FISHERMEN IN WAR TIME 



legs by this savage monster, which had a craze for 

 rushing at poor chaps from behind. And you dared 

 not touch the beast or complain or do anything, if 

 you did you suffered for it. 



" The poor fellow that the brute bit complained 

 to the head commander, and there was an inquiry 

 on the job. And what happened? The man got 

 lashed to a tree for two hours in the morning and 

 two hours in the afternoon for complaining ! And 

 that was in the wintertime. He is now at home, 

 but he still suffers a great deal with it, and was in 

 hospital in Germany a lot because of the bites and 

 the lashing to the tree. 



" Can you wonder that as the result of such brutal 

 and inhuman treatment men died through sheer 

 exhaustion? They did. Several of our poor fisher- 

 men died, and they are buried in Germany — all 

 through privation. 



" In the winter we used to go about with our knees 

 through our trousers, and we had no jackets to wear. 

 I never had a pair of stockings or socks for the whole 

 time I was there. My feet were wrapped up in 

 rags, with old wooden Dutchman's shoes. 



" In time the Germans provided us with bar- 

 racks, but we still had to lie on the ground. We 

 lay on the ground for the whole of the sixteen 

 months I was in Germany. We just had straw — 

 we had nothing to cover ourselves with, no blankets 

 or anything. The only way to keep warm was to 

 keep as close together as sardines. They used to 

 place us like this — one Englishman, one German, 



68 



