This wasn't on the map. There was supposed to be a river here.
The men looked at each other, confused and bewildered. The mighty river on the map was instead a few puddles and trickles. The kayak would be useless.
"What do we do now?" Gunther asked. "We don't stand a chance out here."
"I'm going back," Clarus said. "It's almost Christmas, and the rations are sure to be great. Better to live like a king in prison than die out here in the desert."
"You can't go back," Palmer insisted. "Once you go back, they'll know we're gone and start looking for us."
The escape had exceeded their wildest expectations: 25 men had gone through the tunnels. No alarm was raised. The guards weren't even aware anyone was missing.
"I have to admit that I would love to see the look on Captain Parshall's face when he sees that we're gone," Gunther said. "But Palmer is right, we can't go back."
"Capt. Wattenberg ordered us to split up, avoid the trains and buses, and try to make our way south," Palmer said. "I think we need to stick to the plan."
Clarus, Gunther and Utzolino set off in one group, Palmer and Mark in another.
"How's your English?" Gunther asked Clarus.
"Passable, like yours," he replied. "But we both speak with terrible accents."
"How about you, Fred?" Utzolino seemed preoccupied, and didn't answer right away.
"Better than most," he finally answered.
"Let's hear it," Gunther said.
"Here's lookin' at you, kid," he answered, grinning.
"Great," Clarus said. "We'll just tell 'em we're friends with Humphrey Bogart here, and they'll let us go."
The three men all laughed as they walked along the river bed in the dark. They figured they had at least five or six more hours before the guards found out there had been an escape, enough to cover 10 or 12 miles on foot.
"You gotta admit," Clarus said. "That place wasn't so bad as far as a prison was concerned. Same food as the guards, fresh milk, heck we even got cake for our birthdays!"
"That's not the point," Gunther said. "It's our duty to escape, no matter how well we're treated."
As it turned out, they might have had days to put distance between themselves and the prison if one of their fellow escapees hadn't gotten cold and alerted the authorities. Unaware, the trio pressed on.
For two weeks, they remained at large. In all, they had covered 77 miles of hostile territory, without the slightest close call.
"The next water we find," Utzolino said, "I gotta wash these drawers."
"We're on the run and you're worried about dirty underwear," Clarus said.
"We're escaped prisoners, not savages," Utzolino answered. "A man needs clean underwear every so often."
"There," he said, pointing to a canal. "It will only take a minute."
He was hunched down along the stream when he heard the sound of a gun being drawn.
"Hold it right there, fella," the police officer said. "Ain't you got a washing board at home for that?"
"Nein," Utzolino responded without thinking.
The officer shouted and soon dozens of men descended on the three men, who were among the last holdouts of the 25 German POWs who escaped into the Arizona desert in December 1944.