The severe mauling which the German armies were receiving—­we knew nothing about it at the time—­undoubtedly was partly responsible for the harsh treatment extended to us.  Unable to smash the “contemptible little army,” which was certainly proving capable of looking after itself, vengeance was visited upon our defenceless heads.

One day a huge crowd of prisoners was brought in.  Whether the Commandant had been advised of their coming or not I am unable to say.  But one incontrovertible fact remains—­he failed utterly to make any food arrangements to meet the increase in the camp’s population.  The prisoners reached the camp in the usual famishing condition and were given a small ration.  But they were satisfied partially at our expense.  The remaining food was only adequate to give us one-half of our usual small dole, and we had to rest content therewith.  The canteen being closed we could not make up the deficiency even at our own expense.

My health was now giving way, as a result of my privations in Wesel prison, accentuated by the indifferent and insufficient food and hard work at Sennelager.  I was assigned to various light duties.  One of these brought me into the cook-house, where I was ordered to cut up the black bread—­one brick loaf into five equal pieces, each of which had to last a man through six meals.  I was either unfitted for kitchen work or else my presence was resented.  At all events I soon realised that my first day in the cook-house would undoubtedly be my last.  I had to serve out the bread, and ostensibly, either from lack of experience or nervousness, I bungled my task.  The men had to go by the boiler in single file, passing on to the table to receive the bread, where serving was carried out so dexterously that the moving line never paused—­until it got to my table.  But there was method in my bungling.  I was zealously striving to double the bread ration to the British prisoners.  Consequently the pieces of bread persisted in tumbling to the ground, thereby hindering and upsetting the steady progress and rhythm of serving.  But each man as he stooped to recover a fallen piece received a second hunk surreptitiously, as was my direct intention.  However, unfortunately for me, the bread did not go far enough, the outcome being an outburst of further trouble.  As I had expected, my room was preferred to my company in that kitchen and I was deposed.

While in Sennelager I had been sedulously keeping an elaborate diary in which I entered details of every incident that befell the camp.  I had also recovered my original diary which had played such a prominent part at my trial in Wesel prison.

[gap]

Now diaries were the one thing in Sennelager which were rigorously debarred.  To have been caught with such a record of the doings and my opinions of the German authorities would have brought me an exemplary sentence of solitary confinement or penal servitude in a German prison, if not something worse.  Consequently I was compelled to post my diary in secrecy.  I discovered a hiding-place which would never have occurred to the guards, even if they had gained an inkling that such a document was in existence.