As we could not persuade the authorities to serve us with a bed apiece, we decided to build the three extra beds ourselves.  But we were faced with the extreme difficulty of procuring the requisite wood!  The authorities had none to give away and very little to sell.  When we saw these empty packing cases, which were of huge dimensions, we thought luck had come our way at last, so we approached the proprietor of the stores for permission to break them up.  But to our disgust he informed us that he had already parted with them—­for a consideration we discovered afterwards.  Two had been secured by a German sentry in the camp to be converted into wardrobes, while the others were in the hands of the camp carpenter.  We approached this worthy, but he ridiculed the suggestion that he should give some of the wood to us for our intended purpose.  We could buy the boards if we liked.  As there was no alternative source of supply we did so, and the price of purchase showed that the carpenter cleared nine shillings on each crate!  With much difficulty we built our three extra beds between us, but the outlay for materials alone was eighteen shillings!

The cold during the winter affected us very severely because the barrack was absolutely devoid of any heating facilities.  When the snow was carpeting the ground to a depth of from six to eight inches, and the thermometer was hovering several degrees below zero we lay awake nearly the whole night shivering with cold.  Indeed on more than one occasion, I with others, abandoned all attempts to sleep and trudged the loft to keep warm.

We appealed to the American Ambassador in the hope that he would be able to rectify matters.  When he came upon the scene there was another outburst of indignation.  He ordered the authorities to instal a heating system without further delay.  By driving through our sole protector in this manner, we, as usual, received some measure of respite.  But the heating was useless to those living in the horse-boxes.  The side partitions of the latter were not carried up to the ceiling, but a space of some two feet was left.  To protect ourselves from the fierce ear-cutting draught which swept through the stables we blocked these spaces with brown paper.  But the means which somewhat combated the onslaughts of the draughts also shut out the heat, so that, in our case, and it was typical of others, we really did not benefit one iota from the “complete heating system” with which, so the German press asserted, Ruhleben Camp was lavishly equipped.

Christmas Day, 1914, was an unholy nightmare.  Our fare could not, by any stretch of imagination, be described as Christmassy.  We had several pro-Germans among us—­they preached this gospel in the hope of being released if only on “passes,” but the thoroughbred Prussian is not to be gulled by patriots made-to-order—­and they kept up the spirit of Yule Tide with candles and what not, somewhat after the approved Teuton manner.  It was impressive, but so palpably artificial and shallow as merely to court derision and mockery among the Britishers.