STORIES OF THE GREAT WAR

Sun (Christchurch), Volume II, Issue 566, 2 December 1915, Page 12

STORIES OF THE GREAT WAR

BUND!

TRAGEDY OF A WAR PRISONER. VICTIM OF GERMAN HEARTLESSNESS. F. A. McKenzie, who!himself has experienced- the life • of a German prison-camp for civilian prisoners and who has been contributing to the "Daily Mail" articles descriptive of his experiences, tells this story of a Canadian soldier exchanged because he was no longer fit for service in the army.:— The mah sat in the Kentish garden fumbling liis hands in the way the blind have. He was a giant from the West, a trapper and a pioneer, able to drive his team of four across the rough foothills country and to guide his boat safely down the fierce rapids of the West. For a few minutes he forgot his trouble as we talked together of the wonderful Peace River country, stretching almost to the Arctic Circle, and of the wild, rich lands beyond Prince Rupert. The weeks in his prison hospital, with their misery and torture,'had failed to take the deep-bitten tan from his cheeks. Even now, once his hands laid hold of .a man in an- , ger, I would pity the man. Strength was written in every limb. As he started to tell me in a deep, rich vdice the story of his experiences in Germany, an audience gathered. Comrade after comrade in khaki approached silently not to . disturb him. The scene -in that garden, with the throng of angry,! strong men standing in a semi-circle around, and ,the blinded giant facing thefti, seemed to me for the moment to be like a page from one of the great Greek tragedies. "I was hit outside Ypres on April 24,". said Private McPhail. "My battalion. came up on the 22nd to hold the line after the retirement of the Algerian troops, when attacked by "poison gas. We fought hard for two days. On the 24th a bullet caught rae across the face, blinding me. Oitr boys had to retreat, and two hours afterwards the Germans, who had come up, found me. I was led to a field hospital and remained there for e.iglit days, receiving no attention. There were so many wounded that it was impossible for the German doctors to see to all. My wound was suppurating heavily, and there was not so much as a rag to wipe it with. , Then I was taken to a place called Iseghem, and, after being treated s there, was sent on to Brussels., v : Deliberate Brutality. , 1 , "The treatment at Iseghem was brutal beyond description. They led me to an operating table and put me on it. Three attendants and a sister held me down. The sister asked the doctor a question idnd he answered in English for me to hear: 'No, I will. not give an anaesthetic. Englishmen do not need any chloroform.' He Turned up my eyelid in the roughest fashion and cut my eye out. He used a pair of scissors, , they told me afterwards, and cut too far down, destroying the nerve of the other eye. It seemed to me as though he was trying *to see how much agony lie could inflict upon >me. Suddenly I lost consciousness, and I remembered no more all that day nor all the next night. "They moved me to Brussels soon after this, and here I was sent to a hospital where there was a Dutch nurse. No one could have been kinder to me than this Dutch girl was. Then I was sent on to another Brussels hospital, where a number of Belgian ladies visited the wounded. They pitied me, and brought me many things—flowers, fruit, and sweets. They were like the Dutch nurse, kindness itself. I was told that I was one of the first in the list for exchange, but for some reason or another it was decided to send me, blind as I was, into Germany. I believe that the German officials disliked giving the Belgian ladies an opportunity of showing kindness to an Englishman. Robbed. "The Germans at the beginning took all my clothes away, even my underclothing. Before I left for Brussels they gave me my trousers back and an old ragged shirt, not my own shirt, full of holes. There were two waist-pockets in my trousers. One contained my watch, my , trinkets, and some coins. The other pocket contained a little packet of paper money. The Germans took my watch and trinkets and cash away. I never saw them again. Fortunately for me, they had overlooked the paper money in the left hand pocket. I say fortunately, because when I, reached Cologne if l| had not had the money I must have starved, as many of the prisoners there were doing. Very few packets of food arrived from England,! . not nearly so many, I understand, as were sent out. My money enabled me to buy more food for myself and for some of the others there, too. "My own personal experiences in Cologne were not so bad. I made friends with one of the Germans, a man who had lived in England and who had an English wife, and he was kind to me. But of the treatment of the British prisoners in gHieral in the Cologne hospital I cannot say anything bad enough. I dare not tell you some of the things that took place. I could not see, of course, but I could hear, and time fitter time the other men came to me

and told me what had happened to thein.

Rough, Brutal, Unfeeling. "There is no doubt „that the doctors there treated the British sick quite differently from the French or the Belgians. Men were tortured by repeated operations without anaesthetics. Don't take my word for -this. Ask some of the other wounded who have returned from Cologne and see what they tell you. A man would have his leg smashed and re-set and have to bear it as best he could, without anything to deaden his pain. There were cases, men told me, where the doctors allowed an Englishman's wounds to heal over and then tore tliem open. There \yas one orderly who took it upon himself to probe with the lancet, and when he probed the wound in the head of one of our men he nearly drove him mad. "Rough, brutal, harsh, unfeeling. That was what they were!" The speaker, be it noted, was not a delicate townsman, but a man himself accustomed to the rough and hard life of pioneer, lands. "I am not complaining for myself. One of our sergeants would take me out and sit me in a chair in the open and others would come up and talk wth me and load me around. I was able to buy enough to eat. I had, compared with many of them, an easy time. * The Right to Curse. "But I think of the lot of another blind man, Kennedy, lie was taken out each day, left in the open on a mattress, and had two meals brought him, where no one could go near him. There he had to lie alone in the heat all day. ( "A German doctor said to Xme of our wounded, "Well, what do you think of the Germans now?' He replied, 'Not much. The more I see of them the less I like them. I have not found one who is any damned good yet.' They punished him for this, and cut down his diet for some days, taking away even the little pat of butter that is given some of the prisoners in Cologne hospital." An Englishwoman standing- by asked anxiously, "What about your other eye? Is there any hope of saving it?" The man shook his head in some confusion. "Is there a lady here?" he said. "I hope I have not been cursing and saying anything I shouldn't in front of a.lady." The Englishwoman turned on him and caught his fumbling hand strongly. "Curse!" she said. "Haven't you earned the right to curse? My God!" "Isn't it fierce!" said the sergeant of the hospital corps, who had been carefully watching over the blind man. "Isn't it fierce!" and the Canadian colloquialism expressed more vividly than much profanity could have done the feelings of the listeners.