Still the afternoon's shovelling caused them greater physical hardship than the plying of the pick in the morning. They had been denied a mid-day meal, and their age-enfeebled physique proved barely equal to the toil. A basin of black acorn coffee and a small fragment of hard brown bread cannot by any manner of means be construed into strong sustenance for such a full day's work. During the afternoon one or two were on the verge of collapse from hunger and fatigue. But their indomitable spirit kept them up and the pit was duly filled. By the time the labour had been completed the evening was advancing. For the fourth time that day they shouldered their burden of tools and set out on the three miles tramp to camp. We saw them come in and our hearts went out in pity to them. They tottered rather than walked, their heads bowed as if in prayer, and their crosses of tools sinking them nearer to the ground. Seeing that they had walked twelve miles and had put in some eight hours gruelling work it was a marvel that the older members of the party had not fallen by the wayside. Yet, although footsore, weary, worn, and hungry they retained their characteristic composure. In silence they discussed their frugal evening meal of lukewarm black acorn coffee and black bread. Some of us, out of sheer sympathy, secured some "broetchen" for them, but they accepted our expressions of fellow-feeling very sparingly, although with extreme thankfulness. They refused to say a word about their sufferings or the agonies they had experienced during their labour and long walk. I got the story from one of the guards who had accompanied them. But even these thick-skinned disciples of "kultur" and brutality were not disposed to be communicative. The stoicism, grim determination and placidity of the Reverend Fathers constituted something which their square heads and addled brains failed to understand. They had never experienced the like. While Major Bach never repeated the senseless pit-digging and refilling programme for the priests, his invention was by no means exhausted. Direct incentive to rebellion proving completely abortive he now resorted to indirect pettifogging and pin-pricking tactics, harassing the unfortunate priests at every turn, depriving them of food or something else, reducing their rations, giving them the most repulsive work he could discover, and so forth. But it was all to no purpose. Those twenty-two priests beat him at every turn. For Major Bach to try to break their proud spirit was like asking a baby to bend a bar of steel!