Augvist 10, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
4S 
[Continued from page 39') 
" Where is tlie man you brought from Andersbach," he 
roared, as well as his jaw would allow him. 
I pretended to be mortally scared, and spoke in the best 
imitation I could manage of the postman's high cracked voice. 
" He got out a mile back, Hcrr Burgrave," I quavered. 
" He was a rude fellow wlio wanted to go to Schwandorf, and 
then cJianged his mind." 
" Where, you fool ? Say exactly where he got down or I 
will wring your neck." 
"In the wood this side of Gertrud's cottage ... on 
the left liand ... I left him running among the trees." 
1 put all the terror I knew into my pipe, and it wasn't acting. 
" He means the Heinrichs' cottage, Herr Colonel," said the 
chauffeur. " This man is courting the daughter." 
Stumm gave an order and the great car backed, and, as I 
looked round, I saw it turning. Then as it gathered speed 
it shot forward, and presently was lost in the shadows. 1 
had got over the first hurdle. 
But there was no time to be lost. Stumm would meet 
the postman and would be tearing after me any minute. I 
took the first turning, and bucketed along a narrow woodland 
road. The hard ground would show \'ery few tracks. 1 
thought, and I hoped the pursuit would think I had gone to 
Schwandorf. But it wouldn't do to risk it, and I was deter- 
mined very soon to get the car off the road, leave it, and take 
to the forest. I took out my watch and calculated I could 
give myself ten minutes. 
I was very nearly caught. Presently I came on a bit of 
rough heath with a slope away from the road, and here and 
there a bit of shade which I took to be a sandpit. Opposite 
one of these I slewed the car to the edge, got out, started it 
again, and saw it pitch headforemost into the darkness. 
There was a splash of water and then silence. Craning over 
I could see notliing but murk, and the marks at the lip where 
the wheels had passed. They would find my tracks in day- 
light, but scarcely at this time of night. 
Then I ran across the road to the forest. I was only just 
in time, for the echoes of the splash had hardly died away 
when I heard the sound of another car. I lay flat in a 
hollow below a tangle of snow-laden brambles and looked 
between the pine-trees at the moonlit road. It was Stumm's 
car again and to my consternation it stopped just a little short 
of the sandpit. 
I saw an electric torch flashed, and Stumm himself got out 
and examined the tracks on the highway. Thank God, 
they would be still there for him to find, but had he tried 
half a dozen yards on lie would have seen them turn towards 
the sandpit. If that had happened he would have beaten 
the adjacent woods and most certainly found me. There 
was a third man in the car, with my hat and coat on him. 
That poor devil of a postman had paid dear for his vanity. 
They took a long time before they started again and I was 
jolly relieved when they went scouring down the road. I ran 
deeper into the woods till I struck a track which— as I judged 
from the sky which I saw in a clearing — took me pretty well 
due west. That wasn't the direction I wanted, so I bore oft' 
at right angles, and presently struck another road which I 
crossed in a hurry. After tliat I got entangled in some con- 
founded kind of" enclosure and had to climb paling after 
paling of rough stakes plaited with osiers. Then came a rise in 
the ground and I was on a low hill of pines which seemed to 
last for miles. All the time I was going at a good pace, and 
before I stopped to rest I calculated I had put six miles between 
me and the sandpit. 
My mind was getting a little more active now, for the first 
part of the journey I had simply staggered from impulse to 
impulse. These impulses had been uncommon lucky, but 
I couldn't go on like that for ever. Ek sal 'n plan maak, 
says the old Boer when he gets into trouble, and it was up to 
me now to make a plan. 
As soon as I began to think I saw the desperate business I 
was in for. Here was I, with nothing except what I stood up 
in — including a coat and cap that weren't mine — alone in 
mid-winter in the heart of South Germany. There was a 
man behind me looking for my blood, and soon there would 
be a hue-and-cry for me up and down the land. I had heard 
that the German police were pretty efficient, and I couldn't 
see that I stood the slimmest chance. If they caught me they 
would shoot me beyond doubt. I asked myself on what 
charge, and answered " for knocking about a German 
officer." They couldn't have me up for espionage, for as far 
as I knew they had no evidence. 1 was simply a Dutchman 
that liad got riled and Iiad run amok. But if they cut down 
a cobbler for laughing at a second lieutenant — which is what 
happened at Zabern — I calculated tliat hanging would be 
too good for a man that had broken a colonel's jaw. 
To make things worse my job was not to Escape — though 
that would have been hard enough — but to get to Constanti- 
nople, more than a thons,nnd miles off. and I reckoned I 
couldn't get there as a tramp. I had to be sent there, and 
now I had flung away my chance. If I had been a Catholic, 
I would have said a prayer to St. Theresa, for she would have 
understood my troubles. 
