It seems that the prisoners, from as early as August, 1916, were kept in large numbers at certain places in the west--Cambrai and Lille are frequently referred to in the evidence--but in smaller numbers they were placed all along the line. Their normal work was making roads, repairing railways, constructing light railways, digging trenches, erecting wire entanglements, making gun-pits, loading ammunition, filling munition wagons, carrying trench mortars, and doing general fatigue work, which under the pain of death the noncommissioned officers were compelled to supervise. This work was not only forbidden by the laws of war, it was also excessively hard. In many cases it lasted from eight to nine hours a day, with long walks to and fro, sometimes of ten kilometers in each direction, and for long periods was carried on within range of the shellfire of the allied armies. One witness was for nine months kept at work within the range of British guns; another for many months; others for shorter periods. Many were killed by these guns; more were wounded; deaths from starvation and overwork were constant. One instance of the allied shellfire may be given. In May, 1917, a British or French shell burst among a number of British and French prisoners working behind the lines in Belgium. Seven were killed; four were wounded. But there is much more to tell. The men were half starved. Two instances are given in the evidence of men who weighed 180 pounds when captured. One was sent back from the firing line too weak to walk, weighing only 112 pounds; the other escaped to the British lines weighing no more. Another man lost twenty-eight pounds in six weeks. Parcels did not reach these prisoners. In consequence they were famished. Such was their hunger, indeed, that we hear of them picking up for food potato peelings that had been trampled under foot. One instance is given of an Australian private who, starving, had fallen out to pick up a piece of bread left on the roadside by Belgian women for the prisoners. He was shot and killed by the guard for so doing. Some Merciful Guards It was considered, so it would seem, to be no less than a stroke of luck for prisoners to chance upon guards who were more merciful. For instance, one of them speaking of food at Cambrai says: