When the night was as black as could be hoped for, I walked a hundred yards or so along the road, bent double and with every sense alert. Then a path on my right led me through tall woods. Coming into the open, I corrected my course, and not long after I was stopped by a deep ditch, almost a canal. Its banks showed white and sandy in the starlight; on the side nearest me was a line of narrow rails. Some tip-over trucks were standing on them, and a few lay upturned on the ground. I remember bending down, in order to feel whether or not the rails were smooth on top, a sign of recentuse, but straightened immediately. Since I should be either in Holland, or a prisoner, or dead before the morning, these precautions seemed superfluous.
The ditch threw me out of my course. Walking along it, I noticed a triangular sheen of light in the sky bearing northwest. It looked as if it were the reflex of a well-illuminated place miles ahead. I took it to be the first station in Holland on the railway from Bocholt. Later I was able to verify this.
When I got to the end of the ditch, I struck out across the flat country toward the light. It took me some time to extricate myself from a swamp. In trying to work around it, with an idea of edging in toward a railway line which I knew to be entering Holland somewhere on my left, I suddenly came upon a road running northwest. I left it quicker than I had got on it, walking parallel to it over plowed land and keeping it in sight. Shortly after, I passed between two houses, to see another road in front of me running at right angles to the former.
I crouched in the angle between the two roads, trying to penetrate the darkness, and listening with all my might. I could see no living thing, and all was silent. Just across from me a structure, the nature of which I could not make out,held my gaze. I waited, then jumped across the road into its shadow. It now resolved itself into an open shed, with a wagon underneath. Again I listened and looked, with my back toward Holland, watching the two houses I had passed, and nervously scanning the road.
Far down it a small dog began to bark. Not taking any notice of it at first, I was in the act of starting across a field covered knee-high with some stiff growth, when it occurred to me that the barking sounded like an alarm, of which I could not be the cause.
Gaining the shelter of the shed again, and straining my ears, I became aware of distant and approaching footsteps, regular and ominous. I ducked into the ditch, crawling half under the floor of the shed, and waited. When the sound was only about a yard from me, the helmet, the head, the up-slanting rifle muzzle, and the shoulders of a patrol became outlined against the sky. He walked on and was swallowed up by the darkness. His footsteps grew fainter, died away.
“Splendid!” I thought. “This road must be close to the border. It runs parallel to it. Maybe I am through the sentry lines.” I pushed on, very much excited, yet going as carefully as I could. A barbed wire and ditch werenegotiated. A patch of woodland engulfed me. Going was bad on account of holes in the ground; my instinct was for rushing it, and difficult to curb.
Three shallow ditches side by side! I felt them with my hand to make sure they were not merely deeply trodden paths. “This must be the frontier!”
I was shaking with excitement and exultation when I started forward again. My leg went into a hole, and I fell forward across a dry piece of wood, which exploded underneath me with a noise like a pistol shot. I scrambled to my feet, listened, and walked on.
“Halt!” The command came like a thunderclap and shook me from head to foot. Yet I did not believe that it could mean anything but a Dutch sentry. I stopped and tried to locate the man, who, from the sound of his voice, must be very close. I could not see him.
“Come here, and hold up your hands!”
I did so and stepped forward.
“Here, here!” The voice was almost at my elbow. Then I saw the white patch of a face above a bush. He came up to me, putting his pistol muzzle in my stomach.
“Who are you?”
I was a bit dizzy and shaken, but not quite done yet.
“Who areyou?” I asked.
“I’m a frontier guard.”
“Dutch or German?” I could not see his uniform.
“German!”
I groaned aloud; then: “What the —— are you stopping me for? What are you doing here, anyway? Leave me alone; I’m on Dutch soil.”
For answer he stepped back, saw the cudgel in my upraised hand, and said sharply, “Drop that stick.” I obeyed. He whistled, and got an answer from close by, followed by the breaking of branches and footsteps, as somebody else moved toward us. My captor put his automatic into his pocket, keeping his hand on it.
“Who are you?” he demanded again.
“That has nothing whatever to do with you. I crossed the frontier about fifty yards down there. Good night!”
“Stop! You’re over an hour from the frontier yet.”
For a moment I wondered whether I could get my weight into a blow on his jaw and make a break for it; but, as I swung slightly forward, lowering my left a little at the same time, I reflected that I could not possibly tell whether he was in reach; it was too dark. Now I believed that I was still far from the frontier. Even if I could down him, there was the second man close by. And if a bullet did not bring me down, they could easily catch me in a race, knowing the country as I did not, or bring anynumber of soldiers about my ears. If I were caught after having struck him, it would merely mean a blank wall and a firing party. Not good enough!
All this passed quickly through my mind, the ideas being only half formed. In the long days of solitary confinement, by which I expiated my offense, I sat in judgment upon myself again and again, every time condemning myself for a slacker. But I knew much more about the actual position later than at the moment of capture, and when one is brooding in cells, ready to barter half one’s remaining life for a glimpse of the open, it is difficult to come to a just judgment. To-day I cannot see that I could have done anything but give in. Had I had money on me I should have tried offering a bribe, but I had not even a farthing piece in my pocket. The “noes” had it.
My two captors took me between them and marched me off for some time along wood-paths. The reaction had set in now, and my senses were dulled. I kept stumbling and falling until they took my arms, when we made better progress.
“Did I come straight toward you or what?” I asked dully, after a time.
“No. We were close to the place we got you at. I heard something, and walked toward the sound. Then I saw you,” was the reply of the first man.
After an indefinite time, we struck the railway and turned down it toward Germany. We walked and walked. I was beginning to collect my thoughts, and with them my suspicions of foul play were returning, when we were challenged.
A sentry flashed his torch over us. In its light I perceived for the first time that my captors were in civilian clothes, without badge or any sign of officialdom. This, and the fact that we had picked up the sentry only after walking some time in the direction toward Germany, increased my perplexity.
I had been dully aware of a strong light in front of us. It was from the headlights of a train standing in a small station. In front of it we passed over a level crossing, and approached an inn opposite.
They took me into a bar-room. At a table on one side of the bar sat a soldier in the uniform of what the Germans call “a sergeant-major-lieutenant,” a Catholic priest, and a civilian, who turned out to be mine host. The sentry reported to the soldier while the old priest made me sit down at their table. The officer did not seem to like this arrangement at first, but thepadre took no notice of him. He asked me in English whether I was hungry and thirsty. I pleaded guilty to both counts, and the nice old man forthwith ordered beer and sandwiches for me, telling me the while in bad English that he had been to the Jesuit College in Rome, where he had picked up his knowledge of the language from Irishmen.
