You remember that Monica told me, the last time I had seen her, that she was shortly going to Schloss Bellevue, a shooting-box belonging to her husband, to arrange some shoots in connection with the Governmental scheme for putting game on the market.  Monica, you will recollect, had offered to take me with her, and I had fully meant to accompany her but for Gerry’s unfortunate persistence in the matter of my passport.

I now proposed to Francis that we should avail ourselves of Monica’s offer and make for Castle Bellevue.  The place was well suited for our purpose as it lies near Cleves, and in its immediate neighbourhood is the Reichswald, that great forest which stretches from Germany clear across into Holland.  All through my wanderings, I had kept this forest in the back of my head as a region which must offer facilities for slipping unobserved across the frontier.  Now I learnt from Francis that he had spent months in the vicinity of Cleves, and I was not surprised to find, when I outlined this plan to him, that he knew the Reichswald pretty well.

“It’ll be none too easy to get across through the forest,” he said doubtfully, “it’s very closely patrolled, but I do know of one place where we could lie pretty snug for a day or two waiting for a chance to make a dash.  But we have no earthly chance of getting through at present:  our clubfooted pal will see to that all right.  And I don’t much like the idea of going to Bellevue either:  it will be horribly dangerous for Monica!”

“I don’t think so,” I said.  “The whole place will be overrun with people, guests, servants, beaters and the like, for these shoots.  Both you and I know German and we look rough enough:  we ought to be able to get an emergency job about the place without embarrassing Monica in the least.  I don’t believe they will ever dream of looking for us so close to this frontier.  The only possible trail they can pick up after me in Berlin leads to Munich.  Clubfoot is bound to think I am making for the Swiss frontier.”

Well, the long and the short of it was that my suggestion was carried, and we resolved to set out for Bellevue that very night.  My brother declared he would not return to the cafe:  with the present shortage of men, such desertions were by no means uncommon, and if he were to give notice formally it might only lead to embarrassing explanations.

So we strolled back to the city in the gathering darkness, bought a map of the Rhine and a couple of rucksacks and laid in a small stock of provisions at a great department store, biscuits, chocolates, some hard sausage and two small flasks of rum.  Then Francis took me to a little restaurant where he was known and introduced me to the friendly proprietor, a very jolly old Rheinlander, as his brother just out of hospital.  I did my country good service, I think, by giving a most harrowing account of the terrible efficiency of the British army on the Somme!