ess and malingering
and for which they would be returned to a point near the laager, where
we were, for their punishment. By the Commandant's orders this
consisted of forcing them to run the gauntlet of two lines of soldiers
who jabbed them with bayonets if they fell into a walk--until the
victims could run no more and dropped in their tracks. The Germans
would then roll their eyelids back for signs of shamming, and if any
such indications were shown, they were jabbed again--and usually were,
anyhow--until their failure to respond proved that they were really
unconscious.

This happened with alarming frequency on a regular schedule, forenoon
and afternoon, to all Russians who refused to work. On one occasion we
saw six or eight of them laid out unconscious at one time in this
manner. We wished to do something for them, but were refused
permission, and one man who was thought to be a ring leader was
selected to make an example of; he was awarded seven days' cells.

We had previously agreed that if we were awarded this punishment; we
should refuse to run the gauntlet and should let them do their worst.
There was no more heard of all this, but after that the Russians were
punished on the other side of a belt of trees just outside the laager,
where we could not see them, though their piteous cries could plainly
be distinguished.

Three of the Russians broke away from this camp, and finding
themselves near the stores, crawled in the window and stole a half of
a pig. They were recaptured, and, after doing thirty days' cells, were
forced to work out the price of the pig at the rate of thirty
pfennigs--or six cents--a day, which ordinarily would have been
credited to them for the buying of necessities. And pork came high in
Germany.

There was one kind of pill for all ailments. That however, may have
been only stupidity. At least the practice is not confined to the
prison camps nor the army of Germany, as all British soldiers know.
But even these were not for the British.

On another occasion a party of Russians arrived from another camp
twelve miles away.

They said that some Englishmen there who had refused to work had been
shot at until all were wounded in the legs.

We continued to receive our old friend, the _Continental Times_, here,
and through it first learned of the Skager-Rack or Jutland battle, in
which, the paper claimed, over thirty major British ships had been
sunk, in addition to a larger number of smal