THE CAMP OF ABANDONED HOPE
It was 4.30 in the morning of November 12 when the blare of the bugle
echoed through the long, dreary passages of Klingelputz Prison. To the
British prisoners--in fact to all the aliens--that crash was of fearful
import.
We were commanded to parade at 5 a.m. in one of the long upper corridors
flanked on either side by cells. We were formed in a double line, and as
our names were called we had to step forward. The roll-call was bawled
out, not once, but half a dozen times to make positive it had been read
correctly. Then we were counted, also some half-a-dozen times, to assure
the totals tallying.
These preliminaries completed, preparations for our transference to
Ruhleben were hurried forward. We packed up our belongings, together
with all the food upon which we could place our hands, and re-lined up.
Under a strong guard we were marched to Cologne station. On the way,
several of us, anxious to communicate with our friends and relatives,
notifying them of our new address, dropped post-cards into the roadway.
The idea was to attract the attention of the guards to them, and then by
bribe to induce them to place them in the post. But the officers were
too eagle-eyed. They evidently anticipated such a ruse and accordingly
kept the soldiers under severe surveillance. One soldier who picked up a
post-card, which I had dropped in this manner, was caught in the act and
received a terrifying rating on the spot. Thus we who dropped the cards
had to rely upon the tender mercies and good-natured feeling of whoever
chanced to pick them up to slip them into the post, but I fear very few
were dispatched.
We were huddled into the train at Cologne, but it was not until 8.30
that we steamed out of the station. We travelled continuously throughout
the day until we reached Hannover at 9 in the evening. During the
journey, those who had exercised the forethought to bring food with them
had every reason to congratulate themselves, because this was all upon
which we had to subsist during the twelve and a half hours' travelling.
The authorities did not furnish us with so much as a crust of bread or a
spoonful of water. Moreover, if we chanced to pull up at a station where
refreshments of any kind might have been procurable, we were not allowed
to satisfy our cravings. At one stop, owing to one of our comrades
falling ill, we asked the Red Cross for a drop of water. We paid a
mark--one shilling--for it, but after taking the money they merely
jeered, spat at us, and refused to respond to our request.
At Hannover we were permitted to buy what we could, but I may say that
it was very little because the buffet attempted to rob us unmercifully.
A tiny sandwich cost fourpence, while a small basin of thin and
unappetising soup, evidently prepared in anticipation of our arrival,
was just as expensive. Still the fact remains that throughout the whole
railway journey the German authorities never supplied us with a mouthful
of food.
After a wait of three hours at Hannover the train resumed its journey,
reaching the station adjacent to the camp at Ruhleben at 6.0 a.m. Thus
we had been confined to our carriages for 21½ hours, suffering intense
discomfort from the stifling atmosphere and our cramped quarters.
Our first impression of Ruhleben was by no means inspiriting. The camp
had been started some two or three months previous to our arrival on
November 14th, 1914, but it was in a terribly chaotic condition. German
method and organisation recorded a dismal and complete failure here.
Having reached the grounds, and registration completed to the
satisfaction of the authorities, we were marched off to our quarters.
The party to which I was attached was escorted to a stable which was of
the ordinary single floor type, characteristic of these islands, with a
row of horse-boxes and a loft for the storage of hay and other
impedimenta above. The horse-boxes measured ten feet square and had only
been cleaned out perfunctorily. The raw manure was still clinging to the
walls, while the stalls were wet from the straw which had been recently
removed. Indeed in some stalls it had not been cleared out.
The atmosphere had that peculiarly pungent ammonia smell incidental to
recently tenanted stables. The prisoners who were allotted to those
stalls in which the wet straw still remained were compelled to lie down
upon it so that they had a far from inviting or savoury couch. Yet there
were many who preferred the unsalubrious and draughty stalls to the loft
overhead, and prices for the former ruled high, as much as 100
marks--£5--being freely given for this accommodation. This speculation
in the quarters for the prisoners constituted one of the greatest
scandals of the camp during its early days, inasmuch as it acted
unfairly against those who were "broke." Who pocketed this money we
never learned, but there was a very shrewd suspicion that certain
persons were far from being scrupulous and did not hesitate to pursue
their usual shark tactics, even under such circumstances.
