Phil received the string offered to him by the last speaker, and then offered this suggestion by way of general advice on an important subject:
“We ought to be careful not to pitch our voices too loud. Of course there’s nothing in what has been said that could do us any particular harm if it had been overheard by one of the guards. Still, there’s no telling when we’ll discover something or concoct a scheme that it would be advisable to keep to ourselves. We’d better tone our voices down so that we have to lean forward to hear each other; then we’ll be on the safe side.”
Several of the prisoners expressed their approval of this suggestion, and the succeeding conversations were in lower tones.
The work progressed rapidly, considering the insufficiency of light in the house. In a remarkably short time Phil and his assistants had produced a rude bow two and a half feet long, a fireboard with a small cone-shaped drill-socket, or pit, in one side, and a V-shaped trough leading from the pit to the edge of the board; a “thunder-bird,” or small block of wood with a cone-shaped socket in the center; a drill, or a rounded piece of wood about fifteen inches long and sharpened at both ends; and a handful of shredded shavings.
“There!” exclaimed Phil in subdued tone, as he surveyed the completed task in the dusk now so heavy that he was sure the work could not have progressed successfully many minutes longer. “I’m glad that’s done. By the way, it’s fortunate that there are curtain shades still on the windows. Let’s pull them down and then light one of the candles. We can shade the light with our bodies so that there won’t be much danger of its being seen outside. Be careful not to let the guards see you pulling the shades down. It’s so dark now that they won’t notice what we’ve done after they’re down.”
The shades were drawn down cautiously, and fourteen Marine prisoners of war gathered around Phil to watch the hoped-for success of making fire in the Old World after the manner developed and perfected by the aborigines of the New.
But they did little actual watching before the first spark appeared. Immediately after the drawing of the shades there was scarcely a glimmer of light in the room, and Phil had to depend on his sense of feeling to enable him to operate his fire-making contrivance.
“Now, all of you crowd around in as close a circle as you can without hindering my movements,” he directed as he fitted the sharpened ends of the drill into the pit of the fireboard, which he had laid on the floor, and the pit of the “thunder-bird,” which he held in his left hand. Then he began a sawing motion with the bow, the string of which was looped around the drill.
A moment later all were listening eagerly to the merry hum of the drill as it whirled around in its perpendicular position, the revolving motion being produced by the drawing back and forth of the bow string looped about it.
“Keep close together,” Phil warned. “Don’t let any light get through. It’s coming. Smell the burning of the wood?”