There was a little chapel at Carlsruhe used alternately and harmoniously by English Churchmen, Roman Catholics, and Nonconformists. While we awaited service on this first morning of my arrival there was a distribution of biscuits—briquettes of bread really—which were received from their Government by the French officer and orderly prisoners at the rate of seventy per man per week; a plentitude which permitted of the orderlies trading them among the less-favoured British officers at anything from fifty pfennig to a mark each.
THE CHAPEL AT CARLSRUHE.
On the present occasion, when the baskets had been carried away, a few crumbs and sweepings of the biscuits were left upon the floor, while we stood around with our backs to the wall and our hands in our pockets. Presently one prisoner put forth an apparently accidental foot, which covered probably the largest of the pieces. Then, somewhat shamefacedly, he stooped and picked it up. Upon which signal, with one accord, and with as close a resemblance to a flock of city sparrows as anything I ever saw, we swooped down upon the fragments. For my share I succeeded in securing two pieces of quite half an inch square!
Those were indeed hungry days, when a man’s wealth was not to be calculated by the amount standing to his credit at Messrs. Cox & Co.’s, or even by the abundance of his blankets, but by the number of French biscuits which he had succeeded in securing. Here of all places in the world might one see a Brigadier-General crossing the square carefully balancing a mess of pork and beans upon a plate, or nursing the contents of a tin of sardines upon a saucer!
To be invited to tea by a friendly and more flourishing mess was the greatest beatitude that could befall a man. In these cases of ceremonious call the guest always carried his own crockery and cutlery.
COL. ALBERT TURANO, ARTIGLIERIA ITALIANO.
One such pleasant refection, with Col. Albert Turano, Artiglieria Italiano, lingers very pleasantly in my memory. In view of his rank the Colonel occupied alone a small chamber in one of the huts. On the wall was a crucifix, and a few reproductions of religious paintings and decorations by the Danish artist, Joakim Skovgaard. A shelf of Italian books, a deal table, two stools, and an iron bedstead, with above it a plant, to be unnamed by me, but which looked as if it might develop into a tree, in a flower-pot so tiny that it seemed as if it might have done service as a thimble. The Colonel prepared the coffee with great care, and served it with much courtliness. The entire contents of his larder consisted of a few fragments of hard French biscuits. These we steeped in the coffee, and of this quite delectable sop partook with much contentment.