Immediately after I was captured by the Germans, I was relieved of all my property by a couple of villainous looking Huns and led below to a dug-out, where the officer, a Lieutenant, joined me and offered me what food there was – a few hard biscuits and a bottle of fizzy water. This dug-out, although in the second line trenches, was completely furnished and provided with forced ventilation and electric light. It led into a long gallery from which innumerable other galleries appeared to branch out on the parapet side. These were fitted with bunks wherein reposed a number of soldiers snoring lustily. A long flight of steps led down into the gallery from the trench I had just vacated and was probably thirty feet below ground.
I remained here for about two hours and was then taken to another dug-out, that of the captain in command of the company. On the way there I was joined by my men, but one of our own “whizz-bangs” burst over the trench, killing one of the men and wounding the other three in the face (one had his eye pushed out). I was in front and my share of the performance consisted merely of a stinging sensation in the neck – a lucky escape. The German guards escaped unhurt.
I remained in the second dug-out for a short while, and then began what I consider the most horrible experience in all that horrible day – going back through the village while it was being shelled by our guns. It was only by a miracle that we managed to get through at all. Masses of masonry were falling all about us, the ground writhed and slithered like a tortured soul, and we could only get along by waiting for a shell to burst on some house and running there, with the idea that the chance of another shell bursting in the same place would be remote. The German guards were in a terrible state of nerves (mine were pretty awful) and I was in a deadly funk lest one of them should go off his rocker and put a bullet through me. In fact, during a brief halt in a cellar, the three of them began a heated discussion, one pointing at me with a suggestive glint in his eye, and only by a hurried exit on my part was the situation saved, for the poor fellows had to run like blazes after me. Progress, however, was slow in most places, due to the amount of mountaineering necessary to get over the piles of debris. The whole village seemed to be choked with dead bodies – in every clearing were dozens of them, stacked up like lumber. Arms and legs and heads were scattered about all over the place, and every time a shell burst, which was about forty to the minute, an arm or a leg would biff me in the stomach.
Having arrived at the north side of the village we had a short breather and then continued through the wood beyond – also being shelled mercilessly – and up the hill, sometimes running along a trench, sometimes crawling on our hands and knees, the air thick with flying branches and trunks of trees and earth.
After another short rest on the leeward side of the hill, where a doctor in a dressing station obligingly gave me a drink, we started a long trek along a valley, every inch of which was being searched by our shells. I was joined at the foot of the hill by about thirty of our fellows, most of them wounded, and my journey was made difficult owing to the necessity of a sergeant and me helping a man between us, who had had his back taken off by shrapnel. He could only hobble along in great agony. It was pitiful to hear these wounded men crying out for water, which, of course, was unobtainable, as every well had been blown up by our guns. We continued thus for several miles in darkness (it was dark by the time we reached the dressing station mentioned) – with shells bursting all around us. Our guards, about six or seven of them, were pretty fed up with the whole business, and I am certain that had it not been for a cheerful Bosche who spoke English – having been, so he informed me, a clerk in the London branch of the Norddeutsche Lloyd for two or three years previous to the war – who took it upon himself to act as a guardian angel for reasons best known to himself – we should have been butchered then and there, and I would not have blamed them. Having to escort a party of “schweinhund Englӓnder” through a shell infested wilderness, with their lives hanging on a thread, mile after mile, was enough to make even a padre – be he ever so hunnish – forget his humanitarian principles.
At about eleven o’clock we reached a village where a regiment was resting. Here we were able to slake our thirst, and some of the most badly wounded men were attended to by a Red Cross orderly. I was invited to a non-commissioned officers’ mess, where I was given biscuits and coffee. They were all very good fellows and I might mention here that I noticed particularly that nearer to the front the better the Germans seemed to be in their treatment of us.
After half an hour’s rest, we continued our miserable journey.
We met very few reinforcements moving up to the front line – I saw possibly only three or four squads of men and this was explained by my Norddeutscher friend that there were very few men behind that sector of the front, most of them having been sent to Verdun, which up till that time had been the centre of attraction.
I reflected then that had our own reserves come up, we could have walked through the German lines without much opposition, for I had noticed while in the German trenches and during our mad jaunt through the village that there were precious few soldiers left, and had we been able to silence the machine guns which alone had stopped us, we could have broken through easily. Another noticeable feature was the absence of motor transport – all transport being done by farm waggons in most cases, due, I imagine, to lack of petrol and rubber for the tyres.