K---- and myself were compelled to shake ourselves down in the loft. It
was reached by a creaking and crazy wooden staircase. Gaining the upper
regions we nearly encountered disaster. The loft was practically void of
natural illumination, the result being a kind of perpetual dismal
gloom, which to us, coming out of the broad daylight, appeared to be
darkness until our eyes grew accustomed to it.
The floor was of stone or concrete and in the centre of the space the
height from floor to the highest point of the gable roof was about 7
feet, sloping to 4 feet 6 inches at the sides.
The authorities cannot be credited with being liberal in assigning us
space. The roof rafters were spaced 10 feet apart and between each two
of these five men had to shake down their beds. Thus each was given a
space 2 feet in width by 6 feet in length in which to make himself at
home and to stow his belongings. The quarters were so cramped that to
dress and undress it was necessary to stand in the centre of the gangway
which ran down the middle of the loft. Once in bed it was almost
impossible to turn over. To make matters worse the roof was far from
being watertight and when a heavy shower swept over us the water would
trickle and drip through, while the slits in the wall allowed the wind
to whistle and rush into the loft with ear-cutting force.
When we entered into possession the floor was perfectly bare, but we
were given a miserable allowance of trusses of straw, each of which was
divided up sparingly between so many men. This we threw loosely upon the
floor to form a couch, but the allowance was so inadequate that no man
could keep himself warm, because the cold from the stone drove through
the thin covering, while it was quite out of the question to find
comfort.
Only a few blankets were served out. I, myself, made eighteen distinct
applications for one, but was denied the luxury, if such it can be
called, until eleven months after my arrival at the camp. Had it not
been for the generosity of K----, who freely gave me one of his
blankets, coupled with one or two overcoats which I secured as a result
of my trading operations in the camp, to which I refer later, I should
have been compelled to face the bone-piercing, marrow-congealing wintry
weather without the slightest covering beyond the clothes in which I
stood. Those who, unlike me, were lacking a liberal friend, lay
shivering, depending purely upon the warmth radiating from one another's
bodies as they laid huddled in rows.
We protested against this lack of blankets to the United States
Ambassador, time after time, but it was of little avail. The authorities
persisted in their statements that a blanket had been served out to
every man. In fact it was asserted in the British papers, as a result of
the Ambassador's investigations, that each man had been served with two
blankets. But for every man who did possess two blankets there were
three prisoners who had not one! The authorities endeavoured to shuffle
the responsibility for being without blankets upon the prisoners
themselves, unblushingly stating that they had been careless in looking
after them, had lost them, or had been so lax as to let them be stolen.
If the Ambassador had only gone to the trouble to make a complete and
personal canvass he would have probed the matter to the bottom. If a
parade with blankets had been called, the German Government would have
been fairly trapped in its deliberate lying.
About ten months after I entered the camp, blankets were purchasable at
the camp stores. They cost us nine shillings apiece and they were not
our exclusive property. When a prisoner received his release he was not
permitted to take his blanket with him. Neither had it any surrender
value. It had to be left behind. If the prisoner could find a purchaser
for it he was at liberty to do so, but if no sale could be consummated
then it had to be presented to a comrade. The blanket was not allowed to
leave the camp because it contained a certain amount of wool!
The food supplied by the authorities did not vary very pronouncedly from
what I had received in other camps, but if anything it was a trifle
better, especially in the early days, when Germany was not feeling the
pinch of the British blockade. For breakfast there was the eternal acorn
coffee and a hunk of black bread. The mid-day repast comprised a soup
contrived from potatoes, cabbage, and carrots with traces of meat. One
strange mixture which the authorities were fond of serving out to us was
a plate of rice and prunes garnished with a small sausage! I invariably
traded the sausage with a comrade for prunes, this so-called German
dainty not appealing to my palate in the slightest. After a while,
however, this dish vanished from the limited menu. Tea was merely a
repetition of the morning meal.
