Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1919-01-16

other times trying to pick a fight. 1t
was all n to me l just wanted some
thing to do. / found what l wanted.
all right.
! had quite a talk with a sentry in
front of a barracks. 1t must have
lasted three-quartcrs Of an hour. he
did not know what / was calling him.
and I did not know what he was call
ing me. l could have handled him all
right. but another sentry came up on
my blind side and grabbed me and the
talk was over.
They dragged me to the commander
Of the camp and he instructed them to
give me a bath. So they took me to
the bathhouse. where I was stripped
and dashed. All the time they were
whipping me I was thinking what a
joke it was on me, because 1 had been
looking for excitement and had got
more than I wanted, so I laughed and
the Huns thought l was crazy sure.
was dumped into a vat Of hot water
and at the same time my clothes were
given a boiling. which was good for
| them.
Then / was forced into my wet
clothes and marched back to the bar
racks. This bath and the stroll
through the o in wet clothes just
about did for me. Nowadays, when 1
sit in a draft for a second and catch
cold, / wonder that l am still alive to
catch it. Having gone through Dix
nude and the, Dardanelles and the
sinking of the Georgia and four Ger
man prison camps and a few other
things-I shall probably trip over a
hole in a church carpet and break my
neck. That would be my luck.
There were all the diseases you can
think Of in this camp, including black
cholera and typhus and somebody was
always dying. We had to make collins
from any wood we could find. So it
was not long before we were using the
dividing boards from our hunks, pieces
Of flooring and, in fact, the walls of
the barracks. The officers were quar-
tered in corrugated iron barracks, so
they had to borrow wood from us for
their collins. We would make the box
and put the body in it, give it as much
service as we could, in the way of
prayers and hymns, and put it away In
a hole near the barracks. There was
so much Of it that a single death
passed unnoticed.
One morning the German sentries
came to our barracks-they never
came singly-and told us that an off.
Ger was going to review the prisoners
and ordered us to muster up, which we
did. I was the last man out of the bar.
racks and on account of my wounds ]
was slower than the rest.
You understand 1 had had no medical
treatment except crepe-paper ban
dages and water; my wounds had been
opened by swimming from the Georgia
to the Moewe and they had been put
in terrible shape in the coal bunkers
On account of the poor food end lack
Of treatment they had not ever started
to heal. Incidentally, the only cloth
bandages that any Of us had were what
we would tear from our clothes and
have seen men pick up an old dirty
rag that someone else had had around
his wound for a long time and bandage
his own wounds with it.
So it was all I could do to drag my.
self along. The officer noticed that
was out of line and Immediately asked
my name and nationality. When he
heard american" he could not say
enough things about us and called me
all the swine names he could think of
/ was pretty thin at this time anC
getting thinner, so l figured l NIGH
just as well have it out before
starved. Besides. I thought, he oughr
to know that we are not used to bein.
bawled out by German swine in thil
!, country.
, So / told him so. And l said that h,
should not bawl Americans out, be
/ cause America was neutral. He thel
said that as America supplied food ant
: munitions to the allies she was no bet
ter than the rest.
Then l said: "Do you remember thu
Deutschland? When she entered Bal
timore and New London she got all tn,
cargo she wanted, didn't she?"
"Yes."
3 swell, If you send over your mer
t chant marine they will get the same.
For that answer he gave me ten day
] in the guardhouse. He did not like t
S be reminded that their merchant ma
a rine had to dive under to keep ava.
from the Limeys.
/ admit l was pretty flip to this OF
e ficer, but who would not be when
e slick German swine officer bawled hir
e out?
1t was while / vas In the guardhous
t that Mr.. Gerard, the American ambas
sador, visited the camp. He came t
this camp about every six months, a
a rule. Even in the German prise
e camps the men had somehow got infol
nation about Mr.. Gerard's efforts {
I improve the terrible surroundings /
p which the men lived. Some of the me
at Dulmen had been confined in var
d GUS other camps and they told me tha
when Mr.. Gerard visited these camp
- "