THE HELL-HOLE OF INGOLSTADT
I will now refer, if I may, to one or two little notes which I made on
the journey down from Saxony. In the first place, I never saw a single
male porter at any station. The guards on trains were all women; and
when the train ran slowly through any sort of farmed land, we saw groups
of old men and little children doing some sort of work in the fields,
although it was November, and one would think there was not very much to
be done. I never saw a single male between the ages of fourteen and
fifty-five either in the streets or towns, on the farms or elsewhere. It
was as if Germany had been absolutely depopulated of males between
those ages. What they have done with their unfits goodness knows.
In order to pass into the fortress of Ingolstadt it was first necessary
to enter by the guard-house gate that bordered the road, and which was
composed of sheet iron. From there forty yards brought you to a large
iron grid, protecting the approach to the bridge passing over the moat.
This grid, as well as the guard-house gate, was kept locked and guarded
night and day. On being passed through the grid and over the moat, the
main entrance to the fortress was approached over a paved causeway. The
gate consisted of a pair of massive steel doors, folding in the middle,
and built into the stonework of the lower works. These stoneworks were
protected from artillery fire by large earthworks, surmounting to a
great height above them, set out in battlements and caponiers, with
artillery platforms. On entering the fortress we found ourselves in one
of the darkest, dampest, and most forbidding-looking places I was ever
in, the damp and darkness being caused by the earthworks overhead, which
rose to a height of thirty-five feet from the roof of the stoneworks.
The whole interior was afterwards discovered to be filthy in the
extreme. Opposite is a plan of the fortress looking down through the
earthworks.
On entering these gloomy portals, we were immediately conducted to the
commandant’s quarters, which were situated next to the entrance. Here we
were searched, but nothing of consequence was discovered. My first
impression of the commandant was a good one. It was not long before I
discovered it to be erroneous, as will be seen hereafter.
After our examination we were led to our cell, which was to be my home
for seven months. It did not look inviting. A general description of the
fortress is necessary, in order that the reader may understand
subsequent events. With the
[Illustration: FORTRESS OF INGOLSTADT
BAVARIA
“FORT Nº. 9”]
help of the plan this should not be very difficult.
The living-rooms assigned to the prisoners were a series of
tunnel-shaped cells, running along the north and south fronts of the
fortress. These were connected by a long stone corridor, and divided
into two wings by the main entrance, as shown on the plan. Each cell was
connected to its neighbour by a small archway, which had been
partitioned off in order to make separate compartments. These partitions
were in some cases made of wood, in others they had been bricked up. The
cells were twenty-six feet long by fifteen feet broad, and contained six
officers each. Thus, with six beds, a dining-table, a cooking-stove
(supplied by ourselves), and a space set apart to act as a kitchen and
scullery, there was not very much room. The roof being arched like a
tunnel, it was not possible to get the full benefit of the floor-space,
since one could not stand upright if near the walls. These walls were
made of granite, badly whitewashed over and exuding moisture. During any
kind of damp weather the festoons of cobwebs which helped to adorn the
ceiling glistened like a long grotto. On one side of the cells a small
drain, excavated out of the wall, acted as a passage for the waters
above. This drain opened out into the cell by a small trap-door, through
which one could both hear and see the continual drip, drip of water,
which in rainy weather formed itself into a small stream, occasionally
flooding over into the cell. At all times a large ring of damp covered
the floor in its proximity.
As before explained, the cells were approached by a long stone corridor
running parallel with them, lighted by skylights at every forty or fifty
yards, which pierced upwards through the earthworks above them. These,
however, admitted very little light, except when the sun was shining.
One was always in danger of bumping up against somebody walking in the
opposite direction; in fact, a good many hard knocks were received in
this way. The latrines were situated at the bottom of each of these
corridors. This is not a subject which one cares to enlarge upon, but in
this history it is necessary, in order to form a correct idea of the
conditions under which we lived. These latrines consisted of a mere hole
in the stone floor, with no form of drainage. Consequently the
atmosphere in the corridor became at times almost unbearable, since the
corridor acted as a sort of flue to the latrines, with which it was
directly connected, the final result of this being that, when officers
passed in and out of these rooms, a certain amount of the disgusting
odour penetrated into the cells. Thus we had to sleep, feed, and live in
one of these cells, attacked from inside by insanitary conditions,
living in a dirty, damp, badly lighted stone cell, menaced from the
outside by mosquitoes and miasma rising off the waters of the moat, on
to which the cells looked through very heavily barred windows. The
floors were made of asphalt, which struck cold into one’s very marrow,
so that the majority of us were always stiff with rheumatism.
