Cleveland County herald. (Rison, Ark.) 1888-current, 1918-06-20
CHAPTER V.-Continued.

One man-and / think he was the
smallest eater in the camp-won it on
three successive days, but it was well
for him that his luck deserted him on
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 it, so he was
spared.
We were allowed to buy pears, and
being small and very hard, they were
used as the stakes in many 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 l ever did in my life l managed to
hoard two pieces of bread (grudgingly
spared at the time from my daily ra-
tions). but l was preparing for the day
when l should escape-if ever should.
1t was not a sacrifice easily made
either, but instead of eating bread l
ate pears until l finally got one piece
of bread ahead; and when I could
force myself to stick to the pear diet
again, saved the other piece from
that days allowance, and in days to
come l had cause to credit myself fully
for the foresight.
Whenever a 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 immedi-
ately surrounded by his fellow prison
ers, who were eager for any bit of
news or information he could possibly
give them, and as a rule he was glad
to tell US, because, if 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 it was barbar-
GUS to subject a wounded soldier to
the hardships and discomforts of the
place. However, this was the fate of
a 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 it was against orders.
So the poor creature went on suffering
from day to day and was still there
when l left-another victim of Ger
man cruelty.
At one time in this prison camp there
We're 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 a Chi
naman and myself from the u. S. A.
1t was quite a 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
mans, nor was it even spoken in their
hearing, or we probably would not
have had quite so cosmopolitan a bunch.
Each man in the prison was ready to
uphold his native country in any argu-
ment that could possibly be started.
and it goes without saying that never
took back sect in aay of them with
my praise for Americp, with the Cana
dian and Chinaman Ginning in on my
side. But they We're friendly argu-
ments; we were ali 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 were 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 were in swim
ming q German guard with a 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
these trips, so at no time could we
talk without their knowing what was
going en.
Whenever we were taken out of the
prison for any purpose they always
paraded us through the most crowded
streets-evidently to give the popu-
lace an idea that they were getting