About ten months after I entered the camp, blankets were purchasable at the camp stores.  They cost us nine shillings apiece and they were not our exclusive property.  When a prisoner received his release he was not permitted to take his blanket with him.  Neither had it any surrender value.  It had to be left behind.  If the prisoner could find a purchaser for it he was at liberty to do so, but if no sale could be consummated then it had to be presented to a comrade.  The blanket was not allowed to leave the camp because it contained a certain amount of wool!

The food supplied by the authorities did not vary very pronouncedly from what I had received in other camps, but if anything it was a trifle better, especially in the early days, when Germany was not feeling the pinch of the British blockade.  For breakfast there was the eternal acorn coffee and a hunk of black bread.  The mid-day repast comprised a soup contrived from potatoes, cabbage, and carrots with traces of meat.  One strange mixture which the authorities were fond of serving out to us was a plate of rice and prunes garnished with a small sausage!  I invariably traded the sausage with a comrade for prunes, this so-called German dainty not appealing to my palate in the slightest.  After a while, however, this dish vanished from the limited menu.  Tea was merely a repetition of the morning meal.

Our first emphatic protest was in connection with our sleeping accommodation in the loft.  A representative came from the American Embassy and we introduced him forthwith to our sleeping quarters.  We not only voiced our complaints but we demonstrated our inability to get warm at night owing to the cold floor striking through the straw.  He agreed with us and ordered the authorities to provide us with sleeping arrangements somewhat more closely allied to civilized practice.  The Germans obeyed the letter but not the spirit of the Representative’s recommendations.  They sent us in a few boards spaced an inch or two apart and nailed to thin cross battens.  In this way our bodies were lifted about two inches off the floor!

The straw when served out to us was perfectly clean and fresh, but it did not retain this attractiveness for a very long time.  The soil in the vicinity of Ruhleben is friable, the surface being a thick layer of fine sand in dry, and an evil-looking slush in wet, weather.  As the prisoners when entering the barracks were unable to clean their boots, the mud was transferred to the straw.  Not only did the straw thus become extremely dirty but the mud, upon drying, charged it heavily with dust.  When a tired man threw himself down heavily upon his sorry couch he was enveloped for a few seconds in the cloud of dust which he sent from the straw into the air.  Whenever we attempted to shake up our beds to make them slightly more comfortable, the darkness of the loft was rendered darker by the dense dust fog which was precipitated.  Naturally violent coughing and sneezing attended these operations and the dust, being far from clean in itself, wrought fearful havoc with our lungs.  I recall one prisoner who was in perfect health when he entered the camp, but within a few weeks he had contracted tuberculosis.  He declined so rapidly as to arouse the apprehensions of the authorities, who hurriedly sent him home to Britain.