In the diary of a 23rd Royal Fusilier, "Mr. Brooks, the schoolmaster," as he was once dubbed by his captors, tells the story of how he was made a prisoner, his detention by the enemy, and his eventual return home.
The arrival of a parcel, he says, was a red-letter event; the problem of how much to eat at a time, and how much to save out of his rations for the provision of another apology of a meal, was a big one. Boiled nettles and dandelions for dinner and tea on Whit Sunday, 1917, proves what the fare actually was; quarters of eggs were unaccustomed luxuries. "I have picked mouldy crusts off the ground, and prunes off dust-heaps," he says.
Dry bread and tea was a luxurious meal; beards had to be cut, or pulled out by means of borrowed scissors; one loaf, and a small one at that, had to prove sufficient for the needs of five men; there were occasional intervals of twenty-two hours between meals. "We were thinking of nothing but food," he explains. All this time, too, the prisoners were engaged in heavy manual work, humping bricks, loading and stacking hay, and so on.
While in hospital, "Mr. Brooks, the schoolmaster," sold his boots for tobacco and his socks for bread, and he mixed his jam ration with coffee in order to eke it out. "Personally, I am hungry all day long," is how he describes his feelings. "I bought about one-sixth of a loaf for seventeen cigarettes."
"I was rather slow in getting into bed," is how he describes another of his experiences, "and the German orderly picked up my satchel and hurled it against the wall, open as it was, at the risk of spilling its contents."
He pays a deep tribute to the humanity of the French who were still living in the occupied territory; the Belgians he met were also kind; some Germans showed traces of feeling, others were no better than brutes....
Here, however, are actual extracts from the diary itself. They speak for themselves.
"Three or four Germans began to advance, and it seemed to me that the question which had been at the back of my mind since a second or two after the first opening of the guns, Was this the end? was about to be answered....
"With many signs to hasten, my German hurried me on. Soon, with three others, I found myself by poor old Bill Shoebridge, a good old grumbler of some fifty summers, who had been cruelly sent out to us in December, and had kept his end up well, with, at times, many grumblings. He was painfully hit above the knee....
"We came to the village, yet unsmashed, but showing signs that it had received a knock or two. OPPY was printed in black letters on white boards in various places, and after wondering for some time what Oppy meant I found it was the name of a place.... We were then marched off, and after some more wandering found ourselves in a kitchen with two or three Germans, who looked quite comfortable, well fed, and at home....