In the meantime my captors were regaling themselves at the bar. Turning to them, the padre suddenly asked, “Where did you get him?” “Near ——,” was the answer from the first man. “But—but—but that’sverynear the frontier,” stammered the priest, with a look of astonishment on his face. “No, no,” chorused the assembled company, as if acting on instructions, “that’s still an hour from the frontier,” using exactly the words my captors had used in the woods. I stopped eating for a time. I felt physically sick. Only to imagine that I had won through, actually got over the frontier, as I began firmly to believe now, to be tricked back!
The food and the beer had given me fresh strength. When I was told that it was time to go, I felt more or less indifferent. We passed along a road, the two civilians in front, the soldier behind, and I in the middle, occupied withmy own thoughts and only answering with a grim cheerfulness such questions as were addressed to me.
Here I made my second grave mistake, counting the attempt at passing through Vehlen as the first. Had I kept alert for “something to turn up,” I could not have failed to see that we were marching along the road which I had crossed some time before, and passing the same shed. Had I noticed it then, instead of the next morning, I should have known where the guard-room was in which I spent the night. Instead of that—but that is anticipating events.
Presently we arrived at the guard-house, an ordinary farmhouse the ground floor of which had been cleared for the sterner duties of war.
Above the table of the N.C.O.[1]in charge a large scale map hung against the wall. I was not permitted to go near it, but its scale, being perhaps three or four inches to the mile, allowed me to see pretty much all there was to be seen from the other side of the room, where I had to spend the night on a chair. I recognized the road I had crossed (the ditch was marked on it); and, where the three narrow ditches ought to have been, there began the blank space with the name “Holland” written across it.
[1]N.C.O.: non-commissioned officer.
[1]N.C.O.: non-commissioned officer.
I could not see the guard-house marked, probably because I did not know where to look for it. Consequently I had not the faintest idea of what to do provided I could get away. This uncertainty made me miss a chance. Of course I was never alone in the room, but once during the night the N.C.O. took me out. He had no rifle with him; I doubt whether he had a pistol. Naturally he kept close to me; yet, had I only known where to turn, a break might have been possible, without entailing unreasonable risks.
At last the morning came, and with it the usual stir and bustle. One of the soldiers cursed me up and down for an Englishman. I concluded he had never been to the front. We prisoners had the same experience over and over again: the fellows with the home billets were the brutes and bullies. I was right, for my antagonist was stopped short in his peroration by a small man with a high treble voice, the result of a brain wound.
“Shut up, you! You make me tired. You’ve never seen the enemy. If any cursing of Englanders is to be done, I’ll do it. I had three English bullets in my body. T’other side’s doing their duty same as we.”
“Yes,” broke in another,“I’ve fought against the English. As long as we say nothing, keep your mouth shut. I’ll tell you as soon as your views are wanted, Mr. Stay-at-home.”
These two latter shared their breakfast with me, otherwise I should have had nothing. The second one took me outside: “Sorry, old man, hard luck! Sure you weren’t in Holland when these —— [a nasty name] dropped on you?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Only this—strictly between you and me and the doorpost, mind!—my friend and I would have liked you to get home. We can imagine what it means—‘prisoner of war.’ Make no mistake, we’d have stopped you, if you’d come across us. If only you’d been caught by soldiers instead of these —— agents! Don’t let anybody hear it, but from what I heard you were in Holland all right.”
At about ten o’clock I was taken to the inn to be examined by the “sergeant-major-lieutenant.” On the way we passed, and I recognized, the shed.
“How far is it from here to the frontier?” I asked my escort.
He did not answer.
“Look here, I can’t get away from you, can I, with no cover within two hundred yards and you having five in the magazine and one in the barrel? Can’t you understand that I want to know?”
He eyed me doubtfully.
“You can spit across the frontier from here,” he made slow answer.
That, I knew, was meant metaphorically, but it sufficed for me.
The examination did not amount to much. I was considered with grave suspicion by the sergeant-major, because at that time I could not tell him the name of the village I had escaped from. Also, the British officer was haunting their minds still. If he and I were not identical, I might have met and helped him, was their beautifully logical argument. “See that he is taken to Bocholt on the two-thirty train and handed over to a man from Company Headquarters. Now take him back to the guard-room.”
When we got back there, they put a sentry in the yard, who sat on a chair with a rifle across his lap, and went to sleep. It must have been a strictly unofficial sentry. Nobody took the slightest notice of him, and he was quite superfluous, because most of the soldiers off duty were in the yard all the time enjoying the warm sunshine. Dinner-hour came and went. I, of course, received nothing officially, but the manwho had talked with me in the morning gave me several of his sandwiches.
After dinner I was alone in the guard-room with a fresh N.C.O. in charge, who was writing up some reports. The window in the next room where the men slept at night, and which was now deserted, was not latched. I wondered whether I could get it open and make a dash for it down the road into the next cover. I had been fidgeting about, and when I changed to a steady tramp into the kitchen, through the guard-room, and then several steps into the dormitory, it attracted no attention. I doubt whether the N. C. O., intent on his task, was aware of me at all. The window was hinged, as all windows are in Germany. Twice I visited it and got it ajar. The third time I pulled it open, and had placed my hands on the sill to get out, when a patrol came into view. He saw me at the same time. The movement of his rifle could not be misunderstood. I closed the window and stepped back. The patrol came into the room and gave me some good advice:“Don’t be a fool! We’ll get you sure. Can’t afford not to. What do you think would happen to us, if you escaped? Last night, a Frenchman wouldn’t stand on challenge. He’s dead now. This is in the daytime.” He never reported me, though; or, if he did, I never heard of it.
I talked with the soldiers now and then. It appeared that fugitives were caught virtually every night. They would not admit that many got over. About one in ten was killed, so they said; but I think that is exaggerated.
They laughed when I told them of the punishment I was expecting. “You to be punished, a civilian?—nonsense! You have a right to try for it, if you care to take the risk. Why, military prisoners of war get only a fortnight cell in camp for escaping. We’ve had a Frenchman here three times in eight weeks.”
Two soldiers took me to the train and to Bocholt. There I was handed over to another N.C.O., and after a tedious journey on a steam tram we arrived at Company Headquarters in Vreden, where I was again examined, this time very thoroughly and with great cleverness.
