A Captive at Carlsruhe and Other German Prison Camps. Joseph Levinger Lee
We discovered that by climbing on to the frame of the iron bedstead, and clutching perilously at the ventilating portion of the window in our cell, we could just succeed in gaining a glimpse of the street. To the right we seemed to be in the neighbourhood of a zoological garden or an aviary of some dimension. The only inhabitant of the cages visible to us, however, was a large vulture, which sat there day after day, an unchanging picture of sullenness and stolidity. I wondered if perchance it scented or visioned the red fields which lay not so many miles away.
And so the days passed. After considerable agitation I succeeded in securing a few volumes of the Tauchnitz edition, amongst them Stevenson’s “The Master of Ballantrae.” This possibly, however, induced in me a greater home-sickness for Scotland than ever.
THE UNTEROFFIZIER.
Finding a draught-board to our hand outlined upon the table, and making counters of paper white and blue, we four prisoners on a day played for the championship of the cell and a superadded stake of four thin slices of bread. I won somewhat easily, being a Scotsman, and something of a player as a boy; indeed, heaven forgive me! it was I who suggested the game. As victor, however, I was seized with compassion and compunction, so that, while I retained the title, I returned to each man his share of that staff of life, on which, it has to be confessed, we were having to lean somewhat heavily.
At last came the order that we were to shift from the hotel to the Offizier kriegsgefangenenlager. Whereupon, clapping my steel helmet upon my head, and thrusting my uneaten morsel of bread into one of my tunic pockets, I was ready for the road.
CHRISTMAS DAY AT CARLSRUHE.
ARRIVAL OF THE PARCEL CART.
II
Life at Carlsruhe Lager
As we passed a sentry and turned in between high palisades heavily fortified by barbed wire, I had a feeling of disappointment, if not of dismay. I had hoped to live more closely to Nature, whereas Carlsruhe Camp lay in a central part of the town, and was overlooked at almost every point by high buildings, hotels, restaurants, and mansions. The few trees were, of course, meantime bare of leaves, and there were no traces of grass in the long stretches of court between the huts.
In the salon d’appel we were searched. My sketch-book was scrutinized, critically, perhaps, but not uncharitably, and I was permitted to keep it. Of what other poor possessions I now had, only my signalling whistle was taken.
Dinner that night consisted of soup, followed by Sauerkraut. Breakfast next morning, in my case, consisted of a cold shower bath and anticipations of lunch at midday!
There was a little chapel at Carlsruhe used alternately and harmoniously by English Churchmen, Roman Catholics, and Nonconformists. While we awaited service on this first morning of my arrival there was a distribution of biscuits—briquettes of bread really—which were received from their Government by the French officer and orderly prisoners at the rate of seventy per man per week; a plentitude which permitted of the orderlies trading them among the less-favoured British officers at anything from fifty pfennig to a mark each.
THE CHAPEL AT CARLSRUHE.
On the present occasion, when the baskets had been carried away, a few crumbs and sweepings of the biscuits were left upon the floor, while we stood around with our backs to the wall and our hands in our pockets. Presently one prisoner put forth an apparently accidental foot, which covered probably the largest of the pieces. Then, somewhat shamefacedly, he stooped and picked it up. Upon which signal, with one accord, and with as close a resemblance to a flock of city sparrows as anything I ever saw, we swooped down upon the fragments. For my share I succeeded in securing two pieces of quite half an inch square!
Those were indeed hungry days, when a man’s wealth was not to be calculated by the amount standing to his credit at Messrs. Cox & Co.’s, or even by the abundance of his blankets, but by the number of French biscuits which he had succeeded in securing. Here of all places in the world might one see a Brigadier-General crossing the square carefully balancing a mess of pork and beans upon a plate, or nursing the contents of a tin of sardines upon a saucer!
To be invited to tea by a friendly and more flourishing mess was the greatest beatitude that could befall a man. In these cases of ceremonious call the guest always carried his own crockery and cutlery.
COL. ALBERT TURANO, ARTIGLIERIA ITALIANO.
One such pleasant refection, with Col. Albert Turano, Artiglieria Italiano, lingers very pleasantly in my memory. In view of his rank the Colonel occupied alone a small chamber in one of the huts. On the wall was a crucifix, and a few reproductions of religious paintings and decorations by the Danish artist, Joakim Skovgaard. A shelf of Italian books, a deal table, two stools, and an iron bedstead, with above it a plant, to be unnamed by me, but which looked as if it might develop into a tree, in a flower-pot so tiny that it seemed as if it might have done service as a thimble. The Colonel prepared the coffee with great care, and served it with much courtliness. The entire contents of his larder consisted of a few fragments of hard French biscuits. These we steeped in the coffee, and of this quite delectable sop partook with much contentment.
In talk we turned over the art treasures of Venice and Florence, and when I referred to Dante, and particularly to the episode of Paolo and Francesca, the Colonel produced from his breast pocket a little marked copy of the “Divina Commedia,” in a chamois-leather case, which he had carried through the campaign, and read me the passage in Italian. Followed cigarettes, and a joint vow that if we foregathered in London our dinner at the Trocadero would be completed by just such a cup of coffee—à la Carlsruhe! Some time later, while he was being changed to another camp, the gallant Colonel succeeded in effecting his escape.
In retrospect the menu at Carlsruhe seems to have consisted of interminable plates of soup, followed by sauerkraut and anæmic potatoes. No effort was made—nor was there any need—to stimulate our appetites by surprise dishes or kickshaws; although on St. Patrick’s Day a wild rumour went round the camp that we were to have boiled shamrock for dinner! Some officers could achieve five plates of soup at a meal; one could rarely venture to brave the day on less than three. On Thursdays and Sundays there was a morsel of meat—the veriest opening and immediate closing of the lid of the flesh pot, as it were. On certain days, apples—for which we lined up in a queue—were to be bought at the Kantine at one mark per pound. Sardines cost five to six marks a tin; other prices were in proportion.
First Letters and Parcels
The coming of one’s first letter was a memorable event in camp life. The immediate impulse was to retire with it to the remotest corner of the court—as a dog with a bone, or a lover with a billet-doux—and there devour it, and for days after one was continually impelled to a re-perusal. A Portuguese officer who had made a vow, Nazarite-wise, not to shave or cut his hair until such time as news would come from the far country, was three and a half months in camp before he received his first letter. Then, amid loud laughter and cries of “Barbier! Barbier!” he departed with the precious epistle in his hand, and later in the day made his appearance, looking not unlike