"I'm glad you mentioned that, Colonel. I'll fix that. You'll see." Next morning he watched at the window, and when he saw the doctor coming, he swallowed a large pill of plug tobacco. The effect was more serious than he expected. In a few minutes he became sick in earnest, and was frightened. A deathlike pallor supervened. When the doctor reached him, there was a genuine fit of vomiting. The story runs that Captain Tiemann made a pathetic appeal in behalf of the imaginary twin babies, that the doctor diagnosed it as a clear case of puerperal (which he pronounced "puerp[=e]rial") fever complicated with symptoms of cholera infantum, and ordered him to hospital at once! I loaned the patient my overcoat, which he sent back directly. His recovery seemed miraculous. In a week or two he returned from his delightful outing. This was in the latter part of November. Previously, for some weeks, Captain Howe and three or four other strong and determined officers managed to get into the cellar of a one-story building contiguous to ours and thence to excavate a tunnel out beyond the line on which the sentinels were perpetually pacing to and fro. I was too feeble to join in the enterprise, but hoped to improve the opportunity to escape when the work was done. Unfortunately the arching top of the tunnel was too near the surface of the ground, and the thin crust gave way under the weight of a sentry. He yelled "Murder!" Two or three of our diggers came scurrying back. The guard next to him shouted, "You Yanks! you G--d d--d Yanks!" and fired into the deep hole. No more tunneling at Danville.[8] More successful and more amusing were several attempts by individual officers one at a time. The water parties of four to eight went under a strong guard two or three times a day down a long hill to the river Dan. On the slope alongside the path were a number of large brick ovens,[9] in which, we were told, the Confederates used to bake those big squares of corn bread. The iron doors when we passed were usually open. On the way back from the river, one officer on some pretense or other would lag behind the rearmost soldier of the guard, who would turn to hurry him up. The next officer, as soon as the soldier's back was turned, would dodge into an open oven, and the careless guards now engaged in a loud and passionate controversy about slavery or secession would not miss him! Then, as night came on, the negroes in the vicinity, who, like all the rest of the colored people, were friendly to us, would supply the escaped officer with food and clothing, and pilot him on his way rejoicing toward the Union lines. One by one, six officers escaped in that way, and many of us began to look forward to the time when our turn would come to try the baking virtues of those ovens!