A PRISONER 179 



had been killed. For then our native cooks, 

 chopping up the meat fine, each with two big 

 sharp knives, played a rat-a-tat-tat on the meat- 

 board, the pleasantest of music to hungry men. 

 Great were our expectations when the '• song of 

 the rissole " arose from the kitchen. "Fatty," 

 as we named the stout German who mostly shot 

 for the camp, made himself unpopular, because, 

 as we hungry men declared, he would only shoot 

 pigs to the neglect of all other game, such was 

 his love for pork. Some of this pork, too, he used 

 to smoke in an ingenious smoke-box, though, 

 needless to say, we never tasted these home-made 

 delicacies. 



For Christmas Day the prisoners had been told 

 they would each receive two pieces of lump sugar 

 as a treat ; but on that particular morning, when 

 we woke up, something started us singing " God 

 Save the King/' and thereupon the furious com- 

 mandant, Oberleutenant Papke, rushed out of 

 his neighbouring banda ordering us to stop that 

 noise, and further punishing us by cancelling the 

 issue of sugar. Not that anyone really cared, and 

 between Papke and most of us there was never 

 any love lost. 



One of our German guards, known as the 

 ?? Bosun/' was really a great character. Origin- 

 ally one of the Konigsberg's crew, a gruff old 

 sailor with a big red beard, he was rather terrifying 

 until one got to know him a little. To be able to 

 speak German was, of course, a tremendous ad- 



