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[Page 54]
unlocked; I stepped out into the Yard, the Belgian following. We passed a few yards in front of the guard room and went about twenty paces towards an iron fence, about eight feet high, over which we climbed. We made our way for the top of the hill just out of Aachen, and on our way I threw my prisoner of war cap away, donning the cloth cap and put on the civilian trousers over the others. The Belgian ripped the braid off his trousers which was tacked on before he left the camp. On reaching the top of the hill we examined our map and compass to get our bearings and discovered we were going into Belgium instead of Holland. Being quite near a tram running into Aachen we decided to go into the town and find a tram running towards Vaals, a place quite near to the border. We asked a lady in the town where we could get on the tram for Vaals, but she would not answer us and walked quickly away, so we decided not to ask anyone else, but find out for ourselves.
Traveling about half way to Vaals on the tram, we then walked along the dark side of the road and passed quite close to three different sets of guards and were not challenged. At last we came near a guard right in the middle of the road, and concluded he was the man who examined the passes, so we took a right turn into a field, passed through some barbed wire fences coming on to cabbage patches through which we commenced to crawl as we had an idea that we must be quite near the border. As we crawled we noticed a little hill on our left and something like a guard box on our right, so went between the hill and what turned out to be a guard box, and as we approached it we heard a dog in making a low growl. These dogs are specially trained to give warning when anybody approaches. It