At Motuihi things were not so bad. The food was good and discipline was not too strict. The camp commander, Turner by name, seemed very proud to have a couple of real war prisoners in his charge. He had really excellent cause to be pleased. Now that he had enemy naval officers in his camp, he was raised to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, and his force of guards was increased to eighty men. It likewise seemed to add to his dignity that he had among his captives someone whom he could call Count. The principal annoyance now was the strict watch they felt obliged to keep over us to prevent our escape. Headquarters at Auckland had to be telephoned every other hour and told that everything was all right. Colonel Turner was also provided with a fine new motor boat, so that, if anything went wrong with the telephone wire, he would still have a means of swift communication with the mainland. "By Joe, what a fine motor boat," I exclaimed when I saw it. "Maybe we could use it," commented Kircheiss. You couldn't blame the authorities for being a bit nervous. They still did not know where the remainder of the _Seeadler's_ crew was, and were worried about a possible raid to liberate us. Likewise, Kircheiss and I had the idea of escape buzzing furiously in our heads. In fact, the prisoners on Motuihi before we arrived had already thought of a jail break. They had formed no definite plan, but had gathered materials that might be useful. One had contrived to filch and hide away a number of tools. Another had found a derelict floating mine and taken the fuses from it and also a large quantity of guncotton, which he stowed in his mattress. He slept on the guncotton every night. Another had succeeded in "finding" charts of the harbour with the location of the mine fields. In any plan of flight, I could, by including the men who had collected them, have these materials at my disposal. The motor boat was, of course, the centre of all scheming. The idea was to sail away in it with an able-bodied company of prison camp comrades, capture a sailing ship, and go buccaneering again. One of the prisoners, a young fellow, was a motor expert. The camp commander had assigned him to look after the engine of his motor boat. So he was one man whom we would have to have with us. I didn't think there would be much trouble in getting away with the boat. Although there were sentries all over the island, we were sure we could invent some way of outwitting them. We would have to stow the boat with a large amount of supplies. This, our motor expert could do while pretending to tinker with the engine. He could hide the material away in the air chambers of the boat. Much more difficult was the job of collecting all the food, weapons, and other equipment. This took a long time, and all the patient manœuvring that is traditional of prisoners and their schemes of escape.