to be seen for flies.  At first we spent considerable effort in brushing the insects away, but their numbers were too overwhelming to be resisted, so we were compelled to run the risk of the flies, and I, in common with others, have eaten bread, honey, and flies as well!  It took considerable time and effort to master such a revolting meal, but under these conditions, it was either flies or nothing, so we ran the risk of the insects, although it cannot be said that they contributed to the tastiness of an already indifferent food, or our peace of mind, because we could not dismiss thoughts of the cesspool which the flies made their happy hunting-ground during the periods between meals.

Infraction of the rules and regulations were frequent, for the simple reason that they were never explained to us.  We had to learn them as best we could—­invariably through the experience of punishment.  This state of affairs placed us at the mercy of the guards.  Those who were venomously anti-British expended their savagery upon us on every occasion.  For the slightest misdemeanour we were consigned to the cells for one, two, three, or more days.  The cell recalled my domicile in Wesel, and I must confess that I made the acquaintance of its uninviting interior upon several occasions through inadvertently breaking some rule.  But the others fared no better in this respect.  It was cells for anything.

This prison was a small masonry building, fitted with a tiny grating.  It was devoid of all appointments, not even a plank bed being provided.  To sleep one had to stretch one’s self on the floor and secure as much comfort as the cold stone would afford.  Bread and water was the diet.  All exercise was denied, except possibly for the brief stretch accompanied by the sentry to fetch the mid-day meal of soup, assuming the offence permitted such food in the dietary, from the cook-house.  Conversation with a fellow-creature was rigidly verboten.  It was solitary confinement in its most brutal form.

The method of punishment was typically Prussian.  If one upset the guard by word or deed, he clapped you in the cell right-away and left you there.  Possibly he went off to his superior officer to report your offence.  But the probability was that he did not.  Indeed it was quite likely that he forgot all about you for a time, because the sentry at the door never raised the slightest interrogation concerning a prisoner within.  More than once a prisoner was forgotten in this manner, and accordingly was condemned to the silence, solitude, and dismal gloom of the tiny prison until the guard chanced to recall him to mind.