Our first emphatic protest was in connection with our sleeping
accommodation in the loft. A representative came from the American
Embassy and we introduced him forthwith to our sleeping quarters. We not
only voiced our complaints but we demonstrated our inability to get warm
at night owing to the cold floor striking through the straw. He agreed
with us and ordered the authorities to provide us with sleeping
arrangements somewhat more closely allied to civilized practice. The
Germans obeyed the letter but not the spirit of the Representative's
recommendations. They sent us in a few boards spaced an inch or two
apart and nailed to thin cross battens. In this way our bodies were
lifted about two inches off the floor!
The straw when served out to us was perfectly clean and fresh, but it
did not retain this attractiveness for a very long time. The soil in the
vicinity of Ruhleben is friable, the surface being a thick layer of fine
sand in dry, and an evil-looking slush in wet, weather. As the prisoners
when entering the barracks were unable to clean their boots, the mud was
transferred to the straw. Not only did the straw thus become extremely
dirty but the mud, upon drying, charged it heavily with dust. When a
tired man threw himself down heavily upon his sorry couch he was
enveloped for a few seconds in the cloud of dust which he sent from the
straw into the air. Whenever we attempted to shake up our beds to make
them slightly more comfortable, the darkness of the loft was rendered
darker by the dense dust fog which was precipitated. Naturally violent
coughing and sneezing attended these operations and the dust, being far
from clean in itself, wrought fearful havoc with our lungs. I recall one
prisoner who was in perfect health when he entered the camp, but within
a few weeks he had contracted tuberculosis. He declined so rapidly as to
arouse the apprehensions of the authorities, who hurriedly sent him home
to Britain.
After lying upon this bare straw for three months we were given some
coarse sacking and were peremptorily ordered to fill these bags with the
straw. This task gave the sand and dust a spirited opportunity to
penetrate our systems. Had a stranger outside the building heard our
violent coughing he would have been pardoned had he construed our loft
to be a hospital for consumptives.
We had been lying for quite six months upon this straw when we were
suddenly paraded to receive the order to re-appear a quarter of an hour
later with our beds. Re-parading we were commanded to empty the sacks to
form a big pile, and it was a repulsive-looking accumulation. But we
observed this straw was collected and carted away very carefully,
although at the time we paid little attention to the incident.
Naturally we concluded that we were to be given a supply of new straw,
and not before it was wanted. But we were not to be treated as milksops.
We were marched off to the railway station where there was a quantity of
wooden shavings which we were told to pack into our sacks. When we
attacked the bundles we recoiled in horror. The material was reeking
wet. The authorities might just as well have served us with soddened
sponges.
What could be done? Visions of rheumatic fever and various other racking
maladies arising from sleeping upon a wet bed haunted us. However, the
day being fine we rapidly strewed the bedding material out in the hope
that the sun would dry it somewhat. This precaution, however, was only
partially successful. Our couches were damp that night.
We thought no more about the straw which we had been compelled to
exchange for the shavings until we learned that a German newspaper was
shrieking with wild enthusiasm about Teuton resourcefulness and science
having scored another scintillating economic triumph. According to this
newspaper an illustrious professor had discovered that straw possessed
decidedly valuable nourishing qualities essential to human life, and
that it was to be ground up and to enter into the constitution of the
bread, which accordingly was now to be composed of at least three
constituents--wheat-meal, potato flour, and straw. Some of us began to
ponder long and hard over the straw which had so suddenly been taken
away from us, especially myself, as I had experienced so many of the
weird tactics which are pursued by the Germans in their vain efforts to
maintain their game of bluff.
I asked every member of our party, in the event of discovering a foreign
article in his bread, to hand it over to me because I had decided to
become a collecting fiend of an unusual type. Contributions were
speedily forthcoming, and they ranged over pieces of dirty straw, three
to four inches in length, fragments of coke, pieces of tree-bark, and
odds and ends of every description--in fact just the extraneous
substances which penetrated into our loft with the mud clinging to our
boots and which, of course, became associated with the loose straw. I
cherished this collection, which by the time I secured my release had
assumed somewhat impressive proportions. I left these relics in safe
keeping near the border, and they will come into my hands upon the
conclusion of the war if not before.
