FISHERMEN IN WAR TIME 



three cruisers. They had done the business of sink- 

 ing the ships, but we did not see all of it, because 

 the trawlers were working over a big area, and most 

 of them were out of sight of the Lobelia. 



" With German soldiers on each side of us, and 

 the women and boys and girls shouting at us and 

 running after us and pelting us, we were marched 

 through the streets of Wilhelmshaven to a prison — 

 a real prison, and an awful hole at that, and when 

 we got to the lock-up we were thrust into little cells. 

 Each cell was about 8ft. by 5ft., just big enough 

 to cage one man, yet four of us were put in one of 

 the black holes. In my cell there was nothing but 

 a bit of planking on the floor as a bed, but with no 

 bedding of any sort, and a tiny wooden bench. 

 This cell was like the rest. There were bare stone 

 walls, with no window, and there was no light of 

 any sort, neither lamp nor candle. 



" I had never seen the inside of a cell in all my 

 puff, and when I got in there it fairly knocked me 

 on one side altogether. With four of us in such 

 a place there was not room to move. We could not 

 lie on the plank bed and we could not sit on the tiny 

 bench, so we just had to be cramped together, talk- 

 ing and sleeping. 



' ' For four terrible days and nights we were priso- 

 ners in these awful cells, our only change being for 

 one hour a day, when* we were allowed to go out on 

 to a green or garden — and a blessed change it was 

 to get out into open air and the sunshine and stretch 

 our aching legs. The sentries brought us our 



64 



