Read Ebook: My German Prisons Being the Experiences of an Officer During Two and a Half Years as a Prisoner of War by Gilliland Horace Gray

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Shortly after being allotted rooms I was conducted to hospital, where on the ground floor of the building the wound in my ankle was satisfactorily dressed; but they did not seem to know what to do with the body wound. Finding that three of the ribs were broken on the right side, they made some sort of an attempt to set and bind them. The doctor in attendance was a bumptious little beast of about nineteen or twenty years of age, and did not seem to know very much about his job. After this I returned to my room full of Russians and took to my bed.

The camp at Munden was an old oil factory, and had been hastily turned into a camp for prisoners of war. There were about eight hundred prisoners there at the time of our arrival, but more came after we had been there a month or two. The sleeping-room had practically no furniture of any kind. A shelf, on which tin basins were placed, served as a wash-stand, and there were a couple of pails for water. Two small tables and about a dozen chairs, with a small shelf about five inches wide passing over the head of each bed, completed the furnishing of the rooms. Besides the sleeping-rooms, part of the ground floor of the factory was utilised as an eating-hall. The accommodation here consisted of a few dirty tables and chairs. To add to the discomfort the oily ceilings and walls had been whitewashed, to create the appearance of cleanliness. Naturally it cracked off in drying, with the result that one's hair, eyes, and clothes became covered with fine powdered lime, mixed with the dust which filtered through the boards of the floor of the sleeping-rooms above. Canteen, hospital, and bath-room were also portioned off the ground floor. The canteen cooked and supplied the daily rations. Here we could buy bread, cheese, jam, and coffee, and occasionally tinned fruit, also sundry toilet articles.

The daily ration was not appetising nor particularly varied. Black bread and coffee every day for breakfast. The midday meal consisted, almost without exception, of either fish and potatoes or pork and potatoes. The fish was very seldom eatable, but the pork often quite fresh. Even on the day when it was not, so long as one had not too keen an eye for colour, it tasted quite good. I refer to the rainbow hues that could often be seen reflected from its surface.

Certainly this method of serving the rations did not help to make them appetising. The orderlies had to wait in long queues in front of the canteen for four or five hours before the mid-day meal till their turn came to be served. They would then order and pay for the ration allowed to the number of officers they happened to be appointed to. Their rations were then thrown into ordinary slop-pails, and in these served to the officers. Potatoes were the principal mainstay, though the cheese and butter were quite good. The black bread was horrible, and caused violent indigestion, owing to its damp and doughy condition.

The best part of the camp were the baths, which were quite good, hot and cold water being obtainable up to midday, Sunday excepted. The space set apart for an exercise-ground was a muddy stretch of about ninety yards square, surrounded by two lines of wire. Into this yard, protruding from the ground floor of the factory, ran a long wooden latrine, which was the most dreadful place imaginable, merely a series of holes cut in the ground, with no form of drainage. The only attempt at draining them was made by our own orderlies, who pumped them out, and disposed of the contents in another large hole just outside the wire. On a warmish day, with the wind blowing towards the camp, it became impossible to take exercise outside at all; and towards February 1915, in order to visit these same latrines, it became absolutely necessary to cover over one's mouth and nose. In this same yard the general rubbish-heap of the camp was piled with every kind of rotting refuse, on which flies swarmed. Indoors the camp was infested with lice, especially the hospital-room. The Russian officers had been suffering from this pestilence for a long time before the arrival of the British, and no attempt had been made on the part of the Germans to rid the camp of this vermin, either by fumigating or in any other manner.

Towards the end of March, when I had been removed from my room to a bed in the hospital situated on the ground floor, I asked one of our officers, who, owing to a great family name, seemed to have more influence with the Boches, to complain to the commandant of the appalling state of filth reigning in the hospital, some of the beds being literally alive with many thousands of lice. The outcome of this complaint resulted in the importation of incinerators to the camp, after which things became distinctly better.

THE DREARINESS OF CAMP LIFE

My parcels from home began to come fairly regularly towards the end of February 1915, having been a very long time on the way. Occasionally books were included, which the Huns would take months to censor; and one was not always certain of receiving these, even though written years before the outbreak of war, lest they should contain information on any subject which might prove useful to prisoners.

