All agreed that the present fatigue duty was a good one. The work demanded from us was not excessive. We were satisfactorily lodged in a loft, and we slept in hammocks. The food was about as good as we had in camp. Our keepers did not consider it a matter of duty to make themselves disagreeable, and discipline was not severe. Our pay was three pfennigs a day more, and we were allowed to arrange for articles of food and other wares to be bought for us in the village. Moreover, as the result of claims we made on the strength of conscientious and organised work, we succeeded in obtaining a daily allowance of a litre of milk for our midday meal. All these considerations brought it about that after some time my comrades considered me a dangerous being, whose escape would certainly lead to a change in the way they were treated, the withdrawal of certain privileges, and the inauguration of a more rigorous régime. As a matter of fact, the rumour got abroad that the “sous-off.” intended to escape, and the French seemed to fear this event even more than the Germans. I realised that I had to set to work in absolute secrecy, and so I did my best to calm these fears in order to be able one day to get away unnoticed. My comrades soon regained their confidence, and as time went by without anything occurring to spoil my reputation, I succeeded in withdrawing myself from notice among the crowd of workers. In spite of the extreme prudence that I observed with every one, I never missed a single opportunity of getting information as to the direction of the frontier. I tried to get details about the lie of the land separating me from the country of my dreams, about the population and its distribution, and the names of the towns and neighbouring villages. It was our keepers especially who, unconsciously in the course of their conversation, furnished me with these facts. After a week spent in working in the forest, to which we went every morning, I was set to work with five others to do some haymaking in connection with an important agricultural enterprise. We found it hard work, and I discovered what it was to get hay into barns. At midday we used to have our meal in the shade of a haystack in the meadows beside a stream. I succeeded in persuading our sentinel that a bath would be an excellent thing for us, and each day I disported myself under the complacent gaze of the German. I knew that a river separated me from the land of liberty, and I wanted to make sure that my wound would not prevent me from swimming. This lasted for about a fortnight.