Page:Diary of a Prisoner in World War I by Josef Šrámek.pdf/106

 and eating around the dish. Great white wheat bread, huge loaves, and one liter of white wine. There should have been more of that. 2 hours of rest. Supper was that mixture again—boiled bread, carrots, beets, beans, potatoes, and cabbage all together.

That white wheat bread, the fact that we always got enough of it, and the good wine reconciled us with the French village. These things healed us. We worked out under the hot, southern sun, slept tight (though sometimes there was very little sleep as we got up at 4, started work at 5, worked till 7, and slept for 2 hours at noon when the heat was peaking. The meals of the southern French villagers—beans, pork, poultry, eggs, butter, vegetables, and the good wine, gave us strength. I don't know how the comrades in the factory camps were doing, but we wanted to finish the war working in the country. We got used to farm work, and the inhabitants got used to us; some even liked us. Every time they got on better with us than with the Germans. They gradually understood who we were and learned to differentiate between an Autrichien  and a Bosch . And, later still, when we learned to understand them and communicate with them, they really liked us and tried to make our fate easier as much as they could.

And our boys, handsome and strong, got into good shape: They shaved, went around clean