ack was made, and he was sent back behind
the lines to the 'cage' next day...."

* * * * *

Another.

Overheard in the ranks on the march up the Cambrai Road in a
snow-storm to take over at Bourlon Wood.

"Italy!" said the Doc. "It looks more like being _another_ b----
Wood!"

+-----------------------------------------------------+
| EXPERIENCES AS A PRISONER OF WAR--EXTRACTS FROM |
| THE DIARY KEPT BY "MR. BROOKS, THE SCHOOLMASTER" |
+-----------------------------------------------------+

EXPERIENCES AS A PRISONER OF WAR--EXTRACTS FROM
THE DIARY KEPT BY "MR. BROOKS, THE SCHOOLMASTER"

"Reported missing."

Many poignant memories attach to such a bald announcement as this.
Dead--probably a prisoner of war--perhaps. And there have been those
who would have preferred, had they had the chance, of a death under
the open sky to imprisonment under the Hun.

In the diary of a 23rd Royal Fusilier, "Mr. Brooks, the schoolmaster,"
as he was once dubbed by his captors, tells the story of how he was
made a prisoner, his detention by the enemy, and his eventual return
home.

The arrival of a parcel, he says, was a red-letter event; the problem
of how much to eat at a time, and how much to save out of his rations
for the provision of another apology of a meal, was a big one. Boiled
nettles and dandelions for dinner and tea on Whit Sunday, 1917, proves
what the fare actually was; quarters of eggs were unaccustomed
luxuries. "I have picked mouldy crusts off the ground, and prunes off
dust-heaps," he says.

Dry bread and tea was a luxurious meal; beards had to be cut, or
pulled out by means of borrowed scissors; one loaf, and a small one
at that, had to prove sufficient for the needs of five men; there were
occasional intervals of twenty-two hours between meals. "We were
thinking of nothing but food," he explains. All this time, too, the
prisoners were engaged in heavy manual work, humping bricks, loading
and stacking hay, and so on.

While in hospital, "Mr. Brooks, the schoolmaster," sold his boots for
tobacco and his socks for bread, and he mixed his jam ration with
coffee in order to eke it out. "Personally, I am hungry all day long,"
is how he describes his feelings. "I bought about one-sixth of a loaf
for seventeen cigarettes."

"I was rather slow in getting into bed," is how he describes another
of his experiences, "and the German orderly picked up my satchel a