2 June 1918

Sunday. June 2nd.   Nothing of interest.  Some people have devoured already half their bread.  I.e. five days ration.  I foresee some lean days.
Without a teacher the acquiring of the correct pronunciation of Spanish is likely to prove difficult.  For the rest I think it will be easy, as it seems a cross between French and Latin.

1 June 1918

Friday [Saturday] June 1st.  The glorious first of June.
If a nations decadency be proportional to the amount the individuals thereof wash themselves, we must be the most rotten branch of a very decadent nation, for lately we have not even been able to get the German substitute for soap; so that washing nowadays is a long and painful business, and we have to be always doing it to keep anything like clean.
Substitutes
On account of their being cut off from many parts of the world, the Germans are short of a good many important things, and have invented many clever substitutes to take their place
Tea.   I’ve head of as much as 25/- being paid to a Russian orderly for a lb. of tea.  The tea commonly used here is made from the dried leaves of a type of mint.
Tobacco.   Is only obtained in small quantity and is very dear.  All sorts of poor Dutch Tobacco is smoked and cost 2/6 for a couple of ounces.  Dried mint, and dandelion leaves is smoked, and various blends of all sorts.
Coffee.   is a brew made from either some product of acorns, or from burnt barley.
Soap.   The best costs 5/- an ounce and lathers poorly.  Various cheap substitutes consist of fine whiting, coloured and perfumed.  Today we got (June 1) a tablet of brown substitute marked 93 KA. SEIFE which looks like a soap, can be cut, lathers well, and looks to me rather like palm oil soap.
Leather   is very scarce.  A good pair of field boots costs £10-£12.  We could sell a pair of Tommy’s ankle boots for £5.  Most goods made previously from leather are now made from papier maché (e.g. my suitcase).  Poor boots are made of the same thing, usually with wooden soles.  You can hear the children when they come out of school with their hundreds of wooden soled boots on the asphalt.
White Bread   Is not unobtainable, since white flour is used in white lard cakes, in soup, and in pancakes.  Rye is largely grown in preference to wheat, since they say that rye bread (black bread) is more nutritious than white bread, and all classes eat it.  There are various types of black bread, all of which I have had at times.  The darkest, and coarsest is the kind eaten by the arm, and, to an English palate, quite the worst, and most sour tasting.  It is said to be the most nutritious, and probably is so.
The Officers’ bread is equally dark, but better baked, of finer flour, and the crust has a fine glossy brown crust on it.
The Civilians bread is not quite so nutritious I believe.  It is lighter in colour, due to an admixture of potato I believe; and is better tasting to our palates.  We eat this now.
Wheaten bread, I have seen but not eaten.  It is supplied in some hospitals to patients on light diet.
The amount of bread a man gets here depends on what he does.  The army get all they want.  A working man gets a certain amount.  We get a little less than ½lb. a day.
Sugar: is rationed here to ½lb. a month.
Considerably more is grown I believe, but exported  in exchange for certain scarce imports.
In 1916, when everything else was so short here, sugar was very plentiful.  Since then beet growing has given place somewhat to other things.
Fat   is used entirely for food, which is why soap is unobtainable.
Cocoa.   Is unobtainable.
Cheese.   The two chief sorts I have had here are Limburger, a very strong smelling , but a good tasty cheese; and goats milk cheese, a good cheese but not so tasty.
Sardines in oil   are expensive, costing 3/6 a tin.
At Rastatt however we got tins at 1/6 each; each tin had been punctured however, the olive oil drained out, and bouillon put in and the tin re-closed.
Potatoes, here in Bavaria, at least, are very plentiful, but strictly rationed, and the balance sent to Prussia.

Given a big 2 kilo loaf each to last 10 days.  Today is the first day, but some of us have already devoured considerably more than a tenth.

31 May 1918

Friday. May 31st   Two months since we were brought down.  Since I may be 18 months in this country, which Heaven forbid, I’ve decided to keep up my French, and to learn Spanish while in captivity.  Ordered ‘Petit Larousse Illustré (Dictionnaire francais) and intend to order French English; English French; Spanish English; English Spanish; Spanish Grammar.  I dropped Van den Broeck a p.c. today (the first I’ve written anywhere but home) asking him if he will send me some French books.
Later.  Got a Spanish Grammar which he had in stock.  Ordered the others.  Just devoured a pancake.  Feel like I used to feel after Aunt Sue’s Sunday dinner.

30 May 1918

Thursday May 30th.  Stopped in bed until 10.am.  Got up.  Washed under the tap (without soap) – sat in the sun in my bare pelt for half an hour, a practice of ours which used to amuse our guards; who have since become used to any eccentricities of ours.  They frequently have on their greatcoats on sunny mornings.  Played bridge all the afternoon until dinner for 1d per hundred.  Lost 2d: Horrors!

