I opened the door and walked into the surrounding boneyard, which was hemmed in by several high fences of barbed wire. While most prison camps are well lighted at night in order that there will be little possibility of any one escaping without being seen by one of the many guards, this was different, in that it seemed totally dark. Perhaps the reason for this was its proximity to the lines, or it might have been that it was too early for lights. I was just milling around aimlessly when suddenly from somewhere without the darkness came a voice in German and so gruffly that it almost took me off my feet. I realized that I was being addressed individually, and while the words meant nothing to me, the tone of voice in which they were spoken convinced me that it could be nothing else than the familiar old “Halt! Who goes there?” Not being well versed in the number of times a German sentry calls his challenge before he fires, I took a chance on one of the few words I knew and quickly answered “Freund,” for, as I figured it, “Friend” is a harmless word any way you take it. The old squarehead only answered “Ja” and quite unconcernedly walked on. “Well,” I thought, “this is easy.” So, continuing my tour, I got around to the side where I found that during the day some prisoners had been working, probably digging weeds, for to my pleasant surprise I discovered, perhaps for their own purposes, they had left their tools, including a couple of spades. Such luck, for with those spades, on such a dark night it would be easily possible to tunnel out. The big rub was that the orderly told us that the door to the hut would be locked at nine o’clock and that we could not go out of the house until seven o’clock the next morning. It was then about a quarter of nine, so I went in and told Davis, and he, of course, agreed to attempt to escape that night. The big point first was to manage to get out of the house, which could only be effected by crawling through a window. Davis was just in the act of testing the strength of the window when the door opened and the orderly came in with our sumptuous repast. In ravenous anxiety we sized up the banquet—it consisted of a piece of hard, mealy, black bread, dimensions two inches by three inches by three inches, and in a pot was the rest of the dinner, which consisted of soup.