To which the young fellow, lifting his tortured face, proudly answered, "The English _are_ brave--and _merciful_--and they use chloroform for painful operations, and do this for the German prisoners, too." But there was no chloroform used for him, though the operation was a horrible one. There was another young English boy named Jellis, who came in after the fight of May 8th, who seemed to be in great pain the first few days. Then suddenly he became quiet, and we hoped his pain had lessened; but we soon found out he had lock-jaw, and in a few days he died. * * * From the pasteboard box in which my first parcel came, I made a checker-board, and my next-door neighbor and I had many a game. In about three weeks I was allowed to go out in the afternoons, and I walked all I could in the narrow space, to try to get back all my strength, for one great hope sustained me--I would make a dash for liberty the first chance I got, and I knew that the better I felt, the better my chances would be. I still had my compass, and I guarded it carefully. Everything of this nature was supposed to be taken from us at the lazaret, but I managed, through the carelessness of the guard, to retain the compass. The little corral in which we were allowed to walk had a barbed-wire fence around it--a good one, too, eight strands, and close together. One side of the corral was a high wall, and in the enclosure on the other side of the wall were the lung patients. One afternoon I saw a young Canadian boy looking wistfully through the gate, and I went over and spoke to him. He was the only one who could speak English among the "lungers." The others were Russians, French, and Belgians. The boy was dying of loneliness as well as consumption. He came from Ontario, though I forget the name of the town. "Do you think it will be over soon?" he asked me eagerly. "Gee, I'm sick of it--and wish I could get home. Last night I dreamed about going home. I walked right in on them--dirt and all--with this tattered old tunic--and a dirty face. Say, it didn't matter--my mother just grabbed me--and it was dinner-time--they were eating turkey--a great big gobbler, all brown--and steaming hot--and I sat down in my old place--it was ready for me--and just began on a leg of turkey..." A spasm of coughing seized him, and he held to the bars of the gate until it passed. Then he went on: "Gee, it was great--it was all so clear. I can't believe that I am not going! I think the war must be nearly over--" Then the cough came again--that horrible, strangling cough--and I knew that it would be only in his dreams that he would ever see his home! For to him, at least, the war was nearly over, and the day of peace at hand.