Page:Albert Beaumont - Heroic Story of the Czecho-Slovak Legions - 1919.djvu/37

 barracks, and slept in tiers of three, one above the other, on bare boards. They were so famished that they looked out for cats and dogs in the streets, and if they could catch any of them it was a feast tor them. Many of the men died, and they were taken out without ceremony to the cemetery, to be buried without a mark or cross over their graves.

This was all the work of “Frau Colonel,“ an ugly, brazen woman. A German doctor who was prisoner was given full liberty, and became the personal medical officer of Frau Colonel. He also enjoyed immense influence. What the doctor recommended was sure to be done. A GermanAustrian who did not want to be sent away to the remote Siberian camps, had declared at Kurgan that he was a Czech. He was sent to us, and we found him an authentic German. He could not speak a word of Czech. He was simply an impostor. We formally denounced him to the colonel. But the doctor of Frau Colonel intervened, and the pseudoCzech remained. He and the doctor, with the colonel’s wife, formed a trio of terror in Ishim.