Page:Diary of a Prisoner in World War I by Josef Šrámek.pdf/105

 My team has 2 Czechs, 6 Germans, 1 Russian, 3 Dalmatians, and 8 Croats—20 citizens in all, an illustration of our beloved Oesterreich ! At 4 we got off and walked 8 kilometers to a village with a nice castle and a church. We were taken to a house with 3 rooms—2 for us and 1 for the guard. There were 5 guards for 20 prisoners. Planks and straw were ready, but no blankets—they hadn't arrived yet.

While we were making our beds, 4 civilians came to choose workers from among us. It was a hard deal—none of us could speak French, and they could only speak French. German didn't help; nobody understands it. This is typical of French education. Every one of us could speak 2 languages besides our mother tongue. We spoke one by one, trying to communicate—in Czech, German, Hungarian, Croatian, Romanian, Italian, and even a little English. All in vain, as my father would say. Five of us were chosen, and it was done.

The five of us got up at 4 and went to work in the castle. First we cleared a shed—our future dining room—and then we got our first breakfast: a cup of sweet coffee and lovely white bread. Then we got pitchforks and got to work the hay in the meadow.

We had lunch in the field at noon: beans that were really nice, and then some mixture that looked awful but was edible, especially when we were so hungry. A nice view—5 men sitting