Stepping into the light we got a deck of cards and made the agreement that the man who got the lowest card would go over the fence and dig the tunnel and the man who got the next would do the signaling. Mandel shuffled and Blacky, a little English doughboy, drew the first card. It was a Two of Diamonds. Mack, the second lad, drew a Queen. Mandel, whom we called Mendelssohn as he was a wonderful musician and also a past master in the art of escaping, picked an Eight of Clubs. I had a good chance for I didn’t think it likely that I could get a lower card than Blackie’s “Two,” so I snapped out a card just as unconcerned as could be and hastily looked at it—it was the Ace of Hearts. Now the question was whether the Ace was high or low. I had lots of queer sensations. We had made no agreement about it before drawing, so, I said nothing until the other two boys spoke up and said it seemed to them that Ace should be high. Mandel suggested that in order to be fair that we draw over again, it being agreed that the Ace would be high. This time I drew first in order that all the high cards would not get away. I picked a winner—the Three Spot of something—just what didn’t worry me for I knew the thing was settled and that I would have to go and dig that tunnel. I was picturing myself out there getting shot at when Blackie again saved the day by pulling his same Two of Diamonds. Several sighs of relief were registered by my heaving lungs for my draw assigned me as outer Watchman where I had to give Blackie signals all the time. It was quite different than being between two fences, guns all around me and no place to hide. We agreed to start at once, so, instead of putting Mandel and Mack at the outer corners of the house nearest the scene of operations, we decided to station them at different windows in the house, so as not to cause suspicion by having too many outside. All the blinds were drawn on account of air raids, so we arranged that as the boys walked back and forth in front of the door, that they should quietly keep me informed as to the exact location of the guards. My signals to Blackie were very simple: Whenever I whistled a tune that sounded like ragtime he was to lay off; when I whistled a tune that sounded melancholy he was to work for all he was worth. “Do you understand thoroughly, old man?” I asked before he left to crawl over the first fence. “Sure, you don’t think I’m deaf, do you?” he answered in his incomparable English cockney, as he shook my hand and started for the fence.