Three Times and Out Part 18

He did not enlighten me! I was taken out to wash, and filled my brown pitcher at the tap--just as usual. Then came the moment of tense anxiety.... Would he lock me in?

He gave me the usual allowance of bread, which I put in my pocket, as a man who was going on a journey and wants to be on his way, without waiting to eat.

Then he motioned to me to come out, and I knew we were free! Ted was at the door of his cell, and we followed the guard downstairs without speaking.

In the room below our things were given back to us. I dared not examine my cap to see if my maps had been touched, but I could not keep from turning it around as if to be sure it was mine. Certainly it looked all right. Our two little parcels, still unopened, were returned to us, and the guard from Vehnemoor who had come for us had brought one of the prisoners with him to carry our stuff that had been left there, blankets, wash-basin, clogs, etc.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map which Private Simmons got from the Canadian Artist at Giessen, and which was sewed inside the Pasteboard of his Cap / His successful journey from Selsingen to Holland is indicated by the dotted line ............ / The unsuccessful attempt is shown ---------- from Oldenburg]

From the prisoner we got the news of the camp.

"How are the folks at home?" we asked him.

"Ninety of the worst ones--since you two fellows and Bromley left--were taken to another camp, and when they were moving them McKinnon and another fellow beat it--but we're afraid they were caught."

"Why?" we asked him.

"They catch them all; n.o.body gets out of Germany alive."

"You talk like a guard!" Ted said.

"Well," said the boy (I am sorry I forget his name), "look here. Who do you know that has got away? You didn't; Bromley didn't; the two Frenchmen who went the night before you went didn't. Do you hear of any who did?"

"Keep your ear to the ground and you will!" said Ted.

"They'll shoot you the next time," he said earnestly. "If I were you, I wouldn't try it."

Then the guard came, and we could say no more.

Again we were taken to the station and put on the train. Our hands were not tied this time; we were just ordinary prisoners now--we had done ours. Besides, I suppose they knew we shouldn't run far--that had been taken out of us by the "cells."

But our good spirits came back when the train started. We went east towards Rotenburg, through the same sort of low, marshy country we had travelled before, with scrubby trees and plenty of heather moor.

We pa.s.sed through Bremen again, where we got a glimpse of white sails, and then on to Rotenburg, where we changed cars and had to wait for two hours.

Of course we were hungry--the Oldenburg prison had not sent us out well fed to meet the world, and the one slice of bread had gone. But we had prison-stamps, and our guard took us to the lunch-counter at Rotenburg, where we got a cup of real coffee, some bread, and an orange. The guard paid for what we got with his own money, accepting our stamps in payment. Our stamps were good only at Vehnemoor Camp, having the name "Vehnemoor" stamped on them.

I suppose we were two tough-looking characters. The people seemed to think so, for they looked at us with startled faces, and a little girl who was crossing the platform ran back in alarm to her mother when she saw us coming.

We arrived at Dienstedt after nightfall, and walked out a mile along a rough road to the camp, which was one of the Cellelager group--Cellelager I.

We saw that it consisted of two huts, and when we entered the hut to which we were taken, we saw nothing but Russians, pale-faced, dark-eyed, bearded Russians. They were sitting around, hardly speaking to each other, some mending their clothes, some reading, some staring idly ahead of them. We were beginning to be afraid they had sent us to a camp where there was no one but Russians, until we saw some British, at the other end.

"By Jove, I'll bet you're hungry," a big fellow said, reaching up into his bunk and bringing out a pasteboard parcel. "Here you are, matey; there's a bit of cheese and biscuits. I've a bit of water heatin', too; we'll get you something to drink. Get something into you; we ain't bad done for 'ere with our parcels comin' reglar."

The other men brought out boxes, too,--currant-loaf, sardines, fruit-cake, and chocolate. There were three coal-stoves in the room, and on one of these a pan of water was steaming. They had condensed milk and cocoa, and made us up mugs of it, and I never, anywhere, tasted anything so good.

There were two tiers of bunks in the room, but around the wall there was an open s.p.a.ce where there were some little tables. Two of the Englishmen, who were playing cards, put them away and offered us their table.

"Here, boys, be comfortable; sit right down here and let us see you eat."

We let them see us! We ate like wolf-hounds. We ate, not until we were satisfied, but until we were ashamed! And still the invitations to eat were heard on every side. We were welcome to the last crumb they had!

When at last we stopped, they began to tell us about the camp. It seemed that the distinguis.h.i.+ng feature was _lice!_ It had never been fumigated, and the condition was indescribable. "We're bad enough,"

one of the Englishmen said, "but the Russians are in holes."

Then they told us what they had done to attract the attention of the authorities. The branch camps are never inspected or visited, as are the main camps such as Cellelager itself and Giessen, and so conditions in the out-of-the-way camps have been allowed to sink far below the level of these.

"We each wrote a card to some one in England, telling them about the lice. We would have stretched it--if we could--but we couldn't. We drew pictures, and told what these lice could do; especially we told about the Russians, and how bad they were. There are twenty-one of us, and there went out twenty-one cards all dealing with the same subject. The censor began to feel crawly, I'll bet, before he got far into reading them, and he would not let one of those cards out of Germany. It wouldn't have sounded very good to the neutral countries.

