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Later, during the day of their arrival, we civilian prisoners had the opportunity to fraternise with our fighting compatriots.  Then we ascertained that they had been wounded and captured during the retreat from Mons. But they had been subjected to the most barbarous treatment conceivable.  They had received no skilled or any other attention upon the battlefield.  They had merely bound up one another’s wounds as best they could with materials which happened to be at hand, or had been forced to allow the wounds to remain open and exposed to the air.  Bleeding and torn they had been bundled unceremoniously into a train, herded like cattle, and had been four days and nights travelling from the battlefield to Sennelager.

During these 96 hours they had tasted neither food nor water!  The train was absolutely deficient in any commissariat, and the soldiers had not been permitted to satisfy their cravings, even to the slightest degree, and even if they were in the possession of the wherewithal, by the purchase of food at stations at which the train had happened to stop.  What with the fatigue of battle and this prolonged enforced abstinence from the bare necessaries of life, it is not surprising that they reached Sennelager in a precarious and pitiful condition.

Among our heroes were five commissioned officers, including a major.  These were accommodated at Sennelager for about a fortnight but then they were sent away, whither we never knew beyond the fact that they had been condemned to safer imprisonment in a fortress.  Among the prisoners were also about 200 men belonging to the R.A.M.C., taken in direct contravention of the generally accepted rules of war.  They were treated in precisely the same manner as the captured fighting men.  There were also a few non-commissioned officers who were permitted to retain their authority within certain limits.

One of the prisoners gave me a voluminous diary which he had kept, and in which were chronicled the whole of his movements and impressions from the moment he landed in France until his capture, including the Battle of Mons. It was a remarkable human document, and I placed it in safe keeping, intending to get it out of the camp and to send it to my friend at home upon the first opportunity.  But ill-luck dogged this enterprise.  The existence of the diary got to the ears of our wardens and I was compelled to surrender it.

The next morning the wounded received attention.  The medical attendant attached to the camp for the civilian prisoners, Dr. Ascher, was not placed in command of this duty, although he extended assistance.  A German military surgeon was given the responsibility.  The medical arrangements provided by this official, who became unduly inflated with the eminence of his position, were of the most arbitrary character.  He attended the camp at certain hours and he adhered to his time-table in the most rigorous manner.