Donald Storrs Fox at War Chapter 2

Chapter II
On the 12th October we left this guard room. We had some coffee substitute early in the morning, and at 11 o’clock were given some black bread and honey. My pilot and I went as far as Valenciennes with the other British prisoners, but at that place we were separated from the rest and taken to Fresnes, where there was a large working prisoner camp behind the lines. On the way to Valenciennes we passed a German aerodrome and enviously looked at the machines. Close by was an enormous dump of wreckage from crashed machines.
We waited for some hours in Valenciennes before going on, sheltering under an archway from the rain which was falling steadily. A Frenchwoman at a house nearby gave us some coffee. From Valenciennes to Fresnes we had a triumphal progress and only had one guard, and he was old and decrepit; so the civilians crowded round us and gave us food, cigarettes and money, and would not hear of us refusing anything. We halted for a rest outside a colliery village and were kissed by the all the members of the fair sex in that village as the whole population crowded round us. Our guard did not approve of thi, but he was powerless to interfere. The Germans were blowing up the coal mines in the district, preparatory to retiring.
We reached the camp at Fresnes at dusk, and found one other officer who had been there a few days. We were told that we should soon be dispatched from there to Germany. We had marched twenty kilometres that day and I was very tired as my back had been painful throughout the march.
We were given some boiled meat and cabbage for supper, but I felt tired and rather ill and could eat very little. We were told that the whole camp was moving early the next day and going on a three day march.
The next morning I woke up feeling very ill. Being unable to march, a German officer, in command of the company of prisoners to which we were attached, told me to sit on a wagon on which were three or four other sick men. There was no horses to pull this wagon, so it was dragged along by a squad of prisoners. The men of this company had been taken in the Spring Offensive and had not yet had any of their parcels. Consequently they were very emaciated – little more than skeletons. I was told that numbers of them had died of starvation and neglect. The sick man next to me had been in hospital and had been discharged as cured the previous day. He still had a dreadful cough, and on the third day of the march he leaned up against me and died of starvation and neglect. I vowed to kill hundreds of Huns to avenge him when I should escape but owing to the Armistice I have been unable to keep my vow.
We jolted slowly along cobbled roads from 8 o’clock that morning till 4 o’clock in the afternoon. I felt horribly ill. As a matter of fact I had caught influenza. An old French woman gave me a glass of cognac when we halted for a few minutes in a village. I did not want it but could not refuse without giving offence. The civilians gave food and drink to the prisoners as we passed. The men fell on the food like hungry wolves, but I was much struck by the generous way in which they shared everything. We sick men in the cart were not forgotten.
We were billeted that night in a village church. The company commander, who treated me well, asked some Belgians to bring me a mattress and the Belgians brought a mattress for each officer. Early the next morning the Belgians were allowed to bring us coffee, eggs and apples. I left my father’s address with them, and after I had escaped, when on leave at home, my father had a letter from a British officer, when our forces occupied that village to say that I had passed through. Later, the Belgians also wrote a letter.
The company commander was always kind to us. I rather liked him, though like most Germans, he was lacking in chivalry. On the second day of the march he saw a Belgian girl giving soup to the prisoners, whereupon he spilled soup over her and drove her off in tears. At the time that we were taken, most of the Germans were on their best behaviour towards us because they realised that we were members of the winning side. The same men who had been atrocious bullies to their prisoners in March were all smiles and honied words in October.
The second day of the march passed like the preceding one. In the afternoon a steady rain began to fall. We were billeted for the night in a cowshed. The cows occupied the stalls and the floor was wet and dirty, but we collected a fair amount of dry straw into a corner and slept on that.
At the end of the third day we reached the town of Soignies, between Mons and Brussels, which was our destination.
We were billeted in a leather factory there. As I waited against a wagon wheel waiting to be allotted my place in the billet the good Belgians brought me coffee and hot milk. Then the German camp doctor saw me, and after looking at me ordered me to hospital at once, for by this time I was seriously ill. I was then taken to a hospital in the town in a dog cart drawn by British prisoners. Here I was put straight to bed with a temperature of 105°.