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[Page 47]
evening, and crowds of workers were going home, so I told Jimmy to study the timetable that he would find just inside the door, although the numbers were all he could understand, while I got the tickets. I went to the same pigeon hole as before and got two tickets "Mit ruchfahr' or return tickets, with these I started of in the direction of the Turnstile, going slowly until my mate joined me. When I handed him his ticket, we went boldly up to the guard in an apparent hurry. A Sentry that was there on duty gave us a very searching stare, but we hurried on. The Guard stamped our tickets and we went through onto the platform where the train was waiting ready to move off. We hopped into a third class compartment which was already crowded, and fortunately for us was not lighted. Of course, we knew this by our previous experience. My mate got a seat and pretended to sleep, but I did not get a seat, and a German soldier, a fine big fellow said, "Come on, old man get on my knee," which I did with feelings of misgivings, and had to listen to their version of our Cambrai reverse, and to reply to questions asked me. One other old man opposite said, "Yes we have advanced a little but at what cost." Evidently the pessimist of the party. At our first stop at Neuss my friendly soldier got out with several others, so we had plenty of room for the remainder of the journey.
I had taken our tickets for Crevenbrooich as on my previous attempt, but the train did not go onin that direction much to our satisfaction, for it took us 15 miles nearer to our destination than we had anticipated. We got out at Kleinenbrach handed in our bogus tickets, my mate dropping his in trying to conceal the name of station. On reaching the open road I consulted my small compass, as the sky was overcast, and not a sign of our leading stars to be seen. Without a compass we would not have had much of a chance. The roads were snow covered and frozen, in fact were still freezing as we marched along, crossing several Railway lines where there were of course, men in charge, who if they came out to lift the barrier would get a friendly "good-night" or some remark about the weather and "Thank you" for lifting the barrier.
In one of the villages we went through in early evening, I remember a very funny incident, although almost distracting at the time it happened. There were many people walking along, but all were on the footpath, while we were in the middle of the road, so to appear more at home. I steered across to the footpath, reaching it in front of several vacant blocks, where garbage tins had been emptied. We got amongst these, stumbled once or twice on the tins, making a big clatter, at which we steered once more back to the road. There were several men quite close so we let out a couple of German oaths, cursing the bad path. On getting through the town my mate turned to me and said "I feel that we have passed through a dangerous spot and am glad enough we are through it." Between villages it was safe enough, as there were no lights and not many people. I held it was safer, and much more comfortable to keep to the main road all the time, so we tramped along as if going home from work, or a "Booze up." We