CHAPTER XI

THE STRAFE-BARRACK

When they took us to the Strafe-Barrack, the Company painter was summoned and put on our rings, which stamped us as desperate characters who would have to be watched.  There was something to me particularly distasteful about the rings, for I hated to have my Canadian uniform plastered with these obnoxious symbols.  But I did not let the guards see that it bothered me at all, for we knew that the object of all their punishment was to break our spirits.

The Strafe-Barrack was supposed to finish the work begun in the cells.  It followed up the weakening of our bodies and minds, caused by the fourteen days’ solitude and starvation, and was intended to complete the job with its deadly monotony and inaction.

We got no parcels; so the joy of expectation was eliminated.  We did not know how long we were in for, so we could not even have the satisfaction of seeing the days pass, and knowing we were nearing the end!  We had no books or papers; even the “Continental Times” was denied us!  We got the same food as they had in the prison-camp, and we had a mattress to sleep on, and two blankets.

So far as physical needs were concerned, we were as well off as any of the fellows, but the mental stagnation was calculated, with real German scientific reasoning, to break us down to the place where we could not think for ourselves.  They would break down our initiative, they thought, and then we should do as they told us.  As usual in dealing with spiritual forces, they were wrong!

In the morning we swept the floor of the hut, and spread up our beds and had our breakfast.  Then we sat on stools for an indefinite period, during which time we were not supposed to speak or move.  It was the duty of the guards to see that we obeyed these rules.  It is a mean way to treat a human being, but it sent us straight back upon our own mental resources, and I thought things out that I had never thought about before.  Little incidents of my childhood came back to me with new significance and with a new meaning, and life grew richer and sweeter to me, for I got a longer view of it.

It had never occurred to me, any more than it does to the average Canadian boy, to be thankful for his heritage of liberty, of free speech, of decency.  It has all come easy to us, and we have taken all the apples which Fortune has thrown into our laps, without thinking.

But in those long hours in the Strafe-Barrack I thought of these things:  I thought of my father and mother... of the good times we had at home... of the sweet influences of a happy childhood, and the inestimable joy of belonging to a country that stands for fair play and fair dealing, where the coward and the bully are despised, and the honest and brave and gentle are exalted.

I thought and thought and thought of these things, and my soul overflowed with gratitude that I belonged to a decent country.  What matter if I never saw it again?  It was mine, I was a part of it, and nothing could ever take it from me!