The final push to the Border. Day's 13 & 14 of Jock's escape and day 7 of our epic journey

Well, this was our last day's running; a hot and humid 22Km into Losser and crossing the Dutch border to the north of Gronau. 

We carefully re-read Jock's account to make sure we crossed the border as close as we could to where he did and I'm sure we were. Not much has changed in the century since he passed through. The land is very cultivated now, so it's not really moreland but the forest he describes is still dense, the pond is there (I saw a small frog even) and the Dinkel isn't much more than a stream.

The border between Germany and the Netherlands does indeed bulge at this point, so they had to ensure they continued west to avoid drifting back into Germany once they'd crossed. What I suspect is the case is that they were well over the border before they saw the church at Losser.  Unless it's been rebuilt since then, it's not very large and the Dinkel at this point is well within Dutch territory. 

Working all this out as we completed our epic journey was fascinating.


13th NIGHT.
We were now within 12 miles of the frontier and as our food was almost gone we made up our minds to try and get across the frontier that night; but it was not to be as we experienced exceptionally heavy going, sometimes knee deep in bog, so that two hours from dawn we found we were still under half way. We had decided to approach the frontier right across what looked from the map like a desolate moor, our guide for a starting off place being a path running parallel to the frontier, crossing which was a small stream.

FOG IN MOOR
We eventually struck this path and later on the stream, over which was a small bridge. Our route over the moor now lay W. with a touch of S, but just as we had entered the moor a dense white fog came down, which added to the darkness, made it impossible to see a yard in front of us and after stumbling blindly in bogs, ditches, etc., and getting soaked, we decided to try and get some sleep until it was light, so lay down but not to sleep, it was far too cold and wet for that, so with the first streak of dawn we were up and off, feeling our way through the fog and steering a compass course for a small wood that was shown to be about the middle of the moor. About 6 a.m. we stopped on a small hill to try and locate the wood, but found although the fog was thinning we were still unable to see any distance.

While debating what course to adopt it being very risky to walk on in daylight, the fog suddenly parted in two, right in front of us for perhaps two minutes and there to our great joy was our wood, not 200 yards away. We, however, lay up that day in a small clump of whins just on the outskirts of the wood from where we could obtain a splendid view of the church spires of a village called Losser which we knew to be in Holland, in fact, all that day we could hear the church bell chiming the hours, and this acted as a splendid guide when we moved on at night. Our food that day was shared all round, each man getting a small square of chocolate and a few crumbs of biscuit to last him the 18 odd hours, or longer, just depending on what success we met with.

It is imperative that on the frontier one knows one’s exact position all the time, so that there would be no chance of walking out of Germany across a neck of Holland and back into Germany, as one or two poor fellows had actually done on previous occasions. 

14th and LAST NIGHT.
After throwing away everything we did not require, it wasn't much, we started off on what was to decide our fate, success or failure, there would be no half way measures , we all knew, either we crossed that night or were captured.

LANDMARKS 
The landmarks we were steering for were a small pond and some few yards to the south of it, a small clump of trees.
The first obstacles to be crossed were a railway, followed immediately afterwards by a main road. 

We successfully crossed the railway and were just about to cross the road when someone gave a whispered alarm so down we plopped in the ditch alongside the road and in a minute or so a cyclist patrol went past, some 6 or 7 machines, the last of which was using the Hun substitute for rubber tyres, namely two steel bands with coiled springs between. 

This was what we had to thank for warning us in time, otherwise we would almost certainly have been caught. The patrol safely past we crawled across that road and continued across the moor, passing a German Guardhouse a few yards on our left and then striking our two landmarks. 

We had steered our course so well that we actually heard frogs croaking in the pond on our right. The next thing we came to was 4 lines of barbed wire fencing under which we proceeded to crawl. While crawling through the second, we heard a cough just on our left and hardly daring to breathe we crawled on under the 3rd and 4th fences, continuing to do so for perhaps quarter of a mile or so, when all being quiet we got up and walked on towards the sound of the church bell.

From our maps we had noticed a small stream marked, called the DINKEL, about a mile over the frontier and you can imagine better than I can tell our great joy and unbounded relief when we struck this after some 10 to 15 minutes' walking. 'We were over and free! 

Our troubles now were over, the Dutch people treating us with every consideration and kindness and after a stay of 9 days in Holland we were brought back to the dear-old Country, the first sight of which from the deck of the steamer will always remain with us.