Cleveland County herald., 1918-11-28

for while we drank it. But after several of the boys had gone west and we could not figure out why. n man told us he thought the water WIS poisoned, and Russian doctor, who was prisoner, slipped us word about 1t also. So, after that, very few of us drank water from the hydrant. I was scared stiff at first, because I had had some of the water, but after that I did not touch hydrant water.
 It was a good thing for us that there was always plenty of snow in Germany, and even luckier that the Huns did not shoot us for eating it. It was about the only thing they did not deprive us of--it was not verboten.
 thought knew what tough cooties were, in the trenches, but they were regular mollycoddles compared to the pets we had in the prison cam55s. After we boiled our clothes we Would be free from them for not more than two hours, and then they would come back, with re-enforcements,( thirstine for vengeance.
 The camp at Neustrelttz was sur rounded by big dogs, which were kept just outside the barbedl wire. We had them going all the tine. Every once in a while, some fellow would make an awful racket, and the next thing we knew, there Was Fritz coming like shot, with mus ket at his hip, just ;s they carry them in a charge, and blowing whistles at each other until they were blue i1l the face. When- ever they thought some one was es- caping, they ran twice as fast as ever saw them run, except when the Foreign Legion was on their heels at Dixmudc.
 When they got up to the dogs, they would first talk to them and then kick them, and after that, they would rest their rifles on the wire and yell "Zuruck !" at us. i've all enjoyed this innocent pastime very much, and we were glad they had the dogs.
 There were some things the Huns did that you just could not explain. For instance, one of the Russians walked out of the kuche, as we were passing, and we heard a bang! and the Russian keeled over and went west. Now, we had not done anything and the other Russians said he had behaved himself, worked hard and had never had any trouble. They just Killed him, and that is all there was to it. But not one of us could figure out why.
 After we had been at Neustrelitz for three weeks they drilled us out of the camp to a railway station, and stood us in the snow for four hours waiting for the train. We were ex- hausted and began falling, one by one, and each time one of us fell, the sentries would yell "Nicht krank !" and give us the rifle butt. We had our choice of standing up and dying or falling down and being killed, and 1t was fine choice to have to make.
 The cars finally pulled in, ard as usual, the windows were smashed, the doors open, and the compartments just packed with snow. When we saw this, we knew we were going to get worse treatment, even, than we had been getting, and many of us wanted to die. It had not been unusual for some of the men to tell the Germans to shoot them too, and 1t seems as though it was always a man who wanted to live who did get 1t and went west.
 However, all of us nearly got killed when we reached Wittenberg. When the train stopped there, we saw biz wagonload of sliced bread on the sta tion platform and we all stared at it. then we made a rush for 1t. But when we got nearer, we saw that there were four sentries guarding it and four women issuing 1t out to the German soldiers. They would not give us any, of course.
 So we stood around and watched the Huns eat it, while they and the women laughed at us, and pretended that they were starving and would groan and rub their stomachs and say, "Nichts zu essen," to each other, and then grab big hunk of bread and eat 1t. What we did not say to them was very little indeed. We were cer- tainly wild if any men ever were.
 Then some of us said we were go- ing to get some of that bread if we went west for 1t. So we started fight, and while they were attending to some of us, the others grabbed and hid all the bread they could. They rousted us back into the cars and we were just starting to divide up the bread when they caught us with 1t and took 1t away. We were wilder than ever then, but we could not do anything.
 It got colder after we left Witten- berg, and the snow blew into the cars through the windows and doors until we were afraid to sleep for fear of freezing. It was the worst night I have ever seen, and the coal bunkcrs on the Yarrowdale seemed like pal ace compared to the compartments, because we could at least move around in the ship, while in the train we could