A large number of animals and chickens lived in the same house, or rather room. They usually slept, as far as I can make out, on top of the stoves, which were of the big tiled variety. The usual Polish village consisted of huge barn-like buildings where severalįamilies lived together with a swarm of children and some half-dozen adults of both sexes. He said the dirt and discomfort were absolutely horrible. He gave me rather an interesting picture of the Russian front during the big German advance. I had a longish talk that night with him, but he would insist on smoking strong cigars with the window tight shut, and his breath stank so that I was nearly sick. The lieutenant was perfectly hopeless and helpless, and I several times felt inclined to take command of the party and give the conductor a few marks to get us a decent carriage. However, eventually we got into a third-class coach, and after pushing along the corridor, to the surprise of a crowd of peaceful travelers, we got into a third-class wooden-seated compartment. We had a pretty uncomfortable and very dull journey.Īt Halle, after we had waited an hour or two in a Red Cross dormitory, the lieutenant made some bad muddle about the trains, and there was also a difficulty because prisoners-of-war were not allowed to travel on a "Schnellzug" (fast train). In fact, Kicq, who had studied the matter when we had had intentions of trying for Switzerland, knew much more about the route than he did. Although he asked every one he saw, he never seemed to know how or where to catch any train. The little lieutenant met us at the station, and proved to be the most incompetent traveler. In fact, during the whole of this journey we were, quite contrary to our expectations, so badly guarded that I swore I would be properly prepared to escape the next time I had a train journey at night. We had a two or three mile walk to the station, and were escorted only by an Both Kicq and I did a good deal of talking during the last hour we spent at Clausthal, and when the sentry came to fetch us we were given a very cheery send-off, nearly all the camp turning out. We had to leave Clausthal camp about 2 o'clock and walk to the station, so that we had about half an hour in the camp to say "good-bye" and pass on all we had learnt. We had already been told that we were going to be sent to Ingolstadt but, though Nichol made inquiries in the camp, no one seemed to know what sort of place it was. The other letters I wrote in code, and I wrote many from Fort 9 (and much more important ones), all got through successfully.Īt midday on November 12th we came out of prison. I wrote a longish message, very small, on a piece of cigarette paper, and stuck it to the flap of the envelope, and then wrote a code message in the letter saying, "Tear open flap of envelope." The letter got through all right, but they failed at home to see that it was in code. The last time I had been home on leave from France before being taken, I had made up, with the help of the rest of my family, a very rough sort of code depending on the formation of the letters. About this time I wrote home for the first time in code.
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