I wonder if the reader remembers that I started on my journey in Germany, wounded, in a cattle-truck. From cattle-trucks we were promoted to fourth-class carriages, and now to second class. Later I shall tell of how we occasionally travelled first class. This was in keeping with everything else. Prisoners taken in the spring of 1915 grumbled at their treatment. Had they been taken in 1914 they would have had more to complain of. Throughout my imprisonment one thing was absolutely clear—the longer the war went on, and the farther the hopes of ultimate victory receded from the German mind, the better treatment their prisoners received. I don’t refer to food, as, though they allowed us to buy food in 1915, they can’t do that now, since they have not got the food to sell. They cannot give what they have not got; but when the Boches thought they were going to break through at Verdun in February and March 1916, things were very hard and uncomfortable for the prisoners. On the other hand, our victory on the Somme brought us all sorts of little concessions.
The Boche is before all things a bully. If he’s winning, he bullies; if he’s losing, he is polite and oily. A good idea of their pettiness is shown by the fact that, having allowed us to buy maps at Bischofswerda in 1915, showing the actual fighting fronts both in Europe and the East, they were confiscated when the offensive on the Somme looked like being successful. This was done in order that the prisoners might not have the satisfaction of recording the British and French gains on the maps, on which we had kept a record of the struggle in the usual manner with wool and little flags pinned through. Some months after the advance on the Somme, when the news was no longer an exhilarating tonic to the prisoners, these maps were returned, curiously enough at a time when the Boches had made a small but successful counter-attack. This confiscation of maps happened on more than one occasion, but, much to the disgust of the Boches, it always bucked us up quite a lot, since we felt sure that the cause must be that the Allies had made some sort of a gain somewhere, although the German papers might give no news of it.
On arrival at the station at Clausthal there was actually a cab to drive us to the camp! This princely treatment almost dumbfounded me. Of course I was being sent to Clausthal as an invalid for treatment, so perhaps I should have taken it for granted; but our previous experience did not allow us to look forward to being treated in any sort of human manner. I had to pay very heavily for the cab. The camp at Clausthal turned out to be an old hotel, one of the examples of German architecture so often to be seen in that part of Germany, pretentious and jerry-built. A garden, surrounded by the usual wire fences and sentry patrols, enclosed a more or less square exercising-ground of about one hundred yards in length. More than half the hotel was taken up by a large court-room, with a small stage. This was the biergarten of the hotel, and was utilised as the general eating-hall and canteen, where all the meals were served, and where the prisoners passed their time when indoors. The remaining portion of the hotel was divided into bedrooms of varying size and comfort.
On the whole Clausthal was perhaps one of the best camps in Germany, though certainly not equal to Bischofswerda. At the same time the commandant and staff in general were always very polite and correct, and not generally insulting and bullying, as at Bischofswerda. Along one side of the eating-hall described above ran a series of wooden screens, forming a number of tea-rooms, evidently built for greater privacy. Curtains hung on ropes divided these boxes from the vulgar gaze of the people in the centre of the hall. These boxes served as sleeping-rooms for a number of officers, four in each box. To one of these I was allotted, and a very cold and horribly draughty spot it was. I found there over twenty British officers, who immediately on my arrival pounced on me for the latest news; but when they found out that I was a 1914, like themselves, a groan of despair went up. The next morning I saw the commandant, who did not seem to know where I had come from, so it was necessary to explain that I had been sent to undergo a course of treatment for rheumatism and gout, affecting me in the region of my wound. “What!” he said, “you’ve come here for treatment for rheumatism!” and laughed sarcastically. “You could not come to a worse place for it. We’ve no treatment here of any sort—never had. There is not even a hospital here, only a sick-room, which a doctor from the town visits for half an hour daily; but you had better see the doctor when he comes to-day.”
When I saw the doctor and told him that the doctor at Bischofswerda had diagnosed my case as rheumatism settled in the regions of the wound, he did not seem to agree, but of course would not say so. The only comment he made was that he thought I was in need of an operation to extract whatever it was that might be causing the trouble. I have not mentioned that at the bottom of the exercise-ground, outside the wire, extended both to the right and left two small lakes, extremely picturesque, but of course the mist which rose off them night and morning was not exactly the best thing for any sort of lung trouble. The consequence was that within a week of my arrival I was confined to the sick-room with a sort of congestion, which grew worse instead of better, until one day the doctor applied to the authorities in Berlin to have me removed again to Bischofswerda, from where I had originally come. The transfer took three months to get through, but eventually, at the end of November, I again returned to Bischofswerda and my old friends.
