We did not believe him, and we trusted his promises about as long as it took him to make them; but, as Snipe said, we might as well take a chance on it, for we had to get out, and there was only one road to go. Of course he couldn't understand us, but we had picked up enough German to make out everything he said. Well, we pretended to believe him and we started out, walking in couples. When the first two reached the main road two lights flashed out, and the clubs commenced to whistle through the air. The boys shouted "duck!"--and, believe me, we did. We started down between those two lines of Germans, and seeing there were so many we thought it best just to make a run for it. In going through, three of our boys got knocked down, and the rest of us got some bad whacks over the head and back but we kept our feet. The last two Germans on the line got scared when they heard us coming and started to run. They were on the road just ahead of us, and we made a dash after them. They were a considerable distance from the main body when we overtook them, and I remember one of the boys saying, "We'll make these square-headed devils pay for what we've received"--and believe me, we did. Instead of going home to their supper that night, I'll bet they went to the doctor. Well, when this scrap was all over and we got to the top of the shaft, the mine inspector that had caught us reported us to the military authorities, and their punishment was five hours "at attention." When we had put this in, they allowed us to go to our bunks. The next day was Sunday, and we were peacefully sleeping when a big German came in and called out our numbers. We asked him what he wanted, and he said we had to go on the Coke-o-roy. We certainly knew what this meant. The coke ovens were attached to the mine, and most of the coal taken out was made into coke. Work on the ovens was so hard and so trying on account of the great heat, that they used this as a punishment for anything that was done wrong in the mines. This is what the German who could speak English told us. The morning we were put on, he lined us up and read this to us, "If you Englaenders does not do your work right beneath the mine, we put you on coke ovens, and there, if you shall not work, you shall die." We all laughed at this, and he said, "You England Schweinhunds!" and went away. But it was sure a punishment. The regular hours through the week was a twelve-hour shift, and each man was obliged to shovel thirty-two tons of coke, wheel it from ten to twenty yards along the platform, and dump it into railway cars. On Sunday the shift was twenty-four hours long, and each one had to handle sixty-four tons of coke. If you were not through when your time was up, you must keep at it till you did the required number of tons and then start back to work again with your shift.