This gave us a most valuable handle, for even at Holzminden the German officers had never stolen our tins from our own tin room, or if they had, had not been such fools as to be caught doing so. In due course, and at a seasonable moment, the card was played, the written statement of the witnesses handed in, and an explanation asked for. Niemeyer took a day or two before he replied—what passed between himself and the luckless Lincke in the interval we could only guess—and then explained that it was in the regulations for German officers at any time to take tins out of the tin room in order personally to examine them for contraband articles. The senior British officer politely noted this explanation and asked leave to refer the question to the _Kriegsministerium_ for a ruling. Lincke, meanwhile, was relieved of his post. It was one of the few occasions (besides the tunnel) upon which we ever succeeded in getting really up on them. The capture of Tim caused gloomy anticipation of a search and with it the discovery of the attempted hole in Room 34, and thereby, as a natural corollary, of the tunnel itself. In the second week of July—with three yards or so further to go before an exit could be made behind the beans, with the prospect of a search imminent at any moment, and with the added danger of an early harvest to spur their efforts—the working-party began to make their final arrangements. A week—possibly ten days—hence, and the thing would be put to the proof for better or worse. There were thirteen of them: Lieutenants Mardock and Lawrence of the Royal Naval Air Service, Captain Gray, Lieutenant Butler, Captain Langren, Lieutenant Wainwright, R.N., Lieutenant Macleod, Captain Bain, Captain Kennard, Lieutenant Robertson, Lieutenant Clouston, Lieutenant Morris, Lieutenant Paddison. They voted for priority of station. After the working-party proper, places were allotted to Lieutenant-Colonel Rathborne, the senior officer of the camp, Lieutenant Bousfield, whose share in a previous attempt has been narrated earlier, and Captain Lyon of the Australians, who was to travel with Bousfield. Then came a supplementary working-party of six, who, though not actually employed in the digging of the tunnel, had contributed valuable assistance in scouting-out and had made themselves generally useful in helping to dig the holes inside the actual building. It was arranged that the original working-party should have a clear hour’s start, and that another hour should intervene between the last man out of the supplementary working-party and “the ruck.”