A “BLOND BEAST” COMMANDANT
To further illustrate the general scheme of treatment, I will recount
the form of medical attention meted out to us. A doctor from the town of
Ingolstadt visited us on Mondays and Fridays. He was quite a good
fellow, though I never saw him sober, and I went to him dozens of times.
Consequently, from a medical point of view, he was quite useless. As a
permanent assistant he had a French Alsatian Tommy, whose duty it was to
administer the doses and attend cases generally, such as massage for
rheumatism, from which we all suffered, and bandaging troublesome old
wounds. This orderly had had no training, and as a matter of fact was
taught to rub and bandage by us. He was not able to procure medicines,
and had no authority to do so.
On one occasion a Russian officer tried to commit suicide towards
midnight. This took place in the right wing of the cells, which after 9
p.m. was shut off from the administrative officer in the centre by doors
marked W and T in sketch; and although the officer’s comrades nearly
battered down the door in order to get some sort of medical help from
the commandant, it was refused; consequently the poor wretch had to lie
and bleed till morning, when he was removed to hospital in the town, too
late to help him, I fear; but of course we never were allowed to know
the result. At another time an officer in my wing (the left) was taken
with violent fever and fearful pain in breathing, which turned out to be
double pneumonia. We tried in vain to get some medical help, but we were
only laughed at from the other side of the iron-studded door, and told
that the swine officer must take his chance.
There was no sick-room of any sort. This could have been excused had we
been in or near a town, but since we were situated five miles from the
outskirts of the town it became inexcusable, especially as, owing to the
unhealthy state of the camp, everybody was more or less unwell at some
period or other. A sort of ague fever attacked nearly every one, and we
found it very difficult to keep clear of bad colds and throats. Towards
the end of December the cold became so intense that it was impossible to
keep warm. The only method of keeping the circulation up was by
skipping. Our coal allowance, which had been entirely inadequate before,
got shorter. It was now only possible to utilise it for cooking
purposes. Some means had to be found in order to add to our fuel, and
this we discovered. I refer to the wood partitions connecting those
cells which were not occupied, also some wooden partitions separating
the holes used as latrines, and the commandant’s private lavatory.
These I and another man since escaped from Germany tore down and burnt
in our cooking-stoves to create what warmth we could. Of course it was
not long before the Boches found it out, and, since they could not
discover the actual offenders, the whole of the officers in the fortress
were charged so much for repairs, which repairs never took place
unfortunately, as we should then have had a fresh supply of wood,
although we burnt everything we could possibly lay our hands on. Wood
burns at such a fearful rate that this only kept us going for a few
weeks.
It was in January that the Swiss Commission paid another visit; but
although numerous cases were up in front of them, only one French
officer was accepted, and he was eventually sent back from Constance.
The commission put me on the list, but refused to make mine a special
case, since they had no record of the history of my wound, so the hope
of going a train journey at the expense of the Boches towards the Swiss
frontier came to an end.
The British officers in general passed a good many weary hours away in
playing bridge, and owing to the limitations of light during the long
dark winter evenings we constantly played in the afternoons. At one of
these afternoon sessions we were surprised in our usual game in a cell
shared by four British officers and two Frenchmen. One of the French
officers was leaving for another camp, thus vacating one of the wooden
beds. The Boches having learned by bitter experience that a vacant bed
would be turned into firewood, within half an hour of its being vacated
paid a visit to this cell in order to remove the bed to a safer place.
This occurred during our game of bridge. Now, in order to remove the bed
from the cell, it was necessary to take it to pieces, owing to the door
of the cell not being wide enough to admit of its being taken out
whole.
While dismembering the bed the Boche carpenter in charge of the work
missed some of his stock-in-trade, which led to an immediate examination
of our cell by the commandant in person. During this examination the
door of the cell opened, and a French officer of the name of Borgeau
entered. On seeing the commandant he commenced to apologise, at which
the former flew at him, calling him a pig of a Frenchman and various
other insulting names. Borgeau very wisely withdrew to his own cell,
situated farther down the passage; but he kept the door of his cell
open, in order to intercept the commandant on his way back to his bureau
and demand an explanation for this unnecessary insult. This he did, but
before Borgeau had time to say anything the commandant went for him, and
struck him on the face and chest with his clenched fist. At the same
time his two sentries with their lowered bayonets pressed into the cell
along with the _Feldwebel_ (sergeant-major). The commandant was like a
wild beast, and in one of his furious attacks on the defenceless Borgeau
he over-swung and knocked his own _Feldwebel_ off his feet. This caused
a roar of laughter from the other occupants of the cell and increased
the general pandemonium. Fortunately Borgeau kept his head in this very
difficult situation, and resisted the inclination to strike back. Had he
done so, he would have been shot for a certainty.
Later on in the day three British officers were called to the
commandant’s bureau to sign certain necessary papers, but when they
found that they had to deal with the commandant in person they refused
to speak to him, and told him in French that they would transact their
business with the _Feldwebel_, since they did not consider him (the
commandant) either a gentleman or an officer responsible for his actions
after the affair of that morning in striking a defenceless prisoner
without the slightest provocation whatever. As a result of this they
were immediately confined to solitary cells, kept for the purpose, in
the interior of the fortress. Two officers escaped from these cells in
about two hours, and returned to their own cells. On this being
discovered they were removed to the town civilian jail.
As will be seen, in return for the vile treatment dealt out to us by the
Boches, _we did not give them very much peace whenever the opportunity
arose to do otherwise; consequently our guard was doubled at the
fortress, which pleased us very much, since we felt that we were keeping
a number of men away from the front, and thus still helping to do our
little share towards the war_. Of course it increased the difficulties
of escape a little, but not to any appreciable extent. It was almost
impossible to get away with or without a whole skin. This being the
case, a few more guards more or less did not make very much difference.
During the month of December I became very friendly with a French
officer, and the two of us decided to carry out a plan of escape which
we had hit upon. Unfortunately I am unable to give any details of the
episode, as the French officer who was my companion in the plot is still
a prisoner in Germany, and the circumstances are such that any
explanation might bring retribution on him, as we did a good deal of
damage in the process of making an outlet.
I have stated before how some British officers and a Belgian escaped
over the frozen moat. This was one of the finest efforts I have seen, as
the chance of reaching the other side of the moat alive was almost
_nil_. At the outset they had to rush over the caponiers from the
interior exercise-grounds, in full view of the sentries standing on the
top of the caponiers, down the other side, a descent at an angle of 60°,
to a depth of from fifty to sixty feet, on to the frozen moat, which was
about sixty yards broad, and then race over open country under fire for
about two hundred yards, and cross another canal which was not frozen.
The sentries started firing before the escapers reached the moat, and
kept on firing long after they had crossed. On this occasion the
proverbial bad luck of the escaper cropped up. A military waggon came
tearing down the usually deserted road to the fortress, and was brought
to a standstill on the bridge which crossed the outer canal; a troupe of
about eight or ten Boches poured from it, and in this way our
unfortunate brother officers were caught.