le; so, instead
of telling us that we were to come to his office for an extra ration of
bread, he wrote the order on a piece of cardboard and hung it in our
barracks. Seeing him hanging something up we all gathered round, and
this is what we read: "You Englishmen, before going on shift, will draw
your _Breath_ at my office." Of course we all shouted and laughed at
this; and the officer stood there looking as though he had been kicked
and didn't know who had done it. He tumbled that there was something
wrong with the notice, but all he said was "You Englaender,
Schweinhunds," and went out.

It was while we were working on one of these long shifts that we
thought of another way of getting even with our slave-drivers, for this
is really what they were. They worked us to the last ounce of our
strength; the food given us was not sufficient to keep body and soul
together. We were living on our Red Cross parcels, and we ate none of
the German food except the bread. It's the only time I ever worked for
nothing and boarded myself. We were punished for every offence, real
and imaginary, and when a man is driven harder than he can bear, and
refuses to work any more, the methods used to force him to work would
put any slave-driver to shame; and we were ready to do anything to try
and even up the score. This is one plan that worked well.

There was a great deal of rock among the coal, and we were supposed to
have two cars always on hand, and fill one with rock and the other with
coal; but we thought as nature had mixed them in the mine that they
should go up the same way, so we would half fill a car with stones, and
then cover it over with coal. When this car reached the top it looked
all right, so it was put into the dumping machine; once there it could
not be stopped, and when those big rocks went rolling down into the
machinery and over the sieves, there was one hell of a smash-up. Those
old Germans would tear their hair with rage, but of course they
couldn't tell who had done it. Finally, like everything else that went
wrong, it was blamed on the "Englaenders," as we were called, and the
old German who spoke English took the case in hand. One night, after
coming off shift, he lined us up and said, "I have been notified that
you Englanders are putting stones in between the coal, and if I hear
any more of this you shall be punished _severely_." Some one started
to laugh and we all took it up, so he stood us "at atten