That evening I was lodged in prison. Also, the weather broke, and it was to the music of dripping eaves and gurgling spouts that I fell asleep.
On the fourth morning, when it seemed to me I had spent about a year in Vreden prison, the warder informed me that my escort had arrived. I had plenty of time to get over the excitement produced by this piece of news, for I was not called for until four o’clock, which caused me to miss my evening bowl of skilly, a dire calamity.
The soldier was waiting in the gateway. Walking down the passage toward him, I had to pass by a big burly N.C.O. of the German Army, who had a tremendous sword attached to him. I felt that something was going to happen when I approached him. As I was squeezing past him in the narrow corridor, he suddenly shot out a large hand, with which he grasped mine, limp with surprise. Giving it a hearty shake, he wished me a pleasantAuf Wiedersehen!(Au revoir!) I was almost past utterance with astonishment, and could only repeat his words stammeringly.“Not on your life, if I can help it,” I murmured when I had turned away and was recovering from the shock. Still, I suppose it was kindly meant.
My escort, a single soldier, went through the usual formalities of loading his rifle before my eyes and warning me to behave myself. The cord for special marksmanship dangled from his shoulder.
He was strictly noncommittal at first, and only assured me again, apropos of nothing, during our walk to the station, that he did not intend to have me escape from him. Afterward he thawed considerably, but always remained serious and subdued, talking a good deal about his wife and children, what a hard time they had of it, and that he had not seen them for eighteen months.
The preliminary jolt of the small engine of the narrow-gage train gave me the sinking sensation usually caused by the downward start of a fast lift, and for a time my heart seemed to be getting heavier with every revolution of the wheels, which put a greater distance between me and the frontier. Had I cherished hopes in spite of all? I don’t know.
With several changes the journey to Berlin lasted through the night. I was very hungry, and the soldier shared with me what little foodhe had. Two incidents are worth mentioning.
At the time of my escape a political tension between Holland and Germany had caused rumors of a threatened break between the two countries. The soldier who arrested me in Vehlen had alluded to it. My escort and I were alone in a third-class compartment of the east-express, about midnight, when a very dapper N.C.O. entered. He took in the situation at a glance.
“Prisoner’s escort?”
“Yes.”
“What is he?”
“An Englander.”
“Trying to escape to Holland?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I only hope the trouble with Holland will come to a head. We’ll soon show those damned Dutchmen what German discipline means. We’ll sweep the country from end to end in a week. Did he get far?”
“Close to the frontier.”
“However did he manage that in that get-up?” and he sniffed disgustedly.
The other incident was interesting in case of future attempts to escape. About an hour before the train entered Berlin, detectives passed along the corridors asking for passports. Ibegan to wonder how I had managed to get as far as I had.
We arrived in Berlin about 9A.M.Before we proceeded to the prison, the soldier compassionately bought me a cup of coffee and a roll at the station buffet. I had had nothing to eat since 11:30A.M.the previous day, except a roll the soldier had given me about midnight.
This was at Alexander Platz Station, fairly in the center of Berlin. As we left the station, Alexander Platz was in front of us with the façade of the Polizei Präsidium on our right. Turning in this direction, we entered a quiet street along the right side of which the arches of the railway accommodated a few small shops and storage places underneath them. On the other side a wing of the Polizei Präsidium continued for a hundred yards or so. The next building was plain, official-looking but of no very terrible aspect, for the four rows of large windows above the ground floor were not barred on the outside. In its center a large gateway was closed by a heavy wooden double door. “Here we are,” said my escort, as he pressed the button of the electric bell.
One half of the door was opened by an N.C.O. of the army. Inside the gateway on the left a corridor ran along the front of the building,terminating at a door bearing the inscription “Office,” on an enameled shield. A motion of the hand from the N.C.O. directed us toward it. We entered. Another N.C.O. was sitting at a table, writing. My soldier saluted, reported, then shook hands with me and departed.
“Your name, date of birth, place of birth, and nationality?” said the N.C.O. at the table, not unkindly.
I looked at the plain office furniture of the irregular room before answering, feeling very downhearted. Having given him the information he wanted, I asked apprehensively: “What are you going to do with me?”
“We’ll put you in solitary confinement.”
“For how long?”
“Couldn’t tell you.”
“And what then?”
“You’re going to stay with us so long that you needn’t bother yet about the ‘what then.’”
“But aren’t you going to send me back to Ruhleben when I’m through with my punishment for escaping?”
“I’ve nothing to do with it and don’t know. But I’m pretty sure you’ll have to stay here till the end of the war.”
“That’s hard punishment for an attempt to get home!”
“Bless my soul, you’re not going to be locked up all the time! There are a number of Englanders here. Most of them are up and down these stairs the whole day.” With this he went out and shouted for some one. Another N.C.O. appeared. “Take this man to Block Twenty-three and lock him up. Here’s his slip.” The slip, I saw later, was a piece of paper stating my name and nationality, and marked with a cross which stood for “solitary confinement.” It was to be fastened to the outside of my cell door.
In its original meaningStadtvogteidenotes the official residence of theStadtvogt. This was an official appointed in feudal times by the overlord of the territory, as keeper of one of his castles, around which an early settlement of farmers and a few artisans had grown into a medieval town orStadt.
Later on, as a fit successor of the old Stadtvogtei, a prison arose in its place, which was modernized from time to time, until in 1916 a new modern building stood where once victims had vanished into dungeons, and, later, political prisoners (among them Bebel, in 1870) had languished in dark, musty, insanitary cells.
Bricks, iron, concrete, and glass had been used in the construction of this building, the scanty furniture and the cell doors being the only wood to be found in it.
I never came to know the whole of the Stadtvogtei, but learned gradually that it enclosed a number of courtyards. These were triangularin shape and just sixty paces in circumference. Around them the walls rose five stories high, and made deep wells of them rather than yards. The regularly spaced windows, tier upon tier, with their iron bars increased the dreariness of their aspect.
With a yard as a center, each part of the prison surrounding it formed a structural entity, a “block,” separated from the next one by a space about eight feet wide, and extending from the ground floor right up to the glass roof above. The aggregation of blocks was enclosed by the outer walls as the segments of an orange are enclosed by the peel. With the cell windows toward the yards, the doors were in the circumference of the blocks. In front of them, frail-looking balconies, or gangways, extending around the blocks, took the place of corridors, and overhung by half its width the space separating the component parts of the prison. Their floors consisted in most places of thick plates of glass, fitting into the angle-irons of the cantilevers. Iron staircases and short bridges permitted communication between the different floors and blocks.
