We eight, obeying instructions--no, requests--found places for ourselves in the double files of guards, four going one side of the column and four the other.

I slipped into a gap on the left flank, alongside four of the English soldiers.

The guard immediately behind me was a man I knew.
He had been on duty the afternoon previous in the place where we were being kept, and he had been obliging enough to let me exercise my few words of German upon him.

He grinned now in recognition and humorously patted the stock of his rifle--this last, I take it, being his effort to convey to my understanding that he was under orders to shoot me in the event of my seeking to play truant during the next hour or so.

He didn't know me--wild horses could not have dragged us apart.
A considerable wait ensued.