At about three o’clock in the morning we reached Bapaume, sixteen kilometres behind the line, or rather from Fricourt, where I was captured. We were marched into the courtyard of an old chateau, where my first unpleasant experience of the Huns took place. This was the headquarters of the general in command of the Army Corps. He and members of his staff came down the steps, and calling to me to come forward, proceeded to display his hatred of England by raging at me for five minutes, punctuating his abuses by spitting in my direction. Dirty and tattered and covered in blood as I was (my clothes were in rags) I was not a beautiful object – and my condition appeared to create a great deal of amusement amongst the staff, whose grins and obvious gibes for my special benefit – fortunately my knowledge of German being limited, I could not understand most of the epithets they hurled at me – made my blood boil. No doubt they would have been intensely pleased had I shown some form of temper, which would have been sufficient excuse for them to have put me against the wall and planked a few bullets in my chest – an excellent after dinner diversion. They had evidently just finished a late dinner, for the General was vigorously picking his teeth during his exhibition of hate. I remember every detail of this episode now, as it was my first contact with the “brute Hun” whose cowardly and beastly character I came to know so well afterward.
The request of the guards for shelter for the remainder of the night in Bapaume being refused by this swine of a general, we once more took the road, and carried on for another hour or so, still with the wounded, whose misery must have been terrible, for, although most of them were not bad cases, and were able to walk, a sixteen kilometre march in the weak condition they were in caused by loss of blood was a horrible ordeal. Unwounded as I was, the effects of the tiring day and the experiences after my capture had made me exhausted, and practically carrying a wounded man whose constant appeals for water had got on my nerves, I was sick with weariness and for long stretches I was walking in a state of semi-consciousness. Every halt for rest made the resumption of marching more and more trying, and never was I more glad than when I saw the twinkling lights of a village in the distance and was told that we were to stop the rest of the night there.
This village proved to be Grevillers. We were taken to the church, where we all sank down in a heap of straw, prisoners and guards together, and in a second I dropped off to sleep. It was about four o’clock in the morning when we reached this village.
We were, however, not to sleep for very long. At about six thirty, the door was opened and a stream of Bosche soldiers came in, who turned us over with their boots, and those whose exhaustion prevented them from waking quickly enough were kicked into consciousness to receive the sneers and insults of these blighters. They collected as many “souvenirs” as they could lay their hands on, in the shape of badges, buttons, etc. and generally made themselves objectionable. At last a doctor came in, who arranged to have the wounded attended to and gave orders to have the door closed so that we would not be molested further. Some of the worst cases were taken away and I never saw them again. I was particularly glad to see the boy I had helped along receiving treatment for his shattered back. His pathetic appeals to me to have a doctor attend to him had been drumming in my ears all the way there.
Soon after the doors had again been closed, we were allowed to go out to perform our ablutions at a pump in a yard at the back of the church, in ones and twos. A group of French peasants had gathered there, who pressed shirts and socks on us, which we were glad to have, although I knew that my feet had swollen to such an extent that had I taken off my boots, I should never have been able to put them on again. However, I pocketed the socks and they proved to be a godsend later. I had suffered agonies owing to the condition of my feet, due mainly to their having been under water for several days in our trenches before the “show,” but by this time they had become completely numbed and I felt no pain whatever.
The anxiety of these peasants to hear news of what was going on at the front was pathetic in the extreme. I tried to tell them of the situation as best I could, but fed by German lies, their appearance of utter hopelessness and helplessness showed that no amount of encouragement on my part would have the slightest effect on their morale, although a few of them managed to raise a faint smile of pleasure. They seemed absolutely crushed, and I could well imagine the treatment these poor people – old and young – had suffered at the hands of the Huns.
At about eight thirty, three nuns appeared at the door with baskets of chocolates and cakes. One of them got in and was in the act of distributing them to the men, when she was seized by an irate Bosche and roughly hustled outside. A second nun, on remonstrating with the sentry posted at the door, was brutally struck in the chest, her basket being knocked out of her hand as she staggered back. I happened to be standing near the door when it took place, and it was all I could do to keep my temper from getting the better of me. My blood was boiling and sizzling, and all I could do was to stand and watch while this exhibition of German “kultur” was going on.
After this, the door was again opened “to the public” and from then until about eleven we were the centre of attraction to the troops stationed in the village, and the object of their hate.
We were then taken to a sort of dining shed where we were given soup and brown bread – my first meal, such as it was, since the night of June 30th, two days previous. This proved to be the one and only meal I had for five days – for, for the next three days and three nights, not a particle of food came our way.
It was here at Grevillers that I was joined by another officer prisoner, Lieut. Pringle, of the Royal Scots, whom I got to know very well later on. His cheerfulness and optimism did a great deal to make our lot a little brighter. With men goaded to desperation by ill treatment and almost on the point of running amuck, whose self-control was almost at breaking point – it was Pringle’s quick wit and words of counsel that averted what might have turned into a wholesale slaughter, for had we shown the least sign of rebellion – had one man lost his temper and struck the Hun, I don’t know what would have happened to us. Time and again, when a Bosche had lurched himself against one of our men, almost knocking him down, or flicked his cigarette ash in his face, or spat at him, or even struck him, I could see him clench his fist till his knuckles shone white, and bite his lips till they almost bled – holding himself in check with a colossal effort. On these occasions Pringle would quickly link arms with the man, and with some amusing remark, lead him out of danger.