29 May 1918

Wednesday. May 29th.  Shut in our rooms all day, so stopped in bed until 11.  Got up and wrote my diary up to date.  Had toothache rather badly as I had it most of last week.  Shan’t be able to get the brute lugged out until I get to a permanent camp, probably not for two or three weeks.  οἴ μοι.  Alack a day, and woe is me!!  Finished ‘Westward Ho!’ today, a topping book.  Started on ‘Old Gorgon Graham’, following on ‘Letters of a Self Made Merchant to his son’.  Jolly good book.
4 p.m.  Toothache a bit better.  Three biscuits each bought from a neighbouring French camp; likewise 8 nobs (K-nobs) of sugar each; moreover the promise of an increased bread ration.  Verily the world seems very fair tonight.  The prophet truly said <He that goeth upon a lean stomach vieweth the world through jaundiced eyes.>  Sent a postcard off home today.  (Sent a message to G.P. on the 25th).

28 May 1918

Tuesday.  May 28th.  Saw the Camp Inspector again.  Said he had traced Hanna to a camp in Prussia, and promised to send me there.  Took us for an hour’s walk in the grounds and public gardens on hill overlooking Landshut.  From one stand in particular we got a magnificent panorama of Landshut, and the country beyond.  It was fine to be walking out in the open again, but looking over topping scenery like this, one can’t help thinking of England, and the people at home, and feeling rather fed up.
In the evening 13 other RFC people turned up.  Since then until the moment of writing we, the other people, have been shut in our rooms lest, presumably, we get forbidden articles such as compasses from them.
Yesterday evening (May 28th) we had a small potato cake each – with jam, quite an original way of having it.  I’ll write home suggesting it.  I believe Dad would like them better that way.

15-27 May 1918

Wednesday May 15th.  Had a strict search and cross-examination.  All our clothes were taken away to be examined and searched, and our underclothes to be washed.  We wore some blue clothes, issued to us, for the next fortnight until we got our own back.  We also got a fine hot shower bath.
Landshut
We were put in another room upstairs, with good beds and clean sheets.  Our rooms were, I think, the servants quarters in the more modern wing of the old Castle, which latter dates back to 1100.  Our limits were very small, for we had only about 50 yards by 30 to walk about in; and although we were on the top of a hill we had no outlook on account of the thick wall of trees surrounding the place.  Our treatment here has been very good.  We get meat twice a day.  A typical day is :-

8.0 a.m.  Coffee.  Sugar
1.0 p.m.  Roast veal, potatoes, soup
1/10 loaf of bread
7.30 p.m. Three rissoles (sheeps’ brains) lettuce & soup

Not too much certainly but of very good quality.  We pay 4/- a day for this.
Besides this we are able here to buy a good many extras.  Sardines three times a week (3/6 a tin).  Large tins of peas, French beans or asparagus (3/- a tin) and almost unlimited jam, which is made from vegetables I think, but is very good considering (2/- a lb.).  Also quart bottles of good beer, of which I drink one a day, but some people three or four (6d a bottle).  When I leave here I’ll get the figures for the quantities of extras we’ve had here, especially of jam and beer.  I’ve an idea they’ll be amusing.*
On meatless days, we get a great feed:
8.0 a.m.  Coffee.  Sugar.
1 p.m.  Soup.  Rhubarb, Four small hot lard cakes.  1/10 loaf bread.
7.30  Soup.  A big pancake.

We’ve been inoculated three times more here, six altogether.
3  Cholera
2  Typhus
1  Typhoid
This place is a quarantine place really before sending one to a permanent camp.
Thursday May 16th.  Saw the Camp Inspector today, a civilian, who talked English well.  I asked him where Hanna was, and he promised to find out.

* Later: in five weeks 20 of us ate six cwt. of jam, costing roughly £67.

14 May 1918

Tuesday. May 14th.  Detrained at Uln at 5. am on border of Wurtemberg and Bavaria, leaving our belongings in the carriage.  Marched through Uln a fair sized town, with a most beautiful cathedral. The intricacy of the sort of skeleton work on the outside of the building was simply marvellous.  Marched about 2 miles to the next station, and there found a German officers resthouse and restaurant by the railway.  Knocked up the girls in charge, who made us coffee with sugar, with which we had some gorgeous tinned ham, and black bread (officers).  Had to hurry our meal somewhat, and rush, running, jumping, scrambling across rails and over trains and trucks to our train which had come up to the local station.
Midday.  Had lunch at Augsberg.  Fish and sourkrout, which I did not care for, potatoes, followed by hot, sweet white bread (sort of lard cake) with apple sauce.  Very bon.  We, of course, paid for these meals from our credits with the officer.
(Here I should say that Flying Corps officers seem to get considerably better treatment than infantry officers.  Whether because they usually are sent about in small and convenient parties, or because of the ‘good feeling’ which certainly exists between the two flying services, I don’t at present know.  At the same we are subject to much more stringent searchings and cross-examinations)

Evening.  Arrived at Landshut, on Isar in Bavaria.  Met by an interpreter.  Marched in the pouring rain (when I had considerable wind-up on account of my papier-maché suit cases, and the biscuits therein) to our new camp, which proved to be on a hill overlooking Landshut.  It was nearly dark when we arrived; we passed through a very old castle, and into a room which had been a stable, and into which a number of rough beds had been put.  We had a blanket each, several biscuits and jam.