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 prisoners of war, of which upwards of twenty thousand were officers; the men and non-commissioned officers—as Gerry had heard—were distributed in more than a hundred great camps, while for the officers there were about fifty prisons scattered all over the German states. These varied in character from sanatoria, newly erected high-school buildings, hotels, and vacated factories, to ancient brick and stone fortresses housing prisoners in their dark, damp casemates. The offizier-gefangenenlager to which Gerry and his three companions finally were taken proved to be one of the old fortress castles just east of the Rhine, in the grand duchy of Hesse; its name was Villinstein, and it housed at that time about five hundred officers and officers' servants. There Gerry and his three companions were welcomed, not alone for themselves, but for the news which they brought with them; and Gerry, being an aviator, found himself particularly welcome.

"For a flyin' man we've been a-waitin', Gerry, dear," Captain O'Malley—formerly of the Irish Fusiliers—whispered and all but chanted into Gerry's ear soon after they became acquainted. All allied officer prisoners—as German official reports frequently complained—planned an escape; but some schemed more than others. And the heart, if not the soul, of the schemes of escape from Villinstein was the black-haired, dark-eyed, lighthearted Kerry man of twenty-four summers, who was back in the casemates with his fellows again after six weeks of "the solitary" in a dungeon as punishment for his last effort for liberty.

Tis this way," O'Malley initiated Gerry immediately