Escape key problem

I don't know if I'm the only one who's experiencing this, but the escape 
key is very slow to respond in dosemu. When I press the escape key I 
have to wait almost half second before the program does what's supposed 
to do. We're accessing it by ssh but the problem also appears on the 
server if we open dosemu in an xterm. Any ideas on how to solve this? 
First I thought that this was linux-related, but then again I thought of 
vim and how you can switch to command mode instantly and without delay 
when you press escape, so I don't know what's the problem