Mountain Home Republican. [volume] (Mountain Home, Idaho) 1915-1946, 1918-08-03
CHAPTER v.--continued.

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One man--and l think he was the
smallest eater In the camp--won 1t or
three successive days, but 1t was wei
for him that his luck deserted him or
the fourth day, for he probably would
have been handled rather roughly by
the rest of the crowd, who were grow
Ing suspicious. But we handled the
drawing ourselves and knew there was
nothing crooked about 1t, so he was
spared.
We were allowed to buy pears, and
being small and very hard, they were
used as the stakes in many a game
But the interest In these little games
was as keen as If the stakes had been
piles of money instead Of two or three
half-starved pears. No man was ever
SO reckless, however, In all the betting
as to wager his own rations.
BY the most scheming and sacrific-
ing ever did in my life l managed to
hoard two pieces of bread (grudgingly
spared at the time from my daily ra-
tions), but | was preparing for the day
when should escape--if ever should.
II was not sacrifice easily made
either, but instead of eating bread /
ate pears until finally got one piece
OF bread ahead; and when / could
force myself to stick to the pear diet
again, saved the other piece from
that days allowance, and In days to
come had cause to credit myself fully
for the foresight.
Whenever new prisoner came in
and his German hosts had satisfied
themselves as to his life history and
taken down all the detaIls--that is all
he would give them--he was immedl-
ately surrounded by his fellow prison
ers, who were eager for any bit of
news or information he could possibly
give them, and as rule he was glad
to tell us, because, IL he had been in
the hands of the Huns for any length
of time, he had seen very few English
officers.
The conditions Of this prison were
bad enough when a man was In nor
mally good health, but 1t was barbar-
GUS to subject wounded soldier to
the hardships and discomforts of the
place. However, this was the fate Of
poor private we discovered there one
day In terrific pain, suffering from
shrapnel in his stomach and back. All
of us officers asked to have him sent
to hospital, but the doctors CURLY
refused, saying 1t was against orders.
So the poor creature went on suffering
from day to day and was still there
when left--another victim of Ger
man cruelty.
AT one time in this prison camp there
were a French marine, French flying
officer, two Belgian soldiers, and of the
United Kingdom one from Canada, two
from England, three from Ireland. a
couple from Scotland, one from Wales,
a man from South Africa, one from
Algeria, and New Zealander, the
latter being from my own squadron, a
man whom l thought had been killed,
and he was equally surprised when
brought into the prison to find me
there. In addition there were Chi
naman and myself from the U. S. A.
1t was quite cosmopolitan group,
and as one typical Irishman said,
"Sure, and we have every nation that's
worth mentioning, including the darn
Germans with us whites" OF course
this was not translated to the Ger-u
mans, nor was it even spoken in their
hearing, or we probably would not
nave had quite so cosmopolitan bunch.
Each man in the prison was ready to
uphold his native country in any argu-
ment that could possibly be started,
and 1t goes without saying that / never
took back seat in any of them with
my praise for America, with the Cana
dian and Chinaman Ginning In on my
side. But they We're friendly argu-
ments; we were all in the same boat
and that was no place for quarreling.
Every other morning, the weather
allowing, we were taken to large
swimming pool and We're allowed to
have a bath. There were two pools,
one for the German officers and one
for the men. Although we were Off
GERS, we had to use the pool occupied
by the men. While we We're in SWIM
ming German guard with rifle
across his knees sat at each corner of
the pool and watched us closely as
we dressed and undressed. English
interpreters accompanied us on all of
there trips, so at no time could we
soix without their knowing what was
going on.
Whenever we were taken ont OF the
pr,soi, for any purpose they always
paraded us through the most crowded
gtreets--evidently to give the popu-
hea 81 tdes that they were getting