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[Page 23]
to how to cross the Rhine as railway passengers, which was || valuable information to us as the German Government, having all the bridges guarded used to regard it as a better means ef keeping the prisoners in Germany than a line of sentries.
We also acquired information as to how the border was guarded at the particular point we purposed crossing it.
One thing we were fortunate in was this- there were
six of us attempting the escape and we intended going in parties of threes but there was only one compass. One of us however managed to find a magazine containing a chart of the skies in the hemisphere we were in, so that it was quite easy for the party I was going with to pick up the North Star, which, provided the stars were visible, was a better guide than a compass.
We managed to bribe one of the civilians who was working with us (at the cost of a pound or so of biscuits and a couple of loaves of bread) to buy with money we furnished collars, ties, and headgear.
Our trouble now was to wait until the nights lengthened, for the Summer nights on the continent only gave us about six hours darkness.
To get an inside knowledge of the city of Dusseldorf which is about the sixth town in Germany as regards size and importance, I made arrangements with the sentry to take me to a dentist to get an imaginary tooth stopped. In my journeying to the dentist's in the "Municipal up-to-date Electric Cars"
I was amazed at the cheapness of the fares - for a journey the length of two sections in Sydney my fare was a halfpenny return.
While on the working commands we all received very sympathetic treatment from the local doctor who spoke a little English and who told me that he held a high opinion of the ability of Lloyd George.
To give people an idea of what the average German went through in case of sickness — we had a civilian working with us who went down with pneumonia, he was ill for six weeks and when he again started work he had lost forty pounds in weight.
Between seasons when the civilians were waiting for the potatoes to ripen, it was very noticeable how they all seemed to fall off in size and become more hollow cheeked than usual. But we certainly weren't sorry for the male population.
A remarkable comparison could be drawn between the spirit and