hat it had been badly damaged by
fire. But it made a good shelter for us, and we went into what had
been the living-room, and lay down and slept. The floor was even and
dry; it was the best bed we had had for twenty nights, and, relieved
as we were from the fear of detection, we slept for hours.

* * *

When we awakened, the sun was pouring in at the curtainless windows,
and we were as hungry as bears. "Now for a potato-feed," Ted said,
looking out of the window at a fine field of potatoes across the
road. The field had been reclaimed from the peat-bog, and some of the
potatoes had already been dug and put into pits.

In looking around for material to light a fire, I saw scraps of
newspapers, which I examined closely and found they were Dutch papers,
one bearing the name of "Odoorn" and the other "Nieuwstadskanaal."
This supported us in our belief that we were in Holland.

We got potatoes from the field and roasted them in the fire which we
built in the fireplace.

A young Hollander, fired with curiosity, came to the door and looked
in at us. We hailed him with delight and asked him to come right
in, and be one of us! He came in rather gingerly, looking at us
wide-eyed, and we were sorry to find he could not speak English.
There were certain things we wanted to know!

We were drying our matches by the fire, for they had become rather
damp, and our supply was getting low. Also our tobacco was done. So
we said, "Tabac," showing him our empty pipes, and from the pocket
of his coat he brought out a pouch, and we filled our pipes. I don't
know whether he knew we had been prisoners or not. He drifted out in
a few minutes, but I think he told others about us, for after we had
had our smoke, and had gone to the canal to fix up, we found some
interested spectators.

At the canal we washed, shaved, cleaned our teeth, combed our hair,
and went as far as we could in getting ready to see people. Ted had
his Canadian soldier's tunic, with the regular prisoner's dark-blue
trousers such as the British Red Cross supplies. His tunic was torn
in several places and his hair was unkempt and in need of cutting. He
had cut the heels out of his boots, several days before, because they
hurt him. I had the regular prisoner's suit, dark-blue cloth, and had
cut off the yellow stripe which had been sewed down the legs of the
trousers; I had also cut off my prison number. My boots had held
well, and there was not even a