guards started poking the butt
of his rifle into my ribs. This was his way of making me keep up with the
rest of them. I tried hard and finally managed to reach the spot where our
men were working. I was given wood to saw.

"I managed to stick to it about half an hour, then I fainted. When I came
to myself again a big dirty Prussian was kicking me and telling me to get
on with my work. But I couldn't. Upon seeing this, a man from our squad
was ordered to wheel me back to camp in a barrow with a German walking
alongside with his rifle slung over his shoulder, smoking a long pipe and
jeering all the way. I was at once classed as 'worthless.'

"Our officers had to work like the other men, but the special job given
them was road-sweeping. I was given some dirty work to do around the
prison camp for a few days, until at last I had to be put in the hospital
again on account of weakness. One of my legs was shorter than the other,
owing to the manner in which they had practised on me.

"This time I was in the hospital only about two weeks. Then I got my
clothes, and the commandant came in and informed me that he got orders to
supply six worthless English prisoners from the camp for exchange. 'You
are the first on the list,' he said. 'You are no good to anybody. You
cannot even work for the food you get.'

"I could hardly realize my good fortune. I wept with joy. To think of
being sent home as an exchanged prisoner!

"I 'fell in' along with five more fellows, one was stone blind; his face
was an awful sight--all dark blue as if it had been tattooed. The other
four had body injuries. We were placed in a motor truck which conveyed us
to a railway station, then we were packed in trucks with a few sentries
over us.

"One of the sentries, out of pity, gave one of our men a cigarette. The
poor fellow had just lighted it off the stump the sentry was about to
throw away, when a German officer rushed forward and knocked it out of his
mouth with his glove, and had him taken away at once. The sentry who had
given him the fag was ordered to take off his equipment, and two of the
German guards marched the British prisoner and German sentry away.

"Two nights later we landed at a port and were marched on to a steamer. I
think it was a Dutch boat, as I did not see any Germans on board until we
were out at sea, when we were gathered together, and a German staff
officer of the navy gave us a lecture. He finished up by saying that we
were