During the first few months we had only small oil lamps for lighting purposes, at a scale of one per seven officers. It was impossible for everyone to read at the same time. We used to sit over the fire for warmth and the three nearest to the lamp could manage to see sufficiently in the evenings to read the few Tauchnitz editions we had been able to purchase through a tradesman, who was allowed into the barracks twice a week. As nearly all great-coats and waterproofs had been taken away from prisoners at the time of their capture, we felt the effects of the cold pretty considerably. Roll-calls took place at 8 a.m. and 9.30 p.m., generally out of doors. We often went on these roll-calls in the early days with our blankets over our shoulders. A welcome supply of soldiers' great-coats was sent through the American Embassy about Christmas time. During the first winter there were about 250 Russians, 200 French, 120 English and a few Belgian officers in the camp. That first winter was by far the worst of the three I spent there. We had not got to understand the true nature of the German official reports, and for some time they depressed us. Parcels began coming in December, but the Germans made us pay duty on them for a time, and as we had very little money in those days, they were not so welcome as they became at a later date, when the duty was removed. As time went by, conditions in the camp improved, but until the summer of 1915 we had great difficulty in getting permission to do anything to make ourselves more comfortable. In the early summer of 1915, thirty-five British officers were sent to Cologne to be imprisoned in cells as a reprisal against the alleged maltreatment of German submarine crews. The majority of this number went from Crefeld. After two months or more, the reprisal having ended, they came back, looking very white and ill. Sometime in the month of June of this year a successful escape was made by three Russians, and three others who got out of the camp the following night were re-caught. Apparently they crossed the Dutch frontier but got tied up in swampy ground and had to return across the frontier into German territory again, in search of a way out of this bad stretch of country. It was while attempting this that they were seen by a German patrol and re-captured. The whole affair was badly managed. The theory which many prisoners held and worked upon, consisted of allowing each small party twenty-four hours start, so that they might have a good chance of getting across the frontier, some eighteen miles away, before the next lot tried, who if caught at once would cause the Germans to discover the departure of others at the nominal roll-call always held after an attempt to escape. If anyone is missed at these roll-calls the frontier guards are warned by wire.