foxes, cried 'Capivy!' Then I was herded with the other prisoners in
a miserable group, and about the same time I noticed that my hand
was bleeding, and it began to pour with rain.

"Two days before I had written to an officer at home: 'There has
been a great deal too much surrendering in this war, and I hope
people who do so will not be encouraged.'"

With other officers, Churchill was imprisoned in the State Model
Schools, situated in the heart of Pretoria. It was distinctly
characteristic that on the very day of his arrival he began to plan to
escape.

Toward this end his first step was to lose his campaign hat, which
he recognized was too obviously the hat of an English officer. The
burgher to whom he gave money to purchase him another
innocently brought him a Boer sombrero.

Before his chance to escape came a month elapsed, and the
opportunity that then offered was less an opportunity to escape
than to get himself shot.

The State Model Schools were surrounded by the children's
playgrounds, penned in by a high wall, and at night, while they
were used as a prison, brilliantly lighted by electric lights. After
many nights of observation, Churchill discovered that while the
sentries were pacing their beats there was a moment when to them
a certain portion of the wall was in darkness. This was due to
cross-shadows cast by the electric lights. On the other side of this
wall there was a private house set in a garden filled with bushes.