We were all ordered to parade for the inoculation. I hid myself with a few others and so escaped the operation. Nothing was said so I could only suppose that they failed to check us up as it was not in keeping with the German character as we had come to know it to miss any opportunity of corrective punishment even though the inoculation had been for our own good.
FELLOW PRISONERS AT GIESSEN. FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: A CHESHIRE REGIMENT MAN, A SIBERIAN RUSSIAN, AN EAST YORKSHIRE LIGHT INFANTRYMAN AND A GORDON HIGHLANDER.[ToList]
FELLOW PRISONERS AT GIESSEN. THREE HIGHLANDERS AND A YORKSHIRE LIGHT INFANTRYMAN.[ToList]
It is true that some of the men so inoculated fell prey to consumption. On the other hand one of them had had a well defined case of it before, and it was almost certain that the living conditions prevailing amongst us would insure the appearance of the disease so that we had no proof that any man was so inoculated. Some of the men so affected were sent to Switzerland for the benefit of the mountain air through an arrangement made by the Red Cross with the Swiss authorities.
One of our guards was subject to fits and habitually ran amuck amongst us, abusing some of the prisoners in a painful fashion. We made complaint of this through the proper channels, for which crime the officer in charge stopped our fires and other privileges for the time being.
Most of the men wore prison uniforms or in some cases, suits sent from England which were altered by the authorities to conform to their regulations. These required that if one was not in a distinctive and enemy uniform that broad stripes of bright colored cloth be set into the seam of the trousers; not sewed on, but into the goods. A large diamond shaped piece or else a square of such cloth was set into the breast and back of the tunic. I preferred my uniform, dilapidated though it was. We were permitted the choice, probably less out of kindness than because of the saving involved.