"There was a German who could speak English, but he never came near them. Mr Gerard seemed to go about the thing very business-like: he was not afraid. He was very keen on getting hold of any man who had been out working and had come in again to camp. Some had not been paid. They were only paid 30 pfennigs (3d.) a day for a hard day's work. The camp was working at a big factory, and you had to get up at 4 in the morning, and they drove you into a big square like a sheep-pen and put all the English together. We called it the Slave Market. They drove you into this pen, and the gangers would come in the morning and take you out. 'I will have you,' and 'You come along with me,'—just like a slave market. We had to get up at 4 and went out at 5. You were put in the slave market at 5.30, and worked from then till 6 at night—and very hard work too. We were working on building a big factory where they were making hand-grenades—very intricate machinery. Nobody seemed quite to know what they were manufacturing there. The men were carrying the stone for the building. One German who could speak English told one of my chums that the factory was for making hand-grenades.
"They gave out an order that there was to be no smoking in the barrack-room, as the French had refused to allow German prisoners in France to smoke, so they would stop it there. If they caught a man smoking, and they had a stick, he got it. There were no orders printed to tell us what we had or had not to do. They never deliberately tied an Englishman to a post, but I have seen them doing it to Russians, tying them up to the post. If you did anything that did not please them, you were put in the coal-hole, we used to call it, the place where they get the coal-briquettes from, and kept without food for three days—only bread and water, solitary confinement. Many an Englishman got that. We used to carry down some of our dinner and slip it into them.
"The day the American Ambassador came, Captain Vidal looked well after it, and anything that was done he reported it at once. I think he had been saying something to the American Ambassador, and one of the Germans had overheard it. When the Ambassador went away, he struck Captain Vidal with his sword. We heard that was the reason why Captain Vidal did not come with us, as there was an inquiry about it at the time. Then Major Priestly was in solitary confinement for a while—I don't know what he had done; we heard that he was found with a revolver, but we could not say. He was isolated away from the officers altogether for close on two months—never saw him. He is back again in camp now. We read in the 'Continental Times' that he was going home on the 3rd September—or August—but some proceedings were being taken against him. It said in the 'Continental Times' misbehaviour,—I suppose in looking well after the wounded—or something like that.
"One day we had to pass the German doctor and then went back to barracks. Heard no more until six days afterwards, and the 1st December a German came up about 8 A.M. and formed us up in the barrack-room. Some of those going home had a new shirt given them. A Russian was stopped and told to take off his clogs and give them to that Englishman. Then we went to Aachen. A complaint had been sent to Wittenberg about us; they were kicking up a terrible row for sending us away like that. The officer commanding the camp asked us where we came from. When we said Wittenberg, he said he thought so. We looked such awful sights—filthy; and we were supposed to be dressed coming away. We were very well treated at Aachen—they always do so. Every one was nicer than another, to try and create a good impression. We knew what it was.
"I was sorry for two chaps. One of the London Scottish had been there fourteen months, and had a bad wound in his leg, and could not move his leg. He was sent back because he was a non-commissioned officer. Another man, a sergeant, with his leg off, could speak Hindustani, and I think that was the reason he was sent back, but I am not sure. His leg was off to the thigh. He was with the Lugard party. A lance-corporal, with his arm off, was also sent back, after thinking he was going to be exchanged. None of the non-commissioned officers got away from that place."
There is a corner of the hospital courtyard where in December the rays of the sun will fall for the space of an hour, illuminating first the big high wall which shuts off light and air from the north-west, then throwing upon the ground itself a triangle of light which gradually broadens, loses shape, and fills at last the narrow passage between the courtyard and the dead garden, but stops short of the broken wooden paling, throwing no cleansing ray on the dismal rubbish-heaps, leaving undisturbed the sepulchral clamminess of the shadows beyond.
In days of peace this corner was surely favoured by the school children. From the high wall to the gable of the main building stretches a single heavy beam, which had perhaps once been painted green, but was now green with the mould of decay. A few rusty rings and hooks, from one of which a piece of sodden rope still hung, showed to what purpose the beam had served.
The rain, which had been falling steadily, as it seemed, day and night during November, was checked by the first threat of frost, and during the fortnight before Christmas we had bright and cheerful weather. A few convalescent patients were tempted to take a seat in the sun, and came to notice the hour, early in the afternoon, when the triangle of light first strikes the high wall.
We had a bench placed against the wall (it was a very tiny one, and belonged to one of the junior classrooms). Picard, myself, and two French soldiers from Salle un were at first the only habitués; none of the British soldiers remaining at the 106 were able to leave their beds, and most of the other Frenchmen were either too weak or too frightened of fresh air to come out and sit in the yard.