It was a delightfully weird experience.

There was the long quiet moonlit road and the desolate fields all around us.
While I was talking to one of the men, the patrol officer, unknown to me, allowed the spy to go off on his wheel, and to my astonishment when I turned I saw him going off down the road as hard as he could.

I asked the officer why he had let him go.

He said he thought it was all right and the man would be looked after.

Saying this, he called his patrol about him and marched back again.