that one of our boys
jumped and made a pass at him, crying, "You big square-headed German,
I'll knock your head off, I wouldn't take that from your Kaiser Bill."
The German backed up and avoided the blow, saying tauntingly, "Ah, nix,
Englaender." Then he asked us why we were not working, and we said we
had got tired and were taking a rest. He said "Komm' mit." We said,
"Oh no." When he saw we had no intention of going he began to make
promises. He said that if we would only go back to work he would not
report us and we would not be punished in any way.

We did not believe him, and we trusted his promises about as long as it
took him to make them; but, as Snipe said, we might as well take a
chance on it, for we had to get out, and there was only one road to go.
Of course he couldn't understand us, but we had picked up enough German
to make out everything he said. Well, we pretended to believe him and
we started out, walking in couples. When the first two reached the
main road two lights flashed out, and the clubs commenced to whistle
through the air. The boys shouted "duck!"--and, believe me, we did.
We started down between those two lines of Germans, and seeing there
were so many we thought it best just to make a run for it. In going
through, three of our boys got knocked down, and the rest of us got
some bad whacks over the head and back but we kept our feet. The last
two Germans on the line got scared when they heard us coming and
started to run. They were on the road just ahead of us, and we made a
dash after them. They were a considerable distance from the main body
when we overtook them, and I remember one of the boys saying, "We'll
make these square-headed devils pay for what we've received"--and
believe me, we did. Instead of going home to their supper that night,
I'll bet they went to the doctor.

Well, when this scrap was all over and we got to the top of the shaft,
the mine inspector that had caught us reported us to the military
authorities, and their punishment was five hours "at attention." When
we had put this in, they allowed us to go to our bunks. The next day
was Sunday, and we were peacefully sleeping when a big German came in
and called out our numbers. We asked him what he wanted, and he said
we had to go on the Coke-o-roy. We certainly knew what this meant.

The coke ovens were attached to the mine, and most of the coal taken
out was made into coke. Work on the ovens was so hard