Imagine yourself standing at the end of one of these corridors and looking down its vista. In the wall nearest to you the perspectively diminishing quadrilaterals of eighteen evenly spaced doors, each with its ponderous lock, bolt, and a spy-hole in the center, with a row of ventilating holes above them, and, underfoot and above, the glass of two balcony floors. On the opposite side a breast-high iron railing, beyond it four feet of nothingness, and then the blank stretch of a whitewashed wall, reflecting the light from the skylights on top of the building.
Try to think of yourself as so situated that a chance of “enjoying” this view mornings and evenings, when the cell doors are unlocked for a few minutes, is eagerly anticipated as a change from the monotony of the cell, and you will in one respect approach the sensations of a man in solitary confinement.
Then imagine that the sight of this same gaunt vista every day causes you a feeling of almost physical nausea, that you keep in your cell, or somebody else’s, as much as possible to escape it, and you may perhaps realize a fractional part of the circle of the disagreeable sensations of a man who has had the “liberty of the prison” for, say, six months.
As a rule such emotions are subconscious, but they come to the surface when the periodical attack of prison sickness of the soul lays hold of you, a temporary affection of the mind which isvery disagreeable to the individual who suffers from it, and may have unpleasant effects on his companions and friends. We used to hide these attacks as carefully as we could from one another.
Originally the prison had been used for criminals undergoing light sentences of two or three years and less, and for remand prisoners. One entire block had been used for the latter. There the cells were superior to those in the remainder of the building, where there were stone floors, very small windows, and no artificial light, while the beds consisted of boards on an iron frame and a paillasse. In the remand cells the floor was covered with red linoleum, and in this part landings and corridors were covered with the same material, there were larger windows, spring mattresses hinged to the wall, and—luxury beyond belief to a man from Ruhleben camp—electric lamps.
Except when special punishment was being inflicted, the political prisoners, among whom I count the civil prisoners of war, inhabited this better part of the prison, comprising perhaps three hundred cells around one yard.
Over a year before my arrival the German military authorities had taken over the greater part of the Stadtvogtei for their own prisoners.Only a small portion was still occupied by the civil prison authorities and their charges. One or two of the latter occasionally appeared in our wing, in the charge of a civil warder, to do an odd job. They were permanently used in the kitchen, the bath and disinfecting place, and before the furnace.
In the military part of the prison N.C.O.’s of the army acted as warders for the military and political prisoners.
Of the former there were always a great many. They were undergoing punishment for slight breaches of discipline, or were remanded there awaiting trial before a court martial. Occasionally a number of French soldiers, and now and again an English Tommy or tar, were incarcerated among them. When this happened, and we heard of it, we tried to help them with food, tobacco, and cigarettes. It was very seldom that we succeeded, as we were not allowed on corridors the cells of which were used for military prisoners.
Since, however, the remand block did not quite suffice for the political and civilian prisoners of war, we occasionally found ourselves in the military block, though quartered above the soldiers on separate corridors. In this fashion, and on occasional trips through the prison tosee the doctor or to get something from the kitchen, we saw and heard enough of the treatment meted out to the German soldiers to form an opinion of their sufferings.
In this the most cherished traditions of the German Army, and of the German N.C.O.’s, were rigidly adhered to. We never heard one of the poor prisoners being spoken to in an ordinary voice by their jailers. They were shouted at, jeered at, abused, beaten, and bullied in every conceivable way. Their part of the prison was in a continual uproar from the voices of the N.C.O.’s, who evidently enjoyed the privilege of torturing in perfect safety their fellow-beings.
Sometime during 1917 an N.C.O. who had spent most of his life in England came to the prison. I heard him talk with one of my friends one evening. A few days after, on my way to the kitchen, I had the unpleasant experience of seeing him break up one of his charges. The man had obviously had a dose before I arrived on the scene, for he was sobbing in his pitch-dark cell, while the N.C.O. was talking at him in a way that made my blood boil.
A few weeks before this happened, a friend of ours, a former A. S. C. man, had shot into the cell where I was sitting with a chum. He waslaughing queerly, highly excited and pale.
“Look into the yard, look into the yard!” he cried, jumping on a table underneath the window. We followed as fast as we could, but were just too late. This is what had happened:
A Black Maria had been driven into the yard. Two or three N.C.O.’s had surrounded it and opened the door, and one of them had climbed inside. The next moment a German cavalryman, manacles on wrists and ankles, was pitched literally head over heels on to the stone pavement of the yard, where he lay, seemingly stunned. Two of the N.C.O.’s grabbed him by the collar and, kicking the motionless form, dragged him through the gates, which closed after them.
Most of the military prisoners were kept in dark cells. I do not know for how long this kind of punishment may be inflicted, but I believe six weeks is the maximum term. Imagine what it means to spend only two weeks in a perfectly dark, comfortless room on bread and water, sleeping on bare boards without blankets. Yet that, as it appeared, would be a very ordinary sentence.
This kind of punishment could be inflicted on anybody who was directly under military law, as we prisoners of war were. During my seventeen months in prison, it occurred only once that an Englishman, an ex-navy man, got a week of it. My particular friends and I were able to get a well-cooked, hot meal to him on most days. When he came out, he vowed he could have stuck a month of it, thanks to our ministrations, but his drawn face seemed to belie his words.
While the military prisoners had their food sent in from a barracks outside—judging from what we saw of it, it was rather good—we were supplied from the prison kitchen. The food varied somewhat in quality and quantity at different times. In 1914 and again in the following year it was nauseous, and so insufficient that after four weeks in prison young men found it impossible to mount the four flights of stairs to the top corridor in less than half an hour. When I arrived it happened to be comparatively good for a few weeks. The amount one got would have kept a man alive, though in constant hunger tortures, for perhaps six months, if he was in good condition to start with.
