up the stripes I had taken
down to avoid giving _Augen Rechts_ at Vehnmoor. I used that authority
now to persuade my fellow Britishers to give to the unfortunate
Russians rather than to the French, who, like ourselves, were
receiving parcels.

A boy of five years or thereabouts used to come regularly to the wire,
upon which he would climb and hang like some foul spider on its web.
Grasping it in both small hands and kicking vainly at it and us, he
would scream: "Englaender Schwein," and I know not what other names,
spitting venom like a little wildcat. This was not the riffraff of the
camp. The boy was the son of the camp Commandant, and the apple of his
father's eye and the thing was often done under that eye and amid the
vicious applause of the young father and his terrible crew.

The Commandant was a young chap, a lieutenant. What he lacked in years
he made up in hate. He was known as an England hater. We were poison
to him. The latrine, a mere shallow pit, was just outside the door of
our hut and the Commandant saw to it that the latrine fatigue was
always wished off on to the British. We were made to bail it out daily
with buckets, which we then carried to the surrounding fields, on
which we spread the contents while the Commandant and guards laughed.
The _unteroffizier_ in immediate charge of us, if left alone would not
make us do this. He was the last kind German I remember, and I have
mentioned all whom I can recall as having performed the slightest act
of kindness to us, even of the most negative quality. He used to say
that it was a pity to treat us so; that such a job was good enough for
the Russians, who were no soldiers, anyhow, and who smelled bad and
would not wash; but for us who were soldiers it was a great shame.

The vermin were so bad here that we chanced further trouble by writing
on post cards as though to friends in England, and complained. We knew
that they would be intercepted and go to the Commandant. They did. We
were marched to Cellelaager to go through the fumigating machine. We
went into a large hut, stripped, tied our clothes in a bundle and
shoved them into the large oven to bake for five hours while we sat
round with nothing on but a smile. In the interval we were made to
run the clippers closely over our heads and bodies. There were sores
on some of the Russians as big as a hand, eaten deep into by the
vermin and the bones threatened to break through the skin of some as
we sat about