While we were pushing ahead with this task we discussed its coming purposes very animatedly.  But none of the guards appeared to have the slightest inkling of its projected application.  However, this was immaterial to us.  A loud cheer of triumph went up when we had hung the gates, which we had also fashioned at great effort, and the duty was completed.  We were beside ourselves with self-satisfaction and delight because we had shown the implacable Major Bach what we Britishers could do when we made up our minds to tackle anything.  I very much doubt whether even an equal number of skilled workmen would have completed the fence within the stipulated time, and we for the most part were quite foreign to the trades involved.

When we first entered the camp we were provided with a tolerably satisfactory area of adjacent space in which to exercise ourselves.  But as additional prisoners came in this limb-stretching promenade became gradually reduced until at last it was no more than a suburban chicken run in area, being just as long as our barrack by one-half the space between the two rows of buildings.  These cramped quarters rather exasperated us because we were denied the pleasure of a little stroll.  The exercise yard was also invariably obstructed by clothes hanging on the lines to dry or to air, the result being that within a very short time the British section of Sennelager Camp became vividly reminiscent of a slum in the densely populated districts off the Mile End Road.

The speedy completion of the “big fence” unfortunately set a bad precedent.  Major Bach, flushed with the success of his first speeding-up tactics, grew more and more inexorable in this connection.  For every job a rigid time-limit was now set, and he did not hesitate to reduce the period to an almost impossible point.  The cause was perfectly obvious.  He concluded that by setting us an absolutely impossible, though apparently reasonable, enterprise, he would secure the opportunity for which he was so sedulously waiting—­to mete us out some new punishment.  But somehow or other we always contrived to cheat him in his nefarious designs.

During this period our guard was changed frequently.  Men would be withdrawn to make up the losses incurred upon the battlefield.  Thus we were brought into contact with the various types of Germans which constitute the Teutonic Empire.  Some were certainly not ill-disposed towards us.  They mounted guard over us according to their own interpretation of this essential duty.  But others slavishly followed the rigid instructions which were laid down, notably the Prussian guards, who were about the most brutal and despicable blackguards it is possible for the whole of Germany to have produced to mount watch and ward over us.  One set of guards was withdrawn to bring a Westphalian regiment to fighting strength and proceeded to the front.  Afterwards we learned that every man had been lost—­killed, wounded or missing.