up we overheard some of their conversation--of course we could not
understand it, but one of the old prisoners translated it for me. The
Germans had noticed that we were new men and they asked the guard what
nationality we were. The guard told them we were Canadians, but the
civilians said, "Oh nix! the Canadians are 'Swas'"--meaning black.
They argued with the guard for fifteen minutes and then were not
convinced. Finally the cage came, we were loaded in, and it started
down. I shall never forget the feeling I had; I thought that we would
never strike bottom. I asked an old prisoner how deep the mine was,
and he said two thousand feet, and I believed him.

Well, at last the cage reached the bottom and I had my first view of a
coal mine; even to my inexperienced eye things seemed to be in very bad
shape. Owing to the great demand for coal, they did not take time to
properly timber their mine, and the tunnels were caving in all the
time--I am safe in saying that there was an average of three men killed
there every week. There was never an inquiry made into these deaths.

Well, they started me to work and my job was to load up cars with the
coal that the civilians hacked out. These cars held just a ton, and I
had to push the loaded car onto the main tunnel or road; an engine took
it the rest of the way. This was very heavy work, and often I thought
my back would surely break, and it hurt me to think that the Germans
were getting so much out of me. However, as the days went on we found
little ways of getting back at them. For instance, the civilians were
paid according to the number of tons they got out, and each man had
tags with his number on them. When a car was loaded we were supposed
to put one of these tags on the top, and when it reached the top of the
shaft it was credited to the man whose number was on it. Well,
sometimes, instead of putting the tag on the top of the load, we put it
inside and piled the coal on it. At the top of the shaft, when no tag
was found, the car was not credited to any one, and when pay day came
and those old Germans found the paymaster did not give them credit for
all the coal taken out, there surely was some fun; it did our hearts
good to hear the row they made. Of course we would not have been able
to play any tricks if there had been any guards around, but once we
were down in the mine we were out from under military rule and working
under the mine management, but the