The sanitary arrangements upon this field were of the most barbarous character, comprising merely deep wide open ditches which had been excavated by ourselves.  Those of us who had not been broken by the experience, although suffering from extreme weakness, pulled ourselves together to make an effort to save what human flotsam and jetsam we could.  But we could not repress a fearful curse and a fierce outburst of swearing when we came to the latrine.  Six poor fellows, absolutely worn out, had crawled to a narrow ledge under the brink of the bank to seek a little shelter from the pitiless storm.  There they had lain, growing weaker and weaker, until unable to cling any longer to their precarious perch they had slipped into the trench to lie among the human excreta, urine and other filth.  They knew where they were but were so far gone as to be unable to lift a finger on their own behalf.  Their condition, when we fished them out, to place them upon as dry a spot as we could find, I can leave to the imagination.  I may say this was the only occasion upon which I remember the British prisoners giving vent to such voluble swearing as they then used, and I consider it was justified.

In an adjacent field our heroes from Mons were camped and a small party of us made our way to the first tent.  We were greeted by the R.A.M.C.  Water had been playing around their beds, but they acknowledged that they had fared better because they were protected overhead.  The soldiers, however, made light of their situation, although we learned that many of the Tommies, from lack of accommodation, had been compelled to spend the night in the open.  Still, as they were somewhat more inured to exposure than ourselves, they had accepted the inevitable more stoically, although the ravages of the night and the absence of food among them were clearly revealed by their haggard and pinched faces.

The men in the tents confessed that they had been moved by the sounds which penetrated to their ears from the field in which the civilian prisoners had been turned adrift.  They immediately enquired after the condition of our boys.  Unfortunately we could not yield much information upon this point, as we were still partially in ignorance of the plight of our compatriots.  But there was no mistaking the depth of the feeling of pity which went out for “the poor devils of civvies,” while the curses and oaths which were rained down upon the head of Major Bach with true British military emphasis and meaning revealed the innermost feelings of our soldiers very convincingly.

Seeing that we were exhausted and shivering from emptiness the R.A.M.C. made a diligent search for food, but the quest was in vain.  Their larder like ours was empty.  In fact the Tommies themselves were as hard-pushed for food as we were.