Then he was treated to an outburst of bullying and cursing from the Commandant such as we had never heard before.  He was threatened with this, that, and some other frightful punishment if he dared to disobey any order in future.  The old man, his legs bent and quaking beneath him, listened with a pathetically helpless demeanour.  The tears coursed down his face as he shivered beneath the string of oaths, curses, and imprecations that were rained upon him.  Many of us feared that he would be condemned for four hours to the tying post, so infuriated was the despot of the camp, but he escaped this terrible ordeal.

About four weeks after we had entered Sennelager permission was extended to those who felt so disposed to enjoy the luxury of an open-air bath.  Seeing that we never had the chance of more than a wash in the bucket at the pump, and were in urgent need of a dip, we accepted the offer with alacrity.  We were escorted under strong guard to a stream some distance from the barracks and were given a quarter of an hour for our pleasure.  We hurriedly tore off our clothes and took advantage of every minute to have a roaring joyous time in the water.  Thoroughly refreshed we were marched back to camp and told off to our various duties.

By this time every man in the camp had been assigned to some particular task.  Major Bach did not encourage idleness; it only fomented brooding and moping over our position, was his argument.  But he was also a staunch believer in forced labour, which was quite a different thing.  Consequently we found ourselves condemned to some of the most filthy tasks conceivable.  Incidentally, however, these duties only served to reveal still more convincingly the hollowness of Germany’s preachings concerning the principles of health and hygiene to the whole world while herself practising the diametrically opposite.  We were commanded to clean out the military hospital.

Now, if there is one building among others in which one would expect to discover scrupulous cleanliness it is a hospital, but this accommodation provided for the German recruits was in an indescribably filthy condition.  The conveniences for the patients were in a deplorable state.  They had neither been disinfected nor cleaned for months.  Faecal matter and other filth had been left to dry, harden and adhere with the tenacity of glue to the surfaces.  Its removal not only taxed our strength to the supreme degree, but our endurance as well.  The stench was suffocating and nauseating.  Even the foul aroma of the strong cheap German tobacco which we were able to purchase at the canteen and to smoke while at this task, if our sentry were genial, failed to smother the more powerful and penetrating foul vapours which arose directly water was applied.

We were also assigned to the repugnant duty of cleaning out the latrines, which were of the most primitive character, and which coincided with the facilities which one might anticipate among savages but not in such a boasting civilised country as Germany.  Both these duties were loathsome, but I am afraid no one engaged on the tasks would be able to express a conclusive opinion as to which was the worse.