The principal complaint at Clausthal was the lack of baths. Fancy an hotel without bath-rooms! What dirty beasts the Boches must be. The officers had to make their ablutions as best they could in large tin pails, a most unsatisfactory way of washing. Also the lavatory accommodation was not nearly adequate for the two hundred odd officers there. The consequence was it was continually out of order. Last, but certainly not least, the restricted area for exercise. After my escape to England a gentleman once said to me, “Oh yes, Clausthal; I once read about it. A fine camp with extensive grounds. You had a golf-course there, had you not?” “Well, there was a golf-course,” I replied. “But have you ever tried to play over a nine-hole course contained within a boundary of one hundred yards square, and kid yourself you are playing golf?” Only prisoners are capable of such philosophy. “Make the best of it,” is their motto; and so they did. There was as much excitement over a morning’s round of golf there as if they were playing at Sunningdale; but, believe me, a far better and more exciting course could be made at Piccadilly Circus. There you have the first tee, say, at the corner outside Swan & Edgar’s, and a really pretty mashie shot over the line of motor-buses usually to be seen there. Probably you land in the fountain and lose a stroke, but eventually, with varying fortune, you make the first hole in the entrance to the Pavilion! Possibly you hit the big commissionaire or the policeman. They’d be very wroth, but not so angry as a Russian or French general strolling round the dilapidated flower-beds at Clausthal. They loathed golf and the very name of it; but the Britishers played on. Oh yes, we had “some” golf-course at Clausthal!
The reader must not think I’m trying to be funny. I’m not, but I am endeavouring to bring home the fact that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, when the people at home hear of such luxuries as golf-courses, etc., in prison camps in Germany, they are apt to remark that the prisoners are not so badly treated after all. “Why, they are even allowed to play golf!” which immediately brings up a picture of fellows ranging over the country, more or less having a good time. Take, for example, the fact that I was removed from Bischofswerda for special treatment for rheumatism and gout. In October 1915 it was officially published in England that I had been removed to the Hartz Mountains for treatment. Eyewash, nothing more! What else could it be, since we have seen that on arrival at Clausthal it was a very bad place for people suffering from rheumatism, and that they had no method of treatment or ever had? Yet a list of officers was reported officially through Switzerland to England as having been sent there for treatment. As I appeared on that list, I know what I’m talking about. People at home thought and said, “The kindly Germans are even sending their prisoners to the Hartz Mountains, the most beautiful part of Germany, in order to cure them of their rheumatism, poor things!”
The feeding at Clausthal was in one way much better than at Bischofswerda; that is to say; the actual rations were more plentiful, of better quality, and better cooked; but, on the other hand, in so far as being able to order and buy food one could get infinitely more at the latter place. Drinks, however, were cheaper and better at Clausthal. Of course I’m speaking of 1915, when we could get something to drink if the commandant allowed. Personally I did very well in the way of food at Clausthal, more especially when I was in the sick-room, since two British majors prepared and brought me all my food. I got very uppish over that, for it is not often a junior sub. has two regular majors to wait on him hand and foot. Some day I hope to be able to repay their great kindness.
Two or three days before leaving Clausthal I bought from the canteen a large pannier basket to hold all my belongings, as on the way from Bischofswerda my box had been rather badly smashed up. I mention the basket here because it had a rather interesting future. When the day arrived for me to return to Bischofswerda, my baggage having been packed by one of our officers, I took leave of some of the cheeriest and best fellows that it has ever been my lot to meet, and was again driven to the station. The cabman charged me seven marks for a three-quarter-mile drive; but still I did not have to walk, so I suppose I should not grumble. Before leaving, my luggage was, as usual, very carefully searched, though what awful weapon they thought I could possibly have got hold of and secreted goodness knows.
The journey back was more or less uneventful, except that this time I had as a guard one N.C.O. and one man, both of whom were respectful enough, but neither of whom gave me much chance of escape. Had I been strong enough at that time, I certainly could have killed them both at one period of the journey and made my escape through the guard’s van, in which was the guard. On this occasion we were travelling fourth class, probably because it was not an officer who was conducting me, in which case it goes to prove that prisoners are not sent first or second class because they are officers, but for the comfort of the conducting German officer. This fourth-class carriage was built on the same coach as the guard’s van, and I did not feel that I was strong enough to cope with two of them silently enough without disturbing the guard. It was night and pitch-dark, the train only running about fifteen miles an hour, and I’d never had such a chance before. However, after my long period in bed, I felt I could not tackle the job satisfactorily, since failure would have meant the end of me.