On one occasion all officers of Irish nationality were ordered to attend on the commandant. At that time there were only two of us, but we managed to extract a little amusement from the interview. For instance, he could not be brought to understand how it was possible that Irishmen, either from the north or south, could serve in English regiments, since the greatest animosity existed between the Irish and their English oppressors. We were informed that, since we were Irish, arrangements were being made to transfer us to another camp, where conditions would be very much better. We thanked the commandant, but in the end we never heard any more about it. Obviously this was an attempt to tamper with our loyalty.

Soon after our interview with the commandant the whole camp received orders for inoculation for typhus, which was immediately carried out by the visiting doctor--the same little upstart before described, who took great joy in jabbing the needle as roughly and deeply as possible, so that most of us were quite sore for some time afterwards.

The majority of the officers tried to pass the time acquiring languages, several studying Russian, and nearly all learning French or perfecting themselves in that language. A few took up German, taking lessons in the latter from French officers, some of whom spoke German perfectly. People at home might think that those officers who did not avail themselves of apparently so good an opportunity of learning foreign languages, and in so doing passing many of the weary hours, were extremely foolish; but, believe me, it is quite a different matter to study at home or at college, where one can be more or less quiet, to studying as a prisoner in Germany, where it is extremely difficult, if not almost impossible, to get a moment's peace. Let the reader imagine, if he can, trying to learn a foreign tongue with the whole of the rest of the people in his room babbling aloud other languages. Officers and their instructors were usually to be seen seated on their beds, for lack of other places, in a close and stuffy atmosphere, with a continuous babble going on on all sides. Say, for instance, you were learning German, when on the next bed, not three feet away, somebody else would be repeating French aloud. On the bed on your other side a Russian lesson would be in progress, and perhaps over in the far corner of the room a lot of Frenchmen of the Foreign Legion would be endeavouring to keep up their Arabic, whilst grouped around the hot-water pipes a heated discussion, either in French or English, as to the probable duration of the war, peace terms, etc., would be going on.

Talk about the Tower of Babel; it could not have been in it. To add to the general distraction, it must be explained that the doors of the sleeping-rooms were all pierced by a small glass window-lattice, through which the sentries placed inside the building were continually watching us. You would look up suddenly from whatever you might be doing, either studying, reading, or performing your toilet, to find a grimy face pressed against the lattice, furtively watching your every movement. Naturally the very sight of their ugly faces in such close proximity made one's internals seethe in a hopeless longing to get at them.

I have already stated that the camp at Munden was situated directly on the banks of the river Weser, on the other side of which ran a railway line, along which troops both going and coming could often be seen. On one occasion some of these troops, thinking they would indulge in a little sport, began firing at the camp from the train, which ran at that spot up a very steep gradient, and a bullet actually passed through a window of one of the rooms and lodged itself in the plaster of the wall opposite. Fortunately for the prisoners, no one was hit; but that was not the fault of the Boches. Firing at prison camps containing helpless prisoners would certainly appeal to the humour of the German mind. Of course complaints were made to the commandant, but, as usual, nothing came of them.

Continual small drafts of prisoners were always arriving at the camp, accompanied by a German officer and guard. One of these officers, seeing a group of British seated in the eating-hall, came up very politely and expressed his sorrow at seeing them there, but told them to cheer up, as the war would soon be over. As a matter of fact he said, "We shall be in London by six weeks from now." Note that this remark was made in February 1915! He also went on to say that London was already partially destroyed. He was not bragging, and seemed quite a decent sort of chap; but he really thought that what he said was true. It is the most extraordinary thing how the German Government, in conjunction with their press, have been able to make their people believe any lie, even to the extent that London was in flames and the populace living on rats, and that seaports such as Southampton and Portsmouth were destroyed by gunfire from their fleet. This latter was told to me in all faith at the fortress of Ingolstadt in 1916.

Great excitement was one day caused amongst us at Munden owing to the fact that a Russian orderly had been seen carrying from the canteen a plate on which two fried eggs sat in state. He had not proceeded fifty yards before he was surrounded by officers, quite off their heads at the sight of two eggs, inquiring as to where he got them, if there were any more, and how much he would take for them, officers bidding twenty or thirty marks for the eggs. But, unfortunately, the orderly was true to his trust. It appeared that they had been procured as a special mark of favour from the commandant to a Russian general who was suffering from stomach trouble, and who had not been able to eat anything solid for a very long time. Of course every one rushed to the canteen to order eggs, but there was nothing doing, the sight of the eggs lingering in our memories as a beautiful dream.