Breakfast was at 7:30 and consisted of a pint of hot black fluid, distantly resembling very thin coffee in taste, and a piece of bread weighing eight ounces, black, but much better than the bread we were accustomed to in camp. A pint of soup was served for dinner, but there wasnever any meat in it. Rumor had it that meat was occasionally added but disappeared afterward. The staple substance in the beginning was potatoes, with mangel-wurzels during the following winter. By far the best soup, which disappeared from the bill of fare altogether for a long time, contained plenty of haricot-beans. It was usually given out on Saturdays or Sundays, and tasted rather good. Another one, tolerable for a hungry man, consisted of a sort of black bean, with hard shells but mealy kernels, and potatoes. A fish soup appeared on the menu three times a week; fortunately one could smell it as soon as the big pails left the kitchen at the other end of the building. This gave one a chance of accumulating the necessary courage to face it in one’s bowl. It really was horrible beyond words.
At about five o’clock a pint of hot water with barley was intended to furnish the last meal of the day. Often there was less than a pint of fluid, and most often the barley was entirely absent. But the water had always a dirty blue color; consequently it did not even appeal to one’s æsthetic sense. On Sundays these rations were sometimes supplemented by a pickled herring or a small piece of sausage. I could never bring myself to touch these.
Subsistence on the prison food exclusively would have been almost impossible. I am not speaking from the point of view of the average man, who has had plenty all his life, but as a one-time prisoner of war in Germany, who has seen what incredibly little will keep the flame of life burning, at least feebly.
Fortunately, almost all the politicals or prisoners of war obtained extra sustenance in some way or another, although the majority of the Poles and Russians did so only occasionally and in small quantities.
As far as the British were concerned, we got enough food from England in our parcels to do entirely without the prison diet. Those amongst us who found themselves temporarily short of eatables simply drew from others who were better supplied.
I had had a foretaste of prison in Cologne in November, 1914, which had not been encouraging. Consequently I felt apprehensive enough, while mounting the stairs behind the N.C.O. on the morning of my arrival.
The prison being very full, only a convict cell ten feet long and five wide was available for me, into which I was thrust without ceremony. A small window, barred, and high up in the narrow wall, faced the door. The bed on the left was hinged to the brick work and folded flat against it. A stool in the corner by the door was balanced on the other side by the hot-water pipes for heating. Farther along, toward the window, a small double shelf, with three pegs underneath, took the place of wardrobe, cupboard, and bookcase. It held a Prayer Book, a New Testament, an earthenware plate, bowl and mug, a wooden salt-cellar, a tumbler, and a knife, fork, and spoon. Against one side of it hung a small printed volume of prison rules and a piece of cardboard, showing a dissected drawing of the shelves, with the contents in regulation order, and an inventory underneath. In the center of the wall a small table was hinged and fastened like the bed. A Bible text above decorated the cell.
When in the course of the morning bed-linen and a towel were issued to me, I was vastly pleased. I had not expected such luxuries. The former consisted of a coarse gray bedcloth, an enormous bag of the same material, but checkered in blue, and another small one of the same kind. The big bag was to serve as a cover for the two blankets, which were to be folded inside; the small one was a pillow-slip.
Dinner meant another welcome interruptionin the difficult task of settling down, and, since it was Saturday, turned out to be bean soup. Although the quantity was far short of what I required, particularly in my famished state, it appeared so tasty, so far beyond anything I had been accustomed to in camp as far as German rations were concerned, that I was beginning to think myself in clover.
Still, I was in solitary confinement. How long was this state of affairs to last? I had asked the man in charge of the canteen, a British prisoner who paid me a visit in his official capacity. He did not know. He had had four and a half months after his escape of the previous summer. The N.C.O.’s refused to commit themselves, if they answered my questions at all. So I tried to face the prospect of being shut up in a small cell, with no company but my own, for five months. On this basis I worked out the final date, made a very rough calendar, and thereafter at 11A.M., the hour of my arrival in the Stadtvogtei, marked with great ceremony the termination of every twenty-four hours in “solitary.”
I was not examined again, contrary to my expectations, and my clever plans, framed in Vreden prison, of “diddling the Boche” into a forgiving frame of mind could not be tested. Myhopes of a glimpse of Ruhleben camp and my friends were not realized. The term of my solitary confinement evidently was regarded as a state secret, not to be communicated even to the person whom it most concerned. This was a policy always pursued by theKommandanturin Berlin—whether out of sheer malice or callous indifference I don’t know. Since I was the first escaper to be punished under a new regulation, there was no precedent to form an opinion from; but I did not know that, and consequently expected the same term of “solitary” as other men before me. Those who came after me were not permitted to have much doubt about the subject. We saw to that.
On the morning of the second day I was told that, in addition to solitary confinement, punishment diet had been ordered by the powers that were. One day out of every three (for four weeks) I was to receive bread and water only. It sounded unpleasant. The canteen man, who came to see me every day for a few minutes, assured me that this was something new, quite outside his experience, and, being pressed, cheered me vastly by consenting to my expressed opinion that it might, perhaps, indicate a correspondingly short term of “solitary.”
As it turned out, the punishment diet provedthe reverse of what it was intended to be, an aggravation. In filling power, twenty-four ounces of bread were far superior to the ordinary prison food, and much more palatable than fish soup. Very soon I began to look forward to my “hard” days.
On the morning of the third day a different N.C.O. took charge of my corridor and me. I cannot speak too highly of him. Good-natured and disinterestedly kind, he made my lot as easy as possible. Knowing a little about prison routine by now, I had got up before the clanging of the prison bell had sounded, apprehensive of being late. Then I set to work cleaning my cell, scrubbing the floor and dusting the “furniture,” and was quite ready when the doors were opened to permit us to empty the cell utensils and get fresh water. This was soon accomplished, and I lingered outside in the corridor to enjoy the “view.” Not far from me a Polish prisoner was cleaning the balcony floor, and the N.C.O.—let us call him Kindman—was trying hard to make the Pole understand that the water he was using was too dirty for the purpose. The poor Pole, not comprehending a word, was working away doggedly, while Kindman was gradually raising his voice to a shriek in his efforts to make his charge understand, without producingthe slightest effect. He was not at all nasty about it, as one would have expected from a German N.C.O.; he merely substituted vocal effort for his lack of knowledge of Polish.
“I tell you, you are to use clean water, not dirty water, clean water, not dirty water, dirty water no good, no good,” shaking his head. Pause, to get a fresh breath. Roaring: “Clean water, clean, clean, clean!” Despairingly he glanced in my direction. I fetched my own pail, full of clean water, put it beside the Pole’s, and, stirring it with my hand, nodded vigorously. Then, pointing to the thick fluid in the other pail, I made the sign of negation. The Pole understood.
