None of us were keen on working; not but what we would much rather work than be idle, but for the uncomfortable thought that we were helping the enemy.  There were iron-works near by, where Todd, Whittaker, Dent, little Joe, and some others were working, and it happened that one day Todd and one of the others, when going to have teeth pulled at the dentist’s, saw shells being shipped away, and upon inquiry found the steel came from the iron mines where they were working.  When this became known, the boys refused to work!  Every sort of bullying was tried on them for two days at the mines, but they still refused.  They were then sent back to Giessen and sentenced to eighteen months’ punishment at Butzbach—­all but Dent, who managed some way to fool the doctor pretending he was sick!

That they fared badly there, I found out afterwards, though I never saw any of them.

Some of the boys from our hut worked on the railroad, and some went to work in the chemical works at Griesheim, which have since been destroyed by bombs dropped by British airmen.

John Keith, who was working on the railroad,—­one of the best-natured and inoffensive boys in our hut,—­came in one night with his face badly swollen and bruised.  He had laughed, it seemed, at something which struck him as being funny, and the guard had beaten him over the head with the butt of his rifle.  One of our guards, a fine old, brown-eyed man called “Sank,” told the guard who had done this what he thought of him.  “Sank” was the “other” kind of German, and did all he could to make our lives pleasant.  I knew that “Sank” was calling down the guard, by his expression and his gestures, and his frequent use of the word “bloedsinnig.”

Another time one of the fellows from our hut, who was a member of a working party, was shot through the legs by the guard, who claimed he was trying to escape, and after that there were no more working parties allowed for a while.

Each company had its own interpreter, Russian, French, or English.  Our interpreter was a man named Scott from British Columbia, an Englishman who had received part of his education at Heidelberg.  From him I learned a good deal about the country through which I hoped to travel.  Heidelberg is situated between Giessen and the Swiss boundary, and so was of special interest to me.  I made a good-sized map, and marked in all the information I could dig out of Scott.

The matter of escaping was in my mind all the time, but I was careful to whom I spoke, for some fellows’ plans had been frustrated by their unwise confidences.

The possession of a compass is an indication that the subject of “escaping” has been thought of, and the question, “Have you a compass?” is the prison-camp way of saying, “What do you think of making a try?”

One day, a fellow called Bromley who came from Toronto, and who was captured at the same time that I was, asked me if I had a compass.  He was a fine big fellow, with a strong, attractive face, and I liked him, from the first.  He was a fair-minded, reasonable chap, and we soon became friends.  We began to lay plans, and when we could get together, talked over the prospects, keeping a sharp lookout for eavesdroppers.