Lacking cooking utensils, we had to improvise. We got the attendant to give us a spoon to mix the powder, but we provided the mixing bowl, a wash basin. We used ashes from the stove as a scouring agent, mixed it with water, and cleaned the basin to a shiny finish. An additional scrubbing with soap and water, followed by a good hot rinse, and we felt we had a fairly sanitized bowl.

Using some more of the hot water we'd heated on the stove, we followed the instructions and came up with a few tablespoons of mashed potatoes for each man. We were pleasantly surprised by the taste.

Christmas arrived on schedule, a few weeks after we were assigned to our new quarters. On Christmas Eve we sat around the cells singing carols and talking about Christmases we'd had back home. The attendant came around and asked us to stop the singing. We told him we were singing because the next day was Christmas. This took some explaining, but the result was a compromise. We held it down a bit.

The next morning I awoke earlier than usual. I wanted to draw a Christmas card for the men in the other cell. I was working away at reproducing the manger scene, when one of the men looked over my shoulder at my work.

In all seriousness he said, “Gee Bill. That's a pretty good cow.” He was looking at my “sheep”! I finished the card but without some of my earlier confidence.

We had another food “surprise” that day. At noon the attendant brought boxes similar to those in which fast foods are now packed. We opened them to find roasted chicken parts inside. The interpreter showed up and told us this was a special meal because it was our holiday. Among us we seemed to have all the parts! I got two feet which I sent, as a present, across the corridor. In return I was given a chicken head.

We didn't eat very much. We weren't sure that all the inside parts weren't there too. Someone had read that when the Chinese cooked a chicken, they discarded nothing!

Exercise now became something reasonable. We were taken outside a couple of times a week to a volleyball court. At first, I just walked around with my cruthes, stopping to rest once in awhile on the stool someone carried out for me. Then one of the men got the idea that I could play a net position by standing with one knee on the stool. This was a handicap for “my” team, but they didn't seem to care and I was glad to participate.

These were the days before the Surgeon General had verified what everyone really knew, but didn't want to take seriously, that cigarettes were unhealthy. So most of us smoked — some more than others. In fact, though we were given cigarettes, one man felt he needed more, so he gathered all the butts, tore them apart, and saved the tobacco in a peanut can. He had cigarette papers sent from home, and with these “makings” he rolled his own.

Smoking in the cells was cause for concern because of the straw mats under the thin mattresses. I asked to see the interpreter and requested that a water barrel be provided in the cell block for firefighting. He said he would have one placed at the far end of the corridor.

I said, “Swell! By the time someone runs the length of the cellblock, gets a bucket of water and runs back with it, the entire cell will be in flames.!”

He thought a moment and said, “We'll put it outside the cells.”

I said, “Thanks.”

While we had the water barrel, we were able to heat water on the stove and wash up in the morning. The men took turns replenishing the water supply. They would be taken outside to a pump to fill their buckets.

The food and general treatment continued on the upswing. Among other things, we were given potatoes and meat more frequently. We felt we were now in the “fattening-up pen” because we saw all this as leading to an early release.

One day we were given new padded prison clothes and were told we were going to have a party. Some of the men immediately thought this was “it.” They said we were difinitely on our way. We all wanted it to mean something more than just a party, but some of us cautioned about getting our hopes up, only to have them dashed.

That afternoon photographers came. We posed, playing cards inside and playing volleyball outside. We were taken to another part of the prison where we were given physical exams (the first for most of the men), as the photographers snapped away.