Soon after our meal, we were assembled outside the church, where half a dozen mounted Uhlans took charge of us and we proceeded once more on our way. These Uhlans were kept pretty busy keeping the French peasants at a distance with their long lances, for we created a great deal of interest, and many of these peasants tried to get near enough to ask questions as to the situation at the front, and to throw us chocolates and cigarettes, which the Uhlans immediately destroyed by riding their horses over them.
This journey was not a long one – about five miles, which took us to a small hamlet called Velou. We were taken to a farm about a mile and a half away and herded into a barn, the chief feature of which was the abundance of clean straw into which we sank and where we were able to sleep for several hours without any bother from the Huns. I think that was the most refreshing and enjoyable sleep I ever had in my life.
This farm must have been used for prisoners before, for it was well guarded by wire netting and barbed wire fences.
Towards evening a number of very badly wounded prisoners on stretchers were brought in – mostly of the London Scottish – some in terrible condition. Shortly after they arrived, a military doctor who happened to be passing, came in, and on seeing these wounded, at once sent for instruments etc. from his car and proceeded to attend to the worst cases. He told me that he was unable to remain as he was on his way to some hospital, but that he would come again later on, and left me a quantity of morphia, with instructions that I was to give it to some of the men who were in terrible pain. He was a good Samaritan, this doctor, and came two or three times during the night, but most of the men died in spite of his ministrations. Pringle and I took it in turns to keep watch and administer the morphia, and though I attempted to sleep during my time off, the groans and shrieks from the wounded made it impossible for me to do so. One man, with both legs blown off, spent the night clawing the air and screaming: “Oh, Hell, oh Hell!” He died in the early hours of the morning. It was a merciful end. Those left alive were taken away soon after daybreak.
We remained three days at Velou – marching to the railway station in the early morning, where we were kept under guard in the goods yard, waiting, apparently, for a train to take us to some other place, and returning to the farm at night – all the time without any food whatever.
I was pretty hungry the first two days, but the gnawing in my interior eased off the third day, and I felt I could keep on tightening my belt for a fortnight. About six o’clock on the third day a kindly Hun officer with whom I had a few words, took pity on us and ordered some bread to be issued, which duly arrived in a wheelbarrow. However, on dividing up into rations, it worked out to about one slice per man, which had the effect of rousing our dormant appetite with sad results.
At ten o’clock that night a train load of very badly wounded arrived – with several prisoners among them. We were shoved into a goods waggon just vacated by some of these wounded, and we prepared for slumber on the blood-soaked hay which littered the floor.
A few hours later we were aroused and detrained at a fair sized railway station, which proved to be that of the town of Cambrai, where I was destined to spend sixteen hideous days.
We marched to the local barracks, which had been turned into a collecting station for prisoners of war, and Pringle and I were put into a room where several other prisoner officers had been gathered.
My impression of those days at Cambrai is mainly one of hunger and vermin – chiefly the latter. The place was in a perfectly filthy condition and it was a wonder to me that our bedding, such as it was, and furniture did not walk out into the barrack square in a body. It was absolutely alive – O, and the whole building positively shook from the vibration due to scratching that we, one and all, indulged in. For the first time in twelve days or more, I removed my clothes, and my undergarments, already thickly populated, almost heaved on the floor. After being reinforced by brigades and divisions from the local inhabitants, it was with great difficulty that I managed to put my things on again.
In course of time sixteen officers and five hundred men were collected here – living under the most appalling conditions imaginable. There was no vestige of sanitation – the entrance was turned into a public convenience consisting of three tubs which immediately filled up and overflowed into the living quarters – the horror of it is indescribable. Drinking and washing water was obtained from one pump.
Food consisted of one meal per day. A mixture of water and two carrots with a potato thrown in to give it body, and a small hunk of bread was each man’s share. No plates or spoons were provided, each man had to use his tin helmet for the soupy concoction, and much amusement was derived from watching each other attempting to steer the stream of liquid along the brim of the helmet to his mouth without spilling it down his tunic. Sometimes, if we were lucky, we were given coffee for breakfast. This coffee was made of burnt acorns which had the effect of several of the men breaking out in boils.
