Page:Diary of a Prisoner in World War I by Josef Šrámek.pdf/32

 island. [sic]A provisionary track has been built so we carry bread on trolleys. People get hurt in explosions every day.

Days pass on by, and we keep working like slaves. God knows, maybe it's our fate not to return. Here one is permanently in danger of being hit with a flying stone.

Babinsky wheedled my watch, which didn't work, from me for 5 dinars, but he raised my wage. Now I get 80 H.

The construction goes on well. The tunnels have been made, and very high bridges cemented. This costly track is made of the calluses and sweat of the zaroblyeniks. People who have never done such work in their lives work with hammers and wedges as if they have done it from their birth. Nobody here asks about your profession—you get a pickaxe or a wheelbarrow and go!

These days I only go for meat and I bargain with plums, pears, nuts, cucumbers, even sausages. The butchers at the slaughterhouse made sausages. I brought 200 of them back for myself and the others, and they were all gone in a moment.