It is a very difficult task to write any sort of interesting account of life in general at this camp, since every day was more or less the same as the preceding one. Few things came to vary the dreary monotony, so the reader must excuse if I recount certain events that are to me of extreme interest, but may be boring to the casual reader. For instance, I propose to tell you in a sketchy manner of how a certain British officer escaped from Munden, since it was the only escape during my imprisonment there. It has been recorded before of how I had been removed from my room to the hospital on the ground floor. Another occupant of the hospital in the next bed to myself was a British subaltern who has lately made a successful escape from Germany, so I have no hesitation in recording his plucky effort, having obtained his permission to do so.

At the time of which I write this officer was suffering from an awful skin disease, probably caused by eating the bad pork already described. His lower limbs were practically a running sore, yet he made a successful escape from the camp swathed in bandages. Unluckily he and some three or four Russian officers who escaped with him were caught, after being out some five or six days, and within seventy miles or so of the Dutch frontier, having failed principally from exhaustion. The means of escape was engineered through an old disused air-vent, which led from the factory to some outbuildings, passing over the heads of the sentries and the two fences of wire which surrounded the camp.

That evening there were about thirty Russians assembled in the music-room, also trying their luck, but they went about the whole thing in such a foolish manner that they attracted the attention of the guards inside the building, and before a dozen of them had been able to pass through the hole the suspicions of the Boches were aroused. A raid was made on the room, and of course everything was discovered. However, as I have said, a few of them had already got away. A hasty and flurried search was made by the Boches in the immediate vicinity of the camp. My fellow-prisoners described what they were able to see of it from the top storey of the factory--of how the sentries dashed from one bush to another, carrying large oil lanterns in a ridiculous attempt to find prisoners concealed under bushes about two feet high, when thick cover in the shape of woods stretching for miles encircled the whole camp. The Boches also had a whole brigade of dogs tethered on leading-chains to help them, but they seemed as useless as their masters.

OUR REMOVAL TO BISCHOFSWERDA

About three weeks after the happenings just described all the British officers were removed from Munden. How this befell and the manner of its bringing about might interest the reader. We were enabled to bring our condition under the notice of the American Ambassador, Mr. Gerard, to whom all British prisoners will always owe a debt of gratitude. I wrote home, representing the true state of the camp, and asking the authorities to procure a visit of inspection from the American Ambassador. It took about three months to accomplish this, owing to the time our letters were hung up in the German Censor Office. We were visited by Mr. Gerard in person about the middle of April 1915, when he was conducted over the camp by the senior British officer and saw for himself all the disgusting details. The outcome of his representation to the German authorities in Berlin was our removal from that pestilential place on the 28th of April. Before we left the weather, seeing that we were well into spring, was becoming warmer every day, and in consequence the sanitation was rapidly getting into a shocking state. For some weeks past Russians had been suddenly taken ill, and were always removed very quietly on covered stretchers. As they did not lie in the hospital-room of the camp, we inquired of the hospital orderly what was the matter; he said, "I don't know, but they have gone to the typhus hospital."

I shall always remember the journey to our new camp at Bischofswerda, and with what bright hopes we received the order to pack up our goods and clothes on the night of the 27th of April, in order to be ready to start at 4.30 the next morning. Packing did not take very long, as our sole possessions were our clothes, some precious tins of food, and a few equally precious books. When we assembled in the yard the following morning, we found there were to be about two hundred of us--fourteen British, and the rest made up of French and Russians and a few Belgians.

The journey to Bischofswerda was more or less uneventful, except that instead of cattle-trucks we were in fourth-class compartments, which was extreme luxury after our last experience--also that on two occasions on the way we left the train and received a ration of food, which was not too bad. We were decently treated by the officer in charge, the second in command of the camp at Munden, who had always behaved towards the prisoners with courtesy. Unfortunately he was only second in command. Had he been commandant, life there would have been very much easier.

We arrived at the station of Bischofswerda about eleven at night, and marched to the camp, situated a mile and a half away on the outskirts of the town. On our arrival there we were very roughly greeted by our new commandant, but the place was so beautifully clean and airy that we took no notice of him. Our change was certainly very much for the better. Bischofswerda, with its long stone corridors, looked like paradise to us. The German officer who had conveyed us there took his leave immediately on handing over his charge to the new commandant, and very kindly wished us good luck in our new abode.

