prisons I often felt hungry, but this term is capable of considerable
qualification. Yet I think on this occasion it must have been the
superlative stage of hunger. The night upon the Field had come upon my
illness from which I had never recovered completely. It was a feeling
such as I have never experienced before nor since, and I do not think it
can ever be approached again.

It is difficult to describe the sensation. I walked about with a wolfish
startled glance, scanning the ground eagerly, as if expecting Mother
Earth to relieve me of my torment. The pain within my stomach was
excruciating. It was not so much a faint and empty feeling but as if a
thousand devils were pulling at my "innards" in as many different ways,
and then having stretched the organs to breaking point had suddenly
released them to permit them to fly back again like pieces of elastic,
to mix up in an inextricable tangle which the imps then proceeded to
unravel with more force than method. My head throbbed and buzzed,
precipitating a strange dizziness which seemed determined to force me to
my knees. I chewed away viciously but although the movement of the jaws
apparently gave a certain relief from illusion the reaction merely
served to accentuate the agony down below.

As I reeled about like a drunken man, my eyes searching the ground
diligently for anything in the eating line, no matter what it might be,
I found a piece of bread. As I clutched it in my hands I regarded it
with a strange maniacal look of childish delight. But it was a sorry
prize. It was saturated until it could not hold another drop of water,
and I think there was quite as much mud as bread. I wrung the water out
with my hands and then between two of us we devoured it ravenously,
swallowing the mud as contentedly as the bread, and not losing a single
crumb. It was a sparse mouthful, but it was something, and it certainly
stayed the awful feeling in the stomach to a certain degree for a little
while.

No man passed through that awful night without carrying traces of his
experiences. Its memories are burned ineradicably into one's brain.
Whenever we mentioned the episode it was always whispered as "The Bloody
Night of September 11th," and as such it is known to this day. As we
became distributed among other camps the story became noised far and
wide, until at last it became known throughout the length and breadth of
Germany. Whenever one who spent the night upon the field mention