a coal mine!

As we tumbled off the train, stiff, weary, and disappointed, we were
regarded curiously by a small group of people who worked in the mines.
They were a heavy looking lot--oldish men with beards, and dull, stolid
women. They regarded us with sullen hostility, but there was no fire in
their antagonism. Some of the men spat and muttered "Schweinhunds!" That
was all.

[Sidenote: The prison camp.]

We were marched off to the "Black Hole." It was a large camp with large
frame buildings, which had been erected especially for the purpose.
There was one building for the French prisoners, one for the Russians,
and one for the British and Canadian contingent. Barbed wire
entanglements surrounded the camp and there were sentries with drawn
bayonets everywhere.

[Sidenote: Heavy work and slender rations.]

We were greeted with considerable interest by the other prisoners. There
were about two hundred of our men there and all of them seemed in bad
shape. They had been subjected to the heaviest kind of work on the
slenderest rations and were pretty well worn out.

[Sidenote: A strike for safeguards.]

Some of us were selected for the mine and some were told off for coke
making, which, as we soon learned, was sheer unadulterated hell. I was
selected for the coke mine and put in three days at it--three days of
smarting eyes and burning lungs, of aching and weary muscles. Then my
chum, Billy Flanagan, was buried under an avalanche of falling coal and
killed. There were no safeguards in the mine and the same accident might
occur again at any time. So we struck.

[Sidenote: Kept at "attention" thirty-six hours.]

The officers took it as a matter of course. We were lined up and ordered
to stand rigidly at "attention." No food was served, not even a glass of
water was allowed us. We stood there for thirty-six hours. Man after man
fainted from sheer exhaustion. When one of us dropped he was dragged out
of the ranks to a corner, where a bucket of water was thrown over him,
and, as soon as consciousness returned, he was yanked to his feet and
forced to return to the line. All this time sentries marched up and down
and if one of us moved he got a jab with the butt end of the gun. Every
half hour an officer would come along and bark out at us:

"Are you for work ready now?"

Finally, when some of our fellows were on the verge of insanity, we gave
in in a body.

[Sidenote: Awakened at 4 a. m.]

[Sidenote: Turnip soup