THE DREARINESS OF CAMP LIFE
During the period of our captivity at Munden the time passed more
heavily, I think, than at any later period, owing to the fact that we
had practically no reading matter. Parcels and letters from home were
very scarce. No daily papers nor periodicals of any sort were allowed,
not even German, only a rag called _The Continental Times: A Journal for
Americans in Germany_--probably the most scandalous paper ever produced,
copies of which should certainly be printed after the declaration of
peace, and would be worth a guinea a copy, I can assure you. There were
only about a dozen English novels in the camp, and no means of obtaining
more; consequently, to keep one’s mind occupied, one had to read them
over and over again; also, to make things worse, smoking was prohibited
as a general strafe, because some Russian officers sang their national
hymn in the yard one Sunday--confinement to cells, along with the common
felons in the civilian jail, situated in the town, being the penalty if
caught smoking. Personally I bribed certain guards to procure cigarettes
for me. It can well be imagined that one had to pay heavily for them,
about fourpence apiece, for a very low-class cigarette made of German
tobacco, being an average price. Even then one could only manage to buy
a limited number. Often enough a cigarette would be divided in half and
shared with one’s pal, so that one seldom got more than a few whiffs.
Cigarettes arriving in parcels from home were, of course, not delivered
to us.
My parcels from home began to come fairly regularly towards the end of
February 1915, having been a very long time on the way. Occasionally
books were included, which the Huns would take months to censor; and one
was not always certain of receiving these, even though written years
before the outbreak of war, lest they should contain information on any
subject which might prove useful to prisoners.
On one occasion all officers of Irish nationality were ordered to attend
on the commandant. At that time there were only two of us, but we
managed to extract a little amusement from the interview. For instance,
he could not be brought to understand how it was possible that Irishmen,
either from the north or south, could serve in English regiments, since
the greatest animosity existed between the Irish and their English
oppressors. We were informed that, since we were Irish, arrangements
were being made to transfer us to another camp, where conditions would
be very much better. We thanked the commandant, but in the end we never
heard any more about it. Obviously this was an attempt to tamper with
our loyalty.
Soon after our interview with the commandant the whole camp received
orders for inoculation for typhus, which was immediately carried out by
the visiting doctor--the same little upstart before described, who took
great joy in jabbing the needle as roughly and deeply as possible, so
that most of us were quite sore for some time afterwards.
The majority of the officers tried to pass the time acquiring languages,
several studying Russian, and nearly all learning French or perfecting
themselves in that language. A few took up German, taking lessons in the
latter from French officers, some of whom spoke German perfectly. People
at home might think that those officers who did not avail themselves of
apparently so good an opportunity of learning foreign languages, and in
so doing passing many of the weary hours, were extremely foolish; but,
believe me, it is quite a different matter to study at home or at
college, where one can be more or less quiet, to studying as a prisoner
in Germany, where it is extremely difficult, if not almost impossible,
to get a moment’s peace. Let the reader imagine, if he can, trying to
learn a foreign tongue with the whole of the rest of the people in his
room babbling aloud other languages. Officers and their instructors were
usually to be seen seated on their beds, for lack of other places, in a
close and stuffy atmosphere, with a continuous babble going on on all
sides. Say, for instance, you were learning German, when on the next
bed, not three feet away, somebody else would be repeating French aloud.
On the bed on your other side a Russian lesson would be in progress, and
perhaps over in the far corner of the room a lot of Frenchmen of the
Foreign Legion would be endeavouring to keep up their Arabic, whilst
grouped around the hot-water pipes a heated discussion, either in
French or English, as to the probable duration of the war, peace terms,
etc., would be going on.
Talk about the Tower of Babel; it could not have been in it. To add to
the general distraction, it must be explained that the doors of the
sleeping-rooms were all pierced by a small glass window-lattice, through
which the sentries placed inside the building were continually watching
us. You would look up suddenly from whatever you might be doing, either
studying, reading, or performing your toilet, to find a grimy face
pressed against the lattice, furtively watching your every movement.
Naturally the very sight of their ugly faces in such close proximity
made one’s internals seethe in a hopeless longing to get at them.
I have already stated that the camp at Munden was situated directly on
the banks of the river Weser, on the other side of which ran a railway
line, along which troops both going and coming could often be seen. On
one occasion some of these troops, thinking they would indulge in a
little sport, began firing at the camp from the train, which ran at that
spot up a very steep gradient, and a bullet actually passed through a
window of one of the rooms and lodged itself in the plaster of the wall
opposite. Fortunately for the prisoners, no one was hit; but that was
not the fault of the Boches. Firing at prison camps containing helpless
prisoners would certainly appeal to the humour of the German mind. Of
course complaints were made to the commandant, but, as usual, nothing
came of them.
Continual small drafts of prisoners were always arriving at the camp,
accompanied by a German officer and guard. One of these officers, seeing
a group of British seated in the eating-hall, came up very politely and
expressed his sorrow at seeing them there, but told them to cheer up, as
the war would soon be over. As a matter of fact he said, “We shall be
in London by six weeks from now.” Note that this remark was made in
February 1915! He also went on to say that London was already partially
destroyed. He was not bragging, and seemed quite a decent sort of chap;
but he really thought that what he said was true. It is the most
extraordinary thing how the German Government, in conjunction with their
press, have been able to make their people believe any lie, even to the
extent that London was in flames and the populace living on rats, and
that seaports such as Southampton and Portsmouth were destroyed by
gunfire from their fleet. This latter was told to me in all faith at the
fortress of Ingolstadt in 1916.
