THE BLACK HOLE OF LILLE.

Taihape Daily Times, 15 February 1919, Page 3

THE BLACK HOLE OF LILLE.

THIRTEEN DAYS OF HORROR

On horror's head horrors have so accumulated during the war that one hestitates to add to the awful catalogue, writes a repatriated' British prisoner in a London ntewjspaper. The Black Hole of Calcutta occupies a foremost position in the catalogue of barbarous crime. The Black Hole of Lille is its modern equivalent. To be exact, I should say this "Black Hole," is near iLille. Its namle is Fort Macdonald.

Three hundred and fifty of us, many of the number Portuguese, were driven into an ouT underground prison cell of the fort. This cell was about 60 ft. long by 20ft. wide. It had only one small window. Every 36 hours we were allowed out —for ten minutes only. This was for the distribution of half of bowl of barley soup and a quarter of a loaf!

There were bunks running round the sides of the cell for sleeping iaccommodation. Sleeping—Heaven save the mark! It was one long nightmare Into; these bunks eight men would somehow huddle —four at the head, four at the foot. The frunks, of course, ■ would only accommodate iai part of th'e prisoners The rest lay heaped together like cattle on the floor.

Nothing was given us to drink, I recall an orderly bringing in a bucket of water. Imagine it —a bucketful among 350 parched men! The sight of it filled them with delirium. Tbere was a mad rush for it. Every drop was split on the floor. And men lapped at it like dogs. One night I attached my steel helmet to a puttee and lowered it through the window. Here I w-aited for hours for some benevolent Hun to fill it with water. At length patience was rewarded. Someone took pity on us and filled the helmet with. water. I began tremblingly to draw it up. I had only raised it a short way when the puttee was cut by someone in the cell below. The water vanished. That was my sup of Tantalus.

Thorewcre 'unment'onaMe horrors which I cannot describe. There were no latrines. The filth and putrescence in the corridor outside lay inches thick on the floor. And it was to' this corridor that fainting men and men in fits had to be carried to obtain air.—fresh air! In this confinement we lived for 13 days—l 3 days without a wash!

The bitter irony of it was that my friends and relatives imagined that the seven months of captivity were spent in a sort of pastoral camp at Friedriehsfeld. . This was the cunning camouflage of the Hun. I never saw Friedriehsfeld during the whole time I was a prisoner. I was never in Germany, but always at work under our own shot, shell and bomb near the German front. I can only guess to whom the many letters, parcels, and money sent to me went. To me came three letters only. But of all the torture subsequently endured, none quite equalled the 13 days and nights in the Black Hole of thai fortress, near Lille. It has seared itself into heart and brain.