worked for two hours at a time. The hole was of necessity only only just large enough for one man to work there, so of the pair one did the digging, and his partner, when the shaft had progressed little, sat inside the locker at the top of the hole. While actually at work the time went quickly enough; but sitting in the locker was very wearisome, as one's only duties were to pass on the alarm when the rag-time was whistled, and from time to time to draw up by a rope the small sacks filled by the digger. When all the available sacks were full work was stopped, and the two would emerge from the locker. The sacks of rubbish were then carried a few yards along the room and emptied into a space underneath some planks which we had loosened in the platform. At the end of their relief, the two would go off to change their clothes, leaving the work to be continued by the next pair. During the many hours he spent in the locker, one of the six learnt Omar Khayyám by heart. Reading a book would have been almost impossible owing to the lack of light, even if it had been permissible, in view of the risk of the reader becoming so interested as to miss the signal of the alarm. Omar, however, was a different thing. A verse could be read line by line at the streak of light entering by a ohink in one of the ill-fitting locker doors, and then committed to memory-not a very engrossing task, but it helped to pass the time.

The working kit was a light

one: a shirt and "shorts," sand - shoes and a Balaclava

cap. Round his mouth the digger usually tied a handkerchief, so as not to swallow his peck of dust at one time, while the cap prevented his hair and ears getting quite full of rubbish.

Let us work for one relief. You are dressed for the ocoasion. The tools, consisting of two chisels, are at the bottom of the hole, which is, say, twelve feet deep. A couple of candles and a box of matches is all you need take with you. It is your turn to dig. You get into the locker and climb down the rope-ladder as quickly as possible, but you must take care not to touch the outer skin of the wall as you go, or you may find yourself staring at an astonished sentry outside: there are already a few holes in the wall, through which daylight can be seen.

The candle lighted, you have a look round: but this is absurd! No one has done any work since you were down there yesterday morning. That beastly stone in the corner looks as tightly embedded in the mortar as it was then. You bend down to pick up a chisel, and you bump your head against a projecting brick. You try to sit down, but there is not enough room to sit and work at the same time. You try kneeling, but it can't be done. After twisting your limbs in a hitherto undreamtof fashion, you begin to chip away at the mortar round your old friend. Nothing seems to happen; then suddenly your

candle falls down and goes out, and your chamber of little ease is left in Stygian darkness.

You think you hear your partner say "stop," and you look up just in time to get your eyes full of grit, for he has merely shifted his legs, which are dangling above you. After untying yourself you relight the candle, and again get down to the stone. You pick and scrape and prise, and then, as the ohisel slips, you bark your knuckles, and so you go on. All sense of time is lost, and your one thought is to get that stone out. Now it moves, and you work with redoubled energy, with the result that you break into a profuse perspiration. How you hate that stone! Finally, up it comes when you don't expect it, and the bruise at the back of your head is nothing compared to the joy of the Victor, which is equally yours.

The rook is too big, however, to go into a sack, so you shut your eyes and whisper to your partner above you. He then lets down an old canvas bath kept in the looker for this purpose. The periphery of the bath is attached to a rope by several cords, the resulting appearance as it is lowered towards you being that of an inverted parachute. The stone is difficult to lift and your feet are very much in the way, but in the end the load is ready. There is not enough room in the shaft for the stone and the bath to be pulled up past your body, so you climb the ladder and help your partner to haul. This done, work is resumed. A small sack is filled with bits

of mortar picked away from round the stone, and this too is pulled up the shaft, but the sack being small you need not leave the hole.

Now your partner tells you that it is time for the next shift. You leave the chisels in an obvious place, blow out the candle, and climb to the looker. Here your partner is tapping gently against the door. If your sentry says "All safe!" you push open the lid and emerge. The big stone is hastily carried to an empty looker, and the rubbish from the sack is poured under some planks loosened in the floor a few yards down the room. The planks are replaced, the bath and sack returned to the looker, the lid closed, and the place once more assumes its normal aspect.

You then nip along to the nearest inhabited room, where you find your relief waiting for you. One of these two is almost certain to greet you with the words, "I suppose you got that stone in the corner out straight away. I practically finished it off last night. It only wanted a heave or two." It is useless to point out that had it not been for the masterly manner in which you had worked, the stone would still be firmly embedded there. You merely bide your time, certain that within a few days you will be in a position to make a similar remark to him.

