Several of our classmates have already written about their EX PAPILLON experiences during BOTC, but the protagonists in those stories all managed to both escape AND evade. Mine is a story with a difference; I didn’t so much “escape and evade” as “escape and blunder.” 

Some time after lights out one night late in that idyllic summer retreat (a.k.a. BOTC), we were rudely awakened by the DS and mustered in a classroom. We were ordered to strip off our combats and put on a pair of coveralls. While we were thus engaged, the DS divided us into groups of three, and issued each group a compass, a map, and a snakebite kit. The latter was a precaution against encounters with the venomous Massasauga rattlers (Sistrurus catenatus to the herpetologically-inclined) that we were told were native to the Georgian Bay area. The DS were doubtless keen to avoid the paperwork associated with casualty reporting. As we changed into our POW-in-training outfits, we were briefed on the rules of the exercise. We were forbidden to seek or accept assistance from the locals. The public had been informed of the exercise via notices printed in the local newspapers, and broadcast on local radio stations. The stalwart citizens of Bruce County were encouraged to report sightings of us POWs-in-training to the local authorities. The constabulary would be on the lookout for us. More importantly, we were told that we were not, repeat not, under any circumstances, to attempt to swim any creek, river, pond, stream, lake, etc., etc. (See the previous remark concerning the bureaucratic burden of casualty reporting.) We were advised to travel cross-country, and avoid the roads — there would be patrols, and checkpoints. 

When we were all ready to go, we were bundled onto a bus, and had pillowcases put over our heads, so that we might not see where we were going. This was an overly melodramatic, not to mention pointless precaution, as we had been briefed that we would “escape” our captors at the base of the Bruce Peninsula. That we had been given maps of the Bruce Peninsula was also a dead giveaway.

After what seemed like an eternity bouncing along county roads, the bus simulated running over a land mine every hundred yards or so, and trios of us POWs-in-training were “ejected” from the simulated wreckage, to set off towards the friendly lines some forty or fifty kilometres to the north. Together with my two travelling companions, whose names I do not recall (I must not have liked them very much), we dutifully set off over hill and dale. At daybreak, deep in the woods, we decided to stop and sleep for a couple of hours. Waking sometime later that morning, we set off again. Stumbling through the bush was a bit of a tough slog, not to mention a slow one. When at some point we stumbled onto a lonely-looking gravel road, we decided that the opportunity to make better time running down the road was worth the risk.

When we came upon an intersection with another lonely-looking country road, we carefully reconnoitred the situation before traversing it. A few moments later, hearing the noise of an engine, I looked back over my shoulder, and spied a Jeep approaching the intersection. I yelled “Jeep!”, and maybe an expletive or two, to get the attention of my fellow escapees. Quick as a flash, the pair of them leapt across the drainage ditch alongside of the road, and took off across the open field at a great rate of knots. For several nanoseconds I contemplated following them, or crossing the road and disappearing into the trees on the other side. Ultimately I decided against either of those courses of action, and instead I dove into the ditch, which was full of bulrushes and rather a lot of water. The DS in the Jeep had spotted us and came tearing around the corner, and brought their Jeep to a screeching halt right next to where your humble narrator was lying submerged; I distinctly recall the plop-plop-plop of gravel thrown up by the Jeep’s tires landing in the water. Apparently no one had noticed me diving into the ditch; instead, the DS raced off across the field in hot pursuit of my associates. The hapless fugitives were quickly apprehended and brought back to the Jeep. Somehow I remained undetected in my watery hideout, and the DS drove off with their prisoners, leaving me to my own devices. After a prudent interval, I hauled myself far enough out of the ditch to check and see if the coast was clear. (It did occur to me that the DS might have driven just a short distance away, stopped, and were waiting for me to come out of hiding.) Satisfied that I was safe for the moment, I clambered up onto the road and took stock of my situation. I had neither the compass, nor the map. Inconvenient, but not a showstopper; being on a narrow peninsula, I could stumble at most a kilometre or two laterally before encountering either Georgian Bay to the east, or Lake Huron to the west — and I had taken to heart the DS’s admonition to not attempt water crossings. Even without the compass, I could only travel north and cross the finish line, or south and fetch up in Toronto. Of somewhat greater concern was that I didn’t have a canteen, either. But I was in farm country; surely I would happen upon a well or a water trough or something of that sort.

