It was on the twenty-four-hour shift that we started our work. We went on at 7 A.M. on Sunday, and we worked from that until 7 Monday morning. Almost as soon as I went on the ovens I met two of my old pals, Nickelson and Macdonald. They had been put here for attempting to escape from the mine, and had been at this job for a week before we arrived. We were mighty glad to see each other, for we all belonged to the same "school." But a "school" in a German prison camp does not mean the same as it does in America. We got the idea from the British Tommy, only he calls it "mucking it." It is made up of a bunch of boys who put all their parcels in together and go fifty-fifty on everything. Sharing with each other brought us a little closer together than we otherwise would have been. Well, these were in our little "school" and had also shared in our rest-cure up to the time of their attempted escape. So when they saw us come on the ovens, they knew exactly what had happened. As I passed Nick, he said, "Which would you rather do, Jack, work on the coke oven or go to church?" I laughed and said, "Well, I guess, the church has it this time." After awhile I happened to be beside Mac, and I said, "Speaking of baseball, Mac, do they serve afternoon tea here?" He said, "Well, they used to, but you know tea has gone up, and as a substitute they serve out a little hell." And believe me, I hadn't been there long before I found that this was literally true. I was feeling fairly fit after my two months' rest; and this rest was all that saved my life. But during that first day I didn't mind the work so much, I could stand it anyway, but when night came it was awful beyond description. The heat of the closed ovens was bad enough, but at night, when the coke in the ovens was sufficiently baked, they opened the huge doors and the burning mass was pushed out by machinery. It came out a solid lump just the shape of the oven, and the heat it threw off was terrific. Two or three big "square-heads" stood near with iron forks fourteen feet long, and with these they prodded the mass until it broke into pieces. When it first broke it burst into flames, but gradually it cooled, and finally they finished it by turning the water hose on it. But the Germans who attended to this looked like skeletons--the gas and heat seemed to have eaten the flesh from their bones and they seemed scarcely human. I was working near and the fumes of gas and the awful heat was almost more than a human being could stand. I looked around at the prisoners; and such a sight--they were toiling like galley slaves, their faces were streaked with soot and sweat till you couldn't tell whether they were black or white. I'll never forget the horror of that first night on the ovens, I was almost dead long before I had finished shovelling my sixty-four tons of coke, but the awfulness of the scene was harder to bear than the pain of my body. I said to Mac, "What does this remind you of,