My mother used to say that when you felt down on your 
luck it was a good cure to count your mercies. So I 
set about counting mine. The first was that I was well started 
on my journey, for I couldn't be abo\'e two score miles from 
the Danube. "The second was that I had Stumm's pass. I 
didn't see how I could use it, but there it was. Lastly I had 
plenty of money— fifty-three English sovereigns and the 
equivalent of three pounds in German paper which I had 
changed at the hotel. Also I had squared accounts with old 
Stumm. That was the biggest mercy of all. 
I thought I had better get some sleep, so I found a dryish 
liole below an oak root and squeezed myself into it. The snow 
la^' deep in these woods and I was sopping wet up to the 
knee. All the same I managed to sleep for some hours, and 
got up and shook myself just as the winter's dawn was break- 
ing through the tree tops. Breakfast was the next thing, 
and I must find some sort of dwelling. 
Almost at once I struck a road, a big highway running 
north and south. I trotted along in that bitter morning to 
get my circulation started and presently I began to feel a little 
better. In a little I saw a churcli spire, which meant a village. 
Stumm wouldn't be hkely to have got on my tracks yet, I 
calculated, but tliere was always the chance that he had 
warned all the villages round by telephone and that they 
might be on the look-out for me. But that risk had to be 
taken, for 1 must have food. 
It was the day before Christmas, I remembered, and people 
would be holidaying. The village was quite a big place, but 
at this hour — just after eight o'clock — there was nobody in 
the street except a wandering dog. I chose the most assum- 
ing shop I could find, where a httle boy was taking down the 
shutters — one of those general stores where they sell every- 
thing. The boy fetched a very old woman, who hobbled in 
from the back, fitting on her spectacles. 
" GriissGott," shesaidina friendly voice, and I took off my 
cap. I saw from my reflection in a saucepan that I looked 
moderately respectable in spite of my night in the woods. 
I told her a story of how I was walking from Schwandorf 
to see my mother at an imaginary place called Judenfeld, 
banking cm the ignorance of villagers about any place five 
miles from their homes. I said my luggage had gone astray, 
and I hadn't time to wait for it, since my leave was short. 
The old lady was sympathetic and unsuspecting. She sold me 
a pound of chocolate, a box of biscuits, the better part of a 
ham, two tins of sardines, and a rucksack to carry them. I 
also bought some soap, a comb and a cheap razor, and a 
small Tourists' Guide, published by a Leipsic firm. As I 
was leaving I saw what looked like garments hanging up in 
the back shop, and turned to have a look at them. They 
were the kind of thing that Germans wear on their summer 
walking-tours — long shooting capes made of a green stuff they 
call Loden. I bought one, and a green felt hat and an alpen- 
stock to keep it company. Then wishing the old woman 
and her belongings a merry Christmas I departed and took 
the shortest cut out of the village. There were one or two 
people about now, but they did not seem to notice me. 
I went into the woods again and walked for two miles, till 
I halted for breakfast. I was not feeling quite so fit now, 
and I did not make much of my provisions, beyond eating a 
biscuit and some chocolate. I felt very thirsty and longed for 
hot tea. In an icy pool I washed and with infinite agony 
shaved my beard. That razor was the worst of its species, 
and my eyes were running all the time with the pain of the 
operation. Then I took off the postman's coat and cap, and 
buried them below some bushes. I was now a clean-shaven 
German pedestrian with a green cape and hat, and an 
absurd walking-stick with an iron shod end — the sort of 
person wlio roams in thousands over the Fatherland in 
summer but is a rarish bird in mid-winter. 
The Tourists' Guide was a fortunate purchase, for it con- 
tained a big map of Bavaria which gave me my bearings. I 
was certainly not forty miles from the Danube — more like 
thirty. The road through the village I had left would have 
taken me to it. I had only to walk due south and I would 
reach it before night. So far as I could make out there were 
long tongues of forest running down to the river, and I re- 
solved to keep to the woodlands. At the worst I would meet 
a forester or two, and I had a good enough story for them. 
On the high road there might be awkward questiems. 
When I started out again I felt very stiff and the cold 
seemed to be growing intense. This puzzled me, for I had not 
minded it much up to now, and, being warm-blooded by 
nature, it never used to worry me. A sharp winter night 
on the higli-veld was a long sight chillier than anything I liad 
struck so far in Europe. But now my teetli were chattering 
and the marrow seemed to be freezime in mv bones. The 
