The Carlisle independent., 1918-12-19
CHAPTER xxii,.
oespair-and Freedom.


 While I was working at the hos pital conditions at my old barracks had been getting worse and worse. Very few of the men were absolutely right in the head. guess. and almost all had given up hope of ever getting out alive. Though they put up a good front to the Huns, they really did not care a great deal what happened to them. The only thing to think about was the minute they were living in. I The day I came back two English men, who had suddenly gone mad. commenced to fight each other. It was the most terrible fight I have ever seen. It was some time before the rest of us could make them quit. be- cause at first We did not know the, were crazy. When we had them down. however. they were scratched and bit ten and pounded from head to foot. Both of them bied from the nose all that night. and toward morning one of them became sane for a few min utes and then died. The other was taken away by the Germans, still crazy.
 Another time an Australian came into our barracks and very seriously told US that he had drag with the German officers and that he had been to dinner with them, and had had tur- key, potatoes, coffee, butter, eggs, sugar in his coffee, and all the luxuries you could think of. We just sat and stared at him. It seemed impossible that any of our own men would have the gall to torture us like that, and yet We could not possibly believe that it had really happened. Finally. one fellow could not stand 1t any longer. He was nothing but skin and bones, but he grabbed a dividing board and there were just two wallops: the board hit the Australians head and the head hit the fioor Then half dozen more bounced onto him and gave him a real licking. When he came to he had forgotten all about the wonderful dinner he did not have.
 Not long after this the Russian doc tors proved to the Germans that there was no black typhus in our barracks and we were allowed the freedom of the camp except that We could not visit the Russian barracks. That was no hardship to me nor to the rest of us. except one chap from the Cambrian Range. who had special pal among the Russians that he wanted to see. And. of course, when it was verboten, he wanted to see him all the more.
 A day or two after the order I was standing outside the barracks door when saw this fellow come out with a dividing board in his hand I thought he was going to smash somebody with 1t, so stood by. But he stopped over and jammed one end of the board against the threshold of the door, scratched the ground with the farther end of the board and measured again. He kept this up. length by length. in the direction of the Russian barracks. The sentry in the yard stopped and stared at him, but the fellow kept right on, paying no attention to any body. Pretty soon he was right by the sentry's feet and thought any minute the sentry would give him the butt, but he just stared a while and let him pass. That lad measured the whole distance to the Russian barracks, went inside, stayed a while and calmly strolled back with the board under his arm. When he reached our bafracks again he told us he had found~a vino mine. What he had found was some thing not so unusual-a boneheaded German.
 There was lot of bamboo near the Russiar racks and the Russians made a If 1t and turned
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