mid-day meal with a basin of evil-looking skilly. We took it
back, and protested that we ought not to be served with prison fare.

"Skilly?" repeated the cook. "That isn't skilly. It's Quaker Oats."

"'Strewth!" yapped a sailor, "That's the bloomin' funniest Quaker Oats
I've tasted. Quaker Oats will keep you alive, but that bloomin' muck 'd
poison a rat!" saying which he disdainfully emptied the noisome contents
of his basin upon the ground.

We were told we should get nothing else, which infuriated us. We
gathered round the cook-house, and the discontented, grumbling sailors
and fishermen, unable to make any impression by word of mouth, commenced
to bombard the kitchen with bricks, stones, and clods of earth. The
fusillade grew furious, and the cat-calls vociferous.

The turmoil had been raging for some time when a mounted officer dashed
up. Securing silence he ordered us all into barracks. There was an
ominous growl. Then he told us he had brought a battalion of soldiers
and a machine gun section from Spandau, and if we did not disperse in
five minutes he would fire on us.

We looked round, thinking he was bluffing, but there, sure enough, were
the soldiers with their rifles ready, and we discovered afterwards that
the machine guns had been brought up to the gates ready for use at a
moment's notice. We shuffled for a few minutes, frowning, glowering,
mumbling, cursing and swearing, but as the Germans always mean what they
say, we sullenly moved off as ordered. Still the protest bore fruit; no
further attempts were made to serve us with that fare.

The highways of the camp were in a deplorable condition. They were
merely tracks trodden down by our feet and carts, heavily rutted,
uneven, and either a slough of mud and water, or a desert of dust,
according to the weather. We persistently urged the German authorities
to improve these roads, but they turned a deaf ear to all our
entreaties.

At last the Camp Authorities decided to carry out the work themselves.
There was a call for labourers, who were promised a steady wage of five
shillings per week. Although enrolled in the first instance to build
roads, this force was afterwards kept on as a working gang to carry out
any jobs which became necessary. These men laid out and built an
excellent road system, following the well-accepted British lines with a
high camber and a hard surface so that the water could run into the
gutters.

These roads aroused intense inter