One morning we were paraded, and every man was ordered to produce any bread he might have in his possession.  Some of us had been storing the official rations against the rainy day which we felt must come sooner or later.  This had to be surrendered.  The guards also carried out a thorough search to assure themselves that none had been left behind or concealed under beds.  When the bread had been collected the authorities calmly cut it up and served us with a small piece each—­that is they gave us back a portion of what was already our property, and which we had not eaten merely because we had been making ourselves content with purchases from the canteens.

This proceeding brought home to us the vivid prospect of being reduced to a perilous position within a very short time.  So in our letters home we emphasised the need to send us bread and other food-stuffs.  As about three weeks elapsed before we received a loaf after it had been dispatched, we kept it another week, then soaked it in water and took it to the cook-house to be re-baked, for which we were charged one penny.

Some of the unfortunate members of the party had no bread come from home.  But with true camaraderie those prisoners who were in the land of plenty invariably divided their prizes, so that one and all were reduced to a common level.  In this way considerable misery and discontent were averted.  Of course, when stocks ran out, we had to revert to the official rations.  Here and there would be found a few hard-hearted and unsympathetic gluttons.  They would never share a single thing with a comrade.  A prisoner of this type would sit down to a gorgeous feast upon dainties sent from home, heedless of the envious and wistful glances of his colleagues who were sitting around him at the table with nothing beyond the black bread and the acorn coffee.  He would never even proffer a spoonful of jam which would have enabled the revolting black bread to be swallowed with greater relish.

There is one prisoner of this type whom I particularly recall.  He had plenty of money in his pockets, and was the lucky recipient of many bulky hampers at regular intervals.  Yet he never shared a crust with a less fortunate chum.  But this individual did not refuse the opportunity to trade upon the hospitality of a fellow-prisoner when he himself was in a tight place.  He became the most detested man in the camp, and to this day, with the rest of his selfish ilk, he suffers a rigid boycott, and at the same time is the target of every practical joke which his colleagues can devise.  To quote the vernacular, we had “Some jokes with him,” and often stung him to fury, when we would laugh mercilessly at his discomfiture.

At the time I left the camp the outlook had assumed a very black aspect, and now we hear things have reached a climax.  Money is worse than useless now because it can purchase nothing.  The prisoners are reduced to subsist upon what meagre rations the authorities choose to dole out to them, and essentially upon what they receive from home.  Starvation confronts our compatriots suffering durance vile in Ruhleben.  The dawn of each succeeding day is coming to be dreaded with a fear which baffles description because it is unfathomable.