circulated to the effect that the guard was to be changed every two
hours, instead of at four-hour intervals. The sentries were quite
powerless to assist us even if they had been disposed to come to our aid
to mitigate our wretched condition in any way. One guard, his compassion
evidently aroused by a scene such as he had never witnessed before,
secured some thin stakes and thrust them through the wire netting to
form a support to a large blanket. With this he thought that perhaps a
little shelter might be obtained. We crowded beneath this precarious
protection, but the first blast of the gale which swept the field after
its improvisation, whisked the blanket and the stakes into the air. They
were never seen again.

About twelve o'clock I was on the verge of collapse. My friend supported
me, but even he was faint from lack of food and exposure. We decided to
roll our soddened bodies in our saturated blankets, to lie down on the
ground and to strive to woo sleep. We stretched ourselves on the flat,
but the wind and rain beat unmercifully upon us. Although we were
dead-beat the angel of sleep refused to come to us. As a matter of fact,
when we stretched ourselves in the mud we did not care two straws
whether we ever saw the light of day again or not.

After lying about two hours upon the ground I put out my hand to
discover that we were lying in two inches of water. But not only this.
The floodwater, in its mad rush to escape to the depression at the lower
end of the field, had carved a course through the spot where we were
lying. The result was that the rushing water was running down our necks,
coursing over our bodies beneath our clothes, and rushing wildly from
the bottoms of our trousers. We were acting unconsciously as conduits,
but we did not serve in this capacity any longer than we could help.

We regained our feet, our clothes now so water-logged as to bear us down
with their weight. We tramped laboriously to the top of the field and as
the wind bore down upon us it carried upon its bosom a mad madrigal of
hymns, prayers, curses, blasphemy, and raucous shouting. Groups of men
were now lying about thickly, some half-drowned from immersion in the
pools, while others were groaning and moaning in a blood-freezing
manner. Small hand-baggage and parcels, the sole belongings of many a
prisoner, were drifting hither and thither, the sport of rushing water
and wind. At the lower end of the field the water had sprawled