Norwich bulletin., 1917-12-27

The hospital was well guarded by Iandstrum troops. At the beginning there were sentries on every floor. but later on. owing to the shortage of men, second and third stories One man stood guard at the front gate and one Eauntered around the courtyard with a loaded rifle hanging over his arm in convenient position in case of any dis rurbance- We always watched critically the changing of the guard. They would clump along the street in the command of an unterofizier. In front of the hos pital he would shout Halt! Gewehr abi" (Order armS). With an uneven rattle and crash the rifles would bang down on the pavement with enough force to destroy the strongest firearm. At an unintelEgfble command they would struggle into the hospital and along to the guard room. The relief rf the individual sentrieS was carreid put in a free and easy manner. Each sentry of the first relief went alone to his post and the original sentry re- ed up in the street. The unterofhzier called them to attention, ordered -Gewehr auf CSlope arm). Marsch'" And away they went
 . While inspecting my new home I found some of the men taken on the Ed of June. and had long converse lion with them. trying to find out the fate of my friends and what had hap
  that of which we knew so much.
 Went Visiting
 We used to go around regularly and visit the English prisoners whi could not get up. One man had been in bed for more than a year with a bad wound in his leg Owing to the lack of nour- iShing food the wound would not heal and the leg swelled up and had to be Ianced constantly He was in terri ble state There was virtually no flesh food regularly and for a week kept bim alive on a jar of calves foot jelly received later in one of my parcels and which was the only food he was able to swallow. He could not even manage to drink a glass of matted milk He was passed for repatriation direct to Engla nd. but there was some hitch in the arrangements and he was still in hospital when I left. This rreyed on his mind to such an extent that it greatly retarded his progress
 The food for the men was served in disgusting manner. Patients who could walk were detailed to carry it from the kitchen to the wards. For this purpose they used a wooden rack with two shelves and a rod along the top Each shelf had four large holes just big enough 70 hold firmly the tin bowls in which the food was served. The diff ferent portions of the meal were all thrown into this one receptacle. Very often a man would be given a bowl containing a mixture of bad fish, few potatoes some cabbage and lit tie dried fruit.
 The fact that all this was usually served by Russians who were far from clean did not make the meal any more attractive.
 Shared Parcels.
 If Q man was in q dying condition he got the same food as the others. know that many men did die simply because Of the lack of nourishing food served ir a way that would tempt their appetites. We all shared up our parcels, but for long time we had very few. Later on when they began to arrive in greater numbers we were much better off.
 We used to spend a. good deal of our time sitting on bench in the front hall looking out of the window and watching the children playing in the street They seemed so happy and