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They're all over the floor and crawl up the leg of your chair; they crawl up the wall and across the ceiling and drop down on your head and down the back of your collar; they're in the walls and in the beds now. But their days are numbered, for we are all going up to Cellelager to-morrow to be fumigated. They're running a special train, and taking us all."
Parnewinkel was the name of the village near Cellelager I, and this name was printed on the prison-stamps which we used. The camp was built on a better place than the last one, and it was well drained, but the water was bad and unfit to drink unless boiled.
We're all going down to Cellelager to-morrow to be fumigated; and while we're out, there's going to be a real old-fashioned house-cleaning! You're just in time, boys. Have you got any?" "We did not have any," we said, "when we came." "Well, you'll get them here, just sitting around.
"We're bad enough," one of the Englishmen said, "but the Russians are in holes." Then they told us what they had done to attract the attention of the authorities. The branch camps are never inspected or visited, as are the main camps such as Cellelager itself and Giessen, and so conditions in the out-of-the-way camps have been allowed to sink far below the level of these.
The Commandant of the camp at Celle that is the main Cellelager had an English wife, and had, perhaps for that reason, been deprived of his command as an Admiral of the fleet. We hoped he would hear of our cards or, better still, that his wife might hear. The first indication we had that our cards had taken effect was the change in the soup.
At about four o'clock in the afternoon, we arrived in Oldenburg, and began our eight-mile march to Vehnemoor Camp, which is one of the Cellelager group and known as Cellelager VI. We were glad to dispose of our packs by loading them on a canal-boat, which we pulled along by ropes, and we arrived at the camp late in the evening.
When we reached the camp, which was called Cellelager, we found we had come to one which was not in the same class as Giessen. The sleeping-accommodations were insufficient for the crowd of men, and there was one bunk above the other. The food was the same, except that we had soup in the morning instead of coffee, and it was the worst soup we had yet encountered.
That night Ted and I slept on two benches in the middle of the room, but we found that what the boys said was true. They had crawled up on us, or else had fallen from the ceiling, or both. We had them! But the next day we made the trip to Cellelager by special train "The Louse Train" it was called. The fumigator was the same as at Giessen, and it did its work well.
The sores caused by the lice were deep and raw, and that these conditions, together with the bad water and bad food, had had fatal results, could be seen in the Russian cemetery at Cellelager I, where the white Russian crosses stand, row on row. The treatment of Russian prisoners will be a hard thing for Germany to explain to the nations when the war is over.
We arrived at Dienstedt after nightfall, and walked out a mile along a rough road to the camp, which was one of the Cellelager group Cellelager I. We saw that it consisted of two huts, and when we entered the hut to which we were taken, we saw nothing but Russians, pale-faced, dark-eyed, bearded Russians.
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