day until the night of the next. We had gone since the
day of our capture on the coffee received at headquarters in Polygon
Wood and the single issue of bread, water and bacon received in the
church, the latter of which we could not eat; a total of three days
and nights on that one issue of rations.

We pulled into Giessen at eleven, the night of May tenth. The citizens
made a Roman holiday of the occasion and the entire population turned
out to see the _Englaender Schwein_. There was a guard for every
prisoner, and two lines of fixed bayonets. The mob surged around,
heaping on us insults and blows; particularly the women. With hate in
their eyes, they spat on us. We had to take that or the bayonet.
These were the acts not only of the rabble, but also of the people of
good appearance and address.

One very well-dressed woman rushed up. Under other circumstances I
should have judged her to have been a gentlewoman. She shrieked
invectives at us as she forced her way through the crowd. "Schwein!"
she screamed, and struck at the man next me. He snapped his shoulders
back as a soldier does at attention. Then, drawing deep from the very
bottom of her lungs, she spat the mass full in his face. The muscles
of his face twitched painfully but he held his eyes to the front and
stared past his tormentor, seeing other things.

CHAPTER X

THE CURIOUS CONCOCTIONS OF THE CHEF AT GIESSEN

Oliver Twist at Giessen--Acorn Coffee and Shadow Soup--Chestnut
Soup--Fostering Racial Hatred.

We had a mile-and-a-half march to the prison camp. Those who were past
walking were put in street cars and sent to the laager, where upon our
arrival we were shoved into huts for the night, supperless, of course.
This was our introduction to the prison camp of Giessen.

The next morning we each received three-quarters of a pint of acorn
coffee, so called, horrible-tasting stuff; and a loaf of black
bread--half potatoes and half rye--weighing two hundred and fifty
grams, or a little more than half a pound, among five men. This
allowed a piece about three by three by four inches to each man for
the day's ration. The coffee consisted of acorns and four pounds of
burned barley boiled in one hundred gallons of water. There was no
sugar or milk. My curiosity led me later to get this and other recipes
from the fat French cook.

All that day and for several following, official and guards were busy
numbering and renumbering us and assigning us t