About two o'clock in the morning we were all allotted our rooms, and on seeing these we again congratulated ourselves on our deliverance from Munden. The camp was a brand-new cavalry barracks. The quarters were well planned and beautifully clean. How we did appreciate the cleanliness after Munden! The sanitary arrangements were excellent--flush drains, etc., also a good large stone tiled shower-bath, with both hot and cold water. Naturally the hot was limited to so many minutes. A good canteen, dining-hall, and a large room turned into a chapel for the different religious services, which was also used as a music-room; also a small room set apart as a hospital and consulting-room,--all these were situated on the ground floor, the sleeping accommodation being on the second, third, and fourth floors. The sleeping-rooms were each allotted orderlies. This sounds rather nice, but when you have only one orderly for each room containing from eight to ten officers, and that orderly is on general fatigue for the Boches at the same time, it's not so good as it sounds. Our orderlies were made to scrub the corridors, passages, and stairs, peel potatoes, attend the eating-hall, and every other kind of work the Boches might want done.

After hearing all the news we proceeded to the canteen, and found, to our huge delight, that we could buy, amongst other things, a small roll of white bread, and also eggs; in fact, almost everything could be got at that time by ordering the day before--eggs, meat, butter, bread, lettuce, and many other small things. Of course one paid preposterous prices; but we could buy food, which was all we wanted--also the food was served from the kitchen on clean plates and in clean cooking utensils. Indeed, we had fallen into the lap of the gods. Quite a large proportion of the actual ration was edible, though extremely monotonous, the bread being of a light brown colour and, although rather sticky and spongy, a very great improvement on the awful bread at Munden. At the dry canteen one could buy almost anything, so long as one chose to pay for it--quite good cigarettes, notebooks and writing materials, toilet articles, deck-chairs, in fact most things that a prisoner could require. Some little time after we arrived the canteen even produced wines and brandy. The wine at first was quite drinkable, but soon grew worse and worse, until it became nothing more nor less than sweetened spirit, which had a very bad effect on the stomach. The brandy soon gave out, after which orders were given to sell no more. Towards August 1915 we could buy occasionally some venison and partridge, and for special occasions, such as Christmas 1915, a goose, the price of which ran to about ten shillings a pound, but still it was worth it.

Outside the building the parade-ground and cavalry school training-ground, wired in by two rows of wire fences about eight feet high, served as an exercise-ground for the prisoners. In between the two rows of wire sentries were placed about thirty-five yards apart. Every fifty yards a powerful arc lamp, raised on high standards, showed up the designs of a would-be escaper. The parade-ground was roughly about ninety yards by sixty yards and the riding-school ninety yards by forty-five yards. This latter was laid with deep sand, and served as a football-ground for the prisoners--very hard going for a fast game like footer, but nevertheless much appreciated. At first the parade-ground was used only for walking, but after a great deal of persuasion and expense the British built two hard tennis-courts. I forget how much the cost was, though I acted as secretary to the club, but it was somewhere in the neighbourhood of about 3,000 marks apiece, or ?300 for the two, although almost all the work was put in by the officers themselves, only two very old men and a small boy being the Boche contribution of labour, and these mostly spent their time eating, or so it seemed to us. However, we did get the courts, which was the main point.

The reader may not think the rations given either very good or very bad, according to his ideas on the subject of what he thinks officer prisoners should get. He should bear in mind, however, that the officer pays for this ration at the rate of ?5 for a captain and ?3 for a subaltern monthly. Nevertheless, it was, I think, possible to live on the rations as they consisted in 1915 at Bischofswerda. Anyhow, whatever the food might be, the fact that it was served up in a cleanly manner was half the battle. At the same time it must be understood that the German rations did not remain like this after October 1915, as the allowance for prisoners in meat, potatoes, and bread gradually declined, until the weekly meat ration dropped to 75 grammes or about 2 2/3 oz., potatoes dropping in proportion. The bread remained the same weight, but was of an inferior quality.

The commandant both annoyed and amused us by turns, though on the whole he might have been very much worse, and he was usually fairly reasonable when sober, which I don't believe he ever was during the week-end. When he attended the early-morning parade, he would shout and scream himself hoarse, calling us, "Schweinhunde, alle der Englander sind Schweinhunde, meine Herren" . Latterly he dropped this, since after a visit from the American Commission we complained of being insulted on parade. He was rather heavily strafed from Headquarters.

