Note 9 — Chapter V · THE FLAG FALLS.

Since writing the above, we have learnt that the officers escaping from one of the other houses were unable to leave it until after 11 P.M., and even then were at once seen, but took to their heels and got clear. For some unaccountable reason the Turks only proceeded to check the officers of that particular house. At dawn, the chaouse taking rounds in the Hospital House was completely deceived by the dummies; not so, however, an interpreter, who had seen the same game played when Keeling's party escaped. We thus enjoyed about 6½ hours' start.

The Turks were completely at a loss to know how the eight from Hospital House had got out of the garden. The only possible means seemed to them to be that we had got over the wall by means of nets flung out from a top window of the main building right over the outhouse. The hole in the wall they took to be merely a blind! The nets were simply goal nets made while at Changri, and of course used for none but their original purpose.