Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1918-07-19
Table in the Center of the Group.

IdDIG III the NGnIGF OI lHC GEOdk
press me as having very goo0 or Dun
dant food, they were fairly well
clothed. 1 do not mean to imply that
conditions pointed to an early end of
the war. On the contrary, from what
1 was able to observe ON that point,
unless the Huns have an absolute crop
failure they can, in my opinion, go on
for years! The idea of our being able
to win the war by starving them out
strikes me as ridiculous. This is q
war that must be won by fighting, and
the soone we realize that fact the
sooner it will be over.
Rising hour in the prison was seven
o'clock. Breakfast came at eight. This
consisted of a cup of coffee and moth
ing else. If the prisoner had the fore
sight to save some bread from the pre-
vious day, he had bread. for breakfast
also, but that never happened in my
case. Sometimes we had two cups of
coffee, that is, n~ear-coffee. 1t was
really chicory or some cereal prepara-
ton. We had no milk or sugar.
For lunch they gave US boiled sugar
beetS or some other vegetable, and
once in a while some kind of picked
meat, but that happened very seldom.
We also received a third of a loaf of
bread-war bread. This war bread
was as heavy as a brick, black and
sour. 1t was supposed to last us from
noon M day to noon the next. Ex-
cept for some soup, this was the whole
lunch menu.
Dinner came at $50 p. M, when we
sometimes had a little jam made out
of sugar beetS, and a preparation
called tea, which you had to shake Wig
orously or 1t settled in the bottom Of
the cup. and then about all you had
was hot water. This "tea' was a sad
blow to the Englishmen. If it hadn't
been called tea they wouldn't have felt
so badly about it, perhaps, but it was
adding insult to injury to call that
stuff "tea," which with them is almost
a national institution.
Sometimes with this meal they gave
US butter instead of jam, and once in
a while we had some kind of canned
meat.
This comprised the usual run of eat
ables for the day. can eat more than
that for breakfast! In the days that
were to come l learned that 1 was to
fare considerably worse.
We were allowed to send out and
buy a few things, but as most Of the
prisoners were without funds this was
but an empty privilege. Once I took
advantage of the privilege to send my
shoes to a Belgian shoemaker to be
half-soled. They charged me ~
marks-$5i
Once in a while a Belgian Ladies'
Relief society visited the prison and
brought US handkerchiefs, American
bar in Observation-Disclosures and
other little articles, all of which were
American made, but whether they
were supplied by the American re-
lief committee or not l don't know.
At any rate, these gifts were mighty
useful and were very much appre-
ciated.
One day I offered a button off my
uniform to one of these Belgian ladies
as a souvenir, but a German guard
saw me and I was never allowed to
go near the visitors afterwards.
The sanitary conditions in this
prison camp were excellent as a gen.
eral proposition. One night, however,
l discovered that 1 had been cap
tured by Coolies"
This was a novel experience to me
and one that / would have been very
willing to have missed, because in
the flying corps our airdromes are a
number of miles back of the lines and
we have good billets and u acquaint-
ance with such things as "cooties" and
other unweleome visitors is very linn
tied.
When 1 discovered my condition,
made q boiler and reused the guard,
and right then 1 got another example
of German efficiency.