Page:The Jail, Experiences in 1916.pdf/110

 At the roll-call Papa Declich drew my attention to Mr. Fiedler. In truth, a picture of misery. His eyes were bleared, the veins in his temples swollen, his head was heavy and his hands trembled.

"Fallot" remarked Papa Declich with scorn. For the Italian likes to drink, but never gets drunk.

In the wash-house there was a supply of news. The night transport had taken sixty people from our jail to the military prison at Rossau, to Moellersdorf and elsewhere. There they would be "on ice". The superintendents did not need them, they would not be called up for cross-examination, they would keep on waiting. In this place there was a lack of room. Old Gehringer, our warder, had gone with them and had not yet returned. His successor was named Schmied and was a Feuerwerker, a bombardier in the artillery.

At breakfast Hedrich brought me a dish of black coffee. He said it was from Kranz. From Kranz? Did he know me? Perhaps he was a fellow-countryman? No, a Viennese, but he had heard that has an author, and he said he hoped that one day I would describe what I had seen and experienced here; moreover in the course of the morning he would come himself. Altogether the news had got about in the jail that I was there, and Warder Sponner was very much frightened that I should describe how he cursed and shouted. The superintendent also had recently inquired how I proposed to describe it. "The superintendent is a very decent fellow” added Hedrich in a whisper, "yesterday evening he had a row with Papritz in a public-house, and told him straight that he worried people for no reason, and called him a bloody brute. Papritz threatened that he wouldn't forget it."

The coffee was really coffee,—I shared it among our batch, and the patriots were glad.