Great excitement was one day caused amongst us at Munden owing to the
fact that a Russian orderly had been seen carrying from the canteen a
plate on which two fried eggs sat in state. He had not proceeded fifty
yards before he was surrounded by officers, quite off their heads at
the sight of two eggs, inquiring as to where he got them, if there were
any more, and how much he would take for them, officers bidding twenty
or thirty marks for the eggs. But, unfortunately, the orderly was true
to his trust. It appeared that they had been procured as a special mark
of favour from the commandant to a Russian general who was suffering
from stomach trouble, and who had not been able to eat anything solid
for a very long time. Of course every one rushed to the canteen to order
eggs, but there was nothing doing, the sight of the eggs lingering in
our memories as a beautiful dream.
It is a very difficult task to write any sort of interesting account of
life in general at this camp, since every day was more or less the same
as the preceding one. Few things came to vary the dreary monotony, so
the reader must excuse if I recount certain events that are to me of
extreme interest, but may be boring to the casual reader. For instance,
I propose to tell you in a sketchy manner of how a certain British
officer escaped from Munden, since it was the only escape during my
imprisonment there. It has been recorded before of how I had been
removed from my room to the hospital on the ground floor. Another
occupant of the hospital in the next bed to myself was a British
subaltern who has lately made a successful escape from Germany, so I
have no hesitation in recording his plucky effort, having obtained his
permission to do so.
At the time of which I write this officer was suffering from an awful
skin disease, probably caused by eating the bad pork already described.
His lower limbs were practically a running sore, yet he made a
successful escape from the camp swathed in bandages. Unluckily he and
some three or four Russian officers who escaped with him were caught,
after being out some five or six days, and within seventy miles or so
of the Dutch frontier, having failed principally from exhaustion. The
means of escape was engineered through an old disused air-vent, which
led from the factory to some outbuildings, passing over the heads of the
sentries and the two fences of wire which surrounded the camp.
The Russians planned to pierce the wall of the factory opposite this
air-vent, and if possible use it as a means of passing the sentries
unseen. It appears that one of the Russian senior officers had obtained
leave to hire a piano and use one of the rooms as a general music-room.
The piano was placed against the wall of the factory directly opposite
the spot calculated to strike the disused air-vent, and left in that
position for some time, in order to divert attention. Then, when a
number of musicians were playing all kinds of instruments and tunes, the
wall behind the piano was gradually picked away, and although the Boches
were continually in and out of the room they never suspected anything.
The picking of the wall was carried out with the only instrument
available, _i.e._ an ordinary small pocket-knife.
When they had pierced into the air-vent, which must have taken a great
deal of labour, a nice dark night was chosen for the attempt. Having
been previously warned as to when this was to take place, I helped
Lieutenant ---- in every way I could. This consisted of getting up from
my bed and putting on a great-coat over my pyjamas. Hidden under the
great-coat was a complete mufti outfit, procured mostly from the
Russians, which I conveyed past the sentries to the above-mentioned
music-room, depositing the bundle in hiding. On my return the lieutenant
left the hospital and proceeded to the music-room, after which I did not
see him till some three weeks later--on the day, in fact, when all the
British officers were removed to another camp in Saxony.
Immediately Lieutenant ---- left the hospital I busied myself in stuffing
all the available pillows into the semblance of a man’s form, placing it
in his bed, and covering the whole with sheets and blankets well pulled
up around the head, so that when the Boche hospital orderly came on his
round with the medicines the last thing at night he might with a bit of
luck be deceived, and imagine the lieutenant to be in bed asleep in his
usual attitude, which was with his head almost completely enveloped by
the bed-clothes. This ruse was a complete success. I explained to the
orderly, when he arrived, that Lieutenant ---- had a very bad headache
and had just dropped off to sleep, and that, as it would be a great pity
to disturb him, if he liked, I would give him the medicine immediately
he awoke. The orderly, being only too keen to get his job finished,
agreed with alacrity. The places of the other Russians who had also
escaped were taken by their pals, who had remained behind, in the
following manner. As each sleeping-room was divided by a wooden
partition, it was quite easy to cut a passage which a man might creep
through. When the call-over came at night, the Russians first answered
their names in their own room, then quietly slipped through the prepared
passage and then answered the names of their pals in the next room.
On the following morning the Boche N.C.O. came to the hospital,
demanding Lieutenant ----’s signature to a draft of money just arrived
from home. Again I put him off, and told the orderly he would take a
serious responsibility if he roused the lieutenant in his present
condition, pointing to his apparently sleeping form in the bed as I did
so. The ruse again succeeded, but I must say I thought it was all up
that time.
That evening there were about thirty Russians assembled in the
music-room, also trying their luck, but they went about the whole thing
in such a foolish manner that they attracted the attention of the guards
inside the building, and before a dozen of them had been able to pass
through the hole the suspicions of the Boches were aroused. A raid was
made on the room, and of course everything was discovered. However, as I
have said, a few of them had already got away. A hasty and flurried
search was made by the Boches in the immediate vicinity of the camp. My
fellow-prisoners described what they were able to see of it from the top
storey of the factory--of how the sentries dashed from one bush to
another, carrying large oil lanterns in a ridiculous attempt to find
prisoners concealed under bushes about two feet high, when thick cover
in the shape of woods stretching for miles encircled the whole camp. The
Boches also had a whole brigade of dogs tethered on leading-chains to
help them, but they seemed as useless as their masters.
However, all those who did get away were eventually captured. As a
matter of fact it is very doubtful if the first lot, of which
Lieutenant ---- was one, would have been recaptured at all if the other
lot had waited, say a week, before trying the same thing; but as they
took the same route as the others, they only led the Boches straight on
the track of the first lot, which was hardly playing the game. Each
officer as he was recaptured was brought back to the camp, but was not
allowed to be present at any of his brother officers’ court-martials.
Sentences of various periods were passed on them, and they were all
confined to cells in the civilian prison in the town of Munden.