: Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons: Wesel Sennelager Klingelputz Ruhleben by Talbot Frederick Arthur Ambrose Mahoney Henry Charles Editor - World War 1914-1918 Prisoners and prisons Germany; World War I

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We were ordered to line up in a queue outside a small building which we were to enter singly in succession. We were commanded to have our arms bared to the shoulder in readiness. Vaccination was not carried out by Dr. Ascher, the official medical attendant to the camp, but by a young military doctor who came especially for the purpose.

Whether it was because the temperature within the small building was too sultry or not I cannot say, but the vaccinator decided to complete his work in the open air, the fact that a dust-storm was raging notwithstanding. The military doctor was accompanied by a colleague carrying a small pot or basin which evidently contained the serum. The operation was performed quickly if crudely. The vaccinator stopped before a man, dipped his lance or whatever the instrument was into the jar, and gripping the arm tightly just above the elbow, made four big slashes on the muscle. The incisions were large, deep, and brutal-looking. Then he passed to the next man, repeating the process, and so on all along the line. He took no notice of the dust which was driving hither and thither in clouds.

Whether by misfortune or mishap I received four striking gashes, and the shape of the incisions made me wonder whether the vaccinator thought he was playing a game of noughts and crosses with a scalpel upon my arm. After we had been wounded in this manner we were in a quandary. Our arms were thickly covered with the drifting sand. Our shirt sleeves were equally soiled. Consequently infection of the wound appeared to be inevitable whatever we did. In this unhappy frame of mind and dirty condition we were dismissed. Unfortunately for me I proved resistant to the serum, and had to submit to the operation a second time with equally abortive results. One or two of the prisoners suffered untold agonies, blood-poisoning evidently setting in to aggravate the action of the serum.

The primitive sanitary arrangements which prevailed brought one plague upon us. We suffered from a pestilence of flies which under the circumstances was not surprising, everything being conducive to their propagation. They swarmed around us in thick black clouds. They recalled the British housefly, only they were much larger, and extremely pugnacious. Life within the barracks became almost impossible owing to their attacks and the severity of their stings, which set up maddening irritation. We petitioned the authorities to allow us a supply of fly-papers. After considerable demur they acquiesced, but we could not use them, or rather they were used up too rapidly. The evening we received them we decided to attach a few to the ceiling, but before we could fix them in position their fly-catching capacities were exhausted. They were covered with a heaving, buzzing black mass of insects within a minute. So we abandoned fly-catching tactics.

This pestilence harassed us sorely during our meals. They settled everywhere and upon everything. While butter or margarine were unobtainable at the canteen we were able to purchase a substance which resembled honey in appearance, colour, and taste. Indeed we were told that it was an artificial product of the beehive. When we spread this upon our bread the flies swarmed to the attack, and before the food could be raised to our mouths the bread was not to be seen for flies. At first we spent considerable effort in brushing the insects away, but their numbers were too overwhelming to be resisted, so we were compelled to run the risk of the flies, and I, in common with others, have eaten bread, honey, and flies as well! It took considerable time and effort to master such a revolting meal, but under these conditions, it was either flies or nothing, so we ran the risk of the insects, although it cannot be said that they contributed to the tastiness of an already indifferent food, or our peace of mind, because we could not dismiss thoughts of the cesspool which the flies made their happy hunting-ground during the periods between meals.

Infraction of the rules and regulations were frequent, for the simple reason that they were never explained to us. We had to learn them as best we could--invariably through the experience of punishment. This state of affairs placed us at the mercy of the guards. Those who were venomously anti-British expended their savagery upon us on every occasion. For the slightest misdemeanour we were consigned to the cells for one, two, three, or more days. The cell recalled my domicile in Wesel, and I must confess that I made the acquaintance of its uninviting interior upon several occasions through inadvertently breaking some rule. But the others fared no better in this respect. It was cells for anything.

The method of punishment was typically Prussian. If one upset the guard by word or deed, he clapped you in the cell right-away and left you there. Possibly he went off to his superior officer to report your offence. But the probability was that he did not. Indeed it was quite likely that he forgot all about you for a time, because the sentry at the door never raised the slightest interrogation concerning a prisoner within. More than once a prisoner was forgotten in this manner, and accordingly was condemned to the silence, solitude, and dismal gloom of the tiny prison until the guard chanced to recall him to mind.

During my period of incarceration at Sennelager the number of civil prisoners brought in to swell our party was somewhat slender. They came in small batches of ten or twelve, but were often fewer in number. They invariably arrived about two o'clock in the morning. Then the sentry would come thumping into the barrack, his heavy boots resounding like horse's hoofs and his rifle clanging madly. Reaching the room he would yell out with all the power of his lungs, thus awaking every one, "Dolmetscher! Dolmetscher!" "Get up!" That luckless individual had to bestir himself, tumble into his clothes and hurry to the office to assist the authorities in the official interrogation of the latest arrivals. This was one of the little worries which were sent to try us, but we soon became inured to the rude disturbance of our rest, in which the average sentry took a fiendish delight.

Later we learned that on Sundays the residents of Paderborn and the countryside around were free to enter the camp to have a look at the British prisoners. Indeed they were invited. They stalked and wandered about the camp in much the same manner as they would have strolled through the Zoological Gardens in Berlin, looking at us as if we were strange exotic animals, chattering, laughing, and joking among themselves at our expense. We considered this an unwarrantable humiliation, and we countered it by the only means within our power. We resolutely stayed indoors until the gaping crowds had gone. This diversion of the German public, if such it may be called, speedily fell into desuetude, not because the novelty wore off, but because the "Engl?nder" were never to be seen, so that the six-mile tramp from Paderborn to Sennelager and back was merely wasted. It was a bitter disappointment to the curiosity-provoked crowds, but we scored a distinct success.

The first Sunday I had to wander about shirtless, the only garment of this character which I possessed hanging upon the line to dry. But the sight of a crowd of us, on Sunday mornings, stripped bare to our waists, washing and scrubbing the only shirts to our backs, became quite a common sight later, and I must confess that we made merry over this weekly duty for a time.

We had not been in Sennelager many days before we discovered to our cost that we were all suffering solitary confinement. We were completely isolated from the outside world. We were not permitted to receive any letters or parcels. Neither were we allowed to communicate with anyone outside. Newspapers were also sternly forbidden. These regulations were enforced with the utmost rigour during my stay at this camp. Consequently we knew nothing whatever about the outside world, and the outside world knew nothing about us. Early in September I did succeed in getting two post-cards away, but I ascertained afterwards that they did not reach their destinations until some weeks after I had left Sennelager. We felt this isolation very keenly because one and all were wondering vaguely what our wives, families, friends, or relatives were doing.

About ten days after our arrival at this hostelry there was a parade. The adjutant strutted before us with the pride of a peacock, and in his pompous voice cried:

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