TCD MS 10823 folio 35 recto
[Sept 1918] calling all around. Sometimes in the day-time I had quite fun with the hares who came up close and were very surprised to see a stranger there.
<One evening I met a head forester, who stopped to talk, but I apparently deceived him alright, & he went on quite satisfied>.
By the tenth night I had covered a very good distance. I was then in the country that lay between Schwerin and Kiel, but here <my> luck completely deserted me. I was resting between midnight and one o’ clock under some trees in a very deserted part of the country and I must have dropped off to sleep, I woke to hear a dog barking in my ear and two soldiers standing over me. They had lanterns and guns, and shouted at me to get up. These were a road patrol looking for deserters and escaped prisoners. Pretending that I was a traveller who had lost his way and had lain down waiting for daylight or for someone to pass, I asked them to put me on the right road and they were very nearly letting me go when at the last moment one of them asked me for my papers, and I had to confess that I had left them at home. This made them at once very suspicious and they told me to come along with them. On arrival at the nearest village, they searched through my rucksac and of course found boxes of English food stuffs in it, which completely gave me away. I was then thrust into a shed where an antediluvian Fire-engine reposed, and after my boots and rucksac had been taken away from me, I was told to spend the night there. If only my boots had been left me I might have got away, as one of the windows could be opened.