“You cleaned your cell before opening time this morning?” Kindman asked a little later. “You needn’t do that. I’ll get you aKalfacter—a man to do the dirty work for you. You’re a prisoner of war. You are allowed these privileges. There are plenty of Poles here who’ll be only too glad to do it for a mark a week.”
After some hesitation I assented. In camp I had perhaps taken a foolish pride in doing everything myself, with the exception of washing my underclothes. Now, in prison, I had a Kalfacter to scrub and clean. Instead, I beganto do my own washing, not liking to entrust it to the doubtfully clean hands of a Pole.
“I’ll get you a better cell,” was Kindman’s next announcement. A few days after I moved into one of the remand cells with its comfortable bed, its nice red “lino” floor, and a bright electric light burning up to nine o’clock, while hitherto I had sat in darkness of an evening.
So far so good. There were no terrible physical hardships to endure. It was unpleasant not to have enough food. I did get some help from my fellow-countrymen, but parcels were arriving irregularly just then, and it was little they could spare me. My own had stopped altogether, and I had only very little money to buy things with, and that borrowed, and consequently it had to be hoarded like a miser’s until I could get some of my own. I was always hungry, and often could not sleep for griping pains, while pictures of meals I had once eaten, and menus I would order as soon as I got to England, kept appearing before me.
It was a red-letter day when my hand-bag arrived from the sanatorium. Besides the clothes, it contained several tins of food, which I determined to consume as sparingly as possible. That, however, was easier planned than done. Knowing the food to be within reach, I simplycould not keep my hands from it. It all went in two days. I remember getting up in the middle of the night to open a tin containing a Christmas pudding, and eating it cold to the last crumb. Marvelous to relate, I went peacefully to sleep after that.
The actual treatment in “solitary” was much better than I had hoped for in my most optimistic moments. Mentally, however, I suffered somewhat during the first fortnight or three weeks. I had to battle against the worst attack of melancholia I had ever experienced. I never lost my grip of myself entirely, but came very near succumbing to absolute despair. The uncertainty about the duration of my punishment, the cessation of all letters and parcels from Blighty at a time when I most wanted them, the fear that my correspondence would merely wander into the waste-paper basket of a German censor, and last, but not least, the lack of response from my friends in camp to my post-cards—all combined to depress my spirits horribly.
I began to wish heartily that I had made a daylight attempt from the guard-house, which certainly would have ended my troubles one way or another. The drop from the balcony to the stone flags below had an unholy fascination.For a number of days I gazed down every moment of the few minutes I was allowed outside my cell.
In the beginning of the war I had read of the attempted escape of a British officer from a fortress in Silesia. When he was apprehended somewhere in Saxony, he committed suicide with his razor. “What a fool!” had run my unsympathetic comment to my friends; “what did he want to do that for?” Now I could not forget his tragic end, and not only understood his action but almost admired him for it.
Every afternoon the other men in solitary confinement and I spent an hour—from three to four o’clock—walking in single file round the yard. An N.C.O., with a big gun strapped to his waist, kept guard over us, and had been ordered to see that we did not talk together. With an indulgent man on guard it was occasionally possible to get in a word or two, even to carry on a conversation for ten minutes or so. In this way I made the acquaintance of all the other Englishmen who were in the same position as I.
As I became more cheerful, I began to relish the books which were sent to me by the other English prisoners, and to look about for means of snatching what enjoyment I could under thecircumstances. Two visits to the prison doctor for the treatment of “sleeplessness” gave me opportunities of chatting for half an hour with my friend Ellison, who faked up some complaint on the same days.
My punishment diet was to end on the 8th of May. That over, I expected another four months under lock and key, until the 10th of September.
On the 7th of May, while tramping round the yard, the sergeant-major, second in command, came in and beckoned me to him.
“You’ve finished your ‘solitary’!” he said.
“Do you mean to say to-day?” I asked. “Am I to have my cell door open, and may I see the other men?”
When the hour of exercise was over, I sped up the stairs, taking four steps at a stride, and searched for Kindman.
“I’m out of ‘solitary,’” I bawled. “I’m going to see the other chaps!”
“Hey, wait a moment,” he cried. “I must lock your cell door first.”
“But I tell you I’m out of ‘solitary’!”
“I believe you, though I don’t know officially. I’m not going to lock you in, but lock the door I will. If we leave it open, you’ll find all your things gone when you come back. These Poles would take anything they can lay their hands on, and small blame to them. Most of them haven’t a shirt to their back.”
I did not return to my cell until lock-up time, feeling comfortably replete from various teas I had had, and my throat raw from incessant talking.
The part of our block reserved for men in solitary confinement, one side of the triangle, was separated from the rest by iron gates on each landing. These gates barred access to the military part as well. They were always kept locked. To clamber over them was easy enough; to be seen doing so spelled seven days’ cells. My first care, consequently, was to get a cell “in front of the gate.” This term was equivalent among us for ordinary confinement as opposed to solitary, for, in ordinary circumstances, nobody would willingly stay in a cell “behind the gate” if not in “solitary,” and was, in fact, not supposed to do so.
An unexpected physical phenomenon, which I afterward observed in others, made itself unpleasantly felt in my case. The first days following my release from “behind the gate” I was extremely nervous and restless; at times I longed to be back in “solitary” with the cell door securely locked upon me.
The prisoners interned in the Stadtvogtei were divided into two classes, the aristocrats, or rather the plutocrats, and the rest, thus repeating faithfully the state of affairs in the outer world.
To the former belonged all the British without exception, a few occasional Frenchmen and Belgians, a number of Russians of education and means, temporarily some German socialists—they would be disgusted if they read this—and one or two German undesirables, adventurers and high-class pickpockets, who had come out of prison recently, but were probably not considered safe enough to be at large.
The “rest” was composed of an ever-changing mass of Russian and Polish laborers, never less than two hundred and fifty in number.
Wealth admitted to the upper class. The possibility of procuring food was wealth. This explains why all the British were plutocrats, for they received parcels from home, and had morefood, as a rule, than anybody else. Frenchmen and Belgians, on the contrary, held a precarious position on the outside edge of society. Not having friends in Germany who could supply them with food, as was the case with the Russian and German plutocrats, and their parcels from France and Belgium being exceedingly few, they were frequently in straits. But then, of course, they were “taken up” by some of the “plutocratic” Englishmen, who chose their associates according to other standards than those of digestible possessions.
