At a quarter to six a German flying officer entered our room and invited me to dinner at their Cambrai headquarters, assuring me that there would be plenty to eat and drink. (I expect after skilfully mixed drinks they hoped to loosen my tongue. When a Hun lays himself out to be pleasant it is almost certain that in some way he expects to benefit by it.) If you wish to realise how tempting this offer was, live on a watery starvation diet for eight days and then be given the opportunity of a good meal. However, when I excused myself on the plea of being a little unwell, "Mein freund" was quite non-plussed. While he was still trying to extract information, unsuccessfully, from the others, I left the room after pocketing a slice of bread.
Once in the outhouse I chose my time and, climbing up to the hole in the wall, squeezed myself through with difficulty, for it was only just large enough. When the sentry's back was turned I dropped to the ground on the other side, about ten feet below, making considerable noise. I was now past the line of barbed wire, but there still remained the ramparts to negotiate. Never having been able to see over this point from our quarters we had no means of ascertaining the drop to the ground below. The corner of the ramparts I was making for was under forty yards away, but it took me about three-quarters of an hour to get there, crawling on crackling dry leaves under the shadow of the wall. The slightest noise would probably have attracted the sentry's attention and caused him to switch on the electric light, which they all carry slung round their necks. Oh! what a noise those leaves made! Just before I got to the wall I heard rather a commotion outside the guardroom, and although expecting to get at least a night's start before my absence was discovered, concluded that I had already been missed. (Afterwards I found that this was indeed the case, as the German flying officer on leaving had told the commandant that I was unwell; a doctor was then sent up, but I could not be found.) Getting up, I ran to the wall and looked over. In the dusk I faintly distinguished some bushes below. The glance was not reassuring, but "the die was cast," and over I went. I shall always remember that horrible sensation of falling. It took longer than I expected to reach the ground. Instantaneously there flashed through my brain a formula I had learnt at school, _i.e._, that an object falling increases its velocity thirty-two feet per second. I now realised for the first time how true it was. The drop was somewhere between twenty and thirty feet. Just near the ground my fall was broken by my being suspended for the fraction of a second on some field telephone wires, which broke and deposited me in the centre of a laurel bush, which split in half with a crash. It is not so much the fall but the sudden stop which does the damage. My breath being knocked out of me and seeing several floating stars of great brilliance, I vaguely wondered if I were dead, but I was considerably relieved to find that this was not the case. No bones broken, only some bruises. As I was getting to my feet I heard some one coming down a gravel path which passed beside me. Crouching down, I saw it was a civilian, who proceeded to light a cigar and passed on. I followed suit by lighting my one and only cigarette, and after cutting a stick, entered a darkened street, externally a perfectly good Hun.