The two men remaining fire the machine gun.
The Germans were about seventy-five yards off when we got the gun trained on them. We gave them our 300 rounds and did great damage; the oncoming troops wavered and the front line crumpled up, but the rest came on.
Captured by Germans.
What followed does not remain very clearly in my mind. We tried to retreat. Every move was agony for me. We did not go far, however. Some of the Germans had got around us and we ran right into four of them. We doubled back and found ourselves completely surrounded. A ring of steel and fierce, pitiless eyes! I expected they would butcher us there and then. The worst we got, however, was a series of kicks as we were marching through the lines in the German communication trenches.
The night in a stable at Menin.
We were given quick treatment at a dressing station and escorted with other prisoners back to Menin by Uhlans. The wounded were made to get along as best they could. We passed through several small towns where the Belgian people tried to give us food. The Uhlans rode along and thrust them back with their lances in the most cold-blooded way. We reached Menin about 10 o'clock that night and were given black bread and coffee—or something that passed by that name. The night was spent in a horse stable with guards all around us with fixed bayonets. The next day we were lined up before a group of German officers, who asked us questions about the numbers and disposition of the British forces, and we lied extravagantly. They knew we were lying, and finally gave it up.
In cattle trucks to Dülmen camp.
During the next day and a half, traveling in cattle trucks, we had one meal, a bowl of soup. It was weak and nauseating. We took it gratefully, however, for we were nearly starved.
Food bad and insufficient.
Finally we arrived at Dülmen camp, where I was kept two months. The food was bad, and very, very scanty. For breakfast we had black bread and coffee; for dinner, soup (I still shudder at the thought of turnip soup), and sometimes a bit of dog meat for supper, a gritty, tasteless porridge, which we called "sand storm." We used to sit around with our bowls of this concoction and extract a grim comfort from the hope that some day Kaiser Bill would be in captivity and we might be allowed to feed him on "sand storm."