The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1918-12-19
MADE FINE Tunnel
How Prisoners Used War Bread
0oIed Out to Them.
Avenue by Which Captive Allies Had
Hoped to Escape Was Really
Perfect Piece of Work-Even
Germans Admired 1t

There is certainly more tragedy
than comedy in the cruel disappoint-
ment of unhappy prisoners thwarted
in promising and almost successful
effort to escape; nevertheless, the gal
liant gaycty that has marked so many
Of the allied fighting men does not fail
them wholly even in such circum-
stances. Lance Corporal Charles w.
Baker, who recently recounted his
prison experiences in the Metropolitan
Magazine, wastes no pathOS on him
self or on his fellow sufferers when
they failed to get safe away through
their ingenious tunnel, and can even
See funny side to the affair.
Some of the other prisoners had be-
gun the tunnel and had worked upon
It daily for a month before they let
him into the secret, which finally be-
came known to several hundred of the
captives.
1t opened from the last hut at the
end of the back row and was headed
for the only clump of bushes anywhere
iNdl tlLt camp. lie sui was 50 SdIluN
that it was impossible to make tun-
mel in the ordinary way; long time
passed before the boys hit on a plan.
After our own packages had begun to
come and we had white bread to eat,
says the corporal, some genius had a
happy thought of using the war bread
for bricks. The war bread is as tough
and as hard as rubber and of about
the size and shape of a small stone
block that you use for paving streets.
We kept the bread buried until night.
Then we piled it up in kind of crate,
and when the SentrieS were out of
sight we rushed it over to the tunnel. It
was the most beautiful tunnel YOU ever
saw. The sides were built up like
brick walls, and the roof was perfect
arch. The sand that we took out was
the same color as the sand of the
camp, and as the ground was almost
always wet you couldn't tell the diff
ference. We would take it out in small
tinfuls and scatter it all over the place,
and with several thousand men walk
ing round there was no way of detect
ing 1t.
OF course ii was slow work making
the tunnel for we had to accumulate
war bread, and so to amuse ourselves
we fixed it all up. We stuck pictures
from newspapers on the wall, and we
even ran wire down from the cook
house and lighted it all up with cleo.
trlcity. We took some of the lamps,
and when the guard wanted to know
where they were we said they had got
Broken.
A hundred and twenty yards had
been built out of the hundred and
fifty that the tunnel had to 90 when a
miserable Frenchman, to curry favor
with his captOrs, betrayed the secret.
The other French prisoners concerned
were wild with rage and shame; and
When the whole camp was lined up for
investigation and punishment the
French nOn-commissioned officers
stepped forward and begged "for the
honor of the French army" to be al
lowed to take not only their own share
OF punishment but that of all the 9th.
ers.
But of course, says Corporal Baker,
the British wouldn't have that, and the
non-commissioned British officers gave
themselves up. 1t was a regular bow
Ing and scraping, "You-first-my-dear-
Alphonse' sort of proceeding. A few
of the men We're given five months in
solitary, but most of them got off pref
ty easy, because the German officers
were so much amused. They thought
they had taken away every conceivable
thing that could be used for tunnel
building, but they never thought of the
war bread. German officers came from
miles round to see the tunnel. They
wouldn't let us destroy it but kept it
as curiosity. Even the general of
division near by came in to see 1t.
He said it was the finest piece of san
ping he had ever seen.-Youth's Com
paniOn.