There was absolutely no rule of life in the prison camp. They were simply kept from getting away. Besides conferring this favor upon them, about the only thing which the German government did was to send a doctor around occasionally to look down their throats and inspect their tongues. If a prisoner became ill, it behooved him to find another prisoner who had studied medicine and then wait until old General Griffenhaus was in a sufficiently good humor to give him medicines. General Griffenhaus was not cruel; perhaps he would have been pleasant if he had known how.
As fast as Tom learned the custom, he adapted himself to the lazy, go-as-you-please kind of life. He scared up a rusty tin plate, made himself a straw bed in a boarded-in box stall, got hold of an old burlap bag which he wore as a kind of tunic while washing his clothes, and idled about listening to the war experiences of others. He had thought his own experiences rather remarkable, but now they seemed so tame that he did not venture to tell them. Fights with German raiders, rescues after days spent on the ocean, chats about the drive for Paris, the “try” at Verdun, the adventures of captured aviators—these things and many more, were familiarly discussed in the little sprawling groups among which he came to be a silent listener. In a way, it reminded him of camping and campfire yarns, except for the squalor and disorder.
Of course, there was general work to be done, but the officials did not concern themselves about this until it became absolutely necessary. No one could say that the German discipline was strict. When the prisoners discovered that one or other of their number was good at this or that sort of work they elected him to attend to those matters—whether it was sweeping, settling quarrels, cooking, writing letters, petitioning “Old Griff,” shaving, pulling teeth, or what not. Each prisoner contributed his knowledge and experience to make life bearable for all. The camp was a democracy, but Germany didn’t seem to object. If the prisoners wished to dig a drain trench or a refuse pit, they asked for shovels. And sometimes they got them. Prisoners, ragged and forlorn, came to be known by the most dignified titles. There was the “consulting architect,” the “sanitary inspector,” the “secretary of state,” the “chairman of the committee on kicks,” etc.
And one momentous day Tom met the “chief engineer.”
CHAPTER XXV
HE VISITS THE OLD PUMP AND RECEIVES A SHOCK
“It’s all happy-go-lucky here,” said a young American from somewhere in Kansas, who had been raked in with a haul of prisoners from a torpedoed liner. “We used the water at the pump as long as the engines worked; then we shouldered our buckets and began going down to the brook. When the buckets went to pieces, we made a few out of canvas and they’re not half bad.”
Tom had inquired why they went down to the end of the oval to get water when there was a pump up in the middle of the grounds.