"Why? Why does a POW escape anyway, when he suffers no physical emergency and everything is done to ease psychological stress? Why does he trade a life with adequate food in well heated shelter for the danger and hardship of an almost impossible escape?" (pages 84-85)

Image adapted and composited from unplain-jane and jamescridland at Flickr.

Music from Bach's Toccata Adagio Fugue: http://www.musopen.com/music.php?type=piece&id=468

"Sure, we could have made some noise - they would have gotten us out and given us something to drink - but it would have been the end of our escape, the end of our freedom. Our moral stamina was still stronger than the thirst, we still forced ourselves to keep quiet - but how much longer now?" (page 84, second excerpt)

Image adapted and composited from jmegjmeg, nattu, leecohen, and onecog2many at Flickr.

Music from Bach's Toccata Adagio Fugue: http://www.musopen.com/music.php?type=piece&id=468

"The worst part was the thirst... Outside lay snow, only a few meters away and yet unreachable for us." (page 84)

Image adapted from one that was available on Flickr as CC-BY (attribution license) but is now private.

Music from Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D, Opus 61, first movement: http://www.musopen.com/music.php?type=piece&id=454

"'OK, into our hideout' ... the floorboards were put back into place above us, a crossbar was secured from below to make it impossible to lift our covering" (page 74)

Images adapted from Mr. Thinktank and MNgilen at Flickr.

Music from Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D, Opus 61, first movement: http://www.musopen.com/music.php?type=piece&id=454

"But we were met with a new mishap; I twisted my knee. ... 30 miles still lay ahead of us; 30 miles of icy road between impenetrable forests, 30 miles of path through the wilderness without any human settlement, without any possibility of help if we couldn't go any farther, 30 miles of nothing but woods, snow and ice." (pages 60-61)

Images adapted from --mike-- and pinkmoose at Flickr. (The second image is of the North Saskatchewan River at Edmonton.)

Music from Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D, Opus 61, first movement: http://www.musopen.com/music.php?type=piece&id=454

"An attempt to get to the open waters through the broad belt of reeds (in order to swim across the river) failed. I sunk ever deeper into the marsh and was nearly pulled under there. The black brew reached up to my chest, stinking bubbles rising up (and) by gathering all my strength I pulled myself back to the shore again using the reeds." (page 49)

Images adapted from randwill, Gilder, clairity, avramishin at Flickr. (The middle 2 were composited: black brew in the front, shoreline in the back.)

This music is from a different composer than previous videos: Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D, Opus 61, first movement: http://www.musopen.com/music.php?type=piece&id=454

"The guards turned around again, coming back step by step. Ever closer they moved. A few steps away from me they stopped. My heart pounded in my throat; I hardly dared to breathe." (page 42)

Images (loosely!) adapted from isafmedia, soldiersmediacenter, soldiersmediacenter, and thejointstaff at Flickr

Music from Bach's Toccata Adagio Fugue: http://www.musopen.com/music.php?type=piece&id=468

"Those nights when the Northern Lights interrupted the darkness for minutes at a time will remain especially unforgettable; a fairy tale-esque gleam and twinkle ran across the sky and we were witness to this phenomenon only visible in the Arctic regions." (page 33)

Images adapted from Jökull Másson, nick_russill and Image Editor at Flickr

Music from Bach's Toccata Adagio Fugue: http://www.musopen.com/music.php?type=piece&id=468

"... suddenly a dog was alarmed, a flashlight lit up, footsteps approached. With a few leaps, we disappeared sideways behind a pile of wood, crawling farther through the deep snow." (page 18)

Images adapted from markhillary and mescon at Flickr

Music from Bach's Toccata Adagio Fugue: http://www.musopen.com/music.php?type=piece&id=468

Here's the second in the series of short "teaser" book trailer videos.

"We were free. An indescribable feeling of joy overcame us, as, with every passing minute, we increased our distance from the camp. ...and we began running out of joy." (pages 7 and 9, chapters 1 and 2)

Images adapted from wili, varun, and varun at Flickr

Music from Bach's Toccata Adagio Fugue: http://www.musopen.com/music.php?type=piece&id=468