From these strange discoveries I was prompted to make inquisitive
enquiries. I discreetly and in apparent idleness cross-questioned the
guards and any other sources of information which were likely to prove
fruitful. My interrogations were so seemingly innocent as to draw
immediate and comprehensive replies. Stringing these fragments of
information together, it was impossible to come to any conclusion other
than that I had formed in my own mind, namely, that the straw upon which
we had been lying for six months had been whisked off to the granary and
had re-appeared among us in the guise of the staff of life! It was not
conducive to our peace of mind to think we had probably been eating our
beds!
[*large gap]
During the early days, owing to the insufficiency of nutritious food,
we were hard-pressed. There were no canteens, but presently these
appeared and we were able to purchase further limited supplies of food,
at an all but prohibitive price I might mention, because the rascally
German speculators had paid heavily for the privilege of being able to
fleece the British. When, at a later date, we received a weekly
allowance of five shillings, the plight of everyone became eased
materially, although, unfortunately, this sum went a very short way
owing to the extortionate prices which prevailed.
One particularly atrocious scandal was associated with the arrival of
some big crates of comforts sent out to us by one of the philanthropic
missions at home. The local stores suddenly blossomed forth with a huge
and extremely varied stock of wearing apparel--mufflers, socks, and
other articles of which we were in urgent need. I, among others, did not
hesitate to renew my wardrobe, which demanded replenishment,
particularly as the prices appeared to be attractive. We were ignorant
as to the origin of this stock, but it did not trouble our minds until
my purchase of a pair of socks. This precipitated an uproar, because
within one of the socks I found a small piece of paper on which was
written, undoubtedly by the hand which had diligently knitted the
article, "With love from----. To a poor British prisoner of war in
Germany," followed by the name of the Mission to whom the articles had
been sent, doubtless in response to an appeal.
This discovery revealed the maddening circumstance that what had been
sent out to Ruhleben for free distribution among the prisoners was
actually being sold. There was an enquiry which yielded a more or less
convincing result according to one's point of view.
There was also an outcry over the crates in which these articles were
sent to us. The party of which I was a member had removed from the loft
to a horse-box beneath which had been vacated. When we entered this
attractive residence the walls were still covered with manure--they
were not given a dressing of whitewash until later--while lying upon the
bare floor, with only a thin sack of doubtful shavings between us and
the stone, did not heighten our spirits. But as we were becoming
reconciled to our captivity, we decided to make our uninviting stall as
homely as we could. We decided upon a wooden bed apiece. The
authorities, after persistent worrying, only partially acceded to our
demands by providing three primitive single beds for occupation by six
men.
As we could not persuade the authorities to serve us with a bed apiece,
we decided to build the three extra beds ourselves. But we were faced
with the extreme difficulty of procuring the requisite wood! The
authorities had none to give away and very little to sell. When we saw
these empty packing cases, which were of huge dimensions, we thought
luck had come our way at last, so we approached the proprietor of the
stores for permission to break them up. But to our disgust he informed
us that he had already parted with them--for a consideration we
discovered afterwards. Two had been secured by a German sentry in the
camp to be converted into wardrobes, while the others were in the hands
of the camp carpenter. We approached this worthy, but he ridiculed the
suggestion that he should give some of the wood to us for our intended
purpose. We could _buy_ the boards if we liked. As there was no
alternative source of supply we did so, and the price of purchase showed
that the carpenter cleared nine shillings on each crate! With much
difficulty we built our three extra beds between us, but the outlay for
materials alone was eighteen shillings!
The cold during the winter affected us very severely because the barrack
was absolutely devoid of any heating facilities. When the snow was
carpeting the ground to a depth of from six to eight inches, and the
thermometer was hovering several degrees below zero we lay awake nearly
the whole night shivering with cold. Indeed on more than one occasion,
I with others, abandoned all attempts to sleep and trudged the loft to
keep warm.
