The fourth time I went out, the more careless of the three sentries came with me, and as he stopped for a moment to say something to his mates, I walked on quickly and got 20 yards ahead of him. When I came to the latrine, I pretended to enter the door but actually stepped behind the hut, and walked rapidly away, keeping the hut between the sentry and myself. However, I had not gone 30 yards when he saw me. I heard him shout, so I ran. I think he threw a stone after me, but he did not fire. As a matter of fact, I must have been a very dim target in that light by the time he had unslung and cocked his rifle. I passed through a gap in the prickly pear hedge, and just outside saw a small tent near which several men were sitting round a fire. One of the camp pickets I thought; but I passed without being seen and struck out, walking and running alternately, across the marshy valley of the Kishon, making to hit the coast somewhat south of Cæsarea. At times I thought that the alarm had been raised behind me, and twice the barking of dogs made me think that I was being followed. Imagination plays one strange tricks under circumstances of this sort when one's nerves and senses are strung to the very highest pitch, for this escape had been by far the greatest strain on my nerves that I had ever experienced. It was so much worse than any escape in Germany, because of the long, tense hours while I waited for an opportunity, because I had to go alone, and because the risks were greater and the dangers and chances less calculable than in any previous adventure. "Omne ignotum pro magnifico est."
It had been just about midnight when I left the camp, and it was very little after 1 o'clock when I reached the rising ground on the west side of the valley, near the valley of Megiddo, after over 6 miles of very bad going. All that night I pressed on at top speed, avoiding the villages and meeting no one in that wild and desolate country. Though I had to cross several small valleys, most of the time I was climbing, and dawn found me on rather a bare exposed part on the top of the ridge from which, when day came, I saw the sea. It had been most difficult to pick a good hiding-place, as there were no trees and very few bushes; and some thickish heather behind a small boulder was the best cover I could find. The country had appeared so desolate at night that I hoped to find it quite uninhabited in the day time, but I soon saw my mistake. From about 6 o'clock onwards shepherds with their flocks wandered on many of the distant hills, and a quarter of a mile away down in the valley there were many small patches of cultivation, where men were working. I made up my mind that if chased by Arabs in that country in daylight the chances of escape were nil, so I took off my boots and went to sleep. About 8 o'clock I woke up and saw an Arab with a rifle standing about 10 yards off looking at me. His appearance in every sense was most unexceptionally unpleasant. I nodded to him as he came up, and said _Guten Tag_, and motioned to him to sit down beside me. He sat down and made some unintelligible remarks to me, to which I answered in German, and offered him a cigarette. He smoked for a bit, and things seemed to me to be going rather well. Then he started talking again, and kept on repeating some words which I suddenly recognized as Jenin, the name of the German aerodrome about 4 miles away. I jumped at that and said, "Ja ja, Deitscher--Jenin tiara (Turkish for aeroplane) boom, boom," and pointed to myself, by which he was supposed to understand that I was a German flying man from Jenin aerodrome, and my natural habits were bomb dropping. He seemed to grasp this, and after smoking another cigarette went away over the brow of the hill, to my great relief. Soon after his departure I selected another hiding-place, about 100 yards away, and crawled into it on my hands and knees. Even if he had come back to look for me (for I thought he might put two and two together if he learnt during the day that a prisoner had escaped), I doubt if he would have found me without the help of a dog.