Taking it all round, as I said before, we might have had a very much worse commandant, his bark always being worse than his bite. The man who acted as interpreter for the British officers did not help to make our dealings with the commandant any easier, since he was both a swine and an idiot, could hardly speak English, and directly insulted us on every possible occasion, though he was only a private. Although hundreds of complaints were sent to the commandant, no notice was ever taken.

However, we eventually got this interpreter removed, principally through the above case being brought under the notice of the American Commission on their next visit. But we only jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire, since we got another interpreter, this time in the shape of an officer, who turned out to be very much worse. Sometimes I have it in my heart to pity the latter, since there are two or three French officers and half a dozen British who are waiting for him after the War, and then I think he will have a short shrift. About this time all the officers were again warned for inoculation, both for typhus and cholera, but the operation was carried out in a very much gentler manner than on the previous occasion.

MY JOURNEY TO CLAUSTHAL

In order to show up the general attitude of treatment of British prisoners, I must, however reluctantly, become more personal and relate the manner in which my wounds were treated. After all, one judges people by one's personal experience of them, and no one can be responsible for the opinions of others. On my arrival from Munden my ankle was practically well, but the pain in my chest was growing worse daily. To add to this, I began to break out in abscesses, having eight at one time, when I was at my worst. These abscesses, since I had never had such a thing before, were probably due to the bad food at Munden and the very low condition I was reduced to, owing to much pain and very little sleep for some months. Yet, when we arrived at Bischofswerda, in so many ways such an excellent camp in comparison to others in Germany, there was no doctor there. A doctor did appear once in about fourteen days, and then he seldom had time to visit me, although I was quite bedridden at the time. After I had been there about six weeks I did get some attention from a French doctor who had been taken prisoner; but as the medicines he could get hold of were very limited, he was not able to do much.

I was still in bed at the end of June before the German doctor paid me a visit. I was then almost free from the abscesses, owing to having lived almost entirely on lettuce and green food, which I had been able to buy from the canteen; but his diagnosis as to the pain in my right side, back, and chest was rheumatism, since the ribs which had been so badly smashed were bound to be in a very delicate condition. He could not account for the amount of blood I brought up daily in my sputum, but said it was nothing, and that all I wanted was to get up and walk about. Well, I'm not a doctor, so I suppose he knew his job, and although very weak I made the effort, and gradually went about the camp like any one else. In July I started to play tennis, but soon found that any sort of violent exercise caused me to bring up far greater quantities of blood, besides giving great pain. All this time I could neither lie nor sleep on the right side, or at times even bear to have my tunic buttoned. Soon after the doctor advised me to get up and walk about, he gave me some stuff for rheumatism--aspirin, I think.

At the end of July 1915 this doctor left, and then a permanent doctor was appointed, who visited the camp daily between 10.30 and 12.30, Sundays excepted. To him I carried my aches and pains. Without examining me he looked up the report of the last doctor, and said, "Oh yes--rheumatism and gout"; he said the blood-spitting was nothing, and that I was not to take too violent exercise; and although I visited him on and off every few days I never got any change out of him.

About this time a traveller from a big firm of camera-makers arrived at the camp, and with the commandant's permission several orders were given, so many of the officers being not only rather keen on photography, but wishing to be able to take and send home some snaps of everyday scenes in our prison camp. Three other fellows and myself bought a really good reflex camera, and a lot of very decent photos were taken with it. Unfortunately, as far as I was concerned, the camera only arrived the day before I was ordered away.

Resuming my seat at the table, I began to puzzle out the problem, and after some time I solved the difficulty. Just before I left Bischofswerda a Russian officer who was with me in the sick-room had given me a box of Russian cigarettes, and by good luck I had them in my pocket. Everybody knows that Russian cigarettes have a hollow mouthpiece about an inch and a quarter long. Tearing a fifty-mark bill in half, and carefully rolling the two halves into the shape and size of the mouthpiece, I inserted the pieces into the mouthpiece of two cigarettes. It took some time to do this, since my hands had to work underneath the table, whilst I was apparently reading my book, which was lying open on the table. When the cigarettes were complete, I filled my case with Russian cigarettes, and offered one to each of the guards, keeping my thumb carefully on the two prepared cigarettes. They were accepted with gusto by the guard. When they had lit up, I asked permission to give some to the French prisoners, and having accepted them themselves they could hardly refuse. I distributed two or three; then offered the remaining two in the case to the most intelligent-looking, at the same time saying, "Cherchez." To my disgust he looked absolutely blank. But when the German officer returned to take me away, he rose, saluted, and said, "Au revoir, mon lieutenant, et merci beaucoup." The officer fortunately could not speak French and asked me what he said. I replied, "Only a respectful greeting from a private to an officer."

