p to my
friend Cook. All four lay as close as possible facing in the same
direction. The night wears slowly away. When the floor seemed
intolerably hard, one of us would say aloud, "Spoon!" and all four would
flop over, and rest on the other side. So we vibrated back and forth
from nine o'clock till dawn. We were not comfortable, but in far better
circumstances than most of the prisoners. Indeed Captain Cook repeatedly
declared he owed his life to our blanket.

CHAPTER VIII

Continual Hope of Exchange of Prisoners--"Flag-of-Truce
Fever!"--Attempted Escape by Tunneling--Repeated Escapes by Members
of Water Parties, and how we Made the Roll-Call Sergeant's Count
Come Out all Right every Time--Plot to Break Out by Violence, and
its Tragic End.

Our principal hope for relief from the increasing privations of prison
life and from probable exhaustion, sickness, and death, lay in a
possible exchange of prisoners. A belief was prevalent that the patients
in hospital would be the first so favored. Hence strenuous efforts were
sometimes made to convince the apothecary whom we called doctor, and who
often visited us, that a prisoner was ill enough to require removal.
Once in the institution, the patients got better food, something like a
bed, medical attendance daily, and a more comfortable room. Some of them
were shamming, lying in two senses and groaning when the physicians were
present, but able to sit up and play euchre the rest of the day and half
the night. This peculiar disease, this eagerness to get into hospital or
remain there till exchanged by flag of truce, was known as the
"flag-of-truce fever" or "flag-of-truce-on-the-brain!"

I recall one striking instance. Lieutenant Gardner, already mentioned,
had received six or eight hundred dollars in Confederate currency as the
price of a gold watch. But like the prodigal in Scripture he was now in
a far country, and had wasted his substance in what he called
"righteous" living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty
famine in that corner of the lower room, and he began to be in want. And
he would fain have filled his belly with corn-cob-meal bread, or spoiled
black beans, or the little potatoes which the swine didn't eat. And no
man gave him enough. And he determined to go to hospital. He gave out
that he was desperately sick. I at this time had "quarters" on the floor
above. Word was brought to me that my friend was mortally ill, and wo