Luck on the Wing: Thirteen Stories of a Sky SpyHaslett, Elmer
History
Luck on the Wing: Thirteen Stories of a Sky Spy
Haslett, Elmer
World War, 1914-1918 -- Aerial operations; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, American
It was about one o’clock then, and the kid took us in our steel-wheeled
“lizzy” to the prison camp, which was to be our new home. I must say
that ostensibly they treated us lovely in every way, and outside of the
fact that our home was not in the same class with Riverside Drive or
Orange Grove Avenue, it wasn’t so bad. We were incarcerated without
ceremony and the kid left us after many assurances of his kind offices.
No one came in to attend to us, so, I finally pounded on the door until
some one did come. It was the interpreter, who informed us that we were
too late for anything to eat as only enough food was prepared for those
on hand and they did not know we were coming, whereupon Davis and I sat
down to wait until night for something real to eat, meanwhile
anticipating, with a great deal of pleasure our tea we were to have in
the afternoon.
As I sat there on that old bench I really had my first opportunity for
quiet reflection. In spite of the convincing environments I could not
bring myself to believe that I was actually a prisoner of war.
This camp at Montmedy was some place. It was a rectangular affair,
enclosing about an acre. Around this rectangle was a very heavy
barbed-wire fence about twelve feet high, and about four feet within
this was another big high fence and within this enclosure, at the four
corners, were four separate buildings, each of which was surrounded by
two huge wire fences, similar to those on the outside. In one of these
houses lived the lord of the domain, the Director of the Prison Camp, a
Sergeant in the German Army; in the second was the kitchen where they
prepared the luscious food for the prisoners, and in which there was
also located the quarters for the guards, where they lived, slept and
smoked their German tobacco; in the third building there were bunks for
enlisted men who were taken prisoners; and in the fourth were the
Non-Commissioned and Commissioned officers who were prisoners, and in
this last named building were Davis and I.
We had been so down in the mouth upon actually entering this prison camp
that we had little to say. Finally I arose from my old bench, shook
myself like a dog after his nap, and in a graveyard tone of voice said,
“Davis, we’re prisoners of war,” and we wept on each other’s shoulders
like sob sisters. When we got tired of that I walked to the door which
was solid, turned the latch and, since no one interfered, walked on
outside.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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