guards and was instrumental in
having many punished. These and other things gave him and others of
his kidney the run of the main grounds so that they could stretch
their legs and have some variety in their lives. Such liberty was
there for any man who would do as they did.

None of us were safe from these traitors. The sergeant major in
particular, spied on us, reporting all criticisms of our guards and
other things German. We raged. He had for his virtue a small room to
himself in a corner of the hut. When parcels came from England,
addressed to the senior non-commissioned officer of his regiment, for
him to distribute; he called the guards in. Shortly they went out with
their coats bulging suspiciously. We were then called to receive ours
whilst he stood over, bullying us with all the abusive "chatter" which
the British service so well teaches. And afterward we watched
covertly, with all the cunning of the oppressed, and saw him receive
other stealthy favours from the guards that were not within his
arrangement with the Commandant.

So one of his own men who had a certain legal learning took down all
these facts as I have recited them and calling us together, bade us
sign our names in evidence of so foul a treachery. Which we gladly
did. And it was and is the prayer of all that when the gates of the
prison camps roll back this document will get to the War Office and
there receive the attention it deserves.

My comrades in misfortune here told me of another such a man who had
gone away just before my arrival at this camp. He, too, was a
sergeant-major of a line regiment in the old army. I had known him in
the old days in India. In his own regiment he was never known by his
own name, but instead by this one: "The dirty bad man." No one ever
called him anything else when referring to him. That was his former
record and this is what he did here to keep the memory of it green.

He was instrumental in having fixed on us one of the most terrible of
army punishments. It appears that some time before one of our men had
broken some petty rule of discipline and the Germans had asked the
sergeant-major what the punishment was in our army for such a "crime,"
as all offences are termed in the army.

"Number One Field Punishment or Crucifixion," had been his lying
reply. That meant being spread-eagled on the wheel of a gun limber,
tied to the spokes at wrist and ankle, with the toes off the ground
and the entire weight of th