e I backed away to escape the heat, and the guard knocked me
unconscious with his rifle. The strongest men are being crippled and
broken down in health in this work (of course the weak ones die very
soon), but the treatment accorded our prisoners in other places is not
much better. A young lad belonging to the Gordon Highlanders told me
that he was wounded when he was taken prisoner, and he lay in the
hospital for three days before they even looked at his leg. Then, when
he finally got attention, everything was done in the roughest kind of
way, and when the nurse had finished the dressing she _spit in his
face_.

Another man who belonged to the Irish Fusiliers told me that when he
was captured they kept him four days in the front lines doing fatigue
duty under our shell fire, and in that time he had scarcely anything to
eat. On the fourth night he and three other prisoners were quartered
in a small room of a Belgian house, and they were taken down and lined
up against the wall, while the German officers amused themselves by
pelting them with green apples. One of the prisoners attempted to eat
one of the apples and was beaten almost to death.

What we endured was the special torture that was reserved for Camp K
47; they had different methods at other camps. I remember an old
prisoner telling me of the torture they had where he was before coming
to the mines. It was an ammunition factory, and they had taken a bunch
of English prisoners there and tried to make them work. Now, this is
where our men drew the line, and though they knew it would mean
punishment, and perhaps death, they absolutely refused to go to work.
Of course the German officials were raging, and they resorted to their
special line of torture to compel obedience. The boys were taken to
where boxes were placed against large trees, they were forced to mount
these and extend their arms full length about their heads. Then their
wrists were strapped together and fastened to the tree--the box was
kicked away and they hung by their arms often for hours. Every little
while an officer would go around and ask them if they were ready to go
to work. On their refusing he would give them a few kicks and pass on.
This was kept up as long as the men could stand the agony, and the
prisoner who told me this showed me the marks on his wrists, and said
he knew at least six of their boys who died as a result of this torture.

The only thing that kept them from kil