The officers, however, were lucky in being able to bribe one of the guards to buy tins of sardines – one per day. The contents of each tin was carefully divided into sixteen – which worked out to about half a sardine per man, and even the oil was measured out to a thousandth of a cubic millimetre – or whatever the equivalent would be in liquid measure. Later, a French family in the town succeeded in getting in touch with us through one of the guards and they were able to smuggle in some white bread – big round flat slabs of it – and occasionally dainties which were exceedingly welcome. The bread supplied by the Germans consisted, as far as we could make out, of sawdust and flies, and the occasional taste of real bread was glorious in the extreme. This family, I learned after the war, suffered considerably as the result of their kindness to us, for they were found out by the Huns and spent the rest of the war in prison, as did also the German guard who had acted as messenger between us.
Those sixteen days were a nightmare. To sleep in the bunks which lined the walls of our room was merely inciting the lice to murder, and most of us slept on the hard stone floor without any covering – for the blankets provided were stiff with the sweat of countless Bosches who had tarried there before us, and sleepless nights and bruised bones were our lot most of the time.
The second week, we were allowed to prowl round the barrack square for exercise for an hour a day, but many of the men were too weak to indulge in this form of entertainment and spent the time lying down, in spite of the efforts of the officers to rouse them.
It was with a feeling of tremendous relief, therefore, that we at length marched out of the gate of our dungeon horrible, bound for an unknown destination.
We entrained, and there followed another period of starvation.
Our journey lay through the occupied countries of France and Belgium. We passed many signs of German terrorism during the early part of the war – silent villages and devastated homes. The sacked and burned city of Louvain, which we passed through at night was a grim reminder of 1914. It was like a city of the dead – the ruins standing stark and ghostly in the moonlight, without a single glimmer of light to indicate the presence of life.
We were three days in this train. Our one and only meal was served at Brussels – the most glorious meal I have ever had in my life. It consisted only of vegetable soup, but it was nourishing and we could have as much of it as we liked. It was delicious in the extreme – my first satisfying meal since the day before I went over the top – nearly three weeks before! We ate till we nearly burst, and returning to the train we all lay in a heap in a state of coma for the rest of the afternoon, disturbed only by those whose interiors were not of the accordion variety and therefore unable to hold a large amount of vegetable matter in stock for any length of time.
At last we passed the German frontier, and the train began to show signs of animation. With visions of sausage and sauerkraut before it, the engine gave a loud toot, and gathering up its skirts, dashed madly down into the Rhine valley, while we poor prisoners, with our spirits drooping lower and lower, gazed out of the windows at the Fritzes and Gretchens shaking their fists and putting out their tongues at us.
Arriving at Düsseldorf, the officers were detrained and put into a glass enclosed shelter on the platform, and for the next three hours were the object of great curiosity to the public, who packed themselves into a dense mass round the shelter and leered through the glass, while dainty frӓuleins passed round coffee and sandwiches to us “gefangeners,” gurgling the Hymn of Hate as they did so, which rather spoiled what might have been a very pretty scene. Here the officers and men parted company, the latter going on in the same train to the Mysterious Unknown, while we were put into another train (at about two o’clock in the morning) which, being an ordinary train used by the public, necessitated our guards being doubled.
The cold grey dawn found us shivering on the platform of a station which proved to be that of the town of Gütersloh, where I was destined to spend nine months of intensely interesting existence.
We marched through the sleeping town and out into the country beyond, finally arriving at a mysterious building heavily guarded by barbed wire and sentries at frequent intervals patrolling round it. This turned out to be a sort of combined reception house and hospital of the prison camp, which we could see through the trees a little way beyond.
The sight of clean sheets and warm blankets on comfortable beds, spotless rooms and hot baths was too much for us, and we one and all collapsed in a dead faint – or very nearly!
Every vestige of our clothing was at once taken away to be fumigated, and well it needed it. Removing our under-clothing was not an easy operation, for the little beggars were loth to part from us, having made of us their habitation and their sustenance for so long.
A day in bed, with hot baths every fifteen minutes or so, food served on plates, with knives and forks to eat with – this was indeed heaven! How I gloried in the luxury of those sheets! How I splashed and lathered in the bath! I felt I was a human being again.
There was one snag attached to the fumigating business. When our clothes were returned to us the following morning we found they had shrunk, owing to the heating process of parasite extermination, to about half their original size. The air became thick with flying garments and language. It was a weird company that assembled around the breakfast table. We looked for all the world like a party of overgrown schoolboys – with our sleeves only down to our elbows and shoulders tickling our ears. We suffered immense discomfort, with our chests compressed by contracted vests, and a feeling of chilly waste about the middle where the upper and lower garments failed to meet.
We spent four days here, with nothing to do but eat and sleep and bathe. This was the real beginning of my two years of captivity. On the fourth day we were transferred to the main camp.
Reported Missing 