We walked out among the prisoners, and they were glad to get news of the war and of the outside world. Among other questions, they asked if London was still standing. The Germans had told them it had been levelled to the ground. Some of the men had been in the mines for two years and the stories they told were almost incredible. The Germans who guard this camp are always savage and cruel and they are urged on by the owners and operators of the mine. We talked with some of the first British prisoners who arrived there, and this is what they told us: At first they refused to work, knowing that it was contrary to international law to force prisoners of war to work in the mines. For refusing to work they were given a week of the most brutal abuse and torture possible. The weather was bitterly cold and there was a foot of snow. These men were stripped of everything but their shirt and pants and made to stand "at attention" out of doors. Any man moving hand or foot was knocked down with the butt of a rifle, and those who fainted from cold and exhaustion were dragged away and put back in their places as soon as they became conscious--while those whose strength enabled them to hold out the longest were stood in front of the cokery ovens until they were utterly exhausted by the terrific heat, and had to consent to work. The first shift that went down into the mines were driven into the cage with rifle butts and bayonets, and some of them went down unconscious. Oh, when this war is over, there will be a long day of reckoning with the German people. After listening to such stories as these, and after seeing the poor wrecked bodies of the prisoners, you can imagine how we felt as we were marched off to work the next morning. When we were taken out, we were given our first suit of prison clothes--this consisted of overalls and smock and cap. The overalls had a four-inch stripe of red down each leg, the jacket had six inches of red down the centre of the back, and the cap had a wide red band across the top. After we got into these, we looked like a bunch of robins. When we reached the pit-head we found a line of German civilians waiting to go down into the mines--as we waited for the cages to come up we overheard some of their conversation--of course we could not understand it, but one of the old prisoners translated it for me. The Germans had noticed that we were new men and they asked the guard what nationality we were. The guard told them we were Canadians, but the civilians said, "Oh nix! the Canadians are 'Swas'"--meaning black. They argued with the guard for fifteen minutes and then were not convinced. Finally the cage came, we were loaded in, and it started down. I shall never forget the feeling I had; I thought that we would never strike bottom. I asked an old prisoner how deep the mine was, and he said two thousand feet, and I believed him.