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[Page 17]
I would like to impress upon my readers that the conditions I am about to describe stood out on their own against the living conditions that the majority of the other prisoners had to experience when working in the country.
It is an absolute fact that no other prisoners ever found such comfortable quarters as we were now installed in. We were alloted three or four to bedrooms containing wire mattresses, straw mattresses, and a couple of blankets.
Each room was lit up with electric light and contained a washstand and utensils, wardrobe and a room-heater. Hot water was obtainable for bathing purposes, being generated by steam boilers in the cellar. In short our new quarters left very little to be desired.
Next morning we went out to work on the railway line, doing ordinary navvy work, which is hard enough at any time but on empty stomachs it took "some sticking", especially as the weather was still wintry - everything being frozen.
The following morning I was appointed house orderly through the instrumentality of Charles our interpreter. My duties were particularly light and being the worst off,as regards health, of the party, I was not slow in taking the advantage of my good fortune.
The german food was much the same as in camp though it was better cooked, thanks to the women folk who lived on the ground floor which we were not allowed to enter.
Our guard consisted of a Corporal and two privates, one of whom had been wounded in Prance, the three of these men being unfit for active service. Our treatment at their hands all the while we were in these quarters was very free and easy. While at work there were about five civilians distributed about the party who were all armed and constituted the "bosses1* as well as the sentries. The man to whom these civilians were responsible was the local stationmaster, who was a burly, typical German, being a bluster and bully very much feared by all the railway workers. The working hours were long, and on a good number of Sundays the parties were compelled to work - the pay being 8d per day, which, as cigarettes cost Id a piece - didn't keep a man in "smokes". After about a month of this monotonous routine the first batch of parcels arrived, much to the joy of everyone concerned, I scored particularly well for I received my clothing parcels, grocery and bread (some of which was two to three months old, but nevertheless tasted like "cake" to the German bread.