nning our
next escape when the flood had subsided and the summer had come to
warm the water.

He had a malicious spirit, this guard, and when we came to Vehnemoor
and were put in our cells, he wanted our overcoats taken from us,
although the cells were as cold as outside. The Sergeant of the guard
objected to this, and said we were not being punished, but only held
here, and therefore we should not be deprived of our coats. Several
times that night, when we stamped up and down to keep from freezing,
I thought of the guard and his desire that our coats should be taken
from us, and I wondered what sort of training or education could
produce as mean a spirit as that! Surely, I thought, he must have
been cruelly treated, to be so hard of heart--or probably he knew
that the way of promotion in the German army is to show no softness
of spirit.

But the morning came at last, and we were taken before the
Commandant, and wondered what he would have to say to us. We were
pretty sure that we had not "retained his friendship."

He did not say much to us when we were ushered into his little
office and stood before his desk. He spoke, as before, through an
interpreter. He looked thin and worried, and, as usual, the questions
were put to us--"Why did we want to leave?" "What reason had we? Was
it the food, or was it because we had to work?"

[Illustration: Friedrichsfeld Prison-Camp in Winter]

We said it was not for either of these; we wanted to regain our
freedom; we were free men, and did not want to be held in an enemy
country; besides, we were needed!

We could see the Commandant had no interest in our patriotic
emotions. He merely wanted to wash his hands of us, and when we said
it was not on account of the poor food, or having to work, I think he
breathed easier. Would we sign a paper--he asked us then--to show
this? And we said we would. So the paper was produced and we signed
it, after the interpreter had read and explained it to us.

In the cells the food was just the same as we had had before, in the
regular prison-camp. They seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of
that soup. We wondered if there was a flowing well of it somewhere in
the bog. The food was no worse, but sometimes the guards forgot us.
The whole camp seemed to be running at loose ends, and sometimes the
guards did not come near us for half a day, but we were not so badly
off as they thought, for we got in things from our friends.

On the first mo