But we came near losing even this little bit of pleasure, and this is what happened: Some of the prisoners were planning an escape, and they dug a hole through the wall of their hut--the bricks were loose, ready to take out, and on the night they were to go my friend Macdonald, who was the ringleader, began to carefully remove the bricks--he took out two, and then it occurred to him that he had better take a peek out, and make sure that no one was watching, so he did; and there, only a few feet away, was a sentry, with his rifle pointed at the hole ready to blow the head off the first man who appeared. Needless to say, Mac did not go any farther; he warned the others, and they all crawled back to their bunks, and went to sleep. Next morning there was a big row made, and the guards tried to make the prisoners tell what ones were planning to escape, but no one squealed; and they were all stood "at attention" for two hours. Then a civilian was brought in with a pail of plaster, and he fixed up the hole that the prisoners had made, and with two of the officers he made the round of all the huts looking for more loose bricks. Finally he came to the prison, and one of the officers pushed the little stick he carried through the first hole I had made. This started them swearing at us, calling us English Schweinhunds and everything else they could think of. We lay there trying to keep from laughing, but at last Blackie exploded; and gee! they did rave. Finally they found the second hole, but I held my hand over it so the stick didn't come through--they could feel something soft, but had no idea what it was. Just then the officers were called away and the old civilian stopped up the top hole and moved on--no doubt the lower one is there still. They took us out on Monday morning and we were almost too weak to walk. The boys had a meal prepared for us, and we rested all that day. Next day they put us to work again, but instead of putting us all on the same shift they separated us. I was given night duty and the other boys were on day shift. I was feeling pretty blue the first day I went off to work alone, but was surprised and delighted to find an old pal of mine was on the same shift. This man was Macdonald, who had already made three attempts to escape, and when I met him he said, "Well, Jack, are you ready to try it again?" I said "Sure," and he said, "Well, I have everything ready and we will try and get away tonight." He had a good map and compass, so I told another prisoner to give mine to Sammie in case I got away. We knew the number of sentries and had them all located except one. It was very necessary that we should find out where he was.