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[Page 14]
of them and placing them on their feet. As they were too far gone to stand, they were left in charge of a guard to follow on later.
On our entrance into Orchies we were welcomed by the French population who could only stand on the foot-path, smile to us, touch their caps or nod their heads. The town having suffered war severe bombardment in the beginning of the war was full of ruins, all the ruined buildings had been cleared of the debris, and only the bare walls were left standing, reminding me of an ancient city crumbling to ruins.
Being taken to a pottery where we had to remain several days, shavings were spread out on a concrete floor for us to sleep on. We began to wonder what they would do with us next, because on leaving Douai, we understood our destination was to be Germany, but we soon learnt that it was impossible to believe anything the Germans said; in fact, I always treated them with contempt, not wishing to give them the satisfaction of telling us a lot of lies. About the third day here, they informed me that I was in a party of a hundred men leaving at 4 a.m. next morning, I did not know where, but was given a portion of bread – the weight of a portion of bread would be about ½ lb. - in the previous afternoon, and told to fall in sharp to time when called the next morning. A very strong guard was waiting for us, and it was not long before we got away from this insanitary camp.
We marched about 8eight hours with a spell of 10 ten minutes for rest every hour, and the German Corporal in charge of us promised all sorts of good treatment when we arrived at our destination, but I did not like putting much faith in what he said. Our destination