At first we were allowed to take exercise in the hollows marked X and Y
in the plan, also to walk round the ramparts of the protecting
earthworks. But this was very soon put a stop to, owing to an attempt to
escape over the moat; and, finally, the only exercise-ground allowed us
was that marked Z on the plan, immediately beneath the drawbridge and
main entrance, a space a little larger than a tennis-court for some
three hundred of us to exercise in. To the reader it must seem almost
incredible that even a Hun would incarcerate a prisoner of war in a
hell-hole such as this, immediately after having undergone a very
serious operation; but so it was.
Having given a rough sketch of the prisoners’ accommodation in the
fortress, I now propose to record the events of an ordinary average
day. _Appell_, or roll-call, was at 7.30 in the morning, and held in the
cells. The intimation of the _Appell_ was heralded by an enormous
alarm-bell fitted in each wing. After this bell had sounded no officer
was allowed to leave his cell under any circumstances. The Boche N.C.O.
and one sentry visited the cells in turn, counting six officers in each
cell. The N.C.O. entered the cells from the corridor in order to make
this count, the sentry remaining outside in order to prevent an officer
who had been already counted from proceeding down the corridor to a cell
which had not been counted, and thus being counted again. The necessity
for this was, in the event of an officer escaping another being counted
in twice would allow the escaper time to get away from the camp, should
he have been fortunate enough to get clear.
After the _Appell_ breakfast was served to us by the French orderly
allotted to our cell. The reader must not imagine we had the use of the
orderly all day; he had numerous other duties to perform for the Boche.
He usually made our beds and emptied the slops (not always), and
occasionally did the washing up after meals. He also fetched our fresh
water in a bucket. The breakfast consisted of a large cupful of hot
coffee, already mixed with milk. As a matter of fact it was made of
ground acorns and a small percentage of chicory, and was quite
undrinkable. This, with three ounces of black bread, which chiefly
consisted of potato peelings, bran, and sawdust, was all we had for
breakfast. At the midday meal we received five potatoes for six
officers, or a swede weighing about 1½ lb., or seventeen sticks of
tinned asparagus. Each cell had its ration _en bloc_, so that whatever
food came was divided up amongst the six people in each cell. For supper
a breakfast-cupful of soup, made of ground white beans (sometimes
edible, but not often), was provided.
The above constituted the regular rations. Besides these we received
other rations: 45 grammes of meat each per week, including bone, and
occasionally some stinking fish, so bad that it could not be kept in the
cell for more than a minute or two. The other rations were fifteen lumps
of sugar each per month; 1 lb. of tea (cut from the stem) per six
officers, usually twice during the month; and, lastly, a sherry-glassful
of rum every six weeks for the six of us, and a soup-plateful of tinned
fruit. All the food which was not provided as a daily ration was only
given by the Boches in order that they might be able to bring out a list
showing how well they fed their prisoners. This last was principally for
the edification of the American Ambassador. The following really looks
quite well: Rum, Sugar, Tea, Meat, Bread, Soup, Vegetables, Potatoes,
Fruit, Fish.
But all that glitters, etc.--as will be seen by my description of how
this food was made and distributed. Soon after the morning _Appell_ we
would hurry to the bath, or so-called bath. Only a drawing by Heath
Robinson could possibly do justice to it. No words could describe the
extraordinarily primitive arrangements. A cement cauldron, on the top of
which rested a number of large basins, containing the water to be
heated. One-third of a sack of coal was allowed three days a week, in
order to heat the water in these basins, which must suffice for the
ablutions of three hundred officers. The water, when hot, was ladled out
with a magnified soup-tureen by hand, and thrown into a bath. From there
the water was pumped up by hand to a series of beer-casks, resting on a
wooden frame and partitioned off so as to have one cask over each
compartment. The bather then proceeded to let loose the water in the
barrels by operating a rough valve, when the water, which was
practically cold, owing to the many vicissitudes to which it had been
subjected, poured out in a slow trickle upon the bather. Nevertheless,
there was a terrific scramble for the bath daily. One could have
overlooked the fact of this Stone Age arrangement had the place been
kept clean, but the filth of it was indescribable. Streams of soapy
water running over the mud floor had rendered it something akin to axle
grease. Great care had to be taken in order not to slip; for to slip,
which one often did, meant being covered in filth, which no amount of
washing in cold water would remove.