I crossed the road and went into the trees, figuring that I could walk parallel to the road and thereby remain concealed from any DS patrols or civilian zealots keen to help the Army capture the runaways. I carried on this way for some hours, until I saw a village up ahead. As I paused to ponder my next move, a car pulled to a stop directly across from where I was lurking in the trees. The driver of the car rolled down his window and called out, “hey, are you one of those kids from Camp Borden pretending to be an escaping POW?” So much for my attempts at concealment. Not being quick-witted enough to think up a convincing story to explain why I was hiding in the trees in muddy coveralls, I answered in the affirmative. “There’s Army guys at the crossroads up ahead; I could give you a lift past them if you want.” I did recall the DS warning us not to accept help from the locals, but hitching a ride wasn’t going to create a lot of extra paperwork for the DS, as would drowning in an attempted water crossing, so I decided that I could construe that warning not as an order, but as a suggestion. Which I then ignored, and I hopped in the back of the car, and laid down on the floor. As we drove off, the driver handed a box of cookies over the back of the seat and told me to help myself. I was famished, and Dad’s Oatmeal Cookies had never tasted better than they did just then. As we drove along, the driver asked where it was I had to get to on this little adventure. He then offered to drive me close to the finish line (I was only about halfway there) but I declined. (I may have been feeling a bit guilty for cadging a ride and wolfing down a dozen or more cookies. But only a bit.) A kilometre or so past the crossroads, I got out of the car, thanked the driver, and carried on via shanks’ mare. 

Towards dusk, I saw that the road I was following veered to the left, towards the lakeshore, and there was another little village there. To avoid it, I left the road and struck out across a field; a cow pasture, presumably, if the freshly-laid cow patty I stepped in was anything to go by. There was no cover at all, so I hurried towards a line of trees up ahead. Once I gained the safety of the trees, I slowed down to catch my breath. And walked into a cow fence. After untangling myself from the barbed wire (all the while cursing the fool that had put a fence there), and then climbed over it. I took a few steps, and promptly fell down a steep ravine and landed in a swamp. Hence the cow fence, I realized. Standing there in the bog, in the gathering gloom, I then realized that there was something else that had been captured along with my comrades — the snakebite kit. And I remembered the DS saying that Massasauga rattlers love swamps. I wasn‘t liking this, but there was nothing for it but to press on. And then I came to a stream. It wasn’t very wide, maybe fifteen feet or so, but when I tried to sound its depths with a long stick, I could find no bottom. (I imagine that the bottom was a thick layer of ooze; either way, I couldn’t ford the stream.) I recalled the DS’s stern warning to not, under any circumstances, attempt to swim a water obstacle. I wondered if Massasauga rattlers could swim. It was getting dark. Clearly, this was a sub-optimal situation. I decided that the safest course of action was to follow the stream in the general direction of the lake, which couldn’t be too far away. If I ended up in the village, instead of north of it, I would cross that bridge when I came to it, literally as well as figuratively. I hadn’t walked more than a dozen paces when serendipitously, I found a slender log that looked to be a little longer than the stream was wide. With some effort I was able to manoeuvre the log to position it across the stream and lodge the far end in the opposite bank. I shinnied across my makeshift bridge, and after walking for about ten minutes, I found myself clambering up the slope of the far side of the ravine, and into an open field. Feeling quite relieved to be out of the swamp, I trotted across the field until I met a road, and which I then followed in what was probably a northerly direction. The open field gave way to more forest, and I was able to parallel the road from just inside the trees — this late in the game, I really, really didn’t want to get caught. I continued on this way for what must have been several hours. It was quite a dark night, and I couldn’t see a damned thing. It was black as the inside of a cow, as my grandfather the farmer would have said; whether it was overcast, or it was a moonless night, I don’t recall. So there I was, stumbling along in the dark, periodically getting whipped in the face by unseen tree branches, and tripping over tree roots. Then I stepped into a clearing; this I knew because the face-whipping stopped. Ditto for the tripping over tree roots. Unencumbered by underbrush, I strode purposefully onward — and walked straight into the side of a Jeep that was parked in the clearing, facing the road, waiting for POWs-in-training to go sauntering by. I literally fell into the laps of the waiting DS. They were every bit as surprised as was yours truly. Unfortunately, they recovered from their astonishment rather more quickly than I did, and promptly apprehended me.

I was quickly bundled off to the POW camp. On arrival I was led into a tent where I was interrogated by a trio of young “enemy” female soldiers. You can imagine my embarrassment when I was told to strip off all of my clothes. (I guess you might have called it a “debriefing.”) A little love tap from the butt of the guard’s rifle helped me overcome my embarrassment. Afterwards I was led back outside, bound hand and foot, and made to spend the rest of the night on my knees with a burlap bag over my head. The guards kindly helped me with the drowsiness that kept making me want to sink down on my haunches with judicious applications of a rifle butt between the shoulder blades. For breakfast, I was served a hearty stew of what may once have been food. I couldn’t really tell what it might have been, as the smell — and taste — were disguised with liberal amounts of foot powder. 

And then at noon the exercise ended, and we all celebrated with our first proper meal since supper a couple of days before. The moral of the story is, if a civilian in car with a box of Dad’s Oatmeal Cookies in the back seat offers to drive you to the finish line, just say “yes, please!”