About March, 1915, as previously narrated, we commenced to experience a severe shortage of bread.  We were not receiving sufficient of the staff of life to keep us alive.  The representative drove into the camp one day to investigate some other matter.  When he had departed upon his mission, accompanied by the inevitable entourage, some of us gathered around his motor-car which was covered with dust.  While one or two were chatting with the chauffeur one of the party slipped a letter, pointing out our dire straits and describing how famished we were, beneath the ambassador’s seat, and in such a manner as to compel his attention upon re-entering the automobile.  Another prisoner, with his finger, scrawled in the dust upon the rear of the tonneau, “We want bread!” while other notices were chalked up in commanding positions, so as to arrest instant attention, “For God’s sake, give us bread!”

When the German guards spotted the flaming appeal upon the rear of the car they fussed up in indignant rage.  One advanced to obliterate the damning words, but the chauffeur whipped round the car.  He caught sight of the mute request, and intercepting the officious sentry remarked:—­

“You mustn’t touch this car!  It’s the property of the United States Government!”

The guard pulled himself up sharply, glaring fiercely and evidently contemplating defiance of the warning.  The chauffeur was a white man.  He eyed us quizzically for a moment or two.  Realising from our faces that we were not playing a joke, but ventilating a serious grievance, he stood between the officious sentry and the vehicle until the representative returned.  The Embassy car drove out of the camp with the letters still staring out in a gaunt appeal from the thick dust.  Evidently the chauffeur drew the representative’s attention to our cry, while it is only reasonable to suppose that the emissary from the Embassy discovered the letter which we had secreted beneath his seat, because an improvement in the allowance of bread immediately ensued.

And so it went on.  No trick was too knavish or too despicable to prevent our guardian learning the truth concerning our plight.  He very rarely walked about unaccompanied.  Tongue in cheek, the Germans, who always were cognisant of the object of his visit, and who had always taken temporary measures to prove the grievance to be ill-founded, strode hither and thither with him, throwing knowing glances and winks among themselves behind the representative’s back.  Doubtless it was the successful prosecution of these tactics which persuaded the Embassy to believe that the majority of our complaints were imaginary and arose from the circumstance that the inhabitants of Ruhleben would persist in ignoring the fact that they were the victims of war and not pampered pets.