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[Page 55]
was now raining. We passed over a sand track quite near to the box used by the guard. We crawled on for about five hundred yards when we came on the first hedge marked on our map, and as we came to another hedge a flare went up from Aachen, to warn the border guards that some prisoners had escaped. We lay low for a short time as the sky was lit up. We had not crawled much further when I got camp in my legs. I tried hard to pull myself along, but it was impossible, so we decided to walk the rest of the way. We must have crawled about two thousand yards and it was close to 3 a.m. After going a short distance we observed a house on our left with a light in it. We kept near the house as we thought it would be an unlikely place for the Guard to be so near a light. After passing this house we noticed something like a hedge in front of us and walked up to it to find it was a sunken sand way track, about twelve feet deep. We lay down on the ground and looked down the track and saw some guards, so waited our chance, and then scrambled across. On gaining the opposite said of this track we proceeded for about twenty years when we came across a stream of water, and to cross this we had to go up to our waists. On the other side was some thick undergrowth with barbed wire amongst it. This took us some time to get through and after freeing ourselves of this wire the Belgian said, "We are saved." I replied, "Do not make too sure of it yet", and just then we noticed some electric torches flashing about one hundred yards away. We flanked them, and in doing so had to pass through a hedge, and then made for some tall trees which appeared to be on the side of the road, but on our way towards these trees we noticed something