prisons. Under no pretence
whatever must one prisoner enter the cell of another while it is
occupied. This regulation is not to prevent conversation or
communication between prisoners, but is for reasons which it is not
necessary to describe. When one recalls the utter depravity which
prevails in German military centres the wisdom of the ordination is
obvious. The punishment is severe, the easiest being a spell of
confinement upon a black bread and water diet, but generally and
preferably clubbing into insensibility.

A few cells above me was a prisoner who had been incarcerated for
fifteen years. Whether the whole of this time had been spent in Wesel or
not I could not say, but when I came face to face with him for the first
time he gave me a severe shock. He was a walking skeleton. Every bone in
his body was visible, while his skin was the colour of faded parchment.
He looked more like an animated mummy than a human being. I stood beside
him one day in the corridor, and a bright ray of sunshine happened to
fall across his face which was to me in profile. I started. His face was
so thin that the cheek and jawbones were limned distinctly against the
light, producing the effect of the X-ray photograph, while the sun shone
clean through his cheeks. You could have read a paper on the off side of
his face by the light which came through.

This prisoner unnerved me. From morning to night, as he paced his cell,
he groaned dismally: not fitfully but continually. It was like the wail
of a dog suffering excruciating agony, only a thousand times more
irritating and nerve-racking. Even during the night he groaned,
apparently in his sleep. Another day, when similarly paraded beside him,
I asked if he would like a piece of black bread. He made no reply, but
turned such a wolfish look upon me that I hastily told him to dive into
my cell--No. 11. He watched the guard for a second, and while all backs
were turned he was gone and back beside me with the prize which he
clutched in his hand. I have never seen such a rapid movement. He slid
into the cell like a shadow and as stealthily and as quickly returned.
This poor wretch doubtless enjoyed this unexpected addition to his
quantity of food, since he was apparently being given just enough to
keep him alive, and no more. Otherwise he could never have become so
fearfully thin.

Once again I was to receive another shock from my mysterious prisoner
who had acted as interpreter. On Thursd