I must pause a minute to describe our arrival at Munden, as it was a phenomenal sight to me. On approaching our old prison it appeared much the same as when we left it in April, but on entering a revelation was in store for me. To start with, the eating-hall was considerably cleaned up, many new tables and chairs provided, the tables covered with white oil-cloth, and pictures executed by different artistic, Russian officers, hung round the walls. Afterwards I visited the British officers and found there were four new ones, lately captured. But the room! Wonder of wonders! There were chests of drawers, a wardrobe, extra tables and chairs, only five or six beds in rooms that had held nine in our time, and only nine in those that had held seventeen! But it was in going out into the yard that I nearly fainted with surprise. To start with, there was a long wooden shed built out from the eating-hall, erected by the American Y.M.C.A., and very comfortably furnished with tables and chairs. This room acted as a sort of recreation-room on wet days. But the yard! What had been a sloppy sliding mess of mud and a few trees was transformed into a ripping garden; grand paths ran here and there, and I've seen many flower-beds at Hampton Court inferior to those at Munden, which were well kept and artistically laid out. To cap it all, the yard had been enlarged by wiring in the ground for two tennis-courts laid at the Boche expense, level cinder courts, with a good roller and all the rest of the paraphernalia necessary to a hard court. Also a dry canteen and store had been erected, both under the management of the officers, and things were running very smoothly and satisfactorily. I even saw some eggs.

My readers must forgive my divergence from my story, but it was such an astounding revelation to me to see what could be done with a really bad camp like Munden, and I desire particularly to draw attention to it, since it was entirely brought about by the American Ambassador, and so clearly pointed out the endeavours in certain German quarters to produce a good impression on the Americans. It was all eyewash from the beginning to end--eyewash for the Americans. In so far as the latrines were concerned, they were no better. No one could alter them, though even there the difference was very marked, since Munden at that time only held between five and six hundred instead of over a thousand prisoners.

To continue the account of my travels to Clausthal, the officer and man were exceedingly polite and very considerate, and heavily strafed some civilians who jeered at me, calling the usual "Schweinhund!" There was one humorous episode on the way up at Leipzig, where we had lunch. On the table was a Worcester Sauce bottle, on the printed red label of which had been pasted the words "Gott strafe England." I nearly cried with laughter--real Worcester Sauce from England and "Gott strafe England!" It's one of the richest jokes I've heard of. On pointing it out to the officer, he could not see the joke.

I wonder if the reader remembers that I started on my journey in Germany, wounded, in a cattle-truck. From cattle-trucks we were promoted to fourth-class carriages, and now to second class. Later I shall tell of how we occasionally travelled first class. This was in keeping with everything else. Prisoners taken in the spring of 1915 grumbled at their treatment. Had they been taken in 1914 they would have had more to complain of. Throughout my imprisonment one thing was absolutely clear--the longer the war went on, and the farther the hopes of ultimate victory receded from the German mind, the better treatment their prisoners received. I don't refer to food, as, though they allowed us to buy food in 1915, they can't do that now, since they have not got the food to sell. They cannot give what they have not got; but when the Boches thought they were going to break through at Verdun in February and March 1916, things were very hard and uncomfortable for the prisoners. On the other hand, our victory on the Somme brought us all sorts of little concessions.

The Boche is before all things a bully. If he's winning, he bullies; if he's losing, he is polite and oily. A good idea of their pettiness is shown by the fact that, having allowed us to buy maps at Bischofswerda in 1915, showing the actual fighting fronts both in Europe and the East, they were confiscated when the offensive on the Somme looked like being successful. This was done in order that the prisoners might not have the satisfaction of recording the British and French gains on the maps, on which we had kept a record of the struggle in the usual manner with wool and little flags pinned through. Some months after the advance on the Somme, when the news was no longer an exhilarating tonic to the prisoners, these maps were returned, curiously enough at a time when the Boches had made a small but successful counter-attack. This confiscation of maps happened on more than one occasion, but, much to the disgust of the Boches, it always bucked us up quite a lot, since we felt sure that the cause must be that the Allies had made some sort of a gain somewhere, although the German papers might give no news of it.

