They were all quickly hauled forth and sent out to work.  The mattress trick had worked well until too many had done it, on this morning.

The morning was a troublesome time, and we all felt better when it had passed; that is, if we had eluded or bluffed the guard.  Bromley and I had a pretty successful way of getting very busy when the digging party was being made up.  We would scrub the table or grab a gadbroom and begin to sweep, and then the guards, thinking this work had been given to us, would leave us alone!

As time went on, the Commandant became more and more worried.  I think he realized that he had a tough bunch to handle.  If he had understood English, he could have heard lots of interesting things about his Kaiser and his country—­particularly in the songs.  The “lion-tamer” and his three followers generally led the singing, sitting up in their bunks and roaring out the words.

The singing usually broke out just after the guards had made an unsuccessful attempt to pull the bedclothes off some of the boys who had determined to stay in bed all day; and when the few docile ones had departed for the peat bog, the “shut-ins” grew joyful to the point of singing.

This was a hot favorite: 

  “O Germany, O Germany;
   Your fate is sealed upon the sea. 
   Come out, you swine, and face our fleet;
   We’ll smash you into sausage-meat.”

Another one had a distinctly Canadian flavor: 

  “Kaiser Bill, Kaiser Bill, you’d better be in hell, be in hell! 
   When Borden’s beauties start to yell, start to yell,
   We’ll hang you high on Potsdam’s palace wall—­
   You’re a damned poor Kaiser after all.”

They had another song telling how they hated to work for the Germans, the refrain of which was “Nix arbide” (I won’t work).

The Commandant came in one day to inspect the huts.  The “bed-ridden” ones were present in large numbers, sitting up enjoying life very well for “invalids.”  The Commandant was in a terrible humor, and cried out “Schweinstall”—­which is to say “pig-pen”—­at the sight of the mattresses.  He didn’t like anything, and raged at the way the fellows had left their beds.  It might have seemed more reasonable, if he had raged at the way some of them had not left their beds!  The men he was calling down were the gentle ones, those who were out working.  But to the “lion-tamer” and his followers, who were lazily lying in their beds, laughing at him, he said never a word.

We knew enough about Germany and German methods to know this sort of a camp could not last.  Something was going to happen; either we should all be moved, or there would be a new Commandant and a new set of guards sent down.  This Commandant had only handled Russians, I think, and we were a new sort of Kriegsgefangenen (prisoners of war).  Bromley and I wanted to make our get-away before there was a change, but we had no compass—­my card had not been answered.