But the fact is that the reprisals were militating for us as well as against us. The German personnel were not enjoying the counter-reprisals any more than we were; counting 250 officers five times a day, even in the most superficial manner, was a task that was obviously trying the patience of both the Feldwebels and the Lager officers very severely, and it is not surprising that during this period they left us well alone when they were given the opportunity. On the argument that both sides had a grievance, personal relations between the British and Germans (with the exception, of course, of Niemeyer) improved by leaps and bounds; and the supervision was more cursory and the letter of the law more loosely interpreted than at any previous time in the camp’s history. The then senior British officer, Colonel Rathborne, D.S.O., was himself deeply interested in the success of the scheme, and had, in fact, been offered a place immediately after the original working-party. It was his obvious policy to foster as much as possible the existing state of good relationship and to avoid serious collision with the authorities. Consequently the reprisals were left to work out their own sweet course; Niemeyer was ignored; when a hammer disappeared from the tool-bag of a civilian carpenter working in the camp and the Feldwebel-Lieutenant Welman demanded its instant restoration on pain of a general search, the hammer was immediately produced. A German tin room attendant had his cap whisked off his head by some adventurous and unidentified spirit. The threats of a general search were repeated, and the cap as promptly restored. The Jewboy and the Germans generally were welcome to draw any conclusions they wished as to our impaired morale. Their conclusions were of secondary importance. But a general search at such a time would have been a disaster of the first magnitude, and Room 34 could hardly have got through with its secret unnoticed. However, the attempt to make an entry into the chamber from Room 34 proved abortive, owing to the difficulty of digging through the solid concrete of the wall with the available tools. So after desperate efforts for about a week the deck-chair habit ceased as suddenly as it had begun, and the working-party turned their attention to the attic, which was now the one remaining available avenue of approach.