As far as malice aforethought is concerned, Englishmen have been, and are, the worst treated of all the prisoners of war in Germany. I believe the Russians had a harder time of it from sheer neglect by the higher authorities, being delivered over to the tender mercies of the German N.C.O. and private soldier, clothed with a little brief authority. This class of human beings was always chary of tackling Englishmen, either singly or in small groups.
In the Stadtvogtei the usual order was reversed. There we were the cocks of the walk among the prisoners, and, in time, entirely unofficial privileges developed appertaining to us as Englishmen. They were inconspicuous enough in themselves. An incident will serveas an illustration. It was the more startling in its significance as I had no idea that the privilege in question had come to exist until it had happened.
It was in the summer of 1917. The prisoners in ordinary confinement were allowed to be in the courtyard at certain hours of the day, but were supposed to enter and leave it only at the full and half-hours. I had observed this rule so far, except on a very few occasions, when I had asked the doorkeeper to let me in and out at odd times. I was doing certain work for the British colony, which now and then called me there on business.
One morning I happened to be walking about with Captain T., then recently released from solitary confinement for an attempt at escaping. We were waiting for the door to be unlocked to leave the yard, and when the doorkeeper opened it between times, I, followed by the captain, passed through, nodding my acknowledgment to the N.C.O. On seeing my companion, he stepped up to him threateningly and shouted, “What d’you mean by coming out, you ——” I had not grasped the situation, but jumped between them instinctively and said, “Hold on. This is an Englishman!”
“I beg your pardon, I didn’t know. I thought he was a Pole. I’ve never seen him before.”
Captain T. had missed the meaning of the affair, and I had to explain it to him. I went up the stairs to our cell feeling very chesty.
Up to the beginning of June, 1916, the British numbered less than twenty. During the course of the summer and autumn our colony grew until we were about thirty-four strong. More than half of the new arrivals were escapers. We had our experiences in common, and a class feeling, even some class characteristics. We certainly all felt equally hostile to that particular section in Ruhleben camp whose attitude toward us was summed up in these words: “Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves? Can’t you stay and take your gruel?” We were actually asked these questions.
K. was the doyen of our group. He was older than the rest. His attempt, with a companion, in April, 1915, to which I have referred in a previous chapter, was the first made from Ruhleben, and he had been at liberty longer than any one else—more than three weeks. He was one of the most charming men one could wish to meet, though, as he was a Scotsman, it took some little time to break down his reserve. Hailingfrom the same part of the kingdom, there were W. and M. who had been in prison since June, 1915, followed soon after by Wallace Ellison, my friend and comrade-to-be, and another man—both excellent fellows. Wallace was my neighbor on the right, as K. was on the left, when I had succeeded in getting a cell on the top floor, coveted on account of the light and air and the greater expanse of sky visible from the window. Of some of the men who came after me I shall speak later on.
One of my companions, not an escaper, was Dr. Béland, a well-known Canadian. He had been residing in Belgium when the war broke out, and, although a physician, he had been arrested in the summer of 1915, and sent to prison in Berlin. The Germans regarded him as a member of an enemy government, and justified their action in their own way, by saying that this eliminated his standing as a member of the medical profession. As a matter of fact, Dr. Béland was not a member of the Cabinet in Canada, and had not been for some time. He belonged, however, to the House of Commons.
Dr. Béland was a man of great personal charm. His wide experience, his high good humor, which never failed under the ordinary,trying conditions of life in prison, his readiness to help all those in distress, and his brilliant powers as a conversationalist, made it a delight to meet him. In the course of time we got to know each other well, and in January, 1917, he rendered us, particularly a friend and myself, a great service by the delicate handling of an affair which almost got us sent to a penal prison.
Little consideration was ordinarily shown him by the German authorities. When they had an opportunity, as once happened to be the case, they treated him with a refined cruelty which created universal indignation among his companions.
Apart from the British who were permanent boarders at our establishment, occasional birds of passage on their way to Ruhleben camp alighted there for a night or two. Most of them were boys who had been residing in Belgium. Unable to get away when the invasion overwhelmed that unhappy country, and not having attained the “internable” age of seventeen, they had been compelled to stay on, until the day of their seventeenth birthday brought their arrest and subsequent internment as a Greek gift from the conquerors.
Among the other plutocrats, whatever their nationality, we found some cheery and interesting companions. Several of the socialists were men of high intellectual attainments and charming manners. We were on the best terms with them, a circumstance which, I believe, gave rise to some uneasiness to the prison governor. He certainly had always something nasty to say about them, looking down from the height of his semi-education upon men who knew what they were talking about, who knew—none better—the German governing classes, and who were perfectly frank about them. We often had them to tea in our cell. They gave us sufficient insight into the pre-war intrigues which led to the catastrophe, and into the falsehoods and falsifications of the German Government, to make us catch our breath.
The component parts of the “rest,” the Polish and Russian laborers, came and went. We did not get into real contact with them. The difficulties of language stood in the way, for one thing. Poor and ignorant, most of them illiterate, they were greatly to be pitied. With very little besides the prison food to live on, and constantly maltreated by the N.C.O.’s, it is still somewhat of a marvel to me that they did not succumb. Their powers of passive resistance, their ability under such circumstances to keep on living, and even to retain a certain amountof cheerfulness, can be explained only by their low intellectual and emotional standard and the centuries of slavery or semi-slavery their ancestors had endured.
The most pitiable objects were boys, children almost, who occasionally appeared among them. Tiny mites they were as to stature, with the faces of old men on bodies of children of eight or nine years of age. They, too, had been recruited by German agents. Most of them seemed to have been sent into the coal-mines, where hard work and little food had broken them completely. Their actual years were usually between thirteen and sixteen.
With their mental powers almost destroyed, and nearly too weak to walk, they used to sit in their cells or stand listlessly about the corridors, their eyes lusterless and vacant.
Whenever any of them were about, they were taken on by some of us as pensioners. But even a hearty meal set before them did not bring a smile to their lips or a gleam into their eyes. Like graven images they wolfed it down, tried to kiss your hand or the hem of your coat, and went to sit or stand as before.
Not long before I arrived in prison, a change had taken place in its official personnel. Formerly, the internment side and the military side had been under different commanders.
What I heard from my friends about the character of the man in charge of the interned, previous to my coming, caused me to congratulate myself upon my good luck in not having to encounter him. He had been an out-and-out bully. He was transferred to Ruhleben camp later on, where he went under the name of “Stadtvogtei Billy.”
