This danger was brought home to us when we were compelled to submit to the ordeal of vaccination. Even this task was carried out under conditions which no other civilised country would permit for a moment, for the simple reason that antiseptic precautions were conspicuous by their complete absence. The order arrived that we were to be vaccinated on such and such a morning "in the interests of the camp—both prisoners and soldiers." We were ordered to line up in a queue outside a small building which we were to enter singly in succession. We were commanded to have our arms bared to the shoulder in readiness. Vaccination was not carried out by Dr. Ascher, the official medical attendant to the camp, but by a young military doctor who came especially for the purpose.
Whether it was because the temperature within the small building was too sultry or not I cannot say, but the vaccinator decided to complete his work in the open air, the fact that a dust-storm was raging notwithstanding. The military doctor was accompanied by a colleague carrying a small pot or basin which evidently contained the serum. The operation was performed quickly if crudely. The vaccinator stopped before a man, dipped his lance or whatever the instrument was into the jar, and gripping the arm tightly just above the elbow, made four big slashes on the muscle. The incisions were large, deep, and brutal-looking. Then he passed to the next man, repeating the process, and so on all along the line. He took no notice of the dust which was driving hither and thither in clouds.
Whether by misfortune or mishap I received four striking gashes, and the shape of the incisions made me wonder whether the vaccinator thought he was playing a game of noughts and crosses with a scalpel upon my arm. After we had been wounded in this manner we were in a quandary. Our arms were thickly covered with the drifting sand. Our shirt sleeves were equally soiled. Consequently infection of the wound appeared to be inevitable whatever we did. In this unhappy frame of mind and dirty condition we were dismissed. Unfortunately for me I proved resistant to the serum, and had to submit to the operation a second time with equally abortive results. One or two of the prisoners suffered untold agonies, blood-poisoning evidently setting in to aggravate the action of the serum.
The primitive sanitary arrangements which prevailed brought one plague upon us. We suffered from a pestilence of flies which under the circumstances was not surprising, everything being conducive to their propagation. They swarmed around us in thick black clouds. They recalled the British housefly, only they were much larger, and extremely pugnacious. Life within the barracks became almost impossible owing to their attacks and the severity of their stings, which set up maddening irritation. We petitioned the authorities to allow us a supply of fly-papers. After considerable demur they acquiesced, but we could not use them, or rather they were used up too rapidly. The evening we received them we decided to attach a few to the ceiling, but before we could fix them in position their fly-catching capacities were exhausted. They were covered with a heaving, buzzing black mass of insects within a minute. So we abandoned fly-catching tactics.
This pestilence harassed us sorely during our meals. They settled everywhere and upon everything. While butter or margarine were unobtainable at the canteen we were able to purchase a substance which resembled honey in appearance, colour, and taste. Indeed we were told that it was an artificial product of the beehive. When we spread this upon our bread the flies swarmed to the attack, and before the food could be raised to our mouths the bread was not to be seen for flies. At first we spent considerable effort in brushing the insects away, but their numbers were too overwhelming to be resisted, so we were compelled to run the risk of the flies, and I, in common with others, have eaten bread, honey, and flies as well! It took considerable time and effort to master such a revolting meal, but under these conditions, it was either flies or nothing, so we ran the risk of the insects, although it cannot be said that they contributed to the tastiness of an already indifferent food, or our peace of mind, because we could not dismiss thoughts of the cesspool which the flies made their happy hunting-ground during the periods between meals.
Infraction of the rules and regulations were frequent, for the simple reason that they were never explained to us. We had to learn them as best we could—invariably through the experience of punishment. This state of affairs placed us at the mercy of the guards. Those who were venomously anti-British expended their savagery upon us on every occasion. For the slightest misdemeanour we were consigned to the cells for one, two, three, or more days. The cell recalled my domicile in Wesel, and I must confess that I made the acquaintance of its uninviting interior upon several occasions through inadvertently breaking some rule. But the others fared no better in this respect. It was cells for anything.
This prison was a small masonry building, fitted with a tiny grating. It was devoid of all appointments, not even a plank bed being provided. To sleep one had to stretch one's self on the floor and secure as much comfort as the cold stone would afford. Bread and water was the diet. All exercise was denied, except possibly for the brief stretch accompanied by the sentry to fetch the mid-day meal of soup, assuming the offence permitted such food in the dietary, from the cook-house. Conversation with a fellow-creature was rigidly verboten. It was solitary confinement in its most brutal form.
The method of punishment was typically Prussian. If one upset the guard by word or deed, he clapped you in the cell right-away and left you there. Possibly he went off to his superior officer to report your offence. But the probability was that he did not. Indeed it was quite likely that he forgot all about you for a time, because the sentry at the door never raised the slightest interrogation concerning a prisoner within. More than once a prisoner was forgotten in this manner, and accordingly was condemned to the silence, solitude, and dismal gloom of the tiny prison until the guard chanced to recall him to mind.
During my period of incarceration at Sennelager the number of civil prisoners brought in to swell our party was somewhat slender. They came in small batches of ten or twelve, but were often fewer in number. They invariably arrived about two o'clock in the morning. Then the sentry would come thumping into the barrack, his heavy boots resounding like horse's hoofs and his rifle clanging madly. Reaching the room he would yell out with all the power of his lungs, thus awaking every one, "Dolmetscher! Dolmetscher!" (Interpreter! Interpreter!) "Get up!" That luckless individual had to bestir himself, tumble into his clothes and hurry to the office to assist the authorities in the official interrogation of the latest arrivals. This was one of the little worries which were sent to try us, but we soon became inured to the rude disturbance of our rest, in which the average sentry took a fiendish delight.
By the time the first Sunday came round, and having nothing to do—all labour was suspended, although no religious service was held—I decided to wash my solitary shirt. I purchased a small cake of cheap rough soap from the canteen, got a wooden tub, and stripping myself to the waist, washed out the article in question outside the barrack door to the amusement of my colleagues. While I was busily engaged in this necessary occupation I was attracted by tittering and chattering. Looking up I found I was the object of curiosity among a crowd of civilians dressed in their Sunday best. Together with my fellow-prisoners I hurriedly retired to the sanctuary of our barracks.