urge the unhappy
man to kick more energetically, and then shriek with delight as his
advice was apparently taken to heart only to accentuate the torture.

Sunday was the day of days which the tyrant preferred for meting out
this punishment. In the first place it was a day of rest, and so a
prisoner's time and labour were not lost. Even if he were strung up to
the post all day he could be turned out to work on the Monday morning as
usual. But the governing reason for the selection of this day was
because it offered such a novel entertainment for the gaping German
crowds. The public, as already mentioned, were invited to the camp on
Sunday mornings to see the prisoners. Young girls and raw recruits
considered a trip to Sennelager on the chance of seeing a writhing,
tortured prisoner as one of the delights of the times, and a sight which
should not be missed on any account.

They clustered on the path on the opposite side of the road facing the
stake, laughing and joking among themselves. The recruits, who openly
manifested their intense amusement, cheered frantically when the trussed
wretch gave an abnormally wild and ear-piercing shriek of pain. At his
moans, groans, and desperate abortive attempts to release himself, the
girls would laugh as gaily as if witnessing the antics of a clown at a
circus, and were quite unrestrained in their jubilant applause. This was
the feature of the punishment which grated upon the nerves of the
prisoners who were unable to lift a finger or voice a word in protest.
That a fellow-prisoner should be condemned to suffer such hellish
torture as was inflicted was bad enough, but that it should offer a
side-show to exuberant Sunday German holiday crowds we considered to be
the height of our humiliation and a crown to our sufferings.

I shall never forget one prisoner. He was one of our loyal dusky
Colonials from the Gold Coast, who had been so unfortunate as to fall
into German hands and to be consigned to imprisonment at Sennelager. He
was a massive and imposing specimen of his race. He fell foul of
authority and incurred Major Bach's displeasure to such a degree as to
receive a sentence of eight hours bound to a tree. He was tied up, and
his pleadings for mercy, prompted by madness produced by the
excruciating pain and semi-consciousness, alternated with loud outbreaks
of long-drawn-out, blood-freezing groans, frenzied shrieks, and
nerve-racking wails.

As the torture increased with the p