There was now nothing left to do. The two officers still in the tunnel with the volunteers assisting them to get out would have to be left to take their chance. Everybody else went back to their rooms and to bed, hugging themselves in anticipation of the 9 o’clock _appel_, and the fireworks which would inevitably ensue when the Feldwebel of B house reported with a rueful countenance that according to his reckoning there “failed” (_fehlen_) no less than twenty-nine _Herren_. This hope was, however, frustrated, and the bubble burst two hours too soon. The two last men in the tunnel were eventually retrieved, and emerged from the plank entrance with their rescuers to find the door at the orderlies’ entrance open. The under-officer had duly called the orderlies some twenty minutes previously and had gone away suspecting nothing. Their obvious course was to obey instructions and go back to their house by the same way as they had come. But for some reason they failed to do so and ran out very foolishly into the cookhouse in the enclosure, where they met Niemeyer out for an inopportune early morning stroll. Their salvage party meanwhile had gone back by the proper way. In ten minutes the whole of the camp staff had appeared on the scene. The two officers, of course, refused to say anything or to explain their muddy condition. Even then Niemeyer failed to tumble to what had actually occurred. But a few minutes later an excited farmer appeared at the postern gate and led the whole party to where, amid the trampled rye in which a dozen different tracks were visible from the camp windows, a gaping hole brought recognition and late wisdom to Milwaukee Bill. “_So, ein Tunnel._” Tunnel. The same dangerous word, common to either language, which had been whispered for so long by the one side, now ran like electricity through the ranks of the other. The next question from Niemeyer’s point of view was, how many? The fat Feldwebel went off and counted an expectant house. He found everybody unusually wide awake and good humoured for that hour of the morning. The fat Feldwebel was himself thoroughly amused by the eventful happenings since his last appearance in the house, and he merely chortled good-humouredly as name after name elicited no response. He returned to the rye-field to report to Niemeyer an absentee list of 26. In his excitement he had forgotten to count the “Munshi’s” room, from which all three occupants had flitted.