“I only want to get back and fight again,” he said bitterly. “I shall run away again and again until I succeed, or die—or peace is declared!”
I was not long, however, in discovering some English neighbors. They were in the Work Barrack, which adjoined ours, and to which we would be conducted after forty-eight hours of fasting.
I was lying down composing the tentative menu for One Grand Feast when I should be restored to freedom (as all men do when they are suffering from hunger), when I heard a cheery voice:
“Any Engländer there?”
“Any Engländer there?” it came again.
“Yes, mate,” I shouted, and followed the voice to a knot-hole in the wall, “K. R. R.”
“I’m Australian. How’re you getting on? Say, turn your stove around, lad, and put your arm up to the chimney. I’ve some soup for you!”
I made haste to do as I was told.
“That’s right, Jack, right around. Now, get this!”
One chimney served for the stoves in both rooms, and by turning his own stove around, he was able to get his arm through and pass me a “bully” tin full of soup. It was rotten stuff, and mixed with soot from the chimney but at the moment, it was better than the food of the gods.