We appealed to the American Ambassador in the hope that he would be able
to rectify matters. When he came upon the scene there was another
outburst of indignation. He ordered the authorities to instal a heating
system without further delay. By driving through our sole protector in
this manner, we, as usual, received some measure of respite. But the
heating was useless to those living in the horse-boxes. The side
partitions of the latter were not carried up to the ceiling, but a space
of some two feet was left. To protect ourselves from the fierce
ear-cutting draught which swept through the stables we blocked these
spaces with brown paper. But the means which somewhat combated the
onslaughts of the draughts also shut out the heat, so that, in our case,
and it was typical of others, we really did not benefit one iota from
the "complete heating system" with which, so the German press asserted,
Ruhleben Camp was lavishly equipped.
Christmas Day, 1914, was an unholy nightmare. Our fare could not, by any
stretch of imagination, be described as Christmassy. We had several
pro-Germans among us--they preached this gospel in the hope of being
released if only on "passes," but the thoroughbred Prussian is not to be
gulled by patriots made-to-order--and they kept up the spirit of Yule
Tide with candles and what not, somewhat after the approved Teuton
manner. It was impressive, but so palpably artificial and shallow as
merely to court derision and mockery among the Britishers.
The great meal of the Day of Days was a huge joke! One barrack received
what might be excusably described as something like a chop, with
potatoes and gravy. The next barrack had a portion of a chop and
potatoes, but no gravy. By the time this barrack had been served
apparently all supplies had been exhausted, thanks to the wonderful
perfection of German method, organisation, and management. The result
was that a third barrack had to be content with a raw rasher of bacon,
while a further barrack received only potatoes swimming in a liquid
which was undoubtedly set down officially as gravy. But barrack six got
nothing! This barrack is occupied by members of the Jewish persuasion,
but only those who partook of Jewish food received anything to eat that
day. The Jews generally fared better, because they were tended by the
Rabbi, who indeed exerted himself untiringly upon their behalf. He drove
into the camp every day in his motor car, accompanied by his wife, and
they went diligently around the members of their flock, ascertaining the
requirements of each man, and doing all in their power to satisfy him so
far as the rules and regulations of the camp permitted. The Jews who
supported their Rabbi had no complaint to offer on the score of food,
because they received it in variety and plenty through the munificence
of their co-religionists in Berlin.
In the evening we attempted a sing-song to keep up the spirit and
atmosphere of the season as far as practicable within our modest
limitations, but this was promptly suppressed by our task-masters. We
were compelled to spend the evening in miserable silence or to crawl
into bed to muse over our unhappy lot. So far as Ruhleben was concerned,
the sentiment of "Good-will to all men" had sped by on the main line,
and had forgotten all about us poor wretches in the siding.
While in Cologne on "passes" I and my friends frequently learned from
the _Berliner Tageblatt_ and other leading newspapers that the foremost
artistes performing in Berlin paid visits to Ruhleben in the evening to
amuse the prisoners. At that time we were somewhat prone to envy the
good time our compatriots were evidently having at the internment camp
and the bed of roses upon which, according to the press, they were
lying. But when we entered the camp and made enquiries, we discovered
that the newspaper assertions were not merely gross exaggerations, but
unblushing fabrications.
To satisfy ourselves upon this point we went to the corner of the camp
where the delightful entertainments were said to be given, but the only
artistes we discovered were a dozen hungry prisoners trying to coax a
tune out of a rebellious mouth organ! Our belief in German statements
received another shattering blow. During my twelve months in this camp I
never caught a glimpse of or heard a note from an eminent German
impressario or artiste of any description. All the amusements we ever
obtained were due to our own efforts, and I am glad to say that they
evidently were vastly superior to any that the much-vaunted city could
offer to its estimable citizens. At least this was the only impression
we could gather from the statements of visitors who were occasionally
permitted to attend our theatrical and vaudeville performances and
concerts. We had nothing for which to thank the Germans in the way of
diversion than we had in any other direction.