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[Page 51]
coat, trousers and cap, also a compass and map. When the time came for me to dress the wounds of those marked for the next transport to Aachen, I placed 350 marks between wadding on one man's head, the cap was put between wadding, and placed on another case, which I said had a bed sore and the trousers were placed in a similar way on another man. The overcoat was put under a young fellow who had a fractured leg and arm, a stretcher case. As we were being inspected on our way out of the camp, the German Officer looked at me and said "Promenade to Aachen?" I said, "Yes." He then asked me if I had any incriminating papers in my pack. I threw it on to the ground for him to inspect it, when he said, "Go on, it is all right." Some of my fellow N.C.O's in the camp helped me with the wounded to the station, amongst them being Warrant Officer Kennedy, of Sydney, who was taken aboard the raider "Wolf," on his way back to duty in German New Guinea. He was at that time senior N.C.O. in the Camp They all wished me luck, knowing that I was determined to attempt an escape on this journey. On our way to Aachen three guards took charge of us, and when we came to Hamburg, one of them said he had some relatives there and would like to visit them while we went on to our destination, and he would rejoin us on our return, if he thought we would not try and run away. We assured him it would be all right and he need not fear, so off he went to his people. At one point of the journey we were about five hundred yards from the Holland border and I had both my feet on the footboard to jump off the train, when I thought, if I leave the wounded prisoners they would have a terrible time from the guards when they discovered that