

 few miles between us and our late prison. There- 

 fore, after marching for not more than an hour, 

 we camped quietly for the rest of the night, the 

 rain completely washing out all signs of our tracks 

 between the prison camp and where we slept. 

 At the earliest sign of dawn we set out in dead 

 earnest, steering a little north of east to hit the 

 coast, as I hoped, somewhere north of Kilwa. 

 I counted on leaving to our right the main body 

 of the Germans opposed to our Kilwa column. 



The country was just a big sea of level bush, 

 with but little really thick thorn bush. We went 



