Pat O'Brien wrote this book in London during the fall of 1917 while recovering from a two month trek across Western Europe. On August 17, 1917, he was shot in the throat during a battle with German planes at 8,000 feet. He survived the crash of his Sopwith Pup aeroplane and was operated on by a German Army physician in the enemy's field hospital, saving his life. One month later, while being transferred with other prisoners to the German interior, he jumped from the moving prison train and began his journey behind enemy lines through Germany, Luxemburg and Belgium. At the Holland border he...