"Before we started getting parcels we had a terrible time trying to live on the food they gave us. All they gave us was a cup of coffee and two slices of black bread in the morning; and for dinner and supper a basin of hot potato water. It was so thin and weak it was just like water that potatoes had been boiled in."
The soldier whose statement is given above has since been exchanged to Switzerland, owing to an injury to his sight, caused by the work he was employed upon while a prisoner.
The Story of Private —— of the Leicester Regiment
"I was captured during the retreat in August, 1914.
"My Company was left behind as a rear-guard, to enable the rest of the battalion to get away. Our trench was only about two feet deep. Although the Germans were coming on very fast and in enormous numbers, we were not allowed to retire.
"The Germans charged us three times. We lost all our officers, and although we kept on fighting they came on in such large numbers it must have been the main body, for they were all round us, and most of the fellows were killed or wounded.
"They had their revenge on us, too, when they got us, for the German soldiers who were told to look after us did terrible things. They took us one by one and made us run the gauntlet.
"I was bruised all over when I got through, and so were the other fellows.
"One chap when he was running the gauntlet was struck in the face by the butt of a rifle; his nose was smashed and his face covered in blood, and he fell to the ground insensible. They threw him in a ditch, because they thought he was dead; but he was able to crawl out next morning.
"It was awful, that first night, and they didn't know what to do with us. They made us stand the whole night through in a loose wire entanglement, so that we couldn't walk about or sit down; and it rained like anything all night long.