The officer in command of the prison after “Stadtvogtei Billy” had gone, had charge of the interned and military prisoners. ThisOberleutnant, to give him his German title, was a schoolmaster in civil life. As such he was a government official and duly imbued with the prescribed attitude of mind.
Officially we had not much to do with him. Occasionally we had to approach him for somesmall request or other, and found him courteous enough then. When he took the initiative, something disagreeable usually happened, or was going to happen.
Often he called upon some of us for a chat. That was always something of a trial. He never could get rid of hisex cathedramanners; he knew only the approved official version of whatever he was talking about, and mostly chose rather unfortunate themes for his discourses. “Prussian superiority in everything, but particularly in war,” “the eminent qualities of the Prussian rulers,” “Prussian strategy in war favorably compared with that of other nations, particularly the British,” “Jewish treason and wickedness”—such were his favorite topics. Quite frankly he ran down everything British and American. The United States in particular was sighing under the absolute rule of two wicked autocrats, one called the “President,” the other the “Almighty Dollar.” They were inhabited partly by Germans and partly by a mass of ignorant and unteachable fools and cowards, who, unable to grasp the intellectual and moral righteousness of the German nation, spouted against them, but were afraid to act. He used to bore us to tears, and his departure was always followed by sighs of relief.
Of middle size, he was well built, and kept himself superbly fit. He knew a little about boxing, and often commanded one of the Englishmen to be his sparring partner in one of the big empty cells of the military part. His tactics were to strike blows as hard as he could. Once or twice this was discouraged by his opponent.
The sergeant-major came officially into contact with us every day when he made his rounds. He was a handsome fellow, stout, with almost white hair and a fresh complexion, much younger than he looked, and an old army man. With the mannerism of a German N.C.O., he was a kindly fellow at heart, and easy to get on with. Although his voice could be heard thundering somewhere in the prison at any hour of the day, his bark was ever so much worse than his bite.
The N.C.O.’s acting as warders in our section were always considerate to us and the other plutocrats, though in different degrees and for different reasons. One or two treated us decently, quite spontaneously, and strictly within the limits of their duty. As for the rest, aquid pro quowas the more or less openly confessed basis of their behavior toward us.
The scarcity of food in Germany made it inexpensive and easy for us to keep the wheels oiled. A tin of herring or of dripping, or a few biscuits went a very long way. I think we were perfectly justified in making these small donations.
The doctor visited the prison only for an hour or two every morning, except Sundays. Any one who was foolish enough to be taken suddenly and seriously ill after he had gone, had to wait until the next day, and, if he carried his stupidity so far as to do it on a Saturday, he could not hope for medical attention until Monday morning.
Dr. Béland always helped as far as he could in such cases. Many a night he was fetched out of bed to give first aid. He was handicapped in this work of charity by his lack of drugs and stimulants.
There was a chapel in the prison, whose parson was supposed to look after our spiritual welfare. Personally, I never spoke to him, nor did I approach his shop. The expression fits, as I shall try to demonstrate.
Among us we had an engineer, M., who felt it necessary to observe his religious duties, and wished to take part in the services held in the chapel. He went to the parson to proffer his request.
“The Lord God is not for the English,” were the words in which he refused it.
The unchanging routine of our prison day was as follows: the doors of the cells, locked during the night, were opened again at half-past seven o’clock in the morning. While the Kalfacters cleaned the cells, we prepared breakfast in the kitchen. The meal over, some went into the courtyard for a walk, while others employed themselves in whatever way they felt most inclined. The canteen was open from ten o’clock until half-past ten. At eleven o’clock the midday soup was distributed. It did not concern us Englishmen, for we never took our share. The kitchen was opened again now for the preparation of the midday meal, and there was usually a rush to secure one or more of the gas-rings. The cleaning of vegetables, peeling of potatoes, and other preparations had been previously undertaken in the cells by all hands. The cooking itself was attended to by the cook of the mess and day. Soon after eleven the distribution of parcels from England was to be expected. On their arrival an N.C.O. went into the yard and shouted the names of the lucky ones, generally mispronouncing them. Leaving everything to take care of itself, their owners went helter-skelter down to the officeto take possession of their packages. From half-past three o’clock till five it was again possible to brew tea and cook, and from four to six to be in the yard. At seven o’clock we were locked up for the night. In summer, artificial light was not permitted in the cells; in winter, the current was switched off at nine o’clock.
The most important question for us was that of the food-supply. If, accidentally, a week or two was barren of parcels, the man who missed them was apt to become a nuisance to his companions by his constant expressions of grieved astonishment about this “absolutely inexplicable stoppage.” This was the case regardless of whether he had a month’s supply in hand or not.
It did not mean that we were gluttons. Apart from the absolute necessity of receiving a sufficient amount of English food, parcels and letters were the links connecting us with the Old Country. When a link was broken we felt lost and forsaken. A cessation of letters had a similar effect. Our correspondence was limited to four post-cards and two letters a month. Communication between prisoners of war in different places of internment was prohibited. We were not informed of this, however, until thesummer of 1917. A great light dawned on me then, for I could understand at last why my friends in camp had not written to me.
While in “solitary” and for two months afterward, I had a struggle to make both ends meet as far as food was concerned. Only a modicum of my letters and parcels from England arrived. I was absolutely ignorant of the fact that friends were helping me with a generosity for which I can never be sufficiently grateful. Having no relatives who could send me food, I applied at last to one of the organizations sending parcels to prisoners of war and was adopted by a generous lady in Southampton.
About that time I joined a mess of four. The pooling of our resources made them rather more than merely sufficient for us. I debated whether I should stop the last-named parcels. But there was always so much opportunity of helping others, and so much doubt whether our parcels would continue, that I said nothing.
Among a section of the British community it had always been considered an obvious duty to help their less fortunate compatriots with food, when they could afford it and the latter were in need. All new-comers required help until their parcels began arriving. Those who wereplaced in solitary confinement had to be looked after during the term of their punishment, for they were not permitted to have their parcels.
At first this was all done without method and with resulting hardships to individuals. When coöperation among the greater number of the British prisoners was finally brought about, every man “behind the gate” received tea for breakfast, a hot dinner of canned meat and vegetables, and a substantial supper at five o’clock.
Occasionally we received cases of food from the Relief in Kind Committee at Ruhleben to be distributed among the British. Here again little method was observed at first. But in course of time the organization was perfected.