The Prisoners of Mainz

by Alec Waugh

With the regular arrival of parcels, and the consequent immunity from hunger, our life settled down into that ordered calm which would have been the constant level of our routine as long as the war lasted. And it was here that captivity weighed most heavily.

Before, our routine had always been to a certain extent progressive. We had been a new camp, we had had to form societies and committees. We had a library to build up, and there was always the parcel list to add its daily incentive to enthusiasm. But there came a time, when all these wishes either for books or food were satisfied, and when the individual had to depend for amusement solely on his own resources. Here was the real trial of captivity.

Since my return several people have said to me, “It must have been beastly living among the Huns.” But that was an infliction that it required little fortitude to bear. The Huns never worried us, unless we worried them. We could have exactly as much intercourse with them as we wanted, and there was no need to have anything to do with them at all. But there was no escape from the continual presence of five hundred British officers, and the continual conversation of the ten other members of the room. For not one moment was it possible to be alone. And as the evenings grew darker, the doors of the blocks were closed earlier; and by October we found ourselves shut in at six o’clock, with the prospect of a long evening in the room.

Those evenings were simply appalling. We all got on each other’s nerves horribly; as individuals we liked each other well enough; but it was no joke to be in the constant company of the same people, to hear the same anecdotes, the same opinions; and, owing to the limited area of common interests, talk always centred on the war. And there is no subject more wearisomely distasteful. By the end of six months’ imprisonment nearly every one had got utterly fed up with his room and the inmates of it. Smith would meet Brown outside the Kantine, and a conversation of this sort would take place.

“My Lord, Brown, but my room is the absolute limit, it drives me nearly wild.”

“But, my dear man, you’ve got some topping fellows in there, there’s Jones and Hawkins and May.”

“I dare say, but you try living with them for a bit. You wouldn’t talk like that then.”

“Oh, well,” Brown would say, “you haven’t got much to grumble at; if you were in my room, now....”

“But your room, Brown; why, there are some tophole men there....”

And so the world went round. For indeed, however patient one is, it is impossible to live in the same room as ten other men, to eat there and sleep there, to spend half the day in their company, and not get nervy. Before long we had reached that state when we quarrelled over the most trifling things—about the dinner, whether we should have bully beef or a veal loaf. The slightest inconvenience awoke resentment. All the domestic details that cause friction in the married home were with us intensified a hundredfold, because there was with us none of the real and selfless affection which alone can bridge over these difficulties. Things had reached a sorry state by the time we had left; there was hardly a single officer who had a good word to say about his room. What we should have been like after another year I dread to imagine.