On arrival at the station at Clausthal there was actually a cab to drive us to the camp! This princely treatment almost dumbfounded me. Of course I was being sent to Clausthal as an invalid for treatment, so perhaps I should have taken it for granted; but our previous experience did not allow us to look forward to being treated in any sort of human manner. I had to pay very heavily for the cab. The camp at Clausthal turned out to be an old hotel, one of the examples of German architecture so often to be seen in that part of Germany, pretentious and jerry-built. A garden, surrounded by the usual wire fences and sentry patrols, enclosed a more or less square exercising-ground of about one hundred yards in length. More than half the hotel was taken up by a large court-room, with a small stage. This was the biergarten of the hotel, and was utilised as the general eating-hall and canteen, where all the meals were served, and where the prisoners passed their time when indoors. The remaining portion of the hotel was divided into bedrooms of varying size and comfort.

On the whole Clausthal was perhaps one of the best camps in Germany, though certainly not equal to Bischofswerda. At the same time the commandant and staff in general were always very polite and correct, and not generally insulting and bullying, as at Bischofswerda. Along one side of the eating-hall described above ran a series of wooden screens, forming a number of tea-rooms, evidently built for greater privacy. Curtains hung on ropes divided these boxes from the vulgar gaze of the people in the centre of the hall. These boxes served as sleeping-rooms for a number of officers, four in each box. To one of these I was allotted, and a very cold and horribly draughty spot it was. I found there over twenty British officers, who immediately on my arrival pounced on me for the latest news; but when they found out that I was a 1914, like themselves, a groan of despair went up. The next morning I saw the commandant, who did not seem to know where I had come from, so it was necessary to explain that I had been sent to undergo a course of treatment for rheumatism and gout, affecting me in the region of my wound. "What!" he said, "you've come here for treatment for rheumatism!" and laughed sarcastically. "You could not come to a worse place for it. We've no treatment here of any sort--never had. There is not even a hospital here, only a sick-room, which a doctor from the town visits for half an hour daily; but you had better see the doctor when he comes to-day."

When I saw the doctor and told him that the doctor at Bischofswerda had diagnosed my case as rheumatism settled in the regions of the wound, he did not seem to agree, but of course would not say so. The only comment he made was that he thought I was in need of an operation to extract whatever it was that might be causing the trouble. I have not mentioned that at the bottom of the exercise-ground, outside the wire, extended both to the right and left two small lakes, extremely picturesque, but of course the mist which rose off them night and morning was not exactly the best thing for any sort of lung trouble. The consequence was that within a week of my arrival I was confined to the sick-room with a sort of congestion, which grew worse instead of better, until one day the doctor applied to the authorities in Berlin to have me removed again to Bischofswerda, from where I had originally come. The transfer took three months to get through, but eventually, at the end of November, I again returned to Bischofswerda and my old friends.

The principal complaint at Clausthal was the lack of baths. Fancy an hotel without bath-rooms! What dirty beasts the Boches must be. The officers had to make their ablutions as best they could in large tin pails, a most unsatisfactory way of washing. Also the lavatory accommodation was not nearly adequate for the two hundred odd officers there. The consequence was it was continually out of order. Last, but certainly not least, the restricted area for exercise. After my escape to England a gentleman once said to me, "Oh yes, Clausthal; I once read about it. A fine camp with extensive grounds. You had a golf-course there, had you not?" "Well, there was a golf-course," I replied. "But have you ever tried to play over a nine-hole course contained within a boundary of one hundred yards square, and kid yourself you are playing golf?" Only prisoners are capable of such philosophy. "Make the best of it," is their motto; and so they did. There was as much excitement over a morning's round of golf there as if they were playing at Sunningdale; but, believe me, a far better and more exciting course could be made at Piccadilly Circus. There you have the first tee, say, at the corner outside Swan & Edgar's, and a really pretty mashie shot over the line of motor-buses usually to be seen there. Probably you land in the fountain and lose a stroke, but eventually, with varying fortune, you make the first hole in the entrance to the Pavilion! Possibly you hit the big commissionaire or the policeman. They'd be very wroth, but not so angry as a Russian or French general strolling round the dilapidated flower-beds at Clausthal. They loathed golf and the very name of it; but the Britishers played on. Oh yes, we had "some" golf-course at Clausthal!