So along came one of the head officers. He came in swaggering, but, by George, he went out scratching! And he certainly got something moving. We're all going down to Cellelager to-morrow to be fumigated; and while we're out, there's going to be a real old-fas.h.i.+oned house-cleaning! You're just in time, boys. Have you got any?"

"We did not have any," we said, "when we came."

"Well, you'll get them here, just sitting around. They're all over the floor and crawl up the leg of your chair; they crawl up the wall and across the ceiling and drop down on your head and down the back of your collar; they're in the walls and in the beds now. But their days are numbered, for we are all going up to Cellelager to-morrow to be fumigated. They're running a special train, and taking us all."

That night Ted and I slept on two benches in the middle of the room, but we found that what the boys said was true. They had crawled up on us, or else had fallen from the ceiling, or both. We had them!

But the next day we made the trip to Cellelager by special train--"The Louse Train" it was called.

The fumigator was the same as at Giessen, and it did its work well.

While the clothes were baking, we stood in a well-heated room to wait for them. The British and French, having received parcels, were in good condition, but the Russians, who had to depend entirely on the prison-fare, were a pitiful sight. They looked, when undressed, like the India famine victims, with their washboard ribs and protruding stomachs, dull eyes and parched skin. The sores caused by the lice were deep and raw, and that these conditions, together with the bad water and bad food, had had fatal results, could be seen in the Russian cemetery at Cellelager I, where the white Russian crosses stand, row on row. The treatment of Russian prisoners will be a hard thing for Germany to explain to the nations when the war is over.

Parnewinkel was the name of the village near Cellelager I, and this name was printed on the prison-stamps which we used. The camp was built on a better place than the last one, and it was well drained, but the water was bad and unfit to drink unless boiled.

As the spring came on, many of the Russians went out to work with the farmers, and working parties, mostly made up of Russians, were sent out each day. Their work was to dig ditches through the marshes, to reclaim the land. To these working parties soup was sent out in the middle of the day, and I, wis.h.i.+ng to gain a knowledge of the country, volunteered for "Suppentragen."

A large pot, constructed to hold the heat by having a smaller one inside which held the soup, was carried by two of us, with a stick through the handle, to the place where the Russians were working, and while they were attending to the soup, we looked around and learned what we could of the country. I saw a method of smoking meat which was new to me, at a farmhouse near where the Russians were making a road. Edwards and I, with some others, had carried out the soup. The Russians usually ate their soup in the cow-stable part of the house, but the British and Canadians went right into the kitchen. In this house everything was under one roof--that is, cows, chickens, kitchen, and living-room--and from the roof of the kitchen the hams were hung. The kitchen stove had two or three lengths of pipe, just enough to start the smoke in the right direction, but not enough to lead it out of the house. Up among the beams it wound and curled and twisted, wrapping the hams round and round, and then found its way out in the best way it could. Of course some of it wandered down to the kitchen where the women worked, and I suppose it bothered them, but women are the suffering s.e.x in Germany; a little smoke in their eyes is not here or there.

The houses we saw had thatched roofs, with plastered walls, and I think in every case the cow-stable was attached. Dairying was the chief industry; that and the raising of pigs, for the land is poor and marshy. Still, if the war lasts long enough, the bad lands of Germany will be largely reclaimed by the labor of Russian prisoners.

It's cheap and plentiful. There were ninety thousand of them bagged in one battle in the early days of the war, at the Mazurian Lakes!

The Russians are for the most part simple, honest fellows, very sad and plaintive, and deserving of better treatment than they have had.

When the Russians had gone out to work, leaving only the sick ones, and the English and French, sometimes there were not enough well prisoners for "Suppentragen," for the British were clever in the matter of feigning sickness. The _Revier_ was in charge of a doctor and a medical Sergeant, who gave exemption from work very easily.

Then there were ways of getting sick which were confusing to doctors.

Some one found out how to raise a swelling, and there was quite an epidemic of swollen wrists and ankles. A little lump of earth in a handkerchief, pounded gently on the place, for twenty minutes or so, will bring the desired result. Soap-pills will raise the temperature.

Tobacco, eaten, will derange the heart. These are well-known methods of achieving sick-leave.

I had a way all my own. I had a loose toe-nail, quite ready to come off, but I noticed it in time, and took great care not to let it come off. Then I went to the doctor to have it removed. On that I got exemption till the nail grew.

One day at Parnewinkel, Edwards and I were called into the Commandant's office, whither we went with many misgivings--we did not know how much he knew of us and our plans.

But the honest man only wanted to pay us. Edwards had worked quite a bit at Vehnemoor, but I couldn't remember that I had worked at all.

However, he insisted that I had one and a half days to my credit, and paid me twenty-seven pfennigs, or six and three quarter cents! I remembered then that I had volunteered for work on the bog, for the purpose of seeing what the country was like around the camp. I signed a receipt for the amount he gave me, and the transaction was entered in a book, and the receipt went back to the head camp.

"Look at that," said Ted; "they starve us, but if we work they will pay us, even taking considerable pains to thrust our wages upon us.

Of a truth they are a 'spotty' people."