Work was now being carried on continuously throughout the day. Besides the diggers, there were twenty-four officers, who took their turn as look

outs. It was not possible to keep the work going at night, for from time to time the sentries outside would patrol this wing of the barracks. In the day-time, when they approached the point where we were at work, our look-outs could stop the diggers, but this would have been impossible after dark. Moreover, light from a candle would then have been visible from outside through the holes in the wall.

At this stage our plans received a rude shock, for we were suddenly informed that we were to be moved to the prisoner-of-war camp at Yozgad, 80 miles south-east of us. We were to be ready, said Sami Bey, to start within a week. After our experience of the departure from Kastamoni, we came to the conclusion it might equally well be a month before the necessary transport was collected. We determined therefore to push on with the tunnel at high pressure, and if necessary to bring it out to ground-level short of the spot originally intended, and then one dark night to make a bolt for it. So the work went on.

For the first three feet of the shaft we had found merely loose rubble and stones easily excavated, for the next thirteen we had to dig out stones embedded in very hard mortar. Here we progressed only a few inches a day. Below this there was solid concrete. Every few feet we came to wooden ties holding the inner and outer skins together, but fortunately these were to one side of the

hole and we did not have to out through them.

At the time the move was announced we were at a depth of 16 feet, just entering the concrete. Here we were below the level of the lower storey, so we broke through the inner skin into the space beneath the flooring. We now found, to our disgust, that the ground was on an average barely a foot below the joists, and the surface, being composed of dust which had been falling for 80 years between the boards of a Turkish barrackroom floor, was very unpleasant.

Our disappointment, however, was counteracted by a stroke of good luck. At each end of the barrack - room above there was an alcove, and we found beneath the nearer of the two alcoves an empty space 8 feet by 6 by 5. In this we could dispose of a good deal of the spoil from the tunnel. To get rid of the rest we should have to make a main burrow below the floor, filling up the remaining space on either side between the ground and the floor, and eventually packing the burrow itself with earth excavated from the mine. Should this again not suffice, the surplus earth would have to be pulled up by way of the shaft and distributed under the boards of the upper-room platform. All that now remained for us to do before actually starting on the tunnel itself was to sink a secondary shaft about 6 feet deep, so as to get below the level of the concrete foundations. After this we could strike horizontally towards the Angora road.

means of escape for more than one or at the most two parties. The Turk might be deceived into thinking half a dozen fellows had slipped past his sentries, but hardly twenty or more. Secondly, it was quite conceivable that the escape of even a small party would lead to the move to Yozgad being cancelled altogether. It is true it would be possible for the stowaways to be fed in the roof by their companions below, but the prospect of spending three years, or the duration of the war, in that dark and musty garret, took away from the otherwise considerable attraotions of the scheme.

In the end a very much modified form of the roof scheme was permitted by a committee of senior officers, and our party of six, having been adjudged by this committee to have the best chances of success on account of our pre-arranged plan when we reached the coast, was given the privilege of making the attempt. As will be seen, however, it was less an actual attempt than a waiting upon favourable circumstances which would arise should our captors make a certain mistake. In any country except Turkey the whole conception would have been absurd.

By good luck the party's preparations for escape were already far advanced, although, apart from the move, we had not proposed starting until June, on account of the rains, which continue off and on till then, and of the immature state of the orops at an earlier date. At the cost of a good deal of time, temper, needles

and thread, we had each succeeded in making ourselves a paok, for the canvas for which we sacrificed our valises Up till almost the last night, however, we were busy repeatedly cutting straps and sewing them on again in a different place, in a wild endeavour to persuade our equipment to ride with a reasonable degree of comfort.

Food was, of course, an item of vital importance in any plan of escape, and we decided to follow the example of Keeling's party, and pin our faith mainly to a ration of biscuits. We had also for some months past been collecting from our parcels all tinned meat, condensed milk, and chocolate.

We brought our biscuitmaking to a fine art. One of the ground-floor rooms had been set apart as the officers', oarpenters', and bootmakers' shops-for we had long taken to making our own furniture and repairing our own boots. Here, then, was started the "Bimbashi" Biscuit Department of Escapers Limited. At one bench would be Grunt and Johnny busily engaged in the uncongenial task of taking the stalks off sultanas, and the pleasanter one of eating a few. At another stood Perce with his bared forearms buried in a mixture of flour, sugar, and sultanas, to which from time to time Nobby would add the requisite quantities of water and eggs. The Old Man presided at the scales, and, weighing out the dough into lumps sufficient for twenty biscuits, passed them on to Looney.