After having completed the morning’s ablution under these delightful
conditions, one or other of the officers in each cell would be told off
to cook the breakfast and lay the table. This was usually taken in turn,
and a very good breakfast we had too--that is, when our parcels were
arriving from home regularly. No knives, forks, spoons, or plates were
supplied to us, also no utensils for cooking. We were forced to buy our
own stove. The coal which was supplied to us every second day would be
equal to two small scuttlefuls. This had to do for warming the cell and
for cooking all the necessary food. There were times when this coal
allowance diminished considerably below the amount, especially during
the coldest period. At one time we could only afford to have the fire
lit after 12 noon. This was in January, when the thermometer stood at
thirty-two degrees Centigrade below freezing-point. Let the reader
imagine what that means in a stone cell, situated thirty-five feet
beneath the earth. Certainly we did not suffer from damp, since
everything was ice. Our drainage-vent was solid ice about a foot thick.
It has been explained that in November we were allowed to exercise on
the ramparts, which formed a very pleasant walk round. From this height
a good view could be obtained of the surrounding country. There were no
notices up explaining exactly which part of the ramparts we were allowed
to frequent. We therefore went all over them without hindrance. There
were six sentries posted on the caponiers overlooking the moat;
therefore there was no earthly reason why we should be debarred from
walking or sitting anywhere on the ramparts, since every part was
overlooked by sentries. Apart from this, in order to descend from the
ramparts to the level of the moat, one would be compelled to go down a
very steep bank of some fifty feet. The escaper would then find himself
shooting into the arms of the outer ring of sentries stationed inside
and on a level with the moat, with sentries on both sides of it.
Nevertheless, after we had been allowed to roam at will over the
ramparts, one day the sentry on the main caponier suddenly and without
warning opened fire on two Russian officers lying near the breastworks
beneath him, who were taking advantage of a short spell of sunshine.
The sentry fired at them for no apparent reason. Fortunately for the
Russians they were not hit, though it was only a matter of inches, as
the sentry was not more than sixty paces from them. This caused, of
course, a fearful commotion in the camp. The sentry very nearly got
mobbed by the prisoners. In fact, I thought it was coming, and did my
best to calm them, since the prisoners must be the losers in the end,
fists being of very little use against rifles, especially inside a
fortress. Within a minute or two the interior of the fortress was
flooded with guards from the guard-room, and the prisoners were herded
to their cells and locked in.
The commandant was in a great state of agitation, knowing very well that
it would not take much to make the smouldering embers of the prisoners’
overcharged feelings burst into flames. The worm will turn, even if it
has no means of defence, and our treatment was rapidly nearing the
limit of petty persecution. After this the use of the ramparts and
interior exercise-grounds was debarred to us, so that we only had the
small paved area at the entrance to the fortress to exercise in.
Towards the end of November the weather began to get extremely cold, and
in consequence our conditions became unbearable, owing to the lack of
sufficient coal for heating purposes. This led to another little
attention from the Boches similar to that described above. A batch of
prisoners were transferred from the fort to some other camp, and this
left vacant one of the cells. This was too good an opportunity to miss,
since possibly a portion of coal might be left by the officers just
gone. One of the British officers therefore paid a visit to the empty
cell. There was nothing to hinder him from doing so, for he merely had
to proceed down the corridor from his own cell till he reached the other
one. Immediately, however, he put his head in at the door the sentry
outside shot at him through the grated window. Fortunately he missed
him, but that was not the fault of the sentry. Of course we complained
at such disgraceful treatment, and the commandant said he would severely
rate the sentry, but nothing ever came of it in the way of redress.