uts in the middle of the usual barbed-wire laager.

As Giessen was the best camp, so this one was the worst of all those
we were to know. It was not so wet as the swamp at Vehnmoor, but the
drinking water was even worse than the brackish, peat-laden water
there. The general sanitary arrangements were terrible and the food
was worse than at Giessen, the camp in which that lack had been the
worst feature among many bad ones. And on top of it all the treatment
was very bad, much worse than any we had previously known.

A soup, made from a handful of pickled fish roe and a few potatoes,
was a stock dish, and terrible to taste. On one night a week we
received a raw herring fresh from the brine barrel, which we were
supposed to eat raw and uncleaned, but could not. On one day in seven
there was a weak cabbage soup and of course, a small daily ration of
potato-and-rye bread. Fortunately, our parcels were beginning to
arrive by this time, so that, in fact, we fared better than at any of
the better camps, in the matter of food. With the Russians it was
different, and we used to give our soup to them in exchange for their
share of boiling water, which we used in conjunction with the contents
of our parcels and which they had no use for anyway, especially for
washing purposes.

It was difficult to get an opportunity to boil water for the making of
tea or cocoa, even when parcels furnished the essentials, as there
were so many men and so few stoves that it was a constant struggle to
get near the latter.

However, as we had refused to work, we did not require very much food.
We used also to give our black bread to the Russians, for which they
insisted on doing our washing, though it was little enough of that
they did for themselves. They were very good and simple men.

Ours was a good bunch of fellows and gave freely to one another and to
the unfortunate Russians, who rarely received parcels. There was no
selling or trading on misfortune here, as in some of the other camps
we had been in. The Germans themselves were short of necessities here.
They hated to come to the _Englaenders_ to buy, so used to send the
Russians to beg for soap which they would not use in any event, and in
this case simply sold to the guards. Discovering this, we shut down on
indiscriminate giving. Soap or any other fatty substance was by that
time very scarce in Germany, amongst the lower classes at least. I was
the only "non-com" in our lot, and so put