I have been told often since returning to England that it will be just as well not to say too much about my hardships in the German prison camps, as it might be the way of making things all the worse for those still doomed to remain there. So I shall touch lightly on this side of my experiences, and, to be on the safe side, will try not to mention any camps or other German localities by name. I was sent to what, had I but known it, was the most liberally run prison camp in Germany after my discharge from the hospital, but even at that the treatment was so abominable in comparison with what I had been receiving and had a right to expect that it undid at once the “soothing” effect the kind nurses and doctors had had on me. I don’t mean that I went back physically a great deal--my constitution was too strong for that--but only that my old hate of the Hun redoubled. This would have been all very well if I had only been back in the trenches, but in a prison camp it could only have one end. I dropped in his tracks with my fist--mighty hard it was his shaved head felt to my half-healed “right”--the first guard that tried to hustle me into line with the toe of his boot. Then I used up what strength I had left in a rough and-tumble with three or four others, until one of them finally put me to sleep with the butt of his rifle. In at least three other camps I could name I would have been shot then and there (it has happened to many a lad whose pride made him turn loose on a brutal guard), and I can count myself very lucky that I got off with no more than a bit more of a beating up and two weeks’ solitary confinement on black bread and water. Perhaps the worst consequence of my action was my transfer, a few weeks later, to a camp that has since become notorious for both its unhealthfulness and its inhumanity. The first glimmerings of sense (regarding the situation that I was going to have to face as a prisoner of war in Germany) was let into my rather thick head by the blow it got from that rifle-butt; the rest--enough to start me on the right course, at least--filtered in during my two weeks of solitary confinement on bread and water. I was of no use to myself or any one else in a German prison camp, I told myself. I had no chance there either to kill Huns or destroy Hun property. Once outside I might well be able to do both--perhaps even get back to England and join my regiment if any of it was left. How to get out?--that was the question. From that time on I turned my every thought and act to that one end.