could not have been less than eight acres altogether, enclosed by two rows of barbed wire, with arc lamps every seventy yards or so. The prisoners comprised some 1200 officers—800 Russians, over 100 English, and the rest French or Belgians. We were marched up to the camp through a quiet village, and were put into the quarantine, where we remained for about a week. The morning after our arrival, we were medically inspected and questioned as to our name, rank, regiment, place of capture, age, where taught to fly, etc., all of which questions evoked a variety of mendacious and romantic answers. We were then put to bed in the quarantine and treated with some beastly anti-lice powder—most disagreeable! The food was insufficient in quarantine. We had no opportunity of taking exercise, and were all much bored and longed to be sent into the main camp, which we were told was the best in Germany. This was not far off the truth, as subsequent experience proved the administration and internal arrangements of this camp to be admirable.

Originally English, Russian, and French prisoners had lived all mixed up together, but now the nationalities were mainly in separate buildings, and always in separate rooms. In the English building there was a common room in which there was a daily English paper and two monthly magazines, all typewritten in the camp. From an artistic point of view the magazines were excellent, rather after the style of Printer's Pie, and the daily paper consisted of leading articles, correspondence, and translations out of German papers.

The canteen was very well run by a Russian on the co-operative share system, but when I was there it was becoming more and more difficult to buy goods in Germany. I don't think any food could be bought in the canteen, but wine, and, I think, whisky also, could be obtained, as well as tennis racquets, knives, books, pencils, boxes, and tobacco of all sorts.

The feeding in the camp was very bad indeed, the quantity quite insufficient, and most of it almost uneatable. However, we were hungry enough to eat it with avidity when we first came in.

Most wisely the Germans gave us ample facilities for playing games in the camp. There were ten tennis courts, and two grounds large enough for hockey and football, so we spent our time in playing tennis and exchanging lessons in modern languages, for which of course there were unique opportunities. We had two roll-calls a day, which lasted about ten minutes each, but otherwise the Germans interfered with us very little, and I think most of us found the first month or two of captivity a real rest cure after the strain and excitement of the Somme battle. I did, at any rate.

Long and I had been less than three weeks in this place when all those flying officers who had been captured on the Somme were removed from Gütersloh to Clausthal. Looking back on the life at Gütersloh, one thing strikes me more now than it did whilst I was there, and that is the fact that all the officers, with the exception of a small section of the Russians, had apparently abandoned all hope of escaping. The defenses of the camp were not strong enough to be any reason for this lack of enterprise, and I can only attribute it to the encouragement and opportunities given by the Germans for game-playing, which successfully turned the thoughts of the prisoners from escaping.

Of the journey to Clausthal, in the Harz Mountains, I only remember that it was quite comfortable, and that we arrived at night. The camp was about a mile up from the station, and we were let through a barbed wire fence and into a wooden barrack. For the next eight days we remained shut up in this place, and it was only with difficulty that we were allowed to have the windows open. There were three of these wooden barracks and a hotel or Kurhaus inside the barbed wire. This was the best German camp for food that I was in, and I think it would be possible to live on the food the Germans gave us. After eight days' quarantine we were let out into the camp. Long and I, and a captain in the R.F.C. who had been lately captured, called Nichol, had a little room together in the wooden barrack. On the whole, life was pleasant at Clausthal. The Germans were very polite, and the sentries were generally friendly.

We passed the time at Clausthal in much the same way as we had done at Gütersloh. If anything, it was more peaceful and pleasant, and the country surrounding the camp, where we sometimes went for walks, was beautiful. The Harz Mountains are a well-known German health resort, so that by the middle of September I was feeling so remarkably fit, and was getting such an overpowering aversion to being ordered about by the Germans, that, encouraged by a young Belgian called Kicq, I began to think very seriously of escaping. When I had been about six weeks at Clausthal I was given details by one of the conspirators of a scheme for escaping from the camp by a tunnel. Apparently two of the party had struck work, and owing to this I was offered a place. I was not surprised that some one had downed tools, when I saw the unpleasant and water-logged hole which was to be our path of freedom. The idea was rather a good one, but it was too widely known in the camp for the scheme to have any chance of success, and after working it for three weeks we abandoned it. In the first place because the tunnel became half full of water, and secondly, because we had reason to believe the Germans had learnt of its existence and were waiting to catch us red-handed—a suspicion which was afterwards confirmed. I was very glad, for there were never less than two inches of water when I worked there, and it was a horrible job, as all tunneling is.

About this time Kicq suggested that we should escape by train, which he felt sure was possible if we were suitably dressed. I was of the opinion that there were too many difficulties in the way to make it worth while trying, but he eventually talked me over and told me that long train journeys had already been done by Frenchmen. We then decided that we would go for Switzerland, the general opinion being that it was impossible to cross the Dutch border, as it was guarded by electric wire, dogs, and several lines of sentries. It was absolutely necessary to our plans to have a clear start of seven or eight hours without an alarm, and when our tunnel had to be abandoned I despaired of getting out without being seen or heard. Kicq, as always, was ready to try anything, and produced scheme after scheme, to all of which I objected. The real difficulty was the dogs round the camp, and though there were numerous ways of getting out of the camp, in all his schemes it was heavy odds on our being seen and the alarm being given. We both thought it was too late in the year to walk (nonsense, of course, but I did not know that then); and where should we walk to, since the Dutch frontier was impossible? As an English major said to me, "The frontier is guarded against spies who have friends on both sides and know every inch of the ground; how can you, tired prisoners of war, with no maps worth having—no knowledge and no friends—hope to cross?" I was further discouraged by a rumor that there were new railway regulations about showing passes which would make it quite impossible for us to travel by train. About that time I got into conversation with one of the German sentries, and bribed him with half a pat of butter to allow me to speak to a prisoner who was supposed to be in solitary confinement. At the end of a week the sentry had agreed to help me to escape, as long as the plan did not in any way implicate him. He told me that, speaking German as well as I did, I should have no difficulty in going by train, and that there were no passes to be shown or anything of that sort. I