The reader must not think I'm trying to be funny. I'm not, but I am endeavouring to bring home the fact that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, when the people at home hear of such luxuries as golf-courses, etc., in prison camps in Germany, they are apt to remark that the prisoners are not so badly treated after all. "Why, they are even allowed to play golf!" which immediately brings up a picture of fellows ranging over the country, more or less having a good time. Take, for example, the fact that I was removed from Bischofswerda for special treatment for rheumatism and gout. In October 1915 it was officially published in England that I had been removed to the Hartz Mountains for treatment. Eyewash, nothing more! What else could it be, since we have seen that on arrival at Clausthal it was a very bad place for people suffering from rheumatism, and that they had no method of treatment or ever had? Yet a list of officers was reported officially through Switzerland to England as having been sent there for treatment. As I appeared on that list, I know what I'm talking about. People at home thought and said, "The kindly Germans are even sending their prisoners to the Hartz Mountains, the most beautiful part of Germany, in order to cure them of their rheumatism, poor things!"

The feeding at Clausthal was in one way much better than at Bischofswerda; that is to say; the actual rations were more plentiful, of better quality, and better cooked; but, on the other hand, in so far as being able to order and buy food one could get infinitely more at the latter place. Drinks, however, were cheaper and better at Clausthal. Of course I'm speaking of 1915, when we could get something to drink if the commandant allowed. Personally I did very well in the way of food at Clausthal, more especially when I was in the sick-room, since two British majors prepared and brought me all my food. I got very uppish over that, for it is not often a junior sub. has two regular majors to wait on him hand and foot. Some day I hope to be able to repay their great kindness.

Two or three days before leaving Clausthal I bought from the canteen a large pannier basket to hold all my belongings, as on the way from Bischofswerda my box had been rather badly smashed up. I mention the basket here because it had a rather interesting future. When the day arrived for me to return to Bischofswerda, my baggage having been packed by one of our officers, I took leave of some of the cheeriest and best fellows that it has ever been my lot to meet, and was again driven to the station. The cabman charged me seven marks for a three-quarter-mile drive; but still I did not have to walk, so I suppose I should not grumble. Before leaving, my luggage was, as usual, very carefully searched, though what awful weapon they thought I could possibly have got hold of and secreted goodness knows.

The journey back was more or less uneventful, except that this time I had as a guard one N.C.O. and one man, both of whom were respectful enough, but neither of whom gave me much chance of escape. Had I been strong enough at that time, I certainly could have killed them both at one period of the journey and made my escape through the guard's van, in which was the guard. On this occasion we were travelling fourth class, probably because it was not an officer who was conducting me, in which case it goes to prove that prisoners are not sent first or second class because they are officers, but for the comfort of the conducting German officer. This fourth-class carriage was built on the same coach as the guard's van, and I did not feel that I was strong enough to cope with two of them silently enough without disturbing the guard. It was night and pitch-dark, the train only running about fifteen miles an hour, and I'd never had such a chance before. However, after my long period in bed, I felt I could not tackle the job satisfactorily, since failure would have meant the end of me.

At Leipzig I was conducted to one of the German private mess-rooms. It was evidently a sort of general mess for any N.C.O. or private, as it was filled with all kinds of different regiments, Saxons, Prussians, and Bavarians, each lounging at different tables. I spent nearly two hours there, and had a very interesting time--interesting from the point of view of German interior dissensions. The Bavarians scowled at the Prussians and Saxons, and would not answer even if spoken to by either of these. It chanced that there were three long tables in the rooms, only two of them occupied by the Saxons, and the other by the Bavarians. I was conducted to their table by my guard and some food ordered for me. A little later on several Prussians entered, looked at the table of the Saxons and Bavarians, saw plenty of vacant places, but discussed openly that they were not going to feed at the same table with those fellows. Seeing me sitting at the third table, they came over and saluted and asked permission to be seated, which was of course cordially given; one of them even addressed me, asking when I had been taken prisoner. One would have thought that, if they objected to the sight of Bavarians and Saxons, they would have fumed at seeing one of the hated Englanders in their own mess; but no.

We arrived at Bischofswerda just after midnight. The next day I found things much the same as before, except that the ration given by the Boches had greatly diminished during my absence, also the amount and variety of the food we had previously been able to buy. Eggs had completely disappeared, and the bread had deteriorated very much. "Ha, ha!" I thought, "the Boches are feeling the pinch of the Mistress of the Seas," so we cheerfully did without the things we had had. However, the parcels from home had been coming in well, in preparation for Christmas, so we did ourselves pretty well on the whole.

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