The Ypres Times.
47
Men died like flies at Queant, insanity, fevers, and sheer heartbreak through giving
way to despair and letting themselves go. Things got so bad, a medical man (the first
seen) attended the camp. He plunged a needle into our breasts as if he was using a
bayonet, and then we passed on to his orderly, who scratched our arms in four places.
The same needle was used to six prisoners without cleansing.
While working on the railway one day, a truck arrived with huge mangolds for cattle
food, but on trying to run to it we fell over with weakness, this being the first attempt
at running. However, by dodging the sentry's rifle butt, nearly everyone captured a
mangold. There was royal feasting in the camp that night, various methods of cooking
being attempted, even to toasting slices.
Our first pay was received at the rate of 3d. per day, which totalled ii| marks (9s. 6d.).
A sentry set up as a barberhe only had shearsand the quick change from Robinson
Crusoes to shaven heads was very bewildering to identification.
Glad to esGape the evil smelling dug-outs, I joined a building party of 40 and set off
over the Cambrai-Bapaume road, touching Beaumetz, passing through Hermies and on
into Havrincourt Wood. It was a complete contrast from the shell-shattered villages
to see practically untouched foliage in this fine wood, and to sleep on wire netting raised
6 ins. from the ground on posts was luxury indeed compared to the water-logged dugout
floor, and a couch of a few brick ends.
The work here was erecting huts, and to earn our breakfasts we had to carry two
heavy corrugated sheets about i| miles. Another job was going to a ruined village
and cleaning bricks with bayonets, but this was pleasant because after only two hours'
work all of us (sentries included) went on the scrounge and found many things from very
green rhubarb to articles left behind by the Artists' Rifles. Ground around old British
cookhouses was reverently turned over, and once a tin of fat was found. Tins of maggoty
bully beef were fairly pounced on. It was like digging for treasure.
From Queant to Havrincourt I had carried a package for a sentry (nicknamed Mousey)
and had been rewarded with a herring. Feeling ill one day in his working party, I told
him so. He made me sit down, gave me a cigar and made me smoke it right through to
the envy of the others. This was his idea of getting me better, which I believe it did.
We were now working seven days a week, from 6 a.m. till 12 and from 2 p.m. till
6, on a third of a loaf and a litre of soup, augmented only by careful searching at night
times. Dubbin was found and spread on the bread, but the Hors d'oeuvre was potato
peelings fried in dubbin, to the accompaniment of clouds of strong blue smoke, and equally
strong epithets from fellow prisoners trying to sleep.
Each night we would take it in turn to prowl round the sentries' quarters. On my
expedition, I found a bed of young, two-leaved cabbages just planted. One fellow was
trying to track a wild black cat seen in the wood, for food. He was told it was unlucky
to kill a black cathe said it would befor the cat.
(To be continued.)
MEMBERSHIP OF THE LEAQUE.
This is open to all who served in the Salient,
and to all those whose relatives or friends died
there, in order that they may have a record of
that service for themselves and their descendants,
and belong to the comradeship of men and women
who understand and remember all that Ypres
meant in suffering and endurance.
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ot those who served in the Salient, also those who
svuipathise with our objects, have the right to
belong Annual subscriptions Is. up to the age
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