m. We suggested everything we had ever seen or
heard of--roast turkey, frogs' legs, oysters, fruit of all kinds, etc.,
etc. Blackie would criticize our bill of fare, call us down for not
getting something nicer, and usually ended up by ordering something
entirely different. Often when we were in the midst of this nonsense,
our old jailer would come knocking at our door and order us to stop
talking. Blackie would say, "Boys, you could keep all your fine
dinners if I could only get at that square-headed son of a gun out
there. I'd make a meal out of him."

Of course none of the other prisoners were allowed to talk to us; but
sometimes they would bring a book or paper and sit down with their
backs against the prison wall. As long as the sentry was in sight they
pretended to read, but when he was out of hearing they would tell us
the camp news, and they took a special delight in telling us the good
eats they had gotten in their last parcels. Of course we hadn't
anything but one piece of black bread and a drink of water once a day,
and we could only keep track of the days by the number of times our
jailer had been in. Well, one day a chap slipped a knife blade under
my door and I proceeded to make a hole in the wall. I carefully picked
out the mortar until I had a hole large enough to peek through. The
first one I made was too high; I didn't want to stand every time I
looked out, so I plugged it up with a piece of my black bread and made
another near the floor. Here I could lie down and see what was going
on in the yard; and when Blackie had his imaginary breakfast he would
call for the "Continental Times," and I would take the plug out of the
wall and give him the morning news--what shifts were going out, who was
on them, etc.

But we came near losing even this little bit of pleasure, and this is
what happened: Some of the prisoners were planning an escape, and they
dug a hole through the wall of their hut--the bricks were loose, ready
to take out, and on the night they were to go my friend Macdonald, who
was the ringleader, began to carefully remove the bricks--he took out
two, and then it occurred to him that he had better take a peek out,
and make sure that no one was watching, so he did; and there, only a
few feet away, was a sentry, with his rifle pointed at the hole ready
to blow the head off the first man who appeared. Needless to say, Mac
did not go any farther; he warned the others, and they all crawle