In the slimy ooze were billions of white maggots.
They would crawl out by thousands on the warm sand, and, lying there a few minutes, sprout a wing or a pair of them.

With these they would essay a clumsy flight, ending by dropping down upon some exposed portion of a man's body, and stinging him like a gad-fly.

Still worse, they would drop into what he was cooking, and the utmost care could not prevent a mess of food from being contaminated with them.
All the water that we had to use was that in the creek which flowed through this seething mass of corruption, and received its sewerage.
How pure the water was when it came into the Stockade was a question.
We always believed that it received the drainage from the camps of the guards, a half-a-mile away.
A road was made across the swamp, along the Dead Line at the west side, where the creek entered the pen.

Those getting water would go to this spot, and reach as far up the stream as possible, to get the water that was least filthy.

As they could reach nearly to the Dead Line this furnished